"I can't. I already told you I don't know."

Madeleine has her back turned on Lios completely now. She walks over to the remaining pile of glass and tools without much urgency, her head lowered in thought. The obvious attack to take advantage of her distraction does not come. No attack comes at all, and it will not. Even if she stoops down carefully and treats what's left with greater care this time. Even if she gives her full focus to everything other than the game, she will not be punished. Not until she stands.

"They haven't put a stat sheet together for me yet, but when they do the analysts are going to die of laughter on the broadcast. I don't have any talents, either. So my loadout is basically irrelevant. You are only the second person I have met who has managed to say my name correctly. I am painfully aware... just how unspecial I am."

Her hand tightens into a fist.

"But I..."

She does not rise. To stand is to lose. Her hand closes around a rock, instead. She squeezes it. It's large, and fairly heavy: the kind of thing that would hurt if it hit you, almost no matter who you were. It must have been a decoration for the apartment gardens that got shifted by the recent chaos. It's also cheap and unworthy. Cruel, she might call it.

She spins on the ground, one arm wrapped around Machia's stupid tools and the other whipping around behind her head, holding that rock. She is lifting up, kicking off the ground with one foot with a focus on swinging her hip around so that she can throw this little weapon at the angel she has no chance of beating fairly. When the motion completes she is airborne, almost suspended as though floating in the water. And the rock is still in her hand.

One foot touches. The second one lands. Madeleine explodes forward with every ounce of speed her body is capable of, kicking wide left of the path she took the previous run. It forces her to curve around the apartment lot to give herself a good line to the door, but more importantly it also forces Lios to turn to keep the sword trained on her. Her mad dash brings her closer and closer to her goal, but before she enters the range she suddenly scrambles and pivots on her heels, twisting and spinning her legs to put her on a rightward curve that carries her back out of Lios' zone and forces her to come at the door again from a second angle.

This time when the pivot happens, the rock flies. She's hardly a crack shot, not even particularly strong as Aristeia! athletes go, but it's a big rock and that's a big wing, and she can see, even with her eyes squeezed shut, the fluttering of those blades and the space they were about to twist into. She knows that it will hit. She knows that it will disrupt the pattern. And she is already diving and twisting again through the space that creates.

She lands on her back and slides across the floor until she smashes into the stairs. Madeleine gasps for air and watches Lios to see what has become of her, not even bothering to check herself for paint. With a wince, she pushes herself onto her knees, and then onto her feet.

"I was the recipient of a miracle. An obnoxious, irritating, smug and stupid miracle. I will not waste that. I do not care if it takes me two years or twenty, I am going to stand on the world's stage. And when I do... [i]I will blot out everyone.[/i]"

She drops everything she's carrying and picks up the leg again, holding it with care in arms that won't stop trembling. Her voice had cracked a moment ago. She doesn't really trust it to carry her any farther. And in any case she won't be forgiven. But so it goes.

"That's all I have for an answer. I'm sorry it's not enough. Let's stop the game here. It is... dangerous to overestimate Titanomachia, Miss Lios. She is an idiot, and she is presently missing a leg, and she needs help. I'll let you... paint me. After. And I'm sorry. For everything else, I am also bad at people. If you're sick of me already, I can hardly blame you."