[R] Escape! (Birhan x Sirius)

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Sirius was just going to run, leave everyone and thing and run but then she thought of Birhan and how she had been thrown across the room, what if she couldn't escape? Granted Ares had left through a mirror but that meant nothing she could come back and Sirius didn't want to leave Birhan to her death if she were badly hurt. So with a glance at the door she turned and ran to Birhan who seemed to be where she was thrown.

"You okay?"

She looked Birhan over but couldn't see any obvious signs of broken bones which was at least something. She wanted to make sure that everything was okay though and ask questions.

"Birhan what happened? Why did you want her pen and why is she now a princess?" There were some things Sirius wanted to know and so she asked though she wasn't necessarily expecting an answer before they got out of the church building. They needed to get away in case Ares came back. She also wondered whether their old team mates would still be able to find them using their phones. She was really hoping their phones didn't work any more. Also Zirconia, where was the cat? She wanted to know her opinion on all of this as well.  

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Birhan was grateful for the assist. She was moving again, but with the injuries from hitting a wall and Ares' powered up (yet again) smoke attack, Birhan might not have made it out by herself. Not being the lethal smoke took effect. Just another one of the many times it sucked to not have even hit Super yet.

Stumbling out into fresh air - the smoke showed no sign of dissipating, even with Ares gone - Birhan fell to her knees. Deep couch wracked her body. She shook with each rasping cough, with the rare breath in between that exhaled normally.

Birhan regarded Sirius through bloodshot eyes. She both looked and sounded like she'd pulled a week-long bender. She tugged at the other senshi. "Further away, first," she wheezed out. "I'll explain."

Watching Sirius, Birhan thought the other girl did deserve answers. All the remaining Court members did. Ares' crime and punishment had been kept from the majority of the senshi in order to ease Ares' return once her time was done. It may have backfired - those who had seen Birhan ask for the pen back from Ares might think the former Captain justified. They should know what they were dealing with, and why it had come to this.

But first, they had to leave the smoke-filled church behind them. Just because Ares and her newly corrupted forces had left didn't mean they wouldn't return and finish the decimation of the BMC. Birhan would feel slightly less paranoid with several blocks between her and the scene of Ares' betrayal.  

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Sirius helped to get Birhan up and out, she wasn't sure how far the two stumbled before they were clear of the smoke and hopefully clear of Ares if she chose to return. To say Sirius was confused was an understatement and a half, she just wanted to know what was going on and well hopefully she would get some answers now.

Once they found somewhere to rest, Sirius left Birhan for a few minutes just to check the area, she couldn't feel anyone about but she checked anyway and only once she was sure they were all safe did she go back to Birhan and check she was okay.

"How you feeling?" She wanted to check Birhan was actually okay before asking again about Ares. "Should probably get you checked over by a doctor..." It was then Sirius considered becoming a doctor, would make life easier! She wasn't a doctor now though and Birhan really was in a state...  

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Birhan was grateful for the assist. The fresh air felt much better than remaining so close to the slowly escaping smoke. She waved away Sirius' concerns about a doctor, but she did it with pink cheeks and a faint smile. It was good to know someone cared.

"I'll be fine," she coughed out. She'd been caught in Ares' attack before, unfortunate, unavoidable collatoral damage during close-range fights. It could, would, have been deadly if Birhan had breathed in any more smoke than she had, but she recognised the depth of the symptoms enough to know they'd fade away without a problem. She might sound like the smoker from hell for the next twenty-four hours, but she'd survive.

Answers, Birhan sighed. Sirius wanted, and deserved, answers. She made herself more comfortable, leaning back against the walls of a stairwell on the roof, a small outcropping that would nevertheless hide them from view if anyone was coming from the direction of the church.

"Ares' pen was confiscated," she rasped out. "Order of Special Forces... Internal discipline thing. Wasn't public, most internal punishment isn't. Doesn't change just because it's Ares." Ares, perhaps even moreso than the other BMC members, needed to have a clean slate once the punishment was done. Better than people have thought she was injured and recovering, or off on a solo mission, than to know the real reason...

Birhan's voice, damaged as it was, remained strong and concise as she now revealed that reason to Sirius. "Ares killed a civilian. Wanted to cover it up. Threatened the other senshi on patrol with her to try and keep it quiet."

The latter was the real problem. Ares wouldn't have been the senshi, let alone the first member of the Blood Moon Court, to have accidentally spilled innocent blood. But everyone else had taken their punishment, done their time quietly, then returned to duty with no one the wiser. To try and cover it up was bad. To hold a sister senshi's safety hostage... To Birhan, that had been even worse than Ares' complete lack of remorse. Their leader hadn't cared about the civilian, and whether she had truly felt that way or not, had acted as though Birhan's life was worth less than Ares' secret.

Special Forces had agreed - the punishment they'd handed down was four times as long as any other given. Instead of a week without her pen, Ares had to go one month. Hard, maybe. But then, Ares had created a hard group. 'Whatever needs to be done,' was their motto, and so they kept strict rules so that their attitude didn't spill over into 'acceptable' civilian casualties. The Negaverse deserved whatever they got. The innocent people of Destiny City... not so much. At least, it wouldn't come from the BMC. There had to some lines between them and the Negaverse.

"Gaia stole the pen from my house. Gave it to Ares. Gave the meeting location to Ares." The rest, Sirius had been there for. She'd seen just as much as Birhan had. The redhead could make guesses, possibly accurate ones given all that she knew of Ares and the fallen Parallels, but they were still just guesses in the end. She could be wrong, so she didn't voice any more aloud.  

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Sirius listened though she still worried about Birhan's health. She was sure that she needed to go to a doctor... She let out a sigh though and just listened to what Birhan had to say.

It didn't surprise her.

There wasn't really anything to say to it either, it had obviously driven Ares mad and now they were gone. She just nodded and then looked around.

"What's done is done I guess..." She felt she had to say something.

"Will she come after all of us do you think? She could have killed or taken us all there in the church but she left." It was the only thing she really wondered about. Were they all going to hunt them now?

Sirius turned suddenly as she heard a noise, it was nothing but it made her aware how jumpy she was.

"Do you want to come back to mine? Ares never met me as a regular kid so we should be safe there. It doesn't feel safe here." At least if she could get Birhan indoors then she could get some water down her and find a way to at least ease the pain the smoke had caused. Sirius had got off lucky though she was desperate for some water for her throat.  

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Birhan nodded. She'd been wondering the same thing - Ares had claimed she would convert or kill them all, yet she'd disappeared after taking only three of them. So far there was no sign of pursuit, so Birhan could only assume they had a temporary reprieve. It wasn't enough to make her comfortable with the idea of going home, though. She wouldn't risk that Gaia still remembered where Ariana Knight lived and would attack while Ari slept.

If she could manage to sleep tonight.

"Maybe drained?" she guessed between coughs. They had no way of guessing what kind of energy reserves Ares had as a princess, let alone how much energy it did or didn't take to summon those mirrors and corrupt senshi with them. Or it just could be that she needed to instruct her new troops before making her next strike. "Maybe regrouping."

The one thing Birhan didn't doubt was that Ares would be back to carry out her promise - death or corruption for them all.

She hesitated when Sirius offered her home to Birhan. The redhead searched her scattered mind, trying to think if anyone had ever visited Sirius' home. Birhan knew that she hadn't. She didn't think Ares had, either. It might be the safest place for now - out of the open, where anyone could spot them.

"Alright," she nodded. She gave Sirius a faint but real smile. "Thank you."  

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"Lets hope she was drained then, at least if she manages to drain herself, we have a chance of stopping her." It was at least something that Sirius thought would help them. Regrouping was of course an option but not one that she wanted to consider not with how everything had gone, she wanted to believe there was a way of beating Ares. There had to be.

Sirius smiled at Birhan when she agreed to go back to her house.

"Okay my parents are pretty laid back so they will just smile and be nice to you. I knew there was a reason I never bothered revealing myself to any senshi, it seems to have at last come in handy." She smiled and then looked around. "We will have to find somewhere to power down but maybe closer to mine, we aren't too far away, can you walk okay?" She didn't want to really carry Birhan but well she wasn't in a good way. It would at least make a good excuse for taking her home.

"Oh and we were at the cinema and you started to feel ill, live the other side of town so came back to mine." Just to cover them if her parents did ask. "It isn't far from here just a block away."  

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Birhan nodded, but wasn't as hopeful. If it took three conversions to drain Ares, that was still three lost souls, three less senshi able to fight against Chaos and the Negaverse. It would be a large sacrifice just for a chance at Ares - even with Birhan's recent lessons on the necessity of accepting sacrifices, it wasn't something she wanted to think about. And it was only a theory. Birhan still thought regrouping and leaving the BMC to fracture further under terror and suspicion sounded like something Ares would enjoy watching.

"Alright," Birhan nodded. She was faintly envious of Sirius' parents - they sounded so different from her own. Sirius outlined a good plan, too. Birhan had no objections.

"Yeah, I can walk." The burning lungs and watering sinuses were the worst part. The rest of her body was shaken up, but otherwise okay. "Let's go." The sooner they were out of the open, the better Birhan would feel. Assuming that they could remove or cover any mirrors in Sirius' room. The last thing they needed was a surprise attack during the night.  

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Sirius wanted to be optimistic about Ares, it was just something she wanted to believe could be sorted. It might not seem at all realistic but after what happened she needed the hope.

"Awesome this way." She led Birhan a little way from where they had been and once in an alley opposite where her house was she did a quick check and powered down. It felt slightly odd powering down with someone so close to her and it made her feel vulnerable but they needed to be somewhere.

"Right erm, I suppose you should power down now too and erm introductions I guess. Wow this is weird. Anyway I am actually Louisa McIntyre and that is our house right there." She pointed to the house opposite where they were. It was pretty ordinary looking, nothing overly special.

"We can use the basement for meetings if need be. They just converted it so it's like my own mini apartment, I can't use it yet as some plumbing needs doing or something but none of the others know about my house and if we need somewhere new, your all friends coming over it wouldn't be hard to get everyone in." Anyway she really should stop talking. She still felt like she was Sirius. Louisa would never talk this much, in fact she hardly spoke at all. She was standing in front of a senshi she admired in her tatty jeans and a tatty baggy tshirt. She didn't look great in the slightest.  

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Birhan followed Sirius. She glanced around the alley, checking the skyline in particular before powering down. They had more opponents than just Ares to worry about, after all.

Ari staggered as the full impact of the night's injuries hit her weaker civilian self. She managed to catch herself before falling, brows furrowed as she willed herself to stay strong until they were somewhere safer than this.

"Ari Knight," she said in response to Sirius - no, Louisa's - introduction. The groups who watched the Merc initiations and stayed to see identities revealed were always small, minimising the chances of a captured senshi being able to reveal too many comrades. It felt strange to be introducing herself to a girl she'd been working with for so long. But, well, that was their lives in a nutshell - one giant ball of strange.

The basement meeting idea wasn't bad, if they could convince everyone to show up in civilian garb, or manage to enter unseen as senshi. It could probably be done, just worked out by someone with a clearer head than Ari's right now. She rasped out, "Sounds good," and nodded in all the right places to try and spare her voice. The coughing was doing enough damage as it was.

Dressed in jeans no better than Louisa's and a men's shirt stolen from her boyfriend's wardrobe, Ari wasn't looking any more glamerous than Louisa. The difference was that clothes were the last thing on Ari's mind - they could have been wearing potato sacks for all Ari noticed.

Jerking her head at the door in a silent 'shall we go?', Ari waited for Louisa to lead the way.  

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Louisa smiled finding this so very strange and just nodded as Ari motioned to go inside. She led the way in, opening the door to be welcomed in by two rather happy dogs.

"Oh sorry I forgot to warn you about these two..." She looked at Ari with an apologetic smile and ushered the dogs back so they could both get in.

"Hey mum, dad! I have a friend round for the night, we just gonna watch a film downstairs!" Louisa heard the okay reply she was looking for and led Ari to a door that led downstairs. The apartment might not have water or a bathroom ready yet but the rest of it was pretty much usable and her parents weren't going to be coming down.

"Mind the builders mess around the bathroom and kitchen area. They aren't usable at the moment so if we need stuff we will have to go back upstairs but might as well stay down here tonight." She grabbed some pieces of material that had been covering furniture and went around looking for mirrors. There weren't very many but she covered them all up anyway. Making sure the small not finished apartment was as safe as it could be.

"Right erm I have a first aid kit around here somewhere..." She had started moving everything down so she dug it out and then went and found a couple of sleeping bags and pulled out a mattress to put on the floor of her lounge. She passed Ari the first aid kit and went to find some pillows and stuff.

"We should be safe here. Ares doesn't know who I am or this place even exists." Which was the safest thing right? "I am just gonna grab a jug of water and stuff, in case you want a drink, otherwise I have other drinks in the cupboard. Just lacking water at the moment." She ran upstairs quickly and didn't take too long coming back down, placing two jugs of water in the kitchen. She also emptied her pockets of some chocolate she picked up, just in case!

"Is there anything you want?" Louisa was a rather good host. She wanted to make sure Ari was comfortable.  

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Louisa's house was a touch overwhelming for Ari. The dogs were lovely and excitable, Louisa's parents trusting without being distant... Things that wouldn't happen in Ari's own home, she realised as the reason why it seemed so strange. Maybe this was what a normal family was like.

"It's nice," she said as Louisa led her downstairs. It might be easily taken to mean Louisa's little subterranean flat, but Ari meant the whole deal. It seemed like a nice place to grow up in. No wonder Louisa had wanted to keep the BMC out of here - she actually had a happy, safe place to come home to.

When the mirrors were covered, Ari let herself relax. There was still some tension in the set of her shoulders and the frown that never quite disappeared, but after the night they'd had, who could blame her? This was as safe as things could get - unknown location, no mirrors, and safety in numbers.

There wasn't much Ari needed out of the first aid kit. Disinfectant and a few bandaids for cuts after being thrown across the church into a wall. Some horrible-smelling muscle cream for her poor shoulder, which had taken the brunt of the impact. Her other injuries were all smoke-related, which wasn't something your average first aid kit dealt with.

Ari gratefully accepted the water that Louisa brought down. Starting with small sips, she was soon guzzling the glass and going back for more. At Louisa's question, she shook her head. "M'good," she croaked. "Safe place is the best thing."

At least now they could get some sleep and have clearer heads tomorrow. There was so many things to consider, so many plans to make, and people to inform (Gunn, who knew almost all the merc's IDs, and Ares knew that she knew). But they could all wait for tomorrow.  

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Louisa was normally a rather socially awkward person and it showed once there wasn't anything for her to really do. She never knew what to say because she felt she would sound stupid. She then thought of something and headed off upstairs again, coming back down with some sleeping bags and pillows.

"Here ya go." She smiled handing a pillow and sleeping bag to Ari, "You can sleep on the sofa here. I brought down one of the air beds to sleep on!" She did have a bed in what was to be her new room but she thought it safer to sleep in the same room, she trusted Ari with her life, well she trusted Birhan but they were the same in some ways and so she trusted Ari. She knelt on the floor and started pumping the bed up.

"You sure there is nothing else you want? If you would rather sleep on the air bed then you can, just make yourself comfortable, you will need to try and get a good nights sleep!" Though Louisa was aware it was unlikely either of them would sleep too well with what had happened. She set the bed up and smiled, there wasn't much else really to say, sleep was something they both needed and Louisa felt exhausted so she dreaded to think how tired Ari was.  

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"Thank you," Ari croaked out, settling down with the pillow and sleeping bag. A sofa would be enough. It felt like she hadn't slept well since before Operation Rota, before she'd noticed just how close Ares was to falling. Ever since then, Ari had been living in a panic while trying to appear calm - a swan on the water, hoping no one could see her madly churning away to keep up the pretense that everything was fine.

She was so lucky that Sirius had come to her during that time, that she now had Louisa to rely on. It had been a weight off her mind during the entire Ares-under-punishment debacle. It was certainly a relief now, to know she still had someone to watch her back. If Ares was hoping to pick the rest of the BMC off one by one, at least Ari and Louisa wouldn't be caught out that way.

Planning could wait, though. Worrying would have to wait. Tonight, both girls needed to crash, too exhausted to even think any further. "I'll visit Gunn in the morning," she said, half planning aloud and half to keep Louisa in the loop. Kaatje needed to be warned. She'd also be useful in planning what to do next. "Then... we see what happens, I guess."

It wasn't like they could make a strike against Ares. There was no way of knowing where she'd gone. No way of finding her if she was resting in mirror-space, either. The Parallels had too many secrets. It might worth chasing down Zirconia, too. Would the feline still be on their side? She'd seemed horrified by the new Ares, but would Parallels stick together in the end?

... Ari was not doing a very good job of not thinking. Stetching out on the couch, she mumbled out a "Night," to Louisa. Even while Ari's mind kept whirling, it only took a moments from the time her head hit the pillow before the evening took its toll and Ari was out like a light.  

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Louisa smiled and nodded as she listened to Ari talk. Zirconia was the only one really on her mind, she just assumed all the rest of the BMC would just stick together. The cat however was a different matter but then she wasn't sure and she wasn't going to think about the cat right now.

She mumbled a 'night' back to Ari but stayed awake till she was sure the red head was asleep. She didn't want to fall asleep and then find Ari needed her. If nothing else, Louisa was at least dependable. She would be there for any of the BMC if they needed her and maybe now was a time that she could let them know who she really was. She had kept her civilian identity a secret for so long but now it was different and she was sure they would need each other more then before.

She checked Ari was defiantly asleep before she let herself doze off, just in case she was needed. The sleep though was welcoming and she embraced it completely.