"Ha. Even now you leave the choice to me," said Machia, a smudge of cream on her lip that she battles to avoid licking. "You are asking me. Asking me to believe in you. Asking me to treat you like a person. And it worked - you got inside my head. But -"

Steel. Backwards. Choking.

"You are not fighting me," said Machia, looking down on you, hand pressing the remote. Her knuckles were white. "You are fighting everyone. And this does not work on everyone. Your gaze is set too low, Madeleine."

The pressure releases abruptly. Titanomachia's fingers have accidentally snapped the fragile joystick of the remote. Her fingers tremble as they hold it, as though they might crush it into powder, or place a ring upon it.

That was all she could say - a fragment of the storm that those haunted eyes had conjured inside her. I am a one time regional champion; you could cup the world in your fingers. I am useless to you if I cannot surpass myself; I am useless to you if I can be overtaken so early. I don't want to give up on my dream, and so I can't let you either. I want to win. I want to beat you for its own sake, and I am so close to losing...

Losing what?

She stood up suddenly, eyes cast in shadow. Wiped her lip with a napkin. "Not an unimpressive result. We will continue tomorrow," she said. And then she left, still crushing the broken remote in bloodless knuckles.

That was the end of it. Titanomachia stood up to leave, and Madeleine immediately started choking. By the time she'd recovered her breath enough to look up, she was alone.

Yes, alone. For all the people here with her and all the eyes still on her, none of them mattered at all. None of them were Hers. What mattered was the cake still sitting on the table, and the name still ringing in her ears. She reached up and felt the straps on the back of her head still holding her bridle in place. It didn't tug on her any more; the point of wearing it was finished. She fumbled with the buckles, the many locks and various (now inert) servos fighting her one last time before the harness finally pulled loose enough for her to tug the straps up and over the back of her head. She winces when the bit dug into the bottom of her jaw.

She stroked the long and now slightly wet bar of metal with trembling fingers. Every part of her was shaking right now, actually. Even her breath felt ragged, like she'd just been in the arena. She watched the empty door in silence, only occasionally turning her head to look at the empty chair instead. Finally, she shook her head.

"You're wrong about me, Machia. It's hard to see what you see."

Madeleine picked up a napkin and dabbed her face clean. She stood around awkwardly for a moment, still holding her bridle in one hand, neither chasing nor following the only woman who could make her dreams come true. She picked up the fork again and put this single stubborn bite of cake between her lips.

It was sweet. She had no idea chocolate could be this sweet. Rich and creamy, yes, but sweet and sweet and sweet again. One of the whipped creams feels almost more like trying to hold a cloud inside her mouth. She could not fathom how skilled a baker would have to be to put that much air in it when there was still this much sugar weighing it down. It was like descending into a cave, and where she had expected the cool and dark she was instead blinded by a wall of pure quartz.

She set the fork back down on the plate and sat back down in her chair. Alone. She lifts one hand to signal the waitstaff.

"I would... like a box for that, if you do not mind. And it would be nice if I could have a second cup of coffee if I could. Before I leave. Same as the first. You may bill the woman who just left. I am, after all, her property..."

Someone is applauding. A young woman in a princess dress is clapping extremely loud, blushing extremely red, a look in her eyes like something has just been awakened inside her and she has no idea how to deal with it. Her aunt tries to shush her but she maintains her applause like bruising her palms is going to help her remember this longer.

*

The next day, as you approach Titanomachia's suburban apartment, you hear a loud crash. Something large and heavy smashes through the window and lands on a bank of electric scooters, causing multiple alarms to go off. More pieces follow, sailing out through the shattered glass, making pedestrians run for cover.

Getting closer you see that it's Machia's cybernetic leg. Most of her toolbox has gone out too.

It's that kind of day, huh?

The last thing to exit the window is an angel - a vision in emerald green armour, set with impossibly fine golden filigree, platinum hair flowing in a supernal breeze as her radiant levitating wingblades fan out around her. She drifts down to the street, autumn leaves caught up in the aura of her divine machinery, swirling around her head in a halo. She feels more complete with them; a woodland miracle.

"Excuse me citizen," she said as she descends. "Have you seen - oh, it's you! Hello, Madeleine."

Lios Emiral, the Angel of the Forest, has only been in the Regionals two years longer than you but she already feels like a fixture. She spent a statistically improbable amount of time paired up with Titanomachia and, after some initial clashes, they found themselves becoming extremely compatible. On and off the ring they were close friends and training partners, though Titanomachia has not reached out to her since their retirement.

"Titan asked me to help train with you today," said Lios, glancing up at the window. "Though I sense it is not a good time to talk to her about it. Would you mind assisting me collecting these tools?"

"No, not at all. Hello, Miss Lios."

Madeleine is dressed today in a pair of simple, tight fitting black shorts with a white tank top she has covered with a black racing jacket sporting red accents at the shoulders and elbows. Her hair is pulled back into a practical and very basic high ponytail that happens to be a very close match to the horse tail swishing behind her in lazy sweeps. With tight, calf-high socks and high performance running shoes completing the ensemble, it is very much an outfit optimized for training barely balanced against the fact that she had to take the bus to get here.

Looking around now, she wonders if that's going to happen at all. She stoops down and picks Machia's cybernetic leg off of the ground before slinging it over her shoulder like a sword. She holds out her other hand and dangles an extremely elegant box by the end of the black ribbon tying it together.

"If you wouldn't mind? I'd like you to sneak this in her fridge while I deal with, uh, this. I don't care if she notices, it just needs to be there. It is... important."

She shrugs, out of words in front of a stranger in her life. A celebrity to her nobody. All they have in common is Machia, and given that she calls her 'Titan', maybe not even that. Which one did Machia actually prefer? She did not know how to ask. Neither did she understand why this question mattered enough to spend time thinking about it. She glances down at the scattered tools and winces as the sirens continue to build on top of one another.

There's a lot here. Not to mention the glass that would need cleaning up. This was going to be the work of several trips.

"As we are both out here," said Lios, why not make a contest of it? You acquire the tools and deliver them to the base of the stairs and I attempt to intercept with my sword. I imagine the reason for this challenge was for me to emulate Musashi, which -" her lips pursed self-critically. "I am passable at."

Passable. Passable at everything. Lios' success was built on her adaptability and broad range of talents - mobility, strength, durability, she was just a bundle of good numbers but without any standout area of mastery or unique capability. It was clearly not how she wanted to fight, she didn't like being a generalist - it was a role she was forced into because she simply could never beat Musashi with a blade.

"I will, of course, place your package either way," she said. "But were there any other stakes you would like to compete for?"

Madeleine looks down at the tools and debris. She looks up at Lios. She looks around the street, at people alternately fleeing for their lives or gawking at the spectacle. She looks at Lios again. At the leg in her hands. Down to the scattered tools and glass again. At Lios. At the leg. Up at the window.

She frowns.

"...Yes, I don't see why not. Though I will point out I am not wearing synskin, so if you wouldn't mind striking me with the flat of your blade I'd really appreciate it."

Or you could aim for my leg, a voice inside her mind whispers, though it cannot force the words through her lips. She opens her eyes as wide as they can go, and draws a breath sharply through her nose so she can hold it in her belly. No. Begone, you. Go haunt someone else.

Now Madeleine lowers herself to the ground, clutching Machia's leg close to her center of balance like the treasure it's become. The balls of her feet tighten against the earth, the synthetic rubbers of her shoes creaking as she readies herself for launch. Her ponytail flops forward over her shoulder, its tip now brushing back and forth against the ground.

"To be honest, I don't believe that I can beat you. But it's been given to me to crush you anyway, so I suppose there's no point in holding back. Would you like to compete for secrets? There are things about you and Titanomachia I would like to know. Or you can name your own price, of course. I don't really care."

She doesn't wait for negotiations to finish. The muscles in her thighs tense once and then she is off on a dead rush toward the door. Her pale legs are flashing in the sunlight as they push the rest of her forward like a shadow. The wind is in her hair and even with the weight and awkward shape of an artificial leg hugged against her ruining her form, she is motion itself. And for at least this one tiny instant everything is right with the world.

Lios comes out low with a sweeping horizontal strike. Her sword is an obviously artificial training blade - paint held in place by a weak forcefield. A solid physical object like a body can pass through the 'blade' without resistance, but will become covered in paint in the process, leaving marks perfectly tracking the pattern of strikes. But as she lunges you through a whirl of autumn leaves you sense that the attack is noncommittal, something about your lesson yesterday -

You swing around your arm just in time to take the paintball to the wrist instead of the face.

Lios finishes her arc, spinning a pistol in her off hand. "Good! Remember, everyone who markets themselves as a Sword Guy is packing. Even Musashi. Every close quarters fighter is aware of the possibility they might get immobilized, jammed up or mobility-locked and they all want to make sure that doesn't take them out of the fight. Even Musashi. She hates using it but she's got a one-shot Contender up her sleeve and you have to respect the possibility."

She tucked it away, folding her wings behind her back. "Still, I didn't land a mobility kill, so first point goes to you. Ask your question!"

Madeleine's face is turning red.

It's so obvious! Beyond obvious that she would... well no, the paint sword specifically was rather clever and novel, but still! But still! All that leniency she requested and it was granted to her before she even started! Small wonder she's being lectured on basic components of Aristeia! construction like she'd been isekai'd into her role.

She glances down at the cuff of her jacket, now splattered with yellow paint. No chance of that coming out. Of all the stupid things to have done, just because she'd needed to ride the bus? She doesn't have the money to fix or replace this stuff! And why is she even worrying about that in the first place when she is so close to the threshold of her dream and all she can think about is--

"Have you two been intimate with each other?"

She's so flustered, she has to ask the question like this: in this pointlessly roundabout way. Not 'do you know which part of her name means to most to her', but 'have you had sex?' so she could tease out the implications of their respective attempts at magic by the affirmative or the negative reply? As though it even accomplished so much?

What a pointless and boring question. She was certain she'd get mocked for it.

Madeleine sets Machia's leg down inside the stairwell, propping it with deep care against the railing where it won't have to lie on the floor in neglect. She gets halfway to pulling off her jacket before she thinks better of it, and shrugs it back on. Now that she's made one trip she is more cautious on the exit. Lios is giving every sign of halting for the question and answer section, but if they both respected that this would take longer than all day. Neither of them was stupid enough to think they could get away with that. There would be... consequences.

Which made this a trap. Her ears flutter with a mixture of nervousness and latent embarrassment while her watch the zone around her with an almost disembodied attachment. The moment where a fighter switched from sword to gun was obvious, but now that she'd put the idea in Madeleine's head, Lios was almost certain to use the threat of it to bait her into worse responses to the blade instead. No, she needed to ignore the lesson. Treat this like the arena and not a tutorial segment. The next real attack would come from that sword, she is certain.

She just needed to see the lunge coming. That's why she circled around so slowly, using the wait for her response as cover to put the right amount and shape of distance between the pair of them. When she stooped down to fetch these stray tools. That's when it would happen. Was she really up for this?

"With Titan?" said Lios. "I don't think she knows what that is."

The calm that had come over her was eerie. Before there had been a certain awkwardness to her, the uncertainty of someone who did not know what foot to put forwards. All of a sudden this had stopped being a social situation to her; she had taken your question as someone trying to get inside her head in order to win an advantage in a contest, and that was certain ground for her. Her wings gently open, blade after blade, her gaze as steady as ice. Now she knew: She was a Knight, and you were a wicked specter.

She was not going to lose.

She settled into a calm defensive stance, refusing to be baited, refusing to be the aggressor. Her feet moved, lifting and tracing along the lines of ethereal roots. They stepped up onto the line of parked scooters, the sure-footed certainty of someone used to three-dimensional movement. The autumn winds swirled around her as she projected threat; she knew exactly the distance within which she was dangerous, and her stance became all about keeping that bubble of distance between you and the doorway.

"Titan's great strength and most frustrating trait is that she sees the tournament as a whole," said Lios, easing foot after foot, letting her sword follow predictive angles. "She sees every contender, every matchup, is not just thinking about each individual but how they all work together. When she looks at me she sees me fighting Argeltia, or Hammerhead, or how I would do on a team with Prysm. So she lays seeds and traps and lessons with everything she does. She has... inflicted certain humiliations upon me, but even then I did not get the sense that we were the only ones in that room," her weight shifted, the first imperfection in her stance so far. "I did not fully understand the nature of it until I fought The Kraken, and then - well. I won my match, at least."

"She is a menace," Madeleine agrees, "A vicious trickster. To her we are all pawns on a dartboard."

She doesn't notice the smile creeping across her face. In her own mind, Madeleine is as cool and reserved as her voice is low and soft. Everything is normal and professional, even though her mind is oddly focused on the flush she saw on Machia's cheeks last night. Everything makes sense. Everything is correct. Everything is the way that it is meant to be.

She rolls to avoid a sudden paintball.

Except for that. The awkward phrasing of her question had cast a spell over this pseudo arena, and now she was not training with Titanomachia's old partner: she was fighting with Lios Emiral, The Angel of the Forest. Her vision is filled with sweeping blade-wings and and dry swirling leaves. The colors are sublime, but the way is shut.

"Titanomachia has eyes that could swallow the entire world. It is no wonder people seem shrunken next to her. Has she ever even..? No, I am sorry. I haven't earned another question. But you are correct that she is a demon. A monster that lives only inside of that arena. And she doesn't remember to change her clothes unless I remind her. I do her cooking and her laundry when I come over. Sometimes she makes me rub her shoulders while she's watching her screens. I do not know what that has to do with training. I do not understand why she told me I am the future."

Madeleine hastily scoops up an armful of Machia's gear. Whatever dirt, gravel, or glass is mixed in there that is cutting her fingers is immaterial next to the speed she needs to conjure. Before it's even secure she is rushing headlong into Lios. Directly into that one sour step in her perfect form. She feels every impact with the ground run through her calves and all the way up into her spine. Faster, faster. Stronger, stronger. She is an arrow in the shape of a woman, only wobbling when you look at her close enough, and only because of the force with which she was fired.

Arms still full of junk, she leaps and twists her hips to corkscrew a turn and a half through the doorway, where she lands heavily on her knees. She is much more careful with the equipment now that she is inside with it, arranging it neatly next to the leg already resting there.

And this time she does peel off her jacket, and frowns at the long line of bright paint tracing from her left shoulder all the way down to her right hip. Even her shorts are stained.

"...I should've guessed that wouldn't be enough. The score is even, Miss Lios. Go ahead claim your prize."

Hollow amber eyes look past the door frame to the remaining work. She is already tracing the arcs of her next attempt.

"I agree entirely," said Lios, reapplying paint into the drained force-field in a sleek replication of a samurai cleaning her blade before sheathing it. She had chosen a radiant red this time. "She is a demon. Have you heard of the concept of the Reality Marble? I believe she has such a hell living inside of her, more real than reality."

She went through the ritual of returning the paint to her armour and resetting her stance. She pays particular attention to the precise arrangement of her wingblades. Something about them is not quite right - she does not use them for flight, they are too fragile to use as weapons, but whenever she has a moment of downtime she works on adjusting their position into an exact configuration with intense concentration. There is some secret to her device, more than just creating a vortex of air.

"I will ask a direct question in exchange. You say you do not know why she thinks you are the future. Speculate. What is her vision for you in the arena?" The further you drew back from her the more her attention focused - and you were sure that she considered hearing answer to this question to be more important than winning this training match.

"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 will blot out everyone."

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."

In fairness to Lios, her parry was perfect. The rock is soaked entirely in bloody red. However, that had done nothing to stop the projectile's effect. She stared at the broken pattern for a moment while she figured out what happened, and then laughed incredulously. "Of course. Play the game we are playing, and not the game I'm thinking about playing. Well struck."

She deactivated her blade, leaving the last slash of red to slice down upon the floor. "I understand, Ms. Madeleine. You have the most dangerous weapon anyone can possess, something that cannot be taught: Ambition. All else can be built upon that, and," she glanced up at the broken window. "I expect all else shall be."

Her wing array returned to her, blade after blade after blade, until everything was folded behind her. Autumn whirled away down to return to the mud's embrace. Even with her panoply stored she still looked like an angel, walking away down the street like the season's blessings.

*

It is not depression and despair that has overtaken Titanomachia. It is worse; manic energy.

She is wearing a bright yellow hanfu set with the black stripes of i-ching symbols along with welding goggles. Her right hand has a wand set with the long, soft hairs of her own tail like a whip, her left hand holds a bell, and before her she has constructed a crude astrolobe out of various junk, scrap and energy bar wrappers upon the floor.

She looks up, her goggles reflecting the blue light of a dozen monitors opened to various pages covered in alchemical displays and diagrams. "Material technology was a bust. Should have seen it sooner," she said, shoving aside a keyboard to make room for a roll of calligraphy paper. "I'm going to summon a new leg from an underworld ghost. Do you know anything about underworld ghost legs, by the way? I should have asked you sooner."

Madeleine watches Lios leave for longer than she really has time for. The power of her posture, and that otherworldly quality she possesses even when she's fully 'off' really draws the eye. It was only natural that she'd feel compelled to stare; the woman truly was beautiful.

An errant screwdriver rolls off of a pile of junk and clanks against Madeleine's toe. She looks down at it, and then at the rest of the stuff that is suddenly her sole responsibility to get upstairs. She clutches Machia's leg a little tighter, and her eyes fall on the box that Lios had sworn to handle for her, no matter what.

She sighs.

"...I knew it. She hates me, after all."

On the other hand!

There are much worse things Lios Emiral could have done than walk away. Like stay and help. Madeleine's eyebrows lift so high they disappear into her bangs as she beholds the carnage that has become of Machia's apartment. This is a disaster waiting to happen. The very last thing she needs (other than whatever this is), is an extra victim on hand to get possessed.

"As in... something like a kasa-obake? Or did you mean to rip the leg off of a more complete spirit? I wouldn't say I recommend it, either way. I can count on one hand... the number of friendly spirits that haunt this part of the world. And none of those are strong enough to-- wait. How long have you been researching this?"

Madeleine is moving in a slow circle around the room, not daring to touch anything, lest she should set off a ritual that Machia hasn't properly accounted for. That this is moving her closer to the fridge is immaterial. Ish. Do not waste a disaster, as they say. Whatever else might happen, she would at least make sure this cake made it to where it was supposed to go. It could wait there. It could rot there, for all she cared. It just had to be there.

"I thought I threw most of this out already," she says with a frown, "Are you really attempting to construct a bagua with it?"

She closes the door to the fridge without much caution. There's no point in being sneaky right now. Nobody is going to notice, with everything the way it is. Speaking of things being the way they are, there is a dangerous buildup of magical energy inside this place. She frowns and rises to her full height, sweeping her ponytail back behind her shoulders. In her paint-spattered athletic wear she looks like the least spiritually attuned element in the entire room, and yet she was the only one prepared for what might happen.

She twists her head about, searching. What's even in this place that she could use for exorcism? Other than the anvil in the corner, she supposes. She reaches out across the room, palm open and extended toward Machia.

"Please hand me that wand. You do not need to do this. You do not want to do this. I am asking you to... no, I am telling you, I have carried enough ghosts in me to last us both a lifetime. Do you understand that you've inverted those trigrams? This is a very bad idea."

"You," said Titanomachia, "are getting very worked up over nothing. See, here?" she pointed at the webpage of the Taoist-Wiccan Revival Union. "It says the most important things about Majick is having fun, being yourself, and finding your own approach that works for you. It also says that positive thinking is the key to manifesting results."

"And besides," she focused. All business (albeit the business of the day was a mandatory sakura-blossom viewing office party with an open sake bar). "Taowu does this kind of stuff all the time. I may not have studied magic but I've studied her. I've got things," she banged open an overstuffed drawer, causing a bright pink flask to fall out and smash on the floor. "Itemsss," she opened a second one, packed with what looked like the Green Arrow's trick arrow stash. "Preparations - ah, this one," this drawer was full of enough religious kitsch to outfit the wagon of a Crusader camp-follower. She grabbed out a big golden amulet with a fist sized emerald and put it on.

"I've been meaning to do this forever anyway," she said, hopping back into position. "I still need a way to beat her. Can't do that if I can't understand her. So! Positive thinking! We're going to crack the secrets of the underworld wide open. Manifest it!"

"You, you are... you are taking this entirely too seriously to be taking this so unseriously! If it was just!"

She flung her hang desperately at the screen.

"That is nonsense! Desperate nonsense from mystics who are... worried about irrelevance in a world of skeptics. If you were 'manifesting positively' I wouldn't say anything but you, you are, you're..."

Words stumbled out of her mouth until she had no choice but to abandon them. She dived across the room and started flinging open drawers, instead. There had to be something in and among this junk that she could use as a valid counter force. Sufficiently unspoiled paper she could make a prayer slip out of, a piece of rebar, just please let the trash heap contain some sort of treasure!

"You are drunk!" she finds her words again in the most unhelpful of moments and the most unhelpful of ways, "Too drunk to be on one leg! Too drunk to be casting magic!"

She abandoned her search to go scrambling back across the room to the other side so she could dig through that side, instead. Something, anything. Anything iron. Why were smart people all so stupid? And why didn't she do a better job of cataloging this place when Machia had her playing maid? What bout of blissful ignorance made her believe this possibility wasn't a threat? Too late now, Madeleine.

"I cannot stress to you enough... this is going to work! But not... do you not understand? Normally when people write these symbols in this order they put a mirror in the middle so it repels all of the evil. You're gathering it into the middle of your apartment! Gathering without containing! What if you summon something I can't handle? As much as I (for some stupid reason) want to be impressed, every single mark you've put in here is keyed to pure poison and malevolence. You have to stop. The only thing this could possibly call forth is--"

But it is too late. Madeleine's hands are empty, and Machia's trigrams have caught fire. Something, somebody, some nameless but sufficiently potent spiritual medium has allowed the toe of her running shoe to come into contact with a candy wrapper. Now the room is burning, a perfect hexagram of heatless, smokeless flame, half black and half white.

Madeleine dived and tackled Machia out of the center, and as a couple they tumbled comically across the floor. She pushed herself up on one knee, and stared with unblinking concentration.

"Be weak," she muttered, "I am begging you, please be something weak..."

"Oh, oh, oh~"

A Bianhua flower rises from a blood red portal, gripped in the toes of a beautiful feminine foot, toenails painted black. The portal crumples and cascades as it slides down the sleek, pale leg, warping somehow into the cascading folds and ruffles of a crimson dress. A white neck spills from the spilled blood, bright eyes and bare arms dipped in crimson streaks, a waterfall of black hair. The Demon Princess of the Underworld pulls back the coils of her dress all the way to the top of her thigh, then traces a crimson circle around her leg with crimson fingernails.

"从冥界崛起
Another fleeting day
你渴望我的双腿拥抱
We both have further to fall."

Taowu snaps her fingers.

Flower vines snap out, grasping Titanomachia and Madeleine's arms and legs, blossoming with bianhua. They pull taught like ribbons, bringing the two together hip to hip. Taowu crawls forwards, dress raising up behind her like a scorpion's tail, ruffs forming chitinous segments, even as her wild black hair falls to blot out one eye. Her dress arches forwards to sting, caressing both girls' face and lips with silk so smooth it is like a tongue. She uses her actual tongue to trace the skin on the edge of Madeleine's shorts where it connects to the metallic interface ports of Machia's leg socket.

"Wishing for me wherever you are
Scream out and I'll come
Screaming for me no matter how far
Beg now and I'll come
Isn't it fine? This bright fleeting day?
张开你的嘴唇
You both have further to fall."

She picked up Machia's tail-hair whip in her long, sleek fingers. She ran her fingers through it, feeling its softness, and then ran her fingers through the shortened remnant of her tail where it attached to her spine. Then she tilted her head and repeated the gesture along Madeleine's tail.

"Wish for me wherever you are
Scream out for me and come
Beg now and come
Isn't this bright fleeting day fine?"

She reversed her grip on the whip, holding the soft horsehair, the solid haft now ready to be used as a whip. Taowu grinned, blowing her hair out of her eyes.

"This world has further to fall."

She is drowning. This is what it means to drown. This is how it feels when the lights go out and your body sinks into the depths where all there is to breathe is black, choking water.

Her body cannot move. Her body will not move. Everything is

Falling.

Flowers.

Pulling.

Fingers.

Touching.

Soft. And. Wet.

Drowning, drowning, drowning. Bubbles, darkness, drowning. Fingers, tail hairs, drowning. Gasping, sighing, drowning.

...Lamp lights?

Breathing, breathing, breathing. Amber, gleaming, lifting. Fingers, squeezing, fingers. Hands, entwined, breathing.

This light is the light of her very own eyes. And her name is Madeleine Cross, and she is still worth a little magic yet.

Behind her back, her sleek black tail swishes and locks with Titanomachia's. The same way she is holding her bondage partner's hand. The metal ring of the attachment port bites into the cold flesh of her thigh. Madeleine heaves a shuddering sigh, and watches Taowu finger the whip.

"A-am I... to be her leg, then?" she asks and is only half betrayed by the steam and the shudder she can't block out of her voice, "Silly. I don't need you for that.

"I have... already seen the bottom. I am swimming up."

A vine snaked around Madeleine's neck. A flower bud pushed itself up against her lips and then blossomed into a crimson flower, thick and soft enough to gag any further words. Taowu clapped her hands delightedly, "A suggestion!" Her legs arced forwards, passing over the top of her head, placing her feet on the two girls' thighs. Her body followed afterwards, flipping around so she was crouching over and standing upon her captives. "Or a wish? To be her legs? But why settle for legs?" She twisted her feet. "Why not wings?" She ran a finger down Madeleine's face.

Sharp. Pain, hot and electric. Long black crow feathers burst out of the side of Madeleine's face, wrapping around one of her eyes, recasting the gold as the stare of a crow. "It is your destiny, you know?" said Taowu. "To help her fly -"

Her hand came down, claws extended, fast as a deathblow.

Then they stopped a moment away from Titanomachia's heart.

"What," she said, looking down at the glowing green emerald, "the fuck are you wearing?"

"Could ask you the same question," said Titanomachia. That green light was reflected in her eyes, burning brighter and brighter - but her hand still held Madeleine's tightly. The vines trembled, starting to release her. "You're not the only one who - mmm!" she squeaked as Taowu casually backhanded her mouth with a blow from her own whip.

"You're right," said Taowu. "A foolish question." She leaned forwards, a pair of dark black scissors in her fingers, placing the tip on Machia's stomach. "The answer," she said, snipping once, "to what you are wearing," she cut again, "should be nothing~" she said as she reached just below Machia's breasts. That golden chain waited there as a final layer of defense. Taowu smiled as her scissors opened to envelop it. Machia's confident stare has become filled with an unbearable tension. Sweat ran down the side of her face. The scissors started to come down.

There was the quiet sound of a fridge door closing.

Taowu's head snapped around like an owl.

Lios Emeral was standing there, face flushed red. "Don't mind me," she whimpered, but Taowu was already standing up, grinning wide enough to justify every bit of terror in the knight's fragile body.

In the moment of the Demon Princess' distraction, Machia moves. With a great heave and pull, she manages to pull herself more and more to the right - until she flips, rolling to lie on top of Madeleine. Breast to breast, lip almost to lip, turning her neck so the golden amulet around her throat touches the vine wrapped around yours. The dark plants begin to shudder and burn away from you even as they pull you tighter into the forced embrace.

Almost against her will, Madeleine strains at the vines that are crushing her into Machia. Her body is flushed with heat and her mind is full of seawater and foam, all brine and beauty and no space left for higher thought. She has one eye left that she can look out from, just half a face that hasn't been swallowed by dark feathers. She turns her head away from it all, hiding the part of her that got touched against the floor, and watches a discarded pillow sitting on the floor.

And then suddenly she is... no. She is not free. To be free she would need the use of her legs, and both arms, and both eyes. To be free she couldn't be in this much pain, and her heart would have to slow down until the long ears standing adorably upright on top of her head could hear something other than her own rising blood pressure or the groaning of her muscles. She is not free. She can simply breath. She can move her right shoulder enough to push up off the ground.

It's not nobility or love or even fear that makes her struggle. No higher functions are commanding her in this moment so she cannot be commended or derided for struggling her way up off of the floor. She's still bound at the hip and the thighs, so it is not her choice to wrap her arm around Titanomachia's waist and start to hobble off. That's just what has to happen. It is like she is being pulled along by a thread, not dissimilar from the flower vines still clinging tight to her body. If that's the destiny Taowu meant then she must be wiser than she looks.

Madeleine stumbles forward, for now a substitute for a missing leg. She can't remember standing. She doesn't know why there's a pillow in her hand, or how it might have gotten there. All she knows, though she couldn't explain it even if she understood it for herself (or if she had the power of speech returned to her) is that she needs to fly.

With one hand, she squeezes Titanomachia from around her waist. With the other hand, she throws a couch pillow through a shattered window. With one leg, she drags herself forward. With the other, she drags Machia with her. There's no rhythm or grace to the motion, no teamwork or coordination. The pair of them, the tangled mess of them really, simply shuffle until they fall.

With one literal cushion waiting at the bottom.

Madeleine wraps both arms around Machia as she falls, and pulls with all her might. She lands on her back, beneath her fellow prisoner, and coughs when the impact drives all the air out of her lungs. There is no pain where she landed. Or at least, it's nothing compared to other parts of her right now. She should by all rights just lay here and try to recover, but she hastily stumbles to her feet again instead, falling back over four times before she manages.

Frantically, she rubs at her face with the inside of her elbow even as she gasps for breath. Still she feels the pull. Move, move, move.

She does. Down the road, as fast as she can. Just her, the greatest athlete she has ever personally known, and a very tacky pillow.