Scorpio glares watching Kishin's speech. He heard the cry of Meteor Smash and sighed. This same old trick was getting to be predictable. While the attack Kishin launched was powerful, Scorpio released a volley of spears into them, shattering five, but the sixth smashing into his back causing him to stagger. The first launched arrow of light lands in his shoulder at this point, bringing a sharp pain to his attention, while seeing the arrows launched by Moon, the arrow aimed at his chest, he ducked under, while the one aimed at his leg landed, causing another wound and blood spray to come out. He grits his teeth as his anger rises and the aura of malice begins to escalate.

Venus Knight sees this as a chance as the glow around his weapon reaches peak brightness. He raises it over his head and looks squarely at his target of Scorpio. The words of Kishin and his emotional influence had brought out something from within him, allowing him to prepare his attack faster. They could defeat this monster of a human!

"Light of Dawn!"

At this, the blade is brought down, as the glowing energy of the weapon erupts into a large beam of energy, raw, radiant light surging forward, causing an intense wind knockback that would most likely cause the two senshi to stagger or fall, and even Kishin to struggle to keep his footing. The beam surges into Scorpio, who looks wide eyed at the volume of power coming his way, as his form becomes lost in the overwhelming flash that the others would likely have to face away from. If any senshi or knights get in the beam, they would find that the beam itself was non-harmful to them, as the beam only burned those of evil souls and hearts.

The sheer force of the beam would blow away several holes in walls, and a large cloud of debris and smoke would rise, but the aura of evil would not be sensed for the moment...

Meanwhile, the Venus Knight struggles to catch his breath, having used most of his energy in that attack. Perhaps too much. The sword that was featherlight before was suddenly lead to him, as the armor also tried to pull his body into the ground.

Evidently, Amarissa had similar ideas as Sophia watches him get hit with arrows that are not her own. There was definitely some intensity in Amarissa’s attacks, a kind of fury that she lacked. She could admire tapping into that power when it was needed, but she feels unable to muster up that kind of anger. It was impressive to say the least.

With some good hits and Kishin’s words, she feels in relatively high spirits. And thankfully, Kenji seems to take the distraction as time to attack.

The light is amazingly brilliant. She has to shield her eyes with her hands, which only makes her more unprepared for the sudden gust of wind. The winds blow her fairly far back. She ends up landing 10 feet away on her back. Her mind forms the single word of ouch before she finally looks back at the effects of the attack.

“Wow.” She has no clue how the military or police are going to explain a hole that big as anything less than a bombing. With the sickening aura of anger and hatred gone, she gets back up, and heads toward Kenji.

“That was incredible!” she says bouncing toward him, smiling. However, the smile fades as he starts to fall to the ground with labored breathing. Was he injured? She tries to holding him up as she embraces him. “Restoring embrace,” she says, making an attempt to restore injuries that she could not see.

Kishin remains on guard until his vision fully returns and it is clear that Scorpio is gone. “Alright we’ve got to get out of here. Follow me!” he tells the senshi and knight as he dashes over to the Venus pair then after waiting for Sophia to heal her knight he bends down and picks him up in a fireman’s carry.

“We can oh~ and ahh~ later.” He announces as he leads the group to a safer location. Once the group is a good distance away Kishin sets the Venus knight down and lets out a sigh, he then promptly falls over himself. Kishin had used his power a lot in that fight and even his supplies of strength were not endless. “Well, this isn’t the coolest way for a hero to end up after a dramatic fight with an important enemy.” Kishin laughs. He wasn’t injured, just very drained…and hungry.

After a few seconds he manages to sit up and stare at the Venus Knight. “So…I know I should be used to this by now, but his awakening really was convenient.” He admits with a wan smile.

Rie takes no hesitation in following the group away from the scene of the crime, sparing only an idle thought for her own art work. It was likely to be left alone and she could go back later to retrieve it. The adrenaline and anger was wearing off and as she left the room, she noticed that all the people were still there and starting to come around. Smiling, she turned away to join the others. "All the people are starting to come around," she reported, glad they managed to save them. "You did really great, Venus Knight. Quite honestly, I don't think we could have done that without you," she says calmly, giving him a nod that brought to mind a curtsy.

Closing her eyes, Rie pictured herself normal. She didn't want to get caught here like this. "We need to get out of here. They'll probably send military and we don't need to be around when they show up. They're suspicious of people that look like us, with these unique uniforms,"she said, her stomach growled audibly then and she laughed. "Besides, this fight has worn me out and I'm starving. Maybe we could go get something to eat?" she suggested while straightening the wrinkles from her outfit and letting her hair fall down in a wave of silver.

"...Oh..thanks.." Venus says sheepishly rubbing his head. "I dunno, I felt something deep inside when the other guy was talking, and I feel like it made that..blade..beam..thing more powerful..." he says, looking at the others and rubbing his head again. "...I guess though this is a regular thing for you guys huh..." he says, looking at Sophia. The hug was nice, and the power she used also felt nice, but then the other dude had to ruin the moment, even if it was for a sound and logical reason.

"Sorry to make you worry...I guess that thing takes a lot out of me...or it's I'm not really used to it yet..." he says sheepishly with a nervous laugh. Sophia looked more beautiful than ever in this other form, and the supernatural element only heightened Kenji's attraction, though what Sophia felt could be entirely different. Stupid hormones.



Meanwhile, at the ground zero where Scorpio had eaten the blast, he lay on the ground a bloodied mess. Such power...how could children use such power? His entire lower half of his body had been blown away by the beam of light that the one with a sword used. So much positive energy.

Such hope. Such love. Such purity.

They. Had. To. Be. Erased.

As Scorpio closed his eyes, the symbol for Scorpio manifested on his forehead. This was a power he had never had to resort to using: his specialty was subversion and manipulation, rarely did he enter combat, and whenever he did, he had overwhelmed the human opponents with ease precluding any need for maximum power techniques. Ever since Virgo's gift entered him, he felt he had a lot to live up to as one of the queen's guardians. Even if she was forever beyond his reach due to her fascination with that damned consort of hers...he would wait patiently to be acknowledged by his queen.

Would she acknowledge this? A defeat at the hands of children who play dress up?!

No.

It cannot be allowed.

He will be her champion...the darkness will fall upon this world. The scurrying rats called humanity will be erased as the glory of the Dark Kingdom is brought into the normal plane of reality to devour the universe!

The sky darkens outside. Negative energy begins to gather at a central point, causing purple sparks to radiate through the air. Scorpio draws this energy rapidly into himself, as a shell of blackness manifests around him. The gang outside would feel a primal fear within their souls: the kind of fear that arises when one watches a ghost appear in a video or the presence of something unnatural. A pillar of purple energy shoots into the sky, shattering the building above it and leaving yet another hole in the poor school.

The earth begins to tremble beneath them. Pulses of overwhelming hate and power could be felt approaching. Moments later, something would appear.

The entity was as tall as the original Scorpio, but his form was no longer humanlike. His body was covered in black substance much like a carapace from a scorpion's shell. An extremely long tail emerged from his lower spine, stretching out and easily being twice the length of the height with a faintly glowing purple stinger on the end. The stinger itself was barbed, with a long stinger the length of the tail while four other stingers stuck out from the side at every right angle. Lines of pulsing energy could be seen on the entire body. The fingers shifted to being more claw-like, and out of the rear shoulder, two large scorpion-like pincers could be seen attached to new arms that could stretch out considerably. The facial features of Scorpio were concealed behind a mask-like face guard made of carapace, while his eyes glew a deep purple.

"The Celestial Scorpion, one who fell the great hunter and the errant child of a god..." he says, approaching the energy signatures of the knights and senshi, his eyes glowing more brightly.

"...Is reborn..." he states, glaring at Kishin, Sailor Venus, and the silver haired girl that he for some reason could not recognize. However, his eyes were fixated on the Venus Knight. The Venus Knight lifts his blade and tries to gather more energy, but his blade barely becomes a flicker before the tail lashed out and wrapped around Venus Knight, constraining his arms and lifting him off the ground, pulling him towards the main body of the monstrosity. The Venus Knight stabs the sword in the ground, making it more difficult for Scorpio to pull, but the sheer strength causes the Venus Knight to still be drawn in, inch by inch, the blade in the ground causing a small cut in the earth as it gets pulled, but the Venus Knight was trying to fight against the powerful grip.

Sophia follows Kishin as he carries off Kenji. She can’t help but giggle a little. It was a funny scene. She sets down next to the two of them. “Yeah, pretty good moment to join us. But I am pretty glad to have a partner in this. Especially one is awesome as you. You really saved us back there.” She has to wonder if Yuki and Kail could feel any planetary connection between them. Because being around the Venus counterpart felt pretty good. Normally, she would be a little drained by any attempt to heal, but she still felt energetic.

As Rie speaks up about food, she notices that she does feel pretty hungry. “Yeah. I’d give it 5 minutes before this place is full of military and law enforcement after an explosion like that. And food sounds like a great idea. Hmmm… I vote for Chinese. I know there is a place not too far from here.”

She looks up at the sky as it grows darker… “Hmm, it looks like it is about to snow again.” Then she feels a sense of fear and apprehension. She jumps up from where she is sitting. When the feelings of hatred seem to come burbling out of the ground, she asks in a panicked voice, “Do you think an army of them is coming?”

The scorpion-like monster isn’t what she is expecting. That was a lot of energy from a single entity. She can’t figure out how Scorpio survived that blast. She feels a genuine level of fear about the situation. This was sort of creature that caused the military base’s evacuation plans to go into effect. Watching the monster drag Venus Knight spurs her to action. The need to protect her counterpart becoming more far important than any fear about their predicament.

“Bow of Eros,” she calls back her weapon. However, with the carapace, she isn’t sure exactly where to aim. She aims at the tail, and prays it lets him loose.

Amarissa spun around at the sudden noise and looking up to see the monster, her face falls. The dread feeling was enough to have her cowering into Kishin before she realized it. It seemed to be more effective since she wasn't in her senshi form. She couldn't transform in front of Scorpio though. Looking around, she spotted a picnic table and began to crawl towards it. The fear enticed her to move faster. Once under the table, she whispered 'Moon magic make up.' A moment later, the table flipped up and over in the air as she pushed it, making for a dashing reveal and probably calling attention to herself.

Summoning her bow, she yells 'Moonlight Silver Arrow," but then realizes she has the same problem. Where the hell to aim? His eyes were the only part of him not covered that she could see. Taking aim, she let loose one at each eye. "Oh man, we need help. The other senshi would be great, and Nazo...We are so overpowered here." she muttered to herself.

As Kishin lays against a tree he smiles a bit at the group. "Yeah food sounds like a wonderful idea." He says testing himself and realizing standing was going to be work. However, the calm and happy mood changes in the blink of an eye. Scorpio appears and grabs the Venus knight. As the girls draw their bows Kishin takes the opportunity to lever himself to his feet. He felt like he weighed a ton.

"You know, it's really impolite to revive like this." Kishin complains then takes out his phone and throws it over to Moon. "Call Mars and whoever else you can contact. I'll run interference." he says as his eyes focus on Scorpio a grim determination filling them. "Time to get the job done." He grumbles as he suddenly takes off towards Scorpio.

Kishin seemed to be moving sharper than he had during the battle. It was as if what energy he had left was starting to be burned and a high setting. Midway through his lightning quick dash he slams into Scorpio's calves and wraps his arms around the monster. "Meteor Smash." he says as stone surrounds his arms and the monsters torso.

"As the King of Earth I will personally stroll with you through my kingdom." He says with a smile. "Be honored." And then Kousuke suddenly leaps far into the air trying to carry both Scorpio and himself away form the senshi.

The arrow launched at the tail is of no effect, the arrow of light fizzing out upon contact. The arrow aimed at the eyes was blocked by the claw arm on the right side placing itself in front, with no damage to the hardened shell noticeable. The Venus Knight begins to get crushed as the tail tightens, bones cracking and constricting the movement. The sword falls on the ground as his grip falters.

"...Your attack is only dangerous once...when it is not expected..." he hisses as he glares at the Venus Knight. "However...once it is anticipated, then the overwhelming power is useless when it can be anticipated and thus eliminated first..." he says. It is then Kousuke's approach and charge nears Scorpio, grabbing his legs and attempting to do some kind of wrestling maneuver. As soon as Kousuke made a motion to move, Scorpio doesn't budge. He had rooted himself to the ground with his feet in claws. Scorpio's head tilts down to look upon Kishin, and narrows his eyes. A clawed hand reaches around his throat, the contact causing vicious venom to enter his body and short out his magic. Had he been at full strength, the poison might not have been able to shut down his magic so quickly.

"Your luck has run out. Die in agony.." he says, lifting him by the throat and clenching, claws digging into flesh while his other hand has the carapace over the forearm extend into a blade, reaching back for a moment...

...the blade thrusting forward, effortlessly piercing any armor that may have been lingering, the blade manifesting out the other side. Scorpio slides the blade vertically, before then releasing his grip and allowing Kishin to fall to the ground with the life-threatening injury.

He then glares at Rie, as the two Pincers raise and aim at her, opening up as quick and violent charges of energy begin to fire in a decimating volley, engulfing her form in violent energy that will leave her with severe burns and a lingering poison in the air around her.

Meanwhile, no longer distracted by the knight or Moon Senshi, and not taking Venus as a threat, he looks at the Venus knight whom had been reeled in at this point.

"...Your shining light fades now. Die." Scorpio says coldly as he moves to strike the neck of the Venus Knight., when the Venus Knight disperses in a flash of light...he ends up on his knees on the ground, weakened by the teleport manuever. That was the second ability of the Venus Knight: To be able to move at the speed of light to his weapon, and the weapon to the knight. Yet this move was especially draining. The knight looks in horror at the Earth Knight on the ground and the Moon Senshi whom was getting decimated, then back at Sophia. She would be next if nothing was done...

Scorpio arrogantly hammers towards the knight, reveling in the approaching dread and his moment of absolute power...the Venus Knight grips the sword weakly, his other arm not responding to movement right now. He turns to Sophia, looking at her with an apologetic expression.

"I'm sorry...it's not supposed to be like this...but I will protect you.." he says, running toward Scorpio. His armor begins to fade as the energy that made it up began to transmit into his blade...all of the energy the Venus Knight had was rapidly going into his weapon for a desperation attack, where as the knight gets in range, he only has a white outfit on with a mask, the sword having a glow, but not nearly as powerful as the one earlier.

"Light...of...Dawn!" he shouts as he swings the blade wildly at Scorpio's direction. The beam of power erupts and surges forth into the air, noticeably weaker than the first one, but the beam engulfs Scorpio's head and right shoulder pincer...surging for a few seconds while Scorpio was paused. At the end of the attack, however, the head and pincer were only substantially burned, with a few cracks manifesting in the head and pincer, but no critical damage.

"...Is that...all?" Scorpio says, looking at the confused Venus Knight. Closing the gap quickly, the Venus Knight finds himself punched in the gut, falling to the ground, having no energy left to resist. Scorpio holds a hand over the Venus Knight, as a dark energy manifests.

"...Your life ends now...along with the others..." he starts as he prepares to land the deathblow, the mass of energy growing increasingly violent. Abruptly, Scorpio stops a few moments later, looking off into the distance as if looking for something. He then exhales annoyedly.

"...The queen beckons. Enjoy this parting gift." Scorpio snaps, as he flings the energy at the Venus Knight, the Venus Knight's body turning purple as a dark energy enters him. Kenji makes no sound, but his eyes bulge out, before they close, his grip on the sword fading at last. Scorpio kneels down and picks up the weapon...observing it for a moment, contact with the holy sword seeming to burn him.

"...A dangerous toy...I will return it to the citadel..." he states, then turning to the Venus Senshi.

"You are no threat...tell the others of your number that if they try to oppose the will of the Queen again, they will suffer worse." he snaps, then creating a black portal, stepping through and disappearing, leaving Sophia in a field of devastation.

As Kousuke suddenly stops upon hitting Scorpio he feels a sense of resignation that he has never felt before and as the monster picks him up a rueful smile appears on his face. "Well I guess I'm not so good at this stalling for time thing after all." He grunts, well it was to be expected. This is what happened when he was with a team, a vision of 4 teammates turning away and ignoring him appears in his mind as a bitter smile crosses his face his knight outfit begins to glow.


However, as he is impaled and the monster turns towards Moon another figure appears. 'Hey now, if you're the ace it's your responsibility to come through when it counts. Leave leading the team to me.' The image of Capt fades from his mind and as the attack towards Ama is about to be released Kishin pulls on the claw as hard as he can angling it towards his stomach and pulling himself up to block any of the attack that would have gotten to Ama.

Kishin staggers and turns towards the senshi with a smile as his mask falls away to reveal Kousuke's face, though it was still hidden from Scorpio's view by his hoody. "Get moving Rie if you don't make it home by curfew it's on my head." He says as if talking in a daze, crimson blood spilling from his wounds onto the ground around him as he falls to it.

Then as he lies on the ground he feels numbness. That's strange I always assumed that being invincible meant I couldn't die...what did it mean again?

However, instead of simply remaining on the ground to bleed out several roots begin to attach to Kousuke's body and by the time Scorpio leave's Kousuke's body is completely swallowed by the Earth and in it's place stands a tall tree.

It takes a while for the events to seep in. And when it does emotion isn’t really accessible. It’s simply a logical analysis of events. Part of her feels severed. Most of the world doesn’t seem real, and takes on a dream-like quality in her mind. Scorpio has left. Kishin is Kousuke. He is gone now. Kenji is slipping. Amarissa is relatively unharmed. In a hazy mind, she thinks vaguely that she can heal him. Her mouth forms the word “Restoring Embrace”, and she pours just about every ounce of energy can and still stay awake. The exhaustion causes her to de-transform. Her vision’s a little blurry around the edges and her whole body aches. She sways a little with Kenji’s motionless body in her arms before laying him down carefully.

She takes out her phone and calls for emergency personnel. She feels more like she is watching herself do the action. In an oddly calm voice, she answers the dispatcher, “There’s been an attack at Ackademi.” She looks at Amarissa before she wills herself to move and leave the scene.

Amarissa caught the phone, but didn't have time to call anyone as Kishin attacked. Scorpio retaliated, leaving him horribly injured, and then turns his attention on her only to have Kishin take it all anyway. "No!" she yells as she quickly moves towards the Earth knight. Her attention is diverted again with the battle between Scorpio and the Venus Knight. Ignoring that for a moment, she cleanses both Kishin and herself of any dark energy or poison. Then breathes a sigh of relief as Scorpio leaves, only to fall into grief at the damage done to the other knight as well.

As Kishin transforms and becomes a tree, Amarissa starts to cry, a terrible pain filling her chest along with a strong wish that she could somehow bring him back. Unaware of it, she begins to emit a silver light as her devotion for her teammate shines through, useless now. "I'm sorry," she whispers, her voice broken to the tree and to Sophia. She can't bring herself to move yet and instead collapses on the ground, the guilt and grief making her exhausted as she continued to sob quietly.

Luna had caught up with the others only in time to see the morphed Scorpio begin to decimate the party. She had been knocked out from a piece of debris during the first round of battle, and recovered in time to see a nightmare. She hung her head and felt a failure when Kousuke and the Venus Knight were both annihilated protecting their senshi allies. She looks at the tree after Scorpio left and pawed at it with remorse in her eyes. Whenever Kousuke would shout about being immortal or practicing silly poses in his room, even Luna felt like she could believe he was invincible. He was different, but yet similar to Endymion.

When Amarissa approached and then broke down, Luna pawed her to comfort her, but when Sophia was finished healing, Luna could sense something...the power was gone, but the life force remained.

"...He's still alive! But the poison in his body will overwhelm him. Moon! You're needed!" she shouts, running over to Kenji and looking at Amarissa expectantly. Even if she was in grief, Luna gave her enough credit to try to do what she can to save this one.

Amarissa looks up at Luna with tear filled and weary eyes. Simply watching the cat as she poked around the tree until she started yelling about something. It took her brain a minute to figure out what Luna was talking about, but finally she looked over at Kenji. She felt a strange power coming from the tree as well and despite her best efforts, began to feel better. Sighing, she realized that she was still needed, that she still had responsibility. Her deal with Kousuke came to mind as well.

Sitting up slowly, she wiped her eyes and then began to make her way to the new Venus Knight. Once there, she just stared at him for a minute. She tried to doubt, but all she could feel was her grief and hope lapping at the edges. Placing one hand on his head and the other on his chest, she intoned "Pure Soul." "There. All that's left to do is wait, but I think he'll make it. The same can't be said for Kousuke," she said, her voice cracking a bit at the end. "But I can't stay here," she finished, finally standing.

Amarissa sent a quick text to Sophia to let her know she saved Kenji then turned and began to slowly make her way home, like she promised.

Ashley had heard a emergency call at a Art Exhibit and it was a attack by the covenant which he had to check out. He got his cellphone out and placed a message to Taika on coming to the location since she would be able to get some samples. Plus the woman was his partner in a sense and would need her help as he heard it was a bit messy there. After awhile Ashley pulled up in a transport and got out from it. He went directly to the battleground and to him it was a mess. His eyes flick about to find something out of place, since the tin cans came back with those crystals. Ashley's sense of curiosity was getting to him and he wanted to find a breakthrough on magic or something to study it. Then went to see if the security camras got anything on the battle. Since any recording could give him a good idea where to look.

They told Ashley it would take a bit for anything to be put up to see. Until then he waited for Taika to show up to the area since he wanted her to not be in the dark. Although hoped she was not already ahead of him already.