[b]Foxpearl![/b]

Vermillion Princess switches strategies. If she can’t pull Xingtian off their feet by standing firm, she’s going to flow like water. Which, in this case, means activating the [i]heelies.[/i]

(The heelies are odd. She’s embarrassed about them, but at the same time, she’s stood up to Empress about them because they make her better as a hero. She’s pivoted to avoid the subject when you asked; you haven’t seen any other people using them yet, but you’re aware that roller rinks exist near the ground floors of certain buildings. Any theories, Detective Hsien?)

She uses her sash to skate circles around Xingtian, hugging the ground low, as the sash itself wraps around and around Xingtian’s arms, pulling those gouts of furious fire up and away from Princess’s fluttering ponytail. (The sash is, if you were being uncharitable, pulling a lot of Princess’s weight as a hero. Supposedly an epic weapon of antiquity, if it has a maximum length, she hasn’t found it yet.)

The sensors are struggling with the impossible thickness of the sash, which is increasingly effective at blocking out light and sound, even the vibrations all around slowly dying as the sash traps Xingtian’s senses with shocking effectiveness. Which is why neither you or Xingtian hear Princess’s prayer to the Gods of the Four Directions to guide her fist, wrapped in the sash’s other end. No, the only warning is when she punches the armor right above Xingtian’s ass, sending alarms rippling through the armor, and before the repair subprograms (uh-oh) can reroute the rest of your power to reshaping the metal into place, you burst forth into the air along with a gushing of howling ghosts, buoyed up by them as if you’d… well, you don’t have the right analogy to hand. (Geysers, like at Yellowstone, you’ll figure out one day.)

Then you fall, twisting and mmmphing, diaphanous silks and all, into the Vermillion Princess’s arms. And she doesn’t do a cool smirk and one-liner about how she’s owed three wishes now, right? She stares down at you, stock-still in her heeleys, through the lenses of her half-mask. (If you put yours together, or fused together after doing a dance number that revealed your inner character motifs, you’d have one full-face mask between the two of you. That’s how you can see her tongue dart out and run along her lower lip, which makes sense, because it’s really dry in here.)

[She’s pushing Mundane up, Savior down— the opposite of what Xingtian just asserted about you.]

Xingtian’s stomach unfolds into their heavy cannon, a roiling furnace of ghostfire, and Princess squeaks, yanks on her sash, and goes zipping along. If the two of you get blasted with that, it’s game over. Which makes it a wonderful time for Princess’s center of balance to throw her off as she tries to carry you and skate at the same time, sending both of you tumbling onto scorched tiles. And by wonderful, I mean terrible.

[hr]

[b]Rain![/b]

Branch’s breathing shifts. He’s waking up. But he doesn’t groan. He does his best to fake that he’s still unconscious while he tries to adjust to his surroundings. This is somebody who knows how to fight, and is prepared for ending up somewhere tied up on the floor with the lights out.

Finally, he speaks. It’s smoother than you might have expected. Silkier. “The boss is going to destroy you,” he says, matter-of-factly. “You can give Mei back and beg for mercy, right now, and you’ll survive. That’s your only way out of this that’s not sinking to the bottom of the bay or just getting your soul punched out of your body. You ever had your soul punched out of your body before?”

You are, hopefully, one of the only people in Sky Gate City who knows exactly what that feels like, minus the actual punch.

Do you try to put him at ease? Or do you fake him out and try to get more info out of him?