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Unlike the gentle, breathable Earth, Alkaid was not a kind place. It was a charred, hot ball of dust and crystal, the single satellite orbiting a dull star laced in unpredictable whips of solar flare. Nor was Sailor Ida’s welcome to Alkaid a kind one at all.

The Ascendant General brought them to the throne room with its sky-high crystal pillars, each of their jagged peaks scraping the sky beyond the open ceiling. It stretched wide and long, but barren, save for the throne sat neatly at the central point. It was, in fact, the only piece of furniture or decoration that existed aside from the palace itself.

It was a lot of nothing, but every inch of it hung heavy and thick with the cloying taint of chaos.

“Run if you’d like,” came the cold, confident words, and the pressure on Ida’s neck was immediately released. “But you’ll find nothing but a lot of burnt sand and charred soil, for hundreds and thousands of miles.” The tall, pale woman even stepped slightly back and to the side, as if she’d let Ida run past to test the knowledge for herself.

Although, she probably wouldn’t want to be wasting so much energy so quickly.

A small sigh filled the air between them as Ida threw her arm up and summoned the base of her magic - the elegant bow, composed entirely of flower petals. There was a brief moment between the summon and the release of the bowstring that let Alkaid admire the craftsmanship of Ida, the elegance in the curve. Two bright, amber eyes latched onto Ida’s fingers as the bolt was pulled and released - barreling for the center of her chest.

It was a good shot.

Alkaid leaned her shoulder into the bolt and chose to take it in the flat of her chest, off-centered from the shattered starseed that the Eternal had been aiming for. It struck true and exploded against her hardened skin, making her tense with the effort not to fall backward from the blow.

And yet, it wasn’t quite right.

There was no great shift of Alkaid’s stance, no burning flesh or grievous wound inflicted. Apart from a weary look plastered across the Ascendant General’s pale face, the only evidence of Ida’s attack was a few collapsed plates surrounding her clavicle. Black tendrils of smoke began to creep up Alkaid’s legs from the floor of her castle, like mist off an ocean of crystal, called by some wordless command. They sank into the cracks marring her skin and slithered up over the wound Ida had inflicted, quickly replacing the energy she had expended.

It took no time at all for the first plate to pop back into place, with a sound eerily similar to the crunch and grate of bones.

“I’d rather that you didn’t waste any more of your energy, Ida.”

The smoke was still streaming around her body, but she took an easy, confident step forward despite it.

The spark in her was admirable, Alkaid would give her that. Even when faced with almost useless magic and an even more damning surrounding, there was a gleam in her eye that said she was not willing to simply give in. It made a cold, pleased smile spread across the cracked lips of the willowy Ascendant. Although, if she were being entirely truthful, even Alkaid’s respect would do little to stop her true intentions.

“That’s perfectly alright,” her smile lingered, though something about it appeared mocking, “I enjoy it when there’s a struggle. It’s so much more satisfying to watch the fight drain out, bit by bit. Although, it really is such a waste of energy on your part.”

The Ascendant took another step closer, and another, until she was in a full-on walk in Ida’s direction. There was some room left to back away, but it wasn’t endless, and Alkaid’s eyes flittered to the wall directly behind the senshi of Orchids before they leveled on her eyes once more. It seemed fitting that Gehenna would bring her a fiery spirit - she expected no less of the Mars Squire. Although, perhaps it was simply luck. Who was she to him, after all? Someone lesser than the human she had threatened? Or his only choice?

She wished, suddenly, that he were more a man of words than fists. Like Castor, who would dwindle away the hours in debate, with that lingering promise to meet her on the battlefield despite it. The woman, or whatever was left of her, would have liked to know what anguish the darker man had suffered in coming to this decision - she would have loved to know how his mind ticked.

It was too late for that now, and she had more immediate prey.

She drew her hands up and laced her fingers together, then let them rest just below her sternum. It was a nonchalant gesture, though she knew that given the chance, Ida would try and strike. There was little for Alkaid to fear, so long as the pair of them remained on her home turf. Yet that did not mean that Ida wouldn’t earn herself some time.

“Will you try to strike me now?” She asked as she drew herself up, just short of melee range. “Or kick, perhaps?” The two bright, amber eyes trailed down over Ida’s form - not in the heated way a lover might look upon something beautiful, but with cold calculation and consideration. What was her chosen style of combat? They all had one. The hands she had crossed over her stomach unlaced and the arms spread wide, inviting the dark-haired senshi to try her best.

The advances continued, and that manic smile on her lips spread wider and wider beneath bright, piercing eyes. She didn’t blink, or breathe - she only watched.

She caught only the briefest of warning before the Senshi of Orchids let fly a second attack. Alkaid didn’t bother trying to dodge it, knowing that in that moment she had to choose between keeping her eyes on Ida - or dodging a non-lethal blow. The arrow crashed into the same area on her chest, making her stagger, and this time causing the plates over her right breast to cave in with a sickening crunch. Although they had repaired themselves, there seemed to be a lingering weakness to that part of her anatomy. Thick, black smoke began to curl up from the gaping cracks in her shell as it was left agape, but her eyes had never left Ida’s form.

A heartbeat passed between the explosion and the moment that Alkaid was ripped from reality with the ease of someone standing over their own endless energy supply. When she appeared again, it was in the direct line of Ida’s sprint. Both of her feet were set firmly to the ground and one hand raised to the dwindling space between them. Alkaid stared through the space of her fingers, narrowing her gaze on the darker form that approached.

The shift was immediate - there was no playful banter, no teasing smile. The chaos aura seemed to vibrate around Alkaid as she began to pull on the cluster of energy just beneath the surface of Ida. Her vessel was weak in comparison to the bursting power she held within her being and once tapped, it flowed, free and easy between them.

It was almost too easy, she thought.

“I’ve been trying to tell you, dear,” her fingers flexed and curled against the air, as if she would claw Ida’s starseed out with her nails, “there is no way out.”

A chilly, haunting laugh peeled out from Alkaid the moment Ida stumbled, a victory bell that echoed off the cold, crystal walls of her palace.

This was it, the finish she had set in motion.

It was like she had pulled the last stitch in the fabric free and all that vibrant, thriving energy of Ida poured inside of her being. Alkaid could feel it melting into every inch of her vessel, flooding her veins, filling her with a strength she knew only in brief bursts after devouring a starseed. Yet this was untainted, pure, without that lingering bittersweet taste of finality. Even at such a distance, it felt like a river, consumed and devoured by the chaos pulsing inside of her until it was churned into a new energy, her energy. The plates that had caved over her chest were stitched together and replaced with ease, making her as whole as she ever was anymore.

The two bright eyes saw the fumbling motion as Ida tried to land a kick with her own waning energy. It took little effort for Alkaid to simply give wide berth around the arc of her booted heel, though her hand remained between them, leeching the power from the river that flowed between their forms. With every passing moment, it grew stronger, more concrete, until it seemed the draw felt as effortless as breathing - or would have, had that still been a requirement of her anatomy.

The Ascendant General spurred to motion as Ida tried to connect a second blow, instead dashing in a wide, circular path around the form of the weakened Eternal until she was standing directly behind her once more. The disparities in their energy, as Ida bled and Alkaid consumed, were beginning to feel so immense that when Alkaid finally stepped into the Orchid Senshi’s range, it was done without hesitation or worry. In one graceful stride she was at the back of Ida’s neck, reaching out with a long, pale hand in an attempt to clamp it over her mouth. At the same time she kept the pace of her stride, trying to shove the darker woman forward until she could pin her into the crystal wall, inches from the door she had been attempting to escape through.

The pale, broken woman could have laughed at how simple it was - pull, consume, deplete - but there was just as much beauty in the struggle as there was in the defeat.

With every push and shift, Alkaid’s smile grew, and the pull increased. Just how much could the Eternal take before she burnt herself out? How much more could Alkaid devour before she risked killing the gift Gehenna had so graciously provided?

As the struggling waned and finally ceased, Alkaid forced herself to slowly taper off the draw. It was more difficult than she would have guessed - the sweet, delicate end of life was dangling at the other end of the thread, beckoning that part of her that was always starving. She hungered for life, for energy, for everything. Yet she managed, with a great deal of concentration, to release the river that had filled her vessel to bursting. Even as every part of her being felt charge and alive with the hum of the current, she mourned the loss of the flow.

The bright, citrine eyes settled instead on the cell phone still grasped in Ida’s hand and the memory of its purpose, of one of her own held so desperately once upon a time, was enough to draw her back to reality. Hunger, death, consumption - those were not the things she meant to achieve with her captive.

“You will not be escaping me today, little lamb.”

The hand around her mouth tightened until she could pull her head back against her shoulder, crushing her into the stiff line of her body now that there was no effort left within her to struggle. The opposite hand wrapped around the fingers still desperately grasping her phone and pulled, trying to dislodge it.