Phoe

Aristeia! Building a Champion

"It... that is..."

Madeleine blinks as she looks up at the synthetic fibers of the ear covers that about to slip on over her head. The fire burning in her eyes does nothing to disguise the happy wagging of her tail behind her. All of a sudden her pulse is racing; the only thing that keeps her body still are the ropes binding her in place.

Those don't bother her anymore, in this new context. Not enough to take back her demands or comments, but it's simply not possible to stay upset about it any longer. Not set against the electricity suddenly surging through her body, arcing her back until it pulls on her restraints. Something in Machia's posture is different. The look in her eyes is different. Even this small pause is different. Madeleine feels her breath quicken, but she pushes it down into her stomach and holds it there until she can release it in one long, slow push.

"Yes," she says, her voice sharp and ethereal, "I am."

She is being trained for the finals. Not to cover some absurd, embarrassingly basic weakness in her game, or to be lectured about what is a sword and what is a gun. She. Is being trained for the finals. What can she possibly give, set against that understanding, other than her best?

She closes her eyes, awaits the blindfold, and opens her ears to focus.

Aristeia! Building a Champion

Well, that had been... brief. The woman had appeared to her, radiant in her beauty like a ray of sunlight piercing the clouds that always hung over the city until much like that ray of light she was suddenly swallowed up by the Aristeia! athlete known as Titanomachia. But what did it mean that there was a woman there to begin with?

She was beautiful. Why did Madeleine think that? The best and smartest thing that she could do would be to unthink it, and quickly. There were too many Machias inside her head to begin with:

There was the one she first met who mistook her for a fan and threw an autograph at her in the form of an oddly overdesigned paper airplane.
There was the one who brought Madeleine to her lab not even knowing that she was an Aristeia! athlete in her own right just because she was so fascinated by the idea of horse ears that couldn't hear anything that she had to tinker with them. There was the one that believed in Madeleine for whatever insane reason and told her after the worst match of her life that she was going to be great. There was the blushing version with cake frosting on her lips. There was the quiet, intense one that couldn't perceive the world because her eyes were glued to a screen. There was the one who thought the Pain Glove was a good idea. And now there was this beautiful, soft, vulnerable creature who...

No. It did no good to imagine any Machias but the one she was dealing with here. This absurd cartoon character that talked about bondage and binding and being in control like she wasn't tying elaborate, showy knots in a gimmicky position to turn her science project into an art project that... she had to understand how ridiculous this was, right? Did she understand how voluntary it had to be? Like yes, if Madeleine fought her off she could turn that monstrous strength on her and force her to the ground, but that would mean nothing and do nothing. Madeleine could writhe under her grip and Machia would have to compromise on her ropes, and that would prove anything. She couldn't be locked in some silly prayer position without letting it happen, and letting it happen for such a comical length of time that it undermined the whole premise behind the ordeal.

Yes, that Machia was the easiest to shrug off. The one she simply endured because she was irritatingly good at producing better results in Madeleine even though she had to go out in her own time to find a gym and test it all herself because Machia was waiting for... well who even knew what before she was interested in data collection. She really would have thought...

Oh, but those eyes, though. There was a soul inside those magenta pools after all. When the intensity finally drained out of them and they turned to liquid, it was more enchanting than Madeleine could have ever guessed. It even made the usual sheen they had more alluring, knowing that it was not some permanently affixed state she could never let drop. Her weakness made her strength shine brighter. And what would those eyes look like with a smile? Or with gently parting lips and a hitched breath and--

No. No no no no, no! Madeleine did not have a crush on Machia. It was impossible to think of the woman in that way. She was a cretin and a creep and a jerk who she happened to owe a debt to. She was a tool that could be used to pursue her own goals in the Hexadrome (which had nothing to do with bondage sessions, thank you VERY mu-- wait, what was that about Lios? She was into that? Like, actually actually? Wait then the whole Taowu thing was fine! It wouldn't be) damn it focus Madeleine. No more lending credence to the facade. If nothing useful was going to happen today then it was time to go home. Maybe by taking her ball and leaving she'd finally make Machia realize that--

Madeleine moves as if to stand up. She finds that she cannot. Ropes pull at her from above, below, and in the middle. She blinks, stupefied. Wait, but how? How could she have finished this so quickly? Did she have a mannequin she'd been practicing on instead of sleeping or something? After all, it had only been...

She glances at the clock. She blushes. It has been a full seventeen minutes since Machia pulled that rope free. Congratulations, Madeleine. You are now the subject of another weird experiment. She frowns.

"You are... l-lucky I am so patient. Any other trainee would have broken your nose and stormed out," she manages to tilt her head up haughtily in spite of the situation she finds herself in, "I'm the only one who'd debase herself like this. And I... I e-expect to, to be rewarded for my loyalty. I am not cooking tonight. I hope I don't need to make m-m-myself... clearer than that."

Madeleine squirms against the restraints. She pulls down on her arms, thrashes her hips, strains her thighs, swishes her tail and her ears, stretches her fingers and her toes, even. There has to be an improperly tied knot in here somewhere, if she can just, nnnnf, find it! Or at the very least she'll know her absolute range of motion. Might as well try to treat this like training. If she can. Her eyes burn with determination.

She will not lose. She will not lose. She will not lose. Not to her.

"...Well? This is not it, is it? Where is the remote this time? Does it electrify the ropes? Or no, I bet it spits a highly specialized, clothing destroying acid. Or is it bees? Are the ropes secretly full of bees? Am I about to be enveloped in a swarm of angry, electrified bees? I am, aren't I? Every stunt you pull makes my price go higher, you realize. You're going to owe me a new coat soon."

Aristeia! Building a Champion

When Titanomachia was hopping all over her apartment on one leg, she did not appear vulnerable. When she was imprisoned in Taowu's vine-chains, even struggling, even failing, even during the worst matches of her career there was no point Madeleine could remember where Machia did not feel like she was holding some kind of secret strength inside her. In face one time she had even come here early and unannounced, and happened to find her sleeping on the couch. Even then she seemed invincible. Shatterproof. Starve her, drown her, throw her off a cliff, Titanomachia would always feel like a woman who could move the entire world.

But here? With her fingers under Madeleine's chin and that look inside her eyes? With her teeth clenched and her lip trembling? With her voice, her voice, her... voice...

Madeleine's fingers slip. A jolt of electricity surges through Machia, followed by a palm on her hip sliding slowly inward. She watches the change in posture and expression with a storm inside her eyes. All that power, tamed. All that strength, useless. All that possibility, pointed desperately at a murky, blind path with pitfalls at every bend. She slides her fingers back down Titanomachia's soft thigh, whispers her wordless apology into her skin, and finishes the reconnection.

Yes, now she looks vulnerable. Even weak. And so radiant it hurts to look at her. When? When did she become beautiful?

She pulls her hand down to rest it on Machia's knee. She allows her head to be lifted higher. Her breath hitches and her body stiffens in the cold air of the room, goosebumps clearly visible on each of her pale, bare limbs. She does not blink. She does not flinch. She does not smile.

"...Yes."

Aristeia! Building a Champion

Madeleine watches the screen in silence. Occasionally she reaches up and touches the spot beneath her eye socket with two fingers, but apart from that she doesn't move a lot, either. Some strange mix of horror and fascination keeps her eyes glued to the screen.

This is her fault. It's her fault in three ways, minimum. If she hadn't told Lios about the cake she would have stormed off like normal and been safe. If she had done a better job with the summoning circle, Taowu would not have appeared and everything would be a mess, but safe. If she had stood her ground and fought, then things would have...

She reaches up and brushes the spot under her eye again. She shivers.

Guilt and shame and some much stranger third thing squirm inside of her uncomfortably. All she can do is watch the broadcast and sit inside of her own head. Was she telling the truth to these people, in front of these cameras? Was this whole thing really all about..? No. No, her presence today was only due to the combination of Machia's reckless half-finished homework and Madeleine's inadequacy as a spirit medium. The song she sang, the words she spoke... those were meant for just the two of them.

But then why? She wouldn't need a hostage, and thinking about it from the perspective of arena stories there was no reason for somebody as famous as Taowu to involve a nobody Madeleine in one of her extracurricular feuds. Even allowing for the boost of interest associated with her training with Machia, it'd fizzle as soon as she got into the arena proper and failed to get herself into the winner's group with all the other major players. And Taowu was very cautious, for a demon. Even Madeleine hadn't been sure if her whole routine was a clever hacker's scheme for the camera or if she'd been legitimate until she'd come crawling out from the apartment floor.

That didn't make any sense unless her interest in Lios was legitimate. And that meant she valued something about Lios, and that meant she probably would have made a play like this at some point or another. There wasn't even a way of knowing what had happened in here to begin with, since she'd run away like a frightened animal. Maybe Lios Emiral was a sub? Maybe she signed on for this?

Madeleine blushes, and shakes her head. She pulls her tail around from behind her and starts to comb it with her fingers, one two three four, two two three four...

It was beyond her. She'd have to ask if she wanted to know. Although, if Lios did not already dislike her before, then--

She turns her head, and stares at Machia.

"...Are you familiar with the story of Der Freischütz?" she asks in monotone, "Six magic bullets for the huntsman, and one for the devil."

She brushes her tail in silence for a moment, and then she shifts her seat closer so she can brush Machia's instead.

"The thing I hear most people ask is, 'what if I never shoot the seventh bullet?' This is because they do not know the story. People are not as clever... as they like to give themselves credit for. They might miscount, or assume they can live with the consequences. Or something outside of their control might compel them to reach for the gun. In the operatic version, a man even teaches his son to forge new bullets to pass the cost off to him. It does not matter. The final shot strikes him cold. I have found that dealing with the Underworld is always like this. It does not give: it only pretends to, so it can take. That's why the only school of magic I practice is banishing."

There had been a horrible knot in Machia's tail hairs, but Madeleine has soothed it out with clever fingers and soft strokes of the back of her hand. The brush might have been easier, but it's hidden in a drawer somewhere, and she could not stand up to retrieve it. Only now is she able to take her feet. She walks away, and picks up the cybernetic leg.

"It isn't fair at all," she says, clutching it tight, "I first came to you deaf and you fixed me. I cannot even heal your leg in return."

On wobbly legs, she stumbles back across the room. She kneels in front of Machia as though proposing, aligning the leg with one hand and tracing the smooth, cold metal of the connection ring with the fingers of the other. She leans forward, and touches her forehead to Machia's thigh. Her ears wiggle plaintively, quietly begging for something she does not receive.

"I am sorry." she whispers as she pulls away.

There is no good way to do this gently, except to wrap her fingers around Machia's upper thigh. She grips the firm flesh there and, slowly and carefully as she can, slots the cybernetic back into place so she can begin the delicate work of locking it and reactivating it. In the end, that's all she's really capable of.

Aristeia! Building a Champion

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.

Aristeia! Building a Champion

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."

Aristeia! Building a Champion

"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..."

Aristeia! Building a Champion

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."

Aristeia! Building a Champion

"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."

Aristeia! Building a Champion

"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.