Don't buy in, Errant. Don't buy in for a second. Saving a life is one thing, but don't let her into yours. This is a trap. This is absolutely a trap. Remember who she [i]is[/i]. Remember what she [i]did[/i]. Re... remember who it is she must be working for now. This is a trap and Victoria's the mastermind. Block it out. Block it out. This is all just noise and you need to focus on this bomb so that nobody dies. Then you need to get ready to fight her, so that nobody dies. 

...Here's a confession. And it's a disgusting feeling, but that doesn't make it a lie. Errant's had a lot of heroes over the years, and if you put a gun to her head and told her to pick her biggest one she'd still without hesitation say it's the Shogun. Nobunaga has saved [i]countless[/i] lives, and she did it in a way that made Errant think that she could do it too, even though she couldn't fly or summon muskets or cripple people with her stare the way Nobunaga could. But the person she... what's the word? Admired. Yeah. This is gonna sound fucked up, but the person she admired most was Sabrem. 

How could that be? That's the woman who killed her parents! That's the woman who ruined her life! But she can't help it. Even now, she can't help it. Do you see the way Sabrem moves? Look how shockingly, terrifying fluid her form is throwing that sword, shifting her body, turning and firing that gun. See the way she pilots her body. That is exactly the way that Errant tries to move. That's the form she's been reaching for her entire life. Nobody understands what it takes to be able to do that. Victoria certainly doesn't. Buddy and Bargain have no clue. Commander Warren thinks he does, but the way he talks you can tell it's beyond him too. Even Sara, Victor, and Ferra process it differently than she does. There is one person in the world who saw her run that race and understood [i]exactly[/i] what it meant. 

Sabrem. 

Errant frowns as her fingers untangle and delicately pluck wires from the backpack in a very precise order she neither understands or has any need to. With a last yank, she pulls a full half dozen connections loose and all at once the blinking red lights shut off. Instantly, she raises her fist for a fight. Now it's time to make a decision. AEGIS... that is to say, [i]her[/i] AEGIS taught her that rehabilitation came after capture. AEGIS was gone, now. Maybe Victor was even right and it never actually existed the way she thought it did. But still. But... still.

Her hand comes down on Sabrem's shoulder. She pushes the larger woman down, just out of the way of a burst of rifle fire, then vaults over the top of her and flies across the intervening space like a missile. BAM! She grabs the rifle with one hand, yanks it out of the Spiral Trooper's hands, and then smashes them in the face with it like she's swinging a sword. Face plate and rifle destroy each other. She throws the useless lump of metal at another trooper dropping in, then throws the useless lump of a human being against the door. 

"Hats?" she asks, "Never thought about them. A friend of mine gave me a tiara recently, if that counts. But I could... you know, give them a try. Expand my horizons, I guess."

She halts. Her mouth falls slack as her brain forcibly reboots. 

"Wait! [i]You[/i] wear hats?"