Foxpearl!

Vermillion slowly lowers you down into the pool. Well, technically speaking, it's the Sash that does that, slowly unspooling and finally unknotting itself from up above so that it can fall down around you in showy spirals. A bit of a showboat, that divine weapon. But Vermillion barely notices; she's wrapped up in gingerly unknotting that gag, which, you might notice, requires her to put her arms around you, press up against you, and balance herself on one foot. "There we go," she says, as it loosens and falls about your collarbone. "Whoever this armored agitator is, they should have known better than to think they could keep you down, 'pearl."

She does that precious little smile and lowers herself back down onto both feet, even as the Sash wraps around Xingtian. Dragging them out will probably be the real challenge of the night

HAHA JUST KIDDING this is when HOUND operatives come crashing in through windows, tactical rifles bouncing against their body armor, looking like a bunch of Americans. What are guns supposed to do against ghosts, anyway? For that matter, what were guns supposed to do against Xingtian themself?

Guns, however, would do terrible things to the soft squishy bits of you (if you didn't come up with some cool idea like turning back into fire) and Vermillion (if she didn't have the Sash covering her in time) and The Amazing Ghostygirl (real name pending) and the Puppy over at Terochichimomo (and where's she been, anyway?). And Flower Mountain members (assuming they didn't know the secret of iron skin, or how to deflect bullets off things in the environment, or the secret of flowing like water). And civilians (who don't have any of the above advantages).

In fact, they'd mostly really be useful against the very people they're claiming to protect.

"GET DOWN," one of them yells, shining an underslung flashlight right in your faces. "STEP AWAY FROM THE CRIMINAL," yells another. "EMPRESS UNDERSTUDY AND TAMAMO ONE IDENTIFIED ON SITE," a third yells into a radio, "REQUESTING PROTOCOL."

(They aren't the tower's security service. They're a recently empowered task force designed to "protect the city in the absence of Empress," and they're a throwback to a style of policing that hasn't been seen in the Republic since before you were born - not that that's hard - and most people haven't missed at all. Again, they're very self-consciously American.)

---

Rain!

Rewind.

Your eye's dragged out to the canals below. Technically far below, but the megatowers of SGC have a way of making distance seem smaller than it is. Some residents of the tower have been evacuated at ground level, and the canals are full of boats coming and going. Mostly going. Like any city worth the name, there are first responders, but most of them are coming from higher up or along the same bridges that also helped the immediate evacuation from this floor.

But there's a boat peeling off, heading out towards the Sunrise Dockside rather than towards Victory Tower, where a lot of the boats are ferrying evacuated residents of Providence. (Even if Providence collapsed, which isn't going to happen now that Xingtian's been stopped, Victory would be outside of the splash zone. At this angle, it's probably Fortitude that would get the worst of it, and while it'd cause an incredible amount of damage, Fortitude would still be standing at the end. SGC architecture and civic planning is some of the most advanced in the world, after all.)

But there's a boat that definitely left the Providence moorings and is headed out that way. Not a major commercial boat, they'd go around instead of ending up in the canal system. That's likely where Branch's ward is headed, and...

And that's when you hear the smashed glass and the yelling from down below. Say hello to the Mayor's worst idea: bringing back an archaic policing force in order to keep Law and Order in the face of the ghost crisis. Social media's raking him over the coals, and the flame wars between people who are scared of the ghosts and gang warfare and the people who are more scared of HOUND are ending up as huge reblog threads, the kind that used to push the OP off the page back in the days of the old UI.

Your own parents were quick to reassure you that it's because of all the chaos in the Big Peach and the Mayor will get them to stand down once the mess is sorted out and just don't give them any reason to get aggressive and you'll get through it fine, but what are your own thoughts on the matter, Rain?

---

Shifu!

A little boy buries his face in your floof, little hands tugging on your fur.

Vermillion helped with the evacuation to Tranquility, but she asked you to help keep calm. And what’s better for helping humans remain calm than… well, what you are right now. What are you right now?

In the sky above, one of the mortal sky chariots aims its lantern lower, hovering just level with the bridge between towers. The sound of whistling ropes and breaking glass suggests that it’s doing something that’s not helpful. Might even be bad!

“I hope they catch that villain,” the boy’s father mutters, folding his arms. “Who would do something so selfish while Empress is gone? Lock them up, at least until she gets back— and don’t bother to let her know immediately, either.”

“But what about the Princess and her friends? They were here to help, too—“

“But can they actually stop a wrongdoer like that? They got us to safety, but it takes more than that to bring someone like that to justice!”

[Shift your Savior up and your Danger down!]

Did you know you don't get headpats in heaven?

Unbelievable, right? Immortality and demons and nature spirits, yes, but the simple idea of--of--oh my gosh right there don't stop--of scritching someone behind the ears because she did good, oh so good, yes she did?

Not a trace of ear scritches, bellyrubs, or headpats to be found. It's dignified this, and growl that, and stern the other one.

What do you need if there's kids frightened by a fire, huh? What good will a fanged grin the size of a dinner plate do there, huh?

Shifu is cute, a crowd favorite, and she is weaponizing it viciously. She's new, she's weird, but she's also an orange-maned dog thing the size of a pony? And adults do this weird thing when they're confused, right? Like, it cuts through the panic and terror, short circuits their brain, and the new thing is so interesting they forget they're scared?

Humans are so cool like that.

It feels so good to be able to help like this, even if she's not able to do the same thing her guardians can, you know, the thing where they can talk without moving their teeth?

Oh. Right there. Rrrrrrright theeeeere oh my gosh

She grins--not the full threat display, but enough to make the kid perk up, and gives him a sloppy lick up one side of his face. Laughter. That's her reward, right there. Headpats, scritches, and to move onto the next terrified, shniffling kid.

It feels good to be a hero.

[Shifu accepts the shift.]

Shifu.

How she hated her!

She spotted her in the distance and had already oozed out of the Vermillion Princess' grip and past the guards and was leaning over the balcony railing, looking down at her malevolently, tail lashing furiously. Oh of course she was there, fluffy-tailed and fluffy-hearted and fluffy-brained, collecting pats from small children and smiling and making it all look so effortless. Don't think she didn't see her down there, glaring, pouting, face unrelatedly bright red from being complimented and swept off her feet. She was so mad her tail was lashing, and she was eighty percent tail by spiritron composition so you knew it was serious!

"HEY IDIOT!" she yells. "Quit fucking around! Get your ass up here! I am up to my tits in law enforcement and if I get shot because you are too busy getting scritchies to tank any bullets that," she made huge fingerquotes, "accidentally fly my way I'm going to fucking skin you and wear your fur as a coat! Hashtag Heracles hashtag violence hashtag swearing!"

Even in the heat of the moment, Foxpearl was so full of virtue that she remembered to properly tag her threats. There were children around, after all, and she was swearing a lot, so this would help them filter it out.

[Foxpearl is shifting your Superior down and your Freak up]

She gasps, silently, like a ghost. A plot!

It's like that one movie, where the female lead, played by Cybill Shepherd, has to blow up a clock tower and then take the mayor's daughter hostage, while her husband is setting up to assassinate the IMF assistant secretary while he's in town and the clock tower is meant to force them to use the secondary meeting site, that he has access to! But then the lady's repressed interest in a con woman named Sofia flares up, and she bails on the plot, and meanwhile her husband ends up shooting a body double instead of the actual target, and it all ends in tears and tragedy.

You know, Goncharov.

It's not actually a great map onto the situation, on second thought, but look! There's the police! Just like the hostage scenes in the watchmaker's shop. Except... no, actually, HOUND is kind of just as bad as the corrupt Naples cops? Like, sure, they're not actually taking bribes, that she knows about, but they get paid well and they still shoot first, and then second, and then demand answers third. Her mom was sure they were temporary but that's almost worse, because now they don't have a reason to actually fix anything because they get all the fancy power and money while there's a crisis. She'd read a really good post about it, which is somewhere buried between food recipes and parkour videos and very good fanart of cat!Lady and cat!Tramp cuddling each other.

But in them meantime, there's a plot, and she doesn't have her ornithopter nearby, and now she can't get to Sunrise Docks easily, or at least not without calling a taxi.

She takes a minute to look down at the HOUND agent, working her way slowly down the building, one ghost-step at a time. She wants to be ready to intervene if bullets start flying. She's going to be ready, in fact. Positive thinking!

Oh!

Right!

Right, the. The other things! The important other things! Important other people!

She's in the air in seconds, but not before tapping the little girl she's comforting on the shoulder and making a meaningful gesture between the two of them with one cinderbrick paw. This isn't over, got that? You're gonna need to cry later, because even if you're calm now, you're gonna have nightmares tonight, right? And she's got ears that need scritches, and you’ve got a lap that's crying out to be sat in by a fuzzy critter. You, her, later, okay?

Okay.

[Shift Accepted]

Flying is another thing heaven could use more of, you know? It's like--you feel bad, right, because you're letting down your friends, and they need you, and wow Foxpearl sounds angry, she could really use some cuddles, she should cuddle her later, that always fixes everything--and then you take a step into the air, and the worries peel away like--

Like. Um. Something that peels quickly. Paint under a breath attack? A potato in a mechanical peeler?

She's been meaning to get one of those. So much easier than peeling it by paw or hand, you know?

A-ny-way!

You can't be unhappy when you're flying. Physical impossibility, 's a scientific fact you know. You just soar up, and up, and--

Yeah, this oughtta be enough space.

The blue fire wraps her from head to toe and spreads.

And spreads.

And spreads some more as she starts to fall, fire trailing after her like a comet.

Now, if you were in a bad mood--or inclined to blame someone else for your own feelings--you might call pulling an orca out of a comet showboating. But Shifu doesn't have a boat, and she wouldn't know how to show it if she did!

It's just the joy of the shape that sends her through the somersault, that's all! Honestly! If more people could fly and then turn into a whale, everyone would be doing this! It's fun, dangit!

And at least she's just going for an orca, right? Now a sperm whale, that'd be showing off. Orcas are more fun--rounder, with a lovely two-tone pattern that lets her get both of the best colors in.

With startling abruptness--fifteen feet above the pool level, just when it seems the whale must turn into a splatter on the tile--the whale stops midair, gently moves a few feet to the side, and drops heavily between the two heroes and the people with all those nasty guns.

Shifu grins, and turns a toothy grin on Foxpearl.

C'mon, that was good. Admit it. She did good. There's a good girl in there for this.

[4,1,+3, 8 on Unleash Your Powers.]

Foxpearl!

The net shoots past you with maybe an inch to spare and proceeds to smash through the window of a lawyer's office, where it whirls around a chair violently, constricts so tightly that it knocks it over on its side, and then shoots an electric pulse through the chair, which is really unfair, given how the chair already stopped resisting.

The cop who fired it yanks the reload lever on the side, makes a small adjustment in his aim, and then has to deal with Shifu being between you and him, and she's way too big right now to get netted. But that's overkill, right? For an innocent little foxgirl like you? Whatever happened to just being tackled and handcuffed while somebody reads you your rights?

Also, Shifu is totally mugging at you, and Vermillion is trying to collect her thoughts because she's absolutely flabbergasted that someone would?! shoot a net at you?! what is with these people, she's Empress's protege for crying out loud?!

---

Shifu!

Now would be the time to transform into a wolf! Or maybe a horse! Or a moose!

Except that you've pulled a conceptual muscle. You know, like when you stretch too hard? It happens every now and then, and it's like you stretched really hard into orca, which is awesome, but now your soul's suddenly stiff and wincing and asking if maybe someone can give it a massage with one of those guardian balls maybe?

Which is to say, you are now orca until these cops are dealt with.

Also, this is not a particularly deep pool and the cops are not standing in the pool anyway, which means that your method of locomotion is largely inspired by seals right now, except with a less convenient tail.

Have you gotten stuck like this before?

---

Rain!

You're the one in position to see the cop with the net-gun start circling around Shifu one way, while another goes the other way, and the third is yelling at the orca-puppy to stand down before he has to figure out how to use disproportionate force on a killer whale. But the good news is that if you get involved, they'll be outnumbered, and between the four of you, you can probably figure out some way of dealing with these jackasses before anybody really gets hurt (and before more reinforcements arrive).

Which one are you going to dive down on? Net-guy, flanker, or man-threatening-a-killer-whale?

To Foxpearl there was no surprise at all. Her life experience as a spirit of mischief and mayhem was that law enforcement would shoot at her for practical reasons, and her life experience as a paragon of virtue on social media was that law enforcement would shoot at her for ideological reasons. What was the Eternal Tao but copaganda?

She sniffily assesses Shifu's transformation. "Mid," she declares haughtily. The fact that she had added absurd quantities of mass out of nowhere, the fact that she got the internal organ dynamics of an enormously complex seaborn lifeform correct on the first try and also was able to adapt it into not suffocating on dry land, the fact that there was no telltale fox-tail - those were all weaknesses, actually. Transforming into the five most basic elements was a sign of spiritual purity and she hadn't eaten those grapes because desire was an aspect of samsara and she was far above such things.

"Who's in charge here?" she called from behind her protective orca. She wasn't actually interested in the answer - the answer was capitalism - but she needed time and possibly Discourse to shake the Vermilion Princess out of her class awakening. "And what are their demands?"

Good girl?

… no good girl?

Mid good-girl?! Now you look here, missy, she is the best girl and she will do anything to have you acknowledge it!

Even if, admittedly, things here are. Are, um.

No, no, see, this was her plan! She's here, she's in the way, she saw them shoot some kind of net out of one rolling massive eye, she's helping!

Even if, you know, this is, uh, you know, uh. She's fine, right? You can't hyperventilate as a whale, scientific fact, probably. Not wearing a collar, check, so so long as the police don't have a collar big enough to fit a whale this will, this will, you know, it'll wear off, and she can--

Come on already and shapeshift shapeshift change--

Right. Right.

She's here, and she's in the way, and that guard's shouting something? She doesn't want to be in this pool anymore. If she can get, you know, up on the edge, then that'd at least let her use her tail, right? Splashing isn't much, but it's more than just sitting in a convenient pool.

All she has to do is get some uppies, right up onto the edge of the pool. She's got this.

It's not that this hasn't happened, right? S'like, you gotta stretch a bit, keep practicing, be ready to go big, have a spotter ready to pull you out and talk you back into your own shape and murmur appreciatively about how big that was, you're doing so good!

But it's the first time since, you know.

You know.

She's pretty sure it wasn't this scary before.

She's bolting towards the edge as soon as she sees the net shoot, and leaps into midair, eyes locked on him.

"aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

Ohhhhhhh man that is a long way down. Like, a really long way down. Like, wow, she's slowing herself down by hitting the air and she's got a big coat that's helping but oh wow the ground is coming up fast and she's thinking a mile a minute and this was a terrible, terrible plan.

WUNK-zap!

10-2 for afraid -1 for danger is a 7 to directly engage!

Rain!

”Oh My God it’s a ghost,” the cop yells as you pull him off balance, sending another net careening off into a sign advertising tasteful cremation services. And, given how that gun works, you’ve neutralized it as a threat for as long as you’ve got him focused on you and not reloading!

The problem is that he staggers backwards so violently that the two of you tumble back through the broken window, and there’s a moment of awful vertigo—

And then you slam against the side of Providence Skyscraper, and the wind’s once more been pushed out of your lungs, and someone’s shining a flashlight in your face.

“WE HAVE A GHOST ON SITE,” a second cop yells, holding onto his comrade’s boot as he aims his rifle at you with his other hand. “COMMAND, REQUESTING— what the fuck, what do you mean it’s not an issue, it’s dragged Po off the fucking building you bastard son of a cocksucking hen, I need something, don’t we have shit for this? You tell the Director to get some anti-ghost gizmo on site or I swear it’s your fucking ass I’ll serve seared and glazed!”

Presumably, he hasn’t tried to shoot you less out of concern for his comrade but because he thinks it won’t work.

Mark another Condition, this is a real rough night, huh?

---

Shifu!

Rain tumbles out of the ceiling like a lightning bolt, grabs one of the “policemen” with all four of her limbs, and the two of them topple back through the broken window. One of the other ones sees what’s going on and dives, saving both of them, bracing himself precariously at the edge of the window.

“STAND DOWN,” yells the third, who actually sounds like a very angry woman through the aggressive reverb of her helmet. “STOP RESISTING!”

She jerks her gun up at the ceiling and pulls the trigger, filling the room with awful thundering noise and making lights explode pop pop pop pop pop.

But that aside, how do you feel watching Rain tumble off a roof?

---

Foxpearl!

“It’s that jerk Li,” the Princess answers, because the cops are too busy yelling and shooting and being menaces to public property. “He probably wants to come up with some reason to arrest us so we stop making his goons look bad! And— RAIN!!!”

Out pop the heelies. The sash swirls around her like a writhing serpent as she skates boldly into the face of danger, and there’s a space for you behind her, if you run.

Or you can keep hiding behind the giant orange orca! Someone needs to look after the downed supervillain, probably. You’ll totally look cool doing it and Princess almost certainly won’t think you’re a coward!

It wasn't her job to deal with prisoners. See, there were two types of heroes in the world of Lady Foxfire; buddhist monks and taoist alchemists. A monk would punch an innocent foxgirl in the mouth - Foxpearl stopped meditatively. No, Lady Foxfire was not innocent, as she the most virtuous of her tails well knew. She had just professed to be for so long that 'innocent foxgirl' felt like a single word. Okay, so a monk would punch a guilty foxgirl in the mouth, and then smile and bow and maybe give a koan while she picked her fangs up out of the street before leaving town for easier pickings. That was a friendly, aspirational kind of virtue. A taoist alchemist, by comparison, might exorcise you directly into one of the hells, or bury you under a bridge, or distill you into an elixir of immortality, or bind you into a candle or some other heinous shit that took years to wriggle free of. And it was all pointless because she'd never learned anything from any of it!

If she was on the side of righteousness now she definitely wanted to model herself after the virtuous, teeth-punching monks and not the wicked, demon-binding alchemists. That was why she considered her entire exchange with Xingtian complete the moment they had lost consciousness - she wasn't going to stick around afterwards to put her in a box like a hack. And especially not when one option involved staying with a cute princess and the other involved saturating in the whale-stink of Shifu's barely miraculous transformation.

Bias: Everyone involved in the prison system in any capacity is lame, actually

He... excuse you? Excuse?

None of those words are good words! There is a gun and it is being shot and this guy is focusing on a ghost and trying to be all tacticool and in control and do mean, anti-ghost things to her! And she was so Very! Very! Careful! To not break the guy's face!

Who is currently dangling off a building and you know what we should fix that.

She very, very carefully reaches through the guy with the rifle, grabs onto the leg of the poor unconscious (Probably? She hopes? This sounds like it'd be really traumatic if he's not out cold...) sucker dangling off a building, and drags him up onto the nice, safe floor.

Safe ish. Somebody's shooting a gun and that's not good. But. Butttttt. But she's only able to do one thing! At! A! Time! Otherwise she's doing two things at once and she's very bad at that and that's not the focus, the focus is this guy in front of her. Who is trying to call for anti-ghost tech. Part of her is very curious what they have, part of her is very not a fan of whatever they end up bringing out, especially since they're the dicks who brought guns to an arrest! Who does that? That's how people get shot, not arrested.

Protect 11 + 2 is 13, clear afraid, marking angry, saving the smuck with the netcaster.

Rain's falling!

Which it does in this world! But that's not the point!

Oh this is bad. Right. Right. Need to be a whale--no, no, not being a whale, need to stop being a whale, need to be a girl again. Be a dog, be her--

Be less shot at! Augh! She is a whale, she's in a pool, you're standing in a puddle of whale-pushed water right next to her, and you're shooting electric lights! Does she need to draw you a picture to show you why that's bad?!

(Please ask her to draw a picture. She's gotten pretty good at it, you know, when she's not needing to use a brush to paint.)

Anyway. It's hard for a whale to glare, did you know that? Especially orcas! They're technically a bigger dolphin, and it's impossible for a dolphin to glare! But Shifu's Just That Good!

She focuses, and gives one tailfin a massive sweep through the pool towards the electric idiot. Lessee, water generates into wood, which means that instead of bullets…

Hmm. Yeah, yeah, that should work. Instead of bullets, how about a gun that shoots flowers?

[Elemental Powers: 6,6, +3 Freak: Shifu is choosing to alter the cop's gun, and on a 10+ is choosing to make this effect work exceptionally well.]

Or, you know, not shoots, but like. Grows out of the barrel. Shoots, seeds, leaves. Surely taking a weapon from a cop can't be considered bad if she's preventing an electrical fire--or, you know, more importantly, an electrical whale?

… Note to self. Electrical Whale sounds like an excellent costume design idea. Save the day first, but see if Mr. Chan knows any tailors later.

SGC Crew!

The cops are down to one guy who has a working gun, and he's pissed at the fact that he doesn't have any special antighost tech to hand and that the Vermillion Princess and Foxpearl are all up in his face. "BACK ALL THE WAY UP," he yells, before the Princess yanks the Sash around his gun and tosses it aside. "...fuck this," he growls. "I'm not bringing in four of you single-handedly."

"Unless they surrender." That comes from the helicopter, and it'd be in all caps if it wasn't in such a smug, punchable soft man making hard choices voice. Even blared over the helicopter's speakers, you can't make a voice like that all caps. Somebody got Director Li himself on the phone. "Vermillion Princess, I'm afraid you're running with what we call a bad crowd. I'd like all of you to voluntarily surrender yourselves to HOUND and then we can discuss reasonable consequences. I'm sure Empress will agree that we need to discuss such a lapse in judgment.

"After all, you're out here with a ghost vigilante. Someone like that might be responsible for the crisis, and even if they aren't, they should be cooperating with our city's top scientists in order to understand and combat the horde of ravenous, hungry, starving ghosts just yearning to drink all of our blood! For all you know, they're doing that the minute you turn your back!

[Rain! +Freak, -Mundane!]

"And you've dragged some sort of... whale? Into this? That isn't really our jurisdiction. But it belongs in a zoo, not in the middle of a business floor! Look at it, it's dumbly gasping for air!

[Shifu! +Freak, -Superior!]

"And if that wasn't bad enough, I can't believe you'd willingly join forces with one of your mentor's worst enemies! You're being played by this, this foxgirl, and you are clearly lacking any sort of responsible authority figure who can tell you that you can't expect anything from them! In fact, you should be arresting her and handing her into our custody! Hand her over, and we'll be sure to take that into account when we are considering charges for disrupting the peace, acting against government officials in the middle of an emergency crisis, bringing the name of our city's Hero into disrepute, and conspiracy with individuals wanted in conjunction with the state of emergency crisis."

[Foxpearl! +Freak, -Savior!]

The Vermillion Princess turns, silhouetted in the spotlight, and looks at the three of you. She's not going to turn any of you in. That's not how she rolls (right?). But she looks like the sudden whiplash from helping save civilians to being Yelled At By An Authority is crushing her precious little heart like a grape. It would be really embarrassing for her if she started crying like a kid in front of Wannabe Policeman Li, but he's needled her right where it hurts: the fear of disappointing Empress and making her look bad for vouching for the Princess.

She knew that look. Too many choices. The temptations of wickedness. On one side, family, respect, influence, power, acceptance and on the other mere virtue. An easy choice that would only stick in the throat a little bit, and would hardly hurt when coughed up as a foxpearl.

But she'd learned her lessons well.

The Vermillion Princess wielded the Sash. The Sash was warm and comfortable around Hsien's neck. It was awaiting its mistress' voice and then it would leap from the foxgirl who had seduced it to her hand immediately. That's why she had to start with the voice.

The Sash the Vermilion Princess wore was, in truth, Hsien's scarf - places switched during their recent clash together. It pulled tight across her mouth even as it wrapped around her ankles, wicked tight, lacing them together with her hands. It wrapped around her collar and down her centre and between her legs, knotting into endless bows and ribbons. Her scarf had more than a little experience with this particular maneuver - for reasons - but it was going above and beyond this time - for unrelated reasons.

Restraint focused the mind. Virtue bound temptations. The best way to be free from temptation was to be made physically incapable of it.

New Lesson: Never allow anyone else be unvirtuous.

She smiled down at her Vermilion Princess. "Oh, darling," she purred in her best Fox Hypnosis voice, tracing her hand down the Princess' cheek. "Having second thoughts again? Starting to suspect me again? Just stare deep into my eyes and you'll know for sure that you're exactly where you should be, in the exactly position you should be in~" She winked.

Then she flipped off the commissioner, picked up the Princess, and jumped from the skyscraper in the form of a whirlwindgirl.

[Accepting the shift]

[1+2, 3 to reject a condition. Marking Angry and Insecure.]

*vwooorp*

"At least I can stop doing things dumbly!"

Shifu blinks, staring hard into. Into a camera? There's supposed to be a guy here in the helicopter. You know, a guy with a megaphone, somebody who can cow backwards at having a dinner-plate's worth of razor-sharp chompers shut an inch from his nose.

Chompers. She's her again! Oh, she can change! She grins--as if there's another expression possible with these teeth--and does a little scamper mid-air.

… in front of a camera.

Which is steadfastly refusing to be intimidated.

Probably the scamper was a mistake.

She stares into the glass at her reflection, admiring the way the fisheye lens amplifies her tombstone teeth. No broccoli in her teeth, right? She hasn't eaten any today, and the transformation would have burned any away, but the way people talk she's pretty sure it just shows up sometimes.

…She's supposed to be doing something. Right! Right!

"You just talk, and everything comes out dumbly! Hiding behind a camera, making your own rules, and then deciding everyone who doesn't follow the rules you made up is bad!

"At least Ra--At least she bothered to show up and help people! She actually cares, and she's had plenty of opportunities to drink all of our blood and has never done it!

"And Foxpearl is all of the good bits of Foxfire! That's why she's so small! But she's only gonna get bigger and stronger!"

She glances down, and then turns fully to stare.

Oh. Oh, um.

That's.

She's pretty sure friends don't to that to friends? A little knot churns in her chest at the sight of the startled fright around the Princess's eyes.

But the Princess looks… Almost looks more excited than frightened? There's a blush on those cheeks--like she wasn't expecting this, but it's also not unwelcome? Which makes no sense? This should be terrifying, scary? And she's not fighting--or, you know, wiggling as strongly as she normally would, but--

She stares down, stares at the camera, and decides she needs to ask some questions later on, because this is.

Um.

Anyway. Anyway. Um.

She stares at the camera, quite aware that she's been disrupted and not quite sure how to get rupted again.

"Anyway. We're actually out here helping instead of making hard decisions. So, um."

She lets the fire cover her, quite glad for it, and the osprey dives to follow Foxpearl.

Blood?

Why would she drink blood?

She is a ghost now. At least, during the night, except when she really wanted to not be, and then sometimes when she really wanted to be during the day. Is that what ghosts... do?

She hadn't paid too much attention to the news. Never had, ever since one of her aunts got super huffy about how the interviewer was super mean. She'd listened to that interview, of course, and hadn't seemed like anything was particularly out of sorts, but if you mentioned it within earshot you'd promptly get an earful, and anyway that anchor got let go a few months later and the aunt seemed super smug and Rain didn't know if it was a coincidence or the Aunt pulled strings.

Rain looks down at her hands. Translucent and see through. It would take her more effort to open a door than to walk through it right now. Her gut twists as she thinks about that.

She doesn't think she craves blood. She could try some, find it in the market from a butcher or something. Or she could try to reach out to somebody. Do research into ghosts, like half the city, or bother Doctor Huan.

Whatever she's doing, though, it's not happening here. Whiny HOUND directors also don't deserve to give her an earful, though she's sure that he'll complain a lot to her uncle that's in town and he'll make all the sympathetic noises and oh, that looks like a big glowing net, time to leave.

She dips out through a few floors and a wall or two, descending rapidly as her coat flaps through the air, slowing her descent. The tunnels, the tunnels are safe, she'll be able to lose anybody down there and all she has to do is get to them. Which is easy, it's really hard to stop a ghost with fences and walls and doors.

And Rain, she's a ghost.

Accepting shift.

Foxpearl! Shifu!

“I’m not mad,” Joshua Chan lies. “I’m just disappointed.”

Outside, green-grey rain begins to lash at the panes. Below, evacuation barges mingle with early morning shipping. In here, the burnt water smell of coffee begins to fill the apartment attached to the cafe.

“As far as hiding places go, this is… not a very good one.” He eyes the blushing Vermillion Princess, dangling from one of the ceiling plant hangers, over the frames of his glasses. “Somebody’s going to put two and two together and make Shifu out of it pretty soon.”

But, like, where else could you go? ArAN’s place? She’d lecture Foxpearl for leaving kidnapped heroines on the furniture. Wherever Rain lives? She vanished away at the end of that fight.

“Also, Izi‘s still leading her raid,” Joshua points out. The sound of her hammering the keyboard with enthusiasm floats through the door. “She definitely saw you, she’s just too busy to pay attention to the news yet. This isn’t just going to be a circulation on the Granny Network letting tower security know they need to have a talk with you three. That dipshit Li’s going to be on the news talking about how Foxfire’s clearly made a miniature version of herself and— Hsien. What. Are you doing.”

---

Rain!

Down in the dark. Not a lot of well-to-do people come all the way down here, you know? The closest most respectable people come is checking some shop in the basement levels of the towers. But elemental earth is a vital part of the city.

Somewhere up above, an idiot cop vents one of Xingtian’s power generators, and the ghosts drain down the tower, down to the earth, down into the dark. They flow around you in the dark, whispering, and if you listened carefully you might be able to make something out—

—be sure to tell that daughter of mine
—was the finale any good
—my cat’s ghost is going to fret if I’m out too long
—I just want to go back to sleep
—I was dreaming
—I’m still hungry
—tell Yama there was a mistake
—wasn’t the fire exciting

—all mumbled, sleepwalking. The restless dead. There’s a reason that all those exorcist horror movies are about “laying the dead to rest.” They’re all wispy, fragmented, and one whisper might start a fragment and another might finish it.

The tragedy of this crisis isn’t that the living might be harmed by ghosts. Spooked, maybe. Chilled, yeah. Hurt by someone who’s using all that phantasmal magical power as a power generator? That’s becoming a big risk.

But the tragedy of this crisis is that the dead are awake without the proper rituals, and that they can’t go back to sleep.

Could you sleep down here, if you had to, once the adrenaline drains? Could you sleep while listening to the half-aware whispers of the dead? Or would that have an odd effect?

Hsien Lang had her arm up to the elbow inside the vending machine. She turned and stared with fish-eyed blankness at Joshua Chan, the kind of dead eyed uncomprehending stare that made it plain that there was not even the conceptual framework in place to explain why she shouldn't do this. She knew all about virtue, discourse, Posadism, and girls. This was... just, like, how you got snacks.

"Hungry," she explained. She tried to give it some more juice to reach the tofu sticks that were extremely clearly out of reach. The vending machine wobbled dangerously. "Hunting."

"But you hear that, Shifu? You're too obvious. You really need to learn how to move stealthily," she stuck her tongue out as she strained, fingernails scratching at the plastic at the bottom of the forbidden tofu bar. "Like me! You can't just go miraculously perfectly transforming into whales all the time, you need to use your head. Be smart!"

She tried to pull her arm back out of the machine to change her position. It was stuck in place.

[Shifu, Hsien wants to shift your Superior up and your Savior down]

[Accepting Shift]

It should not be possible for a boa constrictor to look guilty. They just don't have the muscles for it, you know?

Possibly it's because Shifu is currently two feet deep in the slot of the vending machine, which she is Not Allowed To Do. But it's for a good reason! She's here to get Hsien's arm out!

And Mr. Chan has that look on his face.

And she's not gonna get treats for this, is she?

A minute of careful inching backwards later, she's finally able to zoop back into the little girl she so often wears around the place.

"But Izi is leading a raid," she complains. "I could rhino-rampage through the front room and she'd just complain I'm making too much noise."

Oh no the look's getting worse.

"I’m not gonna! Rampage, I mean. Or take treats! Remember, I've been very good since you explained the snack machine!"

A snack machine! A whole box, filled to the brim with crinkly packages! Peanut butter and chocolate in the same bite?! And it's right in the open, where anyone can take what they like!

Which, you know, is how it ought to be. None of that stuffy guarding fruits that only need guarding once every three hundred years, right?

But if you, say, crawl up the inside of the machine, and use your crow beak to tear into those wrappers--and they make the perfect crinkling noise when you do, right?--and don't pay for it? Well, Chan's already selling at pretty close to cost, which is really just an argument that the producers should also be selling them for less, but it means that he can't get more! And then the box empties out, and nobody gets food, and--

"And me being a whale isn't the reason Li's looking for us, anyway!" She gestures one fat-fingered little hand at the princess dangling from the ceiling. "Shouldn't we let her down before Izi's raid finishes? She'll notice that more than she'd notice me, right?"