[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/vzxvCpR.jpg[/img] [h3][b][color=DAA520]Camelot[/color][/b][/h3][/center] Bonnie's words... did not inspire confidence within Camelot. Not the tone, nor the flickers of her eyes towards the others. But, even so, the armored girl shook her head lightly and replied, [color=DAA520]"No, it's fine. Seriously, I'm the one that needs to be apologizing. I know this isn't the best time or place perhaps, but..."[/color] Camelot, for her part, felt the beginnings of a dull headache starting up, the kind of toasted out feeling of when you overworked your brain. Being called "leader" by the girl she'd hurt -if not physically- then clearly emotionally made her gut curdle uncomfortably. A flush of embarrassment struggled to reach her face, even as she restrained a grimace. [color=DAA520]"Don't... call me 'leader'. I've done nothing to earn your loyalty. This was dropped on all of us unexpectedly."[/color] The tremulous [color=DAA520][i][s]fake[/s][/i][/color] strained smile on Bonnie's face felt almost like a gut punch to Camelot. The rejection, the bold-faced [i]lie[/i], hurt a lot more than she'd expected it might, and to be honest, she was a bit miffed. Even if it stung more in the immediate, she'd have rather been told "no" to her face instead of fed falsities. Which wasn't fair of her. How could it be? After all, if she were responsible for Bonnie's situation, then she had no right to get upset over a single rejection. Really, more than anything else, this proved to her that Bonnie was someone of remarkable strength in that area, but... no-one was an island. And if Bonnie was cracking under that pressure now, then frankly, Camelot almost felt it was her duty as someone with any level of basic human decency to help. Camelot didn't really know a lot about actually making friends, about making the first move in that respect, but she could learn... probably. She'd just have to prove herself genuine going forward and- A rough, strangely-fluffy impact solidly rammed her away from Bonnie, and Camelot would admit, she was completely caught off-guard. She'd been so wrapped up in her thoughts, so focused on Bonnie that she'd not even considered the idea she'd be attacked, even harmlessly, not with Ozma right there. Stumbling away, Camelot caught herself, boots sloshing in the puddles underfoot. The impact hadn't hurt that much to be honest, but she'd not been braced for it in the slightest and was more shaken by the shock then anything. Even so, what pain there was seemed to be fading away under the Scabbard's ministrations... if at an oddly slower pace than normal. Shaking her head, Camelot's brow furrowed, as she straightened up. Squeezing her blue eyes closed for a moment, she grimaced at the throb behind them. Why wasn't her Scabbard healing [i]that[/i] away? Dismissing the issue for the moment, Camelot couldn't help raising a single hand to rub circles on the side of her temple, as the other steadied her against the alley wall she'd been thrust towards. She glanced back towards Bonnie, where Burning Heart was... taking her place and was confirming what Camelot already knew, but it didn't sting less to know she was being lied to. A curdle of indignation dug sharply into her chest, and she sucked in a calming breath to dispel the abrupt spike of anger, fuming internally at the other girl's intervention. How dare she interrupt! She was about to-! To... [i]What[/i] exactly? Fix things? How? All she'd done was continuously make things [i]worse[/i] somehow. In her own way, clearly, she was no better than Tesni. But where Tesni's fuck-ups seemed deliberate -even calculated, hers were from ignorance and [i]failure[/i], which, honestly, she felt was worse in some ways. Failure to control her temper, to stay herself from striking at her own fucking allies. Failure to read the damn room, to understand her fellows emotionally. Failure to be the leader she was supposed to be, to take command calmly and rationally. Failure to be a good example to her junior. Failure to prove herself in front of her seniors. Failure to do the right thing. [i][color=82ca9d]"Your report card came in today... Oh? Nothing to say? Talent? Lack of talent is no excuse. You're just not trying hard enough."[/color] [color=DAA520]"And what if I didn't want to do any of that...? What if I liked fighting? It may not be the most lucrative thing, but it's... what I love."[/color] [color=82ca9d]"I didn't come to America to raise a failure. Do better... unless you'd like to no longer be taking those lessons?"[/color] [color=DAA520]"I... just want to do what I'll love."[/color] [color=82ca9d]"Well, real life doesn't care."[/color][/i] As much as she was loathe to admit it, this was all she had, being a Magical Girl, saving people, being a Hero. And yet, what kind of hero was she if she couldn't be anything but a lone wolf, when everything broke down around her the moment she tried to reach out to others. Why was it that she did so much better carrying the load of her responsibilities alone, and yet, just this single addition was enough to tip the scale? Just this much more was enough to put cracks in her? Could she be that much of a brittle failure? This was the one thing she was good at, the one thing she could really do to make something of herself in life, and yet, she was failing at even this? And so explosively? Failure. [i]Failure.[/i] [i][b]Failure![/b][/i] There was an almost tangible [i]pop[/i] in her chest, and Camelot found the hand rubbing her head shooting to her breastplate in a futile gesture, one that seemed to go relatively unnoticed given her position behind Burning Heart with said fox-girl blocking Bonnie's vision. A sharp, searing heat burned into Camelot from within, like molten metal being poured into a mold. It felt almost like her stomach had been lit on [i]fire[/i], and yet, somehow, the heat managed to be blunted enough to not make her shout in agony, merely clenching her jaw and biting back other noises. It was an almost intellectual awareness she had, that her body was suddenly inexorably burning up. A bead of sweat flowed down her forehead. She knew it was such and not rain from the way it briefly stung her left eye. Her muscles were aching and burning, as though she had just finished the most hard, driving workout of her life and managed to exercise every single muscle equally. And that burn... Camelot could only compare it to as if her body was being burned away, only to be healed by her Scabbard as fast as it could do so, barely keeping up. Camelot's breath hissed out once more as actual [i]steam[/i], but this time, she could not deny it, could not simply write off the incident as the air being extra chilly. Something was [i]off[/i] inside her, and her now full headache throbbed against her skull. She felt... felt [i]sick[/i], like she was running a severe fever. The heat inside her was almost [i]unbearable[/i], and if not for cool retaliation of her Scabbard, she might have considered reverting her transformation entirely. After all, she had no way to know if that feeling would abate in her far more vulnerable form. Was this something Burning Heart had done when she touched her? She couldn't say, but a small part of her found the idea of the fox-girl having a name so literal genuinely amusing. It would have been more amusing if she wasn't [i]cooking[/i] in her own armor. Her breath, her every exhale, was coming out as steam now, misty at first, but thickening in time with the internal heat intensifying. To her enhanced ears, a rising chorus of hisses could be heard, as she spotted raindrops evaporating on contact with her armor. It was only the combination of the chilled rain and her Scabbard taking the bite off that let Camelot retain most of her composure, as she forced herself to straighten up, her fists clenched tightly to vent some of the pain-induced tension in her body. [color=DAA520]"O-"[/color] Snapping back her voice, Camelot inhaled deeply, exhaling a thicker -if equally short lived- cloud of steam. [color=DAA520]"[i]Okay[/i]."[/color] Somehow, she managed to conceal the legitimate physical pain she was in, as she spoke. [color=DAA520]"We're not [i]good[/i], but we're not at each-others' throats... I... Those Pageless before that fled? We should- We need to eliminate them, now that Tsubasa isn't around to pacify them."[/color] There was nothing else to say, as she beckoned them all to follow her lead here. Even if the presence of the Apex Pageless was still muddying the waters a bit, she could still roughly sense some deeper points of darkness nearby. She might have defended them before, but those were exceptional circumstances. In the here and now, she had her duty to fall back on. So long as Tsubasa wasn't about, the Pageless were a threat to those under her Aegis, and she would deal with them appropriately... But with this searing [i]heat[/i]...? She just hoped she didn't collapse before they made it back to the Academy. Unbeknownst at first to the knight, the heat was by no means merely internal. And though it was only a strange warmth now that currently reached any within close proximity to her, that simple warmth was still growing with little restraint and would become uncomfortable and nearly outright sweltering in the course of the coming patrol, enough so that she'd find herself -more oft than not- putting physical distance between herself and the others so as not to bother them.