{oOo}
Angron stared at the little procession making their way up the mountain.
He'd expected an assault from the five great armies gathered around the mountain redoubt that he and his followers held out in. It was a given that he would die in that assault - fewer than a thousand of the former gladiators survived and while their fury would doubtless destroy far more than their own number, the armies of an entire world were mustered against them.
Symbolic graves lay behind the positons of Angron's City-Eaters although all knew that their bodies would never occupy them. Doubtless their bodies would be torn apart by the victors for display all across the world, any unfortunates who survived being tortured to death in the great arenas from which they had come.
But what ascended the steep paths was no army and the vast encampments so distant that only his on unmatched vision could make them out bustled not with preparations to attack but instead... to depart?
Perhaps three dozen men and women formed the line snaking their way towards him and none of them were warriors. Some carried weapons, but they were no more than ornaments. Except for the silver staff held by the girl who led them. She was not one of them, he conceded. Every other amongst them he knew by their faces or at least close resemblence to the oligarchs he had seen watching his bouts over the years. The rulers of the world, the absolute apex of power until he had begun his revolt.
But the girl was something else. Her name... his mind wrestled with the unfamiliar language, new to him, that had been spoken by the Emperor and his dog-soldiers. Selene? No. Serene? Almost.
"Serenity." Angron grated the word out and heads turned amongs the little band who stood near him.
"Shall we kill them?"
A red rage rushed through Angron, flooding out doubts. The girl, the Emperor's pampered daughter, had brought before him the fat pigs who'd gloated over his enslavement and who had sent millions to die under his blades while never risking themselves. He raised the swords already in his hands and prepared to descend to meet the girl. She would be the f-
She would di-
He would k-
Angron thought about the gentle silver light that he had seen around her. Not the proud splendour of his 'father', but something equally familiar. There was little gentleness he could recall in his life. Scarcely any at all, in fact.
Snarling viciously, he smashed the swords down on the stones before him, cleaving the rock into three parts. "Not yet." Then his lips curled in dark humour, the brutal jokes of a gladiator his only education in that mode of thought. "Perhaps she's earned a red twist for her triumph rope."
{oOo}
It is said that only once was the Anima to suffer any scar to her sacred flesh. And this too, she ever asserted, was a mark of love.
{oOo}
AN: Born from the thought "What if Serenity interfered in 'collecting' Angron?", on a similar vein to the thought if was her, and not the Emperor that also collected Konrad Curze. Again, could be in any continuity that pops up.