The world is red.

The world is black.

The world is dimming, fuzzing, cracking, narrowing, decaying.

The world is blood.

The world is failure.

The world is defeat. 

The world is... no. [i]She[/i] is screaming.

Bella's body is a masterpiece of pain. Her legs are hollow and heavy in the same heartbeat. Her stomach doesn't feel like it's there at all. Her lungs taste only hot ash, and her arm is comprised entirely of hot, crawling knives. And through it all, her ears echo with the rasping sound of her battle roar. Her fingers stay outstretched, her claws grasp. 

She crushes the space between her and the God of Love and lets it drop beneath her heel. She reaches closer, and does not make it. She snarls and strains, pink foam bubbling between her teeth in the effort, and makes it halfway there. Narrowing. Narrowing. But never there. She feels nothing more than the whisper of a few stray molecules of fabric. 

Her body is burning. Her body is crumbling. Everywhere that flesh fails her, bone grows to hold it up again. It hurts so much more this way than when she stepped into the suit, already fully formed. But she is so close. She just needs this little bit more. Her vision fades another shade, darkness swallowing more of her eyes, and she lunges for an uncountable next attempt. 

"DdDdon'T! CAlL mEE! YOUR! dDaUGHter!"

Somehow, in the middle of it all, she is annoyed. How the fuck is that possible? It's pissing her off. It's so stupid, having to feel her own heart pounding so desperately inside her ribs, having to hear the rush of blood in her head even though it's all just going to leak out in the end. It's stupid that she has to breathe to keep going like this, even though it hurts. Even though she was built to do exactly this! 

Even Vesper doesn't have a better idea! All the genius of the universe, all the hope and pride of her sisters, all of it buys her this one effort and she's spending it heaving air like a jackass. This used to be effortless. This used to be easy! And now she's... oh, fuck's sake, she's hungry, too?! Useless, fucking, garbage piece of SH--

The world is black. [i]Her[/i] world is black. She can feel him, but she cannot see him anymore. She strains, burns, wants to snarl but she doesn't have the spare air to make noises anymore and all she can do is... bend her ear. She feels it flick. Knows it's bending because she feels it flutter stupidly against her sweat slicked hair. Wants it to stop, wants to beg it to stop distracting her, wants to make it go away, wants to tear it off, but there's a [i]noise[/i] and, and, and...

There's a noise? The tiny jingle of a bell. Somewhere within the walls of the Imperial Palace. She's not sure where. But it is a bell. Her bell, actually. One of the ones she was named for. It's... not. It doesn't sound right. Someone else is holding it. Playing with it? The song is clumsy, childish.  Bella shakes her head. 

She stops. The world slows, until it is nothing more than her breathing. Unsteady and ragged to start, the deeper she focuses on it the more control she has. She can taste the air again, taste the smoke in the Palace, taste the metals of the room, taste her own acrid blood, taste something sweet she can't quite identify right now. 

The world is bright. The world is full of color. Oh. How stupid. She'd just been closing her eyes.

Bella sighs. With tremendous effort, she shifts her feet and stands as straight as she can. She lets her arm drop to her side. She turns her head, and looks above her. 

Yue is fighting the color Yellow. Now that she's in the flow of things, she's kind of having fun doing it? There's a lot of nasty curse energy floating around don't get her wrong, but still it's kinda like being in that movie that Bella kept telling her about. That's why she heard the music in her head when she first got swarmed, but now she feels it good and proper. 

She grabs a spear around the middle of the haft as it nearly jabs her face off and swings around it like an uneven bar routine, just barely suppressing a little 'whee' while she does it. Every time she swings her sword, the solid banner of color around her wobbles a little and someone falls from the sky. Every time she swings her sword, she gets a new one. They're a bit hard to hold all in all, so as quick as she swings or smashes or twirls she's discarded it and sure enough and right as ready there's a new wonder to try out and see how it compares. Sort of an unlimited blade... well, I mean. You get it.

It feels a little bit like being Qiu, to her. The infinite challenge, the infinite rejection, every move at Maximum Flash because if she doesn't try her hardest from the start won't she have just wasted her time? She laughs, in spite of everything. In her hands are a pair of pistols. She sprays in an indiscriminate circle somehow ending in a greatsword slash and there is no blood at all for all the violence in her sphere of influence. 

Of course there isn't! What is this, life and death? She hit them with the back of the bullet.

"Y'know?" says Bella, "I think she's going to win."

Her face breaks out into a lopsided, haggard grin. Aphrodite isn't smiling anymore. 

"Feels ridiculous, doesn't it? Pisses you off, doesn't it? You give these people everything they've ever wanted, turn them loose, and they're all gonna get knocked out but a sword addled ditz. You went through all the trouble to set this up for me and she's gonna knock it all over in another fifteen minutes, tops."

She lifts her arm, poised to strike. And then she holds it to her jaw and presses until it pops back into place correctly this time. Her sigh is wet and gurgling; she makes a horribly indecent noise and spits foulness at his feet. It spatters just short of his dress shoes. Bella stares at Aphrodite as his face twists into a scowl and doubles over laughing. 

"What's the matter? Is this not fun for you anymore? Are you getting impatient? What's the fucking rush, Dad? You're right... I want it more than [i]anything.[/i] But who gives a shit? Your only weapon here is Jil, and she's so stupid she tried to be [i]me[/i]. Every second I wait brings me closer to everything [i]else[/i] I want. I can settle for that. For family and friends and this dumb fucking look on your face. But you? You don't have shit, old man. You don't [i]get[/i] shit. You [i]need[/i] me. So you get to stand here and watch me disappoint you. Yet again. Sucks, huh?"

She smiles. Her left arm is dangling limp at her side, and her legs are shredded ruination run through with spikes of bone. Blood is oozing from dozens of cuts, and she can't keep her eyelid open over her Auspex anymore. She stands with a slouch she does not intend, and her tail hangs low and bedraggled behind her, only barely flicking. Her fur is matted and so stained nobody would be able to guess what color it was supposed to be, her hair is damp and clumped and stuck all the way down her back, except where it's tangled around further shards of improvised exoskeleton. 

But she smiles. Somehow, that makes her beautiful.