Bella's never sung a song like this before. On Tellus when they trained her it was all histories and propaganda and big, complicated ballads that proved the quality of her pedigree and her pitch control. At the palace she'd mastered lullabies, and then after that love songs became the popular thing (plus Redana was going through that romance phase), so that type of sappy and synthetic electronic rhythm had become what she thought of when she tried to consider music.

The Coherents' war music surged and swelled in ways she therefore wasn't prepared for, but it settled inside her heart like it belonged there the entire time. The beats replace her pulse. The tune swims inside her blood. The Auspex picks apart the secrets of the lyrics hidden under the flow of music, and all that's left to do is let her body relax and melt into the dance.

And the dance that goes with this music is as familiar as it gets. Here she ducks low, so low that her legs have to bend into a split to accommodate her. Her chest squishes into her as she slides it across the ground, and this narrowly avoids the arc of lighting that tears above her in anticipation of her move. She pushes up again and kicks back onto her feet just as the grand note that marks the end of formation setup bursts across the field, and she rushes at the lot of them as if she too were nothing more than a projectile fired from a gun.

Every impact of her legs on the ground sends pleasant shivers along her body. She hums along as she moves and swishes her tail to the beat. Her hips sway from side to side as she pivots into a series of spin moves and corkscrews to avoid the various things flying at her with increasing intensity. Sometimes she steps backwards when a gout of flame or a swarm of birds or a billowing cloud that smells exactly the same of death cuts across her path. Sometimes she's forced to the ground again, and other times she has to make great leaps straight into the air to keep from being vaporized. This is the nature of the dance, and having so many partners only means she has to work harder to take the lead. 

Now she advances, now she retreats. The music shifts into a long series of percussive beats and she taps her toes along with it while the Coherents wordlessly shift formation. Bella casually sweeps the room again, and it's easy to see what's happening. They've boxed her into a corner, the little shits. If they cluster together and shoot all of their little miracle science guns at once, even her Auspex can't perceive a path around them all.

Bella sucks air in deep, greedy gasps that roll her shoulders forward every time she exhales. Her arms dangle in front of her with her claws still itching with need to be used, as if she's caught between wanting to lift them up again into some sort of rude gesture or just dash across the ground on all fours. Every breath drinks deeply of the air, and among all of the ozone and cinders and smoke, there's a whiff that makes her grin with savage delight. 

"Do you guys jerk around every girl you dance with, or am I just special?"

The smell is fear. They're soaked in it, and she's not. They are [i]weak[/i], and she's not. Because the lot of them care about whether or not they make it to tomorrow. And Bella's free from having to.

She rushes forward and it feels good. The air fills with the sounds of weapons discharge too loud for even her sensitive ears to pick the music out from under, and it feels good. She feels a hundred chunks of ice and claws and bits of sharpened metal slice across her skin and tear a hundred different holes and gashes in her suit. It feels [i]g o o d.[/i] The blood dripping from her body is the release of toxic pressure she's kept inside of her for far, far too long.

And she's among them now. In a formation this tightly clumped there's no more room for them to run, no way for them to shoot without hurting their companions. And when her talons start carving into their lines, their weapons, and their fucked up miracles of bodies... yeah. Yeah, that feels good, too.

[Bella damages her Blood as the price to reach her prey]