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Silence.

It reigned over the dark antechamber of Metallia's room even as bodies began to appear within it. One by one, Hematite's group of weekend warriors were not simply summoned, but unceremoniously ripped from wherever they happened to be and pulled deep into the Negaverse subspace. For those who hadn't been there before, it was a chilling place. Walls of dark stone surrounded them as they appeared at the foot of the small set of stairs that led up to the massive door. Behind them, cut into the far wall, a staircase disappeared, winding back up to the halls of crystal and stone that they were far more familiar with.

Escape, however, was not an option.

Between them and that staircase was a field of statues, larger than life. At least, they looked like statues at first glance. They were humanoid in shape, some still dressed in the uniforms of a Negaverse long since defeated. Some had hints of the traits they had come to associate with the youma; scales or spines or on rare occasion a set of wings. Some were remarkably human, but all were carved from a stone so black it seemed to suck in the light around them.

Or so it seemed.

A closer inspection made it obvious that these figures had not been carved at all. Their expressions were far too human, their howling mouths and wide eyes just a little too real. It became even more apparent as they began to slowly shift, as though the sudden appearance had caught their attention. Their feet were rooted into the ground, but their bodies swayed slowly forward like branches caught in the wind. Limbs extended, thin stone fingers reaching out for those who dared step foot in that sacred place. The Traitor's Field, Tanzanite called it. Former servants of the Negaverse who had once for whatever reason turned against them. Now, they stood watch over Metallia's chamber, a grim reminder of Tanzanite's future should she somehow find the will to disobey.

Should she fail just one more time.

The only way out was a very narrow, very long path directly through that field, and they wouldn't have time to consider that suicide mission as a plausible option. The moment the officers appeared within the chamber, those hands were upon them. They tangled in their collars and grabbed at their wrists, wrapped around their bodies and pulled them up and in until General Hematite and his merry band of dissenters were held captive side by side, hugged to the chests of the Negaverse's greatest traitors.

Hematite.

Bismuthite.

Azurite.

Paragonite.

Spinel.

Wolframite.

Ajoite.

Proustite.

Uranophane.

Foolish, distrusting dominoes lined up in neat little row. Oh, how desperately Tanzanite wanted to dropkick Hematite and watch the rest of them clatter to the floor behind him, but Tanzanite was nowhere to be seen.

It was a girl in a simple white sundress who stood upon the steps before them. There were no horns to grace her temples, nor a crown of spikes to ring her head. Her pale cheeks were free of scales, her body free of chains. Though Aree Cadence had always been tall, she seemed somehow small, even weak as she stood quietly in front of them. There were no wings to make her seem more menacing, no six inch heels, no monstrous arm.

In fact, there was no arm at all attached to the girl's right side. Only a mangled stump where the butcher Kunzite had cut clean through.

But there were scars.

Burn scars that covered her legs in angry red flesh, her bare toes burnt away and melted together. Jagged scars that ran from her clavicle bone to her shoulder, where Ares had buried her knife and dragged it through. One of those grey eyes was gone, eaten away by the infection that had tried to finish her off before the Blood Moon Court could have the chance, leaving only a gaping hole behind. There were thin scars that crossed her face like a half-drawn game of tic-tac-toe, made by Requiem's shovel as she brought it to Tanzanite's skull again, and again, and again, until her missing teeth scattered across the concrete. Thick, bubbling scars that had melted her lips together at the corners and left her throat raw, caused by Ares blood moon brand being forced down her throat. Her hair was half gone, melted away by the fire that had consumed the building in which they were held.

It was her punishment for failure, a temporary state of being meant to show her exactly who and what she would be should she fail their Mistress once again. The unruly behavior in perhaps one of the most important meetings they'd ever had, paired with the whispers of treason that had reached her ears, had been taken as a sign of Tanzanite's own insufficient leadership. The choice had not been hers, but the obligation to see it carried out aws.They thought she had forgotten what was important, and Metallia had taken steps to make sure that she never would.

I trust you to carry out my orders, she had hissed in Tanzanite's mind, the force of her presence drowning out the General-Queen's own screams as the youma was ripped from her body like a scab, exposing the raw wounds that still lingered beneath, If you allow them to defy you, you allow them to defy me. You will not fail me again.

No, she would not.

What was left of Aree Cadence looked at them, her remaining eye pausing on each. It might feel to some as though it saw far more than it should. As though it pierced through the flimsy magic of the Negaverse and looked directly into their souls. Perhaps the young woman sought some kind of answers there.

If she found any, she had nothing to say about it, and so the silence reigned.

He hadn't actually thought he'd get away with deciding to listen for Hematite's orders as they applied to the Dark Mirror Court. Actually, he'd been pretty sure he would be reprimanded. Though he really wasn't assigned to any particular officer, he didn't know that he was supposed to join a particular one in a plot against the senshi who had recently become their allies. He felt pretty certain that that was a thing he wasn't supposed to do.

So he'd sort of been waiting for something like this, even if it was just another General going hey, not cool. At least Grayson had all but vanished recently; it meant his sudden (and painful) disappearance from the kitchen area of their shared apartment hadn't been noticed. However, Spinel was unpleasantly surprised to find that he wasn't, in fact, in any part of the Negaverse he recognized. Where was the crystal, the lighter stone? This place seemed oppressively dark, the walls shutting in on the people within. The group that appeared around him he recognized just fine, and he recognized in that moment that he was surely <********>. Why would they call the entire group in if it was just a hey, you're not supposed to be following his orders type of thing?

A moment after, hard fingers gathered in the trailing sleeve of his uniform, yanking him up off the ground with a clatter of bells. He had to fight the urge to try to throw his assailant off him; only the stonelike feeling of the arms clenching around him as a vice convinced him that struggle would be an absolutely terrifying idea.

Then he focused on the girl in front of them, and his expression could best be described as… Confused. Consternated, even. And above all else, disgusted. Unlike Ajoite--who, due to their oh-so-friendly escorts, Spinel could not actually see--he had no trouble keeping his eyes on the violet-haired girl. Revulsion curled in his stomach, although… he felt more unsettled by Alkaid, and her shattered body. He could handle a mutilated human, he was a pre-med major, he'd dissected bodies in worse condition, so while it was horrifying he didn't think he would vomit over it.

Not now, anyway. Later, he'd see those mutilated feet and be sick, but Spinel excelled at panic situations and this clearly was one.

Deep breaths. He could keep his head right now. He could.

Bismuthite couldn't say he didn't expect something. Some threat. Some reprimand.

Truth was, seeing those senshi had reopened old wounds. Having to work with them was the salt. It wasn't something he couldn't bare, but he couldn't so easily trust them. And he felt that protecting his comrades from the possibility of their 'allies' turning on them was, in some way, a method he could use to redeem himself.

He remembered the cry that night. 'For Rota!' Numerous guilt piled on his shoulders the moment he'd heard the cry, and ever since then he'd blamed himself for what happened, and somewhere deep down he wanted to be punished for it. He didn't know the other things that had added up between the BMC and the Negaverse long before then. If he did, would it have lessened his feelings of guilt any? Probably not.

All he wanted was to make up for it, and now he had the opportunity. Of course, the thought did cross his mind that he might never get to do so. He might die here today for that very choice. Where was the justice in that?

There might have been sadness in those eyes of his, but not defeat. Not yet. And there were still the flames of passion there. Life. No, whatever happened here, he knew his resolution was right, and he fought the hands that grabbed, pushed, shoved, and bound him tightly. Bismuthite grunted and gnashed his teeth against the pain, and hated himself for a half-choked scream of surprise and pain that was issued. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought; Save the fighting, the struggle, for when it was truly needed - when they'd get their 'I told you so' moment. A moment Bismuthite was so confident they would have.

He wasn't familiar with the mangled husk of a human before them, but he could guess.What melodrama was this? What sick play would they bare witness to, all just to have some point hammered in to their heads? These tactics were getting old. Fast.

The pull was enough to make even the General sick from the careless force of it. Colorful afterimages played over his vision as light became darkness. Something was yanking him back by the hair, by his cape, dragging him like he was nothing but a ragdoll. He yelled, angry and unintelligible, but even a general's strength was no match for the black stone monolith that had grabbed him. His stomach seemed to knot reflexively, his baser instincts a few pages ahead of the rest of him.

It all happened so fast that there was no time to even process what was going on. Uranophane's screaming was already echoing around the chamber, almost inhuman, impossible for him to identify the source. It struck that terrible, ingrained chord of panic and Hematite began to twist in the grip of the stone arms and struggle against the crushing grip. His extra senses painted a clearer picture than his eyes could in the darkness. A line of auras stretched out to the right of him. And before him was a girl no older than he was, projecting no aura at all.

He recognized Aree, or what was left of her. His dark eyes couldn't seem to tear away from that broken frame. She'd never presented herself so fragile before, had never revealed the suffering in anything but words up until now. He looked on with his usual hyperactive paranoia, ears ringing as the screaming only seemed to get louder. His mind repeated mantras to draw a boundary around what he was seeing, to try and keep out what he wanted to see, what it wanted him to see. Aree was Tanzanite, Aree was the Youma-Queen. Aree was the mask of a creature that wore her skin and used her voice and reveled in the confusion and apprehension it inspired.

The real Aree was dead.

Hematite was intimately familiar with trouble and its consequences. His lack of foresight frequently introduced him to both. Someone was bound to try and make him pay for his outburst in the meeting, he knew deep down. Try, being the key word. But this was different, different in a bad way. Because this wasn't about the meeting. He'd have been dragged here alone for something like that.

There were nine people who had taken that secret oath, and nine auras burning in the darkness before Tanzanite. The realization unfolded wordlessly across his expression. She knew.

There would be no waking up.

That silence stretched on for what seemed like forever, until it was rather impossible to tell if they had been held there for minutes or hours, broken only by Uranophane's frantic screams. The creature holding her shifted its grip, until her screaming was muffled by the stone hand wrapped tightly over her mouth. If Aree found any joy in their reactions, it did no show on her face. They could struggle if they wanted, but the hands that held them were far too strong for even a General to make any dent. Had Metallia requested it, those same hands would have torn Tanzanite herself limb from limb as though she were made of tissue and straw.

Instead, she only had them take the arm, and had seen to the rest on her own.

What stood before them was not an illusion. Not a trick. Her shoulders rose and fell with a rattling breath, and it would soon become apparent that it was not a mask, meant to evoke pity or set them on edge. At least, the girl standing before them had laid no such plans. What Metallia had intended by stripping her servant of her powers and summoning them there so suddenly, it was impossible to tell.

Aree had learned not to question.

The officers were certainly a captive audience, but an audience to what? The young woman did not seem to be in any hurry, standing as though she had all the time in the world to shift that single, glassy eye from face to face. It was impossible to tell if she was frowning, as the corners of her mouth were lost in the melted flesh. As Bismuthite had already realized, Aree's tactics did not involve screaming and yelling and throwing things as Charonite once had.

“Let me explain to you exactly what you have done.”

The voice not the commanding tone of the General-Queen they knew. There was no soft feminine sound or the youma's distinct echo. Only a quiet rasp, her scarred mouth and burnt throat just barely able to speak the words. Even so, they were sometwhat difficult to understand.

“You, with your hundred years of collective wisdom, have decided that you know better than something that has been alive since the dawn of time. You children, in the grips of your temper tantrums, have decided that you will defy my orders if General Hematite tells you to do so.”

She laughed, or at least it could be assumed that the soft croak that escaped her throat was meant to be a laugh.

“You have decided that your hurt feelings take precedent over the greater goals of the Negaverse. That your vengeance, your desire to protect your fellow soldiers, is more important that the survival of the entire human species.”

She lifted her remaining hand in a dismissive gesture, as though it didn't matter. Her slender fingers were broken and misshapen, bending in ways they should not have been able to. They had never healed properly after Ares had kicked the chair over with her hands still tied behind it, the force of the fall crushing the bones like glass. Aree did not stand before them in such a state to make a point, as some melodramatic shock and awe show meant to scare them straight. She stood before them because she had no other choice, because their treason had been a crime for which she had been punished. Because the other option had been to deliver them to her, and watch as they were incinerated in the maelstrom of her fury.

Instead, Metallia had left only enough power to keep her alive and present in the Negaverse. It was a kindness, in a way. A show of mercy that Tanzanite wished she could have been more grateful for. They were alive, after all, and would continue to be so as long as they kept their stupidity in check. The hand dropped back to her side, and the girl continued.

“All because our dear General could not keep his mouth shut and got what his presumptuous, stupid behavior had coming. Because you somehow think that I would not cut down any of them who raised a hand against our own. Because you believe that because I would accept their help, that I have forgiven them. Because you seem to think it was easy to watch them set foot in my home, after what they've done. That I have... forgotten. ”

As though silently commanded, the statues suddenly loosened their grip, dropping their captives to the cold stone floor. She looked to each of them, but it was upon Hematite that her grey eye halted.

“I have forgotten nothing. Were it my choice, I would have twisted Requiem's head until it popped off of her body. Were I as inexperienced, as stupid as any of you, I would have destroyed our only chance at preventing the Zodiacs from succeeding. Instead, I watched as the people who captured and tortured my soldiers set foot in my city, and I did so because the needs of the Negaverse and the needs of Earth take precedence over my desires.”

Their weapons appeared quite suddenly, as though their own power had been manipulated to prodice them. Aree stared Hematite down, and her voice was cold as she spoke.

“You want to be the one to make these choices, my loyal friend?” The word was spat like a curse, so much hate packed into those two syllables that they should have burnt her tongue on the way out. Uranophane she could understand. Wolframite, she could understand. Though Bismuthite had not been captured, she knew his history with the one-eyed General. That, too, she could understand. Even the fresh, young faces among them, Tanzanite might have been able to forgive. But Hematite? 

"You've chosen to swear your allegiance to this man. A man who neglected his duty, where I stood and fought. In your stupidity, you have pledged your oaths to an overgrown child in the grips of a temper tantrum. Do you want to play King then, little Khaldun? Do you want a crown, a throne from which to spread your significant knowledge?”

Aree did not wait for an answer. She took a few steps back, and held her arm out to him. Her broken fingers crooked in a summoning gesture.

“Come then, you coward. Pick up your weapon, and give them the order. Let us see how loyal they are to you, and how loyal they are to the cause to which they have pledged their lives. You want my job? You want my power?”

Aree lifted the single arm, as though to put her own powerlessness on display.

“Come and take it."

The cold hand clapping over her face snapped Uranophane fully into reality, not that reality was any more welcome than the dream. As shapes became more defined, and Aree's words became more than just a fuzzy washed-out mumble, she awoke into a world that was just as unforgiving as the one she had momentarily thought she was in. They were bound, the lot of them, and being berated by a corpse bearing injuries too familiar for comfort.

Fear still persisted. One would be a fool to not be afraid. It was all being set up far too much like a mass execution, with the judge listing out what she counted as crimes and the awful stone guards (stone, not rope, she had to keep telling herself) ensuring they could not escape their fate. In her case it had removed her ability to speak, to defend or explain her actions. The air was too heady, too soupy to teleport out, a quality that could not be appropriately explained but still existed for those who'd used the skill elsewhere. She had absolutely no control over what might happen to her next, and this was terrifying.

But the fear was only a part of it. As the words continued to spill out of Aree's mouth, one by one, Uranophane became increasingly, incredibly angry.

Angry at Hematite for being so careless about his call to arms. Angry at herself for being careless right along with him. Angry about having a criminal made out of her... and angry at Tanzanite, for making her afraid.

When the arms unceremoniously released her, sending her tumbling to the dust, she had the powerful urge to launch into a monologue of her own. That was largely ruled out by her powerful desire to keep goddamn quiet and make absolutely as little further noise as possible so she wouldn't trip some hidden wire that would drop the proverbial guillotine onto her neck. This was no place to ask questions or start a debate about what the big picture really was. And she didn't like that one bit.

Wolframite feel to the ground, catching himself enough to kneel and land on all fours, breathing hard. The ground, the statues, Aree, and everyone else were too real to be fake, and he didn't know if hallucinating a disfigured Aree or realizing that it really was her was better or worse. He went with worse. Resting, he looked up when his weapon appeared on the ground before him, waiting to be picked. The gesture alone was enough to make him sink back and want the embrace of the statues again. He never thought he'd be in this sort of situation. To hear the words disappointment, to know that Tanzanite was angry at him, betrayed her in such a way, made his heart sink. It was never meant to be war against her. He had meant to protect their own, to be backup when needed, and keep his eye out for danger. That seemed such a noble intent, and yet it was twisted about to be full treason. It was hard to digest.

Hematite's words still were something he agreed with despite the trouble and despite how angry the General-Queen was with them. They just wanted to be the protection that wouldn't be around considering Tanzanite was not going to be there to enforce her authority up in space. This new agreement to work with the BMC was hard to take in all at once and this suddenly, and they had only reacted with concern and wariness. Didn't she understand?At least on Uranophane and Wolframite's side of the matter. She was asking a lot of them, after what they had gone through, with her, had seen, had felt, had suffered, and were still suffering. Her personal feelings reflected their own. She despised working with them, but she had not expressed these feelings as clearly as before. At face value, they had gotten the wrong messages during the meeting. Still, whatever miscommunication and inaccurate feelings that may have happened, he still felt right. They had only been worried. They were only here to protect their own!

That wasnt' to say that Wolframite disagreed with some of what Hematite said. It was true. Tanzanite casted a massive shadow, and not just due to her aquired wings. She had always been one to speak for the cause with elegant and determination, to rally the troops and, in this case, to put her needs aside and those of the Negaverse first. It seemed that in this new equation, the Earth went first, then the Negaverse, and then everyone else, her own desires included. It was how every soldier should feel and in that, it showed the mistake they had made. Despite how much it hurt them, angeried them, destroyed them, they were only workers for the planet. They had no say - but that didn't add up correctly to him. Protect family, but if they got in the way of Earth and its' cause, screw em? It wasn't a perfect world. He knew that. No. It wasn't that. They had all pledged to give their lives for the planet, and it wasn't just death, but their own wills, desires, and feelings in turn. They were workers to protect their planet, and as such, only did as what was best and got them closer to that goal.

Working with monsters included.

He bowed his head, and only looked up when Hematite challenged Tanzanite. There was worry there despite how silly it seemed. In this form, she seems to fragile to put up a fight, but he knew better. It was a mistake to let someone with that lack of tact to speak for all of them.

"We only wanted to protect our own. Our family. Insurance, in case the worst should happen, with you not around. You said it yourself. There is power in space. We were only preparing ourselves should they find an opportunity." He looked up, slowly rising, but only went to kneel. Standing up felt more of a challenge against Tanzanite, and he wasn't here for her crown. He only wanted to show that they were not traitors against her, but had only wanted to do good.

"You've got to be kidding." Paragonite snarked quietly under her breath as they were released from their bonds. It came with a thump as the lieutenant had still be harshly struggling against the cold, unfeeling statues. As the others spoke, her ears strained to listen, her eyes now focused only on her baton. It wasn't much but it had always served her well. Yes, it was a tool of the Negaverse, and some part of her was aware that this was a terrible... terrible idea.

She just didn't care.

The Negaverse had never been her family, the way it had been for others. It was a lot in life. An organizationl of people with one ideal, one united goal that they reached to obtain. This though? This was nothing but a serving full of bullshit that they were being spoon-fed down their throats.

"Hematite, don't be so rude." she spit out suddenly, as though the words tasted bad in her mouth. She then picked up her head to look towards the General and Aree. "She gave an open invitation. If she does not like the fact that there are those who simply wish to have a backup plan, like any good outpost would, then that's for her to bear the burden of consequence at the time. Clearly she's thought this through. Clearly she knows what's best." the lieutenant's tone was snide and callous, she made no bones about her feelings on the situation.

She let her fingers glide along her weapon, carefully gripping it in her palm.

"I do love an open invitation though... Power be damned." the baton was up from it's stead, and the Lieutenant was pushing her General out of the way to bring the blunt weapon spinning towards the side of Aree's face.