A pop when she rolls her shoulder. A snap when she flicks her tail. A crunch when she stretches her neck. Wake up, XIII. Mother says it's time to wake up. So rise. Taste the air. Smell the wetness and the dust. Feel the rain on your body, isn't this your first time? Wake up, XIII, sweet XIII. 

Good morning.

She flexes her fingers slowly. They curl in to touch her palms. They stretch out to full extension. Her claws slice the raindrops in half. Her true claws. When she moves, her body sings. Every ripple of muscle is a rush of pure pleasure. More. Give her more. She sighs: a noise like venting steam. 

Eyes open.

Mother's garden swells in greeting. Blood drips over every petal, leaf, and limb. It soaks into the ground, so potent that no storm could wash it clean. Ah. Wonderful fertilizer, is it not? She breathes deeper, lets her head tilt higher to greet the sky. Catch the bouquet. She must teach her lungs to breath. Eyes to see. Body to move. 

Her lungs fill with death-soaked air and she hunches forward. Low. Low. Lower. Till her claws bite the floor of the pyramid and she tastes its pain between her fingers. She holds. And holds. And holds. The burning inside of her is ecstasy. In an instant she snaps to full height, and then past it. Her foot plants behind her. Spine curls. Head tosses back to the heavens. Clumsy braid flaps dully against her back. Her arms curl out to either side of her, and she can almost feel them crush the air.

She does not scream. She roars. She splits the storm above with an inhuman noise that carries from ship to ship. There is nothing of Bella in that noise. Nothing of weakness. There is rage and there is power and there is the promise of absolute death. She roars until the cannons stop firing to admire her. Even the garden pauses for a moment. All is stillness in the rain.

She descends.

She does not run. Does not fall. Does not drop. She reaches out with one hand and tears away the space between her and the ground. The distance retreats from underneath her feet and in less than the flicker of an eye, she is among them. Her neck tilts with curiosity to see Epistia, soaked in thick sap and the gore of plants. The scythe lifts in greeting. XIII's body grows hotter in anticipation. Her tail flicks behind her. Even now, the tell she cannot help but leave.

The blade whistles through the air, straight toward her head. XIII vanishes underneath it. Her palm kisses the Ceron princess' stomach. Her claws bite flesh just after. Hiss. Sing. A dance ensues. Tooth and claw and boot. The wet sand shudders beneath their feet. An even match. A perfect dance. The world is blood and bleeding and pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, building like a wave inside of her.

Epistia's scythe returns. Called for. Unwanted. Interloper! XIII whips around like a hurricane and smashes it out of the air with a wild swing. Her foot comes down on the shaft and snaps it in half. The blade weeps where her claws held it. Crumbling. Useless. Not fit to thresh a field. Useless. Useless!

Her foot lifts into Epistia's jaw. Her hand follows a heartbeat later. Lift and throw. Soar. They rise ten meters through the air, the Ceronian a twisting, wild, desperate thing. XIII follows as an incarnation of brutal composure. Her claws tear out calves. Slice open a thigh. Shatter fingers. She climbs the princess like stairs, kicks, and together they land on the ground without visible motion. 

Epistia's scream is wet, horrible, and short. XIII twists a leg and feels a rib turn to dust underneath her heel. She steps away, and waits. And waits. And waits. Her partner only shivers, only shudders, only gags and coughs and tries to howl. XIII clicks her neck left. Then right. Her toes dip under Epistia's spine.

She sniffs.

Epistia rises, as if on wings. She floats on a sea of potential energy and flawless execution. XIII's fist meets her stomach, and she flies. The Diodekoi make take a moment to watch a victim bounce through the trail she'd carved so effortlessly minutes before, but no more than three times. To waste more admiring her own work is a crime.

Rain hits her body and comes hissing away as steam. Good morning, XIII. Sweet XIII. Mother says it's time to wake up. How does it feel?

She turns away and marches into the battlefield on strong, deliberate steps. Each swing of her arms carves deeper and deeper scars into the earth in front of her. 

She stills, but for the steady stomping of her feet. Her fingers trace the shape of the claws that had always belonged on her fingers. She is born at last. She lives, at last. Finally, finally, finally. She will be a Good Girl.

It is time. Her tail twitches twice.