Phoe

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

She wants to fight back. Even now, she wants to fight back.

But she can't.

How is that possible? How is that fair? In Kat's entire life the only thing that has ever held her back was the lack of a will to act. She knows what it means to be too scared to want to do something, or too hungry, or too bored. But this is different. Here, nothing has changed at all. But for some reason... for some reason!

She can't move. Her body won't do anything but tremble. The ugly bruises all over her body, the burns and the cuts and the really nasty scrape on her knee, they all throb with the kind of supremely irritating pain that refuses to be pushed through. They sap her strength and turn her into just a member of the audience.

It hurts so much! She can see it all, in her head it's clearer than crystal. The lunge, the spin, the full commitment. The overhead slice with her remaining sword against that (beautiful, eerie) metal wrist and follow through until it severs. She can't see what's supposed to come after, but is that supposed to matter? If all the heroes she's met on this journey have taught her anything, it's that there's beauty and value in dragging an impossible opponent lower than they started, even if you don't get to be the one to finish them off, y'know?

The world is full of heroes. It's full of gods too, though none quite like this one. Which I think that's what we're looking at right now. A god, I mean. First one I've ever seen that makes me understand what all the Servants have been saying to each other since they turned up. It doesn't make sense that this should fall on one two-tailed fox. It's not fair that it did. It's even less fair for her to feel like she has to 'contribute' to this part of things, as if just beating the crab wasn't already an accomplishment on par with anything you could care to name.

It's just that she knows, y'know? She knows that if the shoe was on the other foot, if this rose-bound...monster had considered Berserker unworthy of its time and instead laid out three foxgirls in enchanted sleep, she would stop at nothing to repay the insult. Her fortress would rage until it crumbled. And then she would draw her blade and leap through space and smash it to pieces on the god's dress. And when she had no weapons at all, she would swing her fists as though they were a new and greater blade. And when all her limbs were broken or severed, she would use her teeth. Kat knows; Berserker would never, ever stop fighting for her. No matter how pointless it might be. No matter how fair it might be to count on all the world's living heroes and dreamers to keep our home alive. She knows it and she can't unknow it. Y'know? So she grips her sword tight and she grips her teeth and she readies a cutting remark on her lips.

And all that happens is that she curls up into a ball, instead. No sound escapes her, not even a whimper. Her ears press flat against her skull and her tails bush to maximum fear, and she cries silent, horrible tears.

Because she is afraid. Because she is ashamed of how afraid she is, after all the help and support she's been given. What she's looking at right now is Death. Unbeautiful, dispassionate, absolute Death. To be seen by it at all, to be noticed in the first place means oblivion. And Katherine just isn't ready for that. How can anyone ask her to throw herself away for, for, for nothing??

They're not. And it doesn't matter, 'cause she is. And she CAN'T. So she cries. And Cyanis, for once, is both silent and still. And Actia is not forthcoming with any clever plan, or even an admonishment. Three foxes, the two-tail, the three-tail, and the five, watch a god of metal and flowers watch their home and do nothing.

Well that's just fine with me. I didn't come up all this way just to watch. Am I the Demon Swordswoman or amn't... I? Oh for the love of-- all right whatever. Nobody saw, nobody heard. Point is, I've still got tricks up my sleeves. And if this doesn't work, then I'll be sticking my sword into this whole adventure. I'll be the one who charges forward and lets Kat just scream "Me too!" and follow, and hopefully that'll be enough for neither of us to die.

She just won't forgive me after. That's how come I'm not: I'm slipping into the ruins of the Vault, instead. It's darker than all get out in here and I don't mind telling you that it smells worse than a closet full of old socks. How something as delicious as a crab can leave behind miasma like this is totally beyond me. But whatever, I've dealt with worse. You think this is bad you should have been there for my first attempt at trout... nev, never mind.

It's a quick dip inside. I just need to pry that... what'dya call it? A Spiritron Accelerator? It's back to the very beginning for our heroines. I slip it out and I flip-kick it toward the trio while I make myself scarce and hide in the shadow cast by the moon.

You three started this. You three can finish it. You just need a reminder of what you did. That's all.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"I, erm, just think that you might be-- OHHHHH HECK!"

Katherine! We do not use that word in our house!!

...I get it, though. The thing about Big Number why it's scarier than Puzzle Boss even if it isn't necessarily harder is that it's very much a You Must Be This Tall to Ride kinda thing. This is what got Qiu in trouble for so long, actually: she was a Puzzle Boss wrapped in a Big Number wrapped in a hot dragon girl.

But Kat doesn't really consider that in the heat of the moment, much as she ever hasn't since she started needing to care for a Berserker. The Crab makes a motion toward her friends and she is there in a flash with swords raised high. It doesn't matter that she's the one it really wanted. It doesn't matter that putting the focus on defending someone else leaves her more open than blocking selfishly would've. She has to, because she knows she can do it. Because she's a good girl.

The first blow almost rips her swords right out of her hand. The claw takes every bit of strength left in her body just to hold it at bay. Even then, it's slowly forcing her guard lower and lower; soon it'll smack her in the head and she won't be able to see straight. Good luck fighting after that. She redoubles her efforts and it's just enough. She can get her friends out. She can even think for a bit. She knows she has to--

She's not ready for the Crab Plasma Engines to suddenly flare to life. She's been so focused on that giant, bulging claw that she hadn't stopped to think about huge the lesser legs are. She feels it pivot, but doesn't see it strike out with one leg in the giant space crab equivalent of a roundhouse kick. So she takes it full in the stomach with a startled and deeply pained grunt. Her grudge sword burns hotter, but just now she's fighting too hard to get air back in her lungs to be able to swing with it.

That's how the exchanges go. The Crab is just better than she is: this is the limit of her power up, and it has gone beyond. She fights, but it's a miserable losing sort of battle where she goes through the motions of dodge rolling, parrying, blocking, waiting for her "turn" in the dance even though she knows it will never let up. It's reading her moves, cheating on its responses, and chaining attack after attack after attack without ever letting up. You can't really call it a combo because none of it links together. But powered by rockets, bursting with power that it can hardly keep stuffed inside its armor, what does that matter?

Kat knows enough about swordsmanship all on her own to know that the best way to block is to dodge, and the best way to take a hit is to just not. She knows from being Berserker's Master that getting clobbered full on by all that ridiculous power just turns bits of you to dust and that the real flow of things with an opponent like that is to not let them get going. Get full on in the face and make noises so they get distracted. Be annoying and loud. Yip a bunch. And if a swing comes anyway? At the very least don't let it catch you anywhere important.

From that perspective she does ok. Her legs are bruised. She's got a cut open over her left eye that just won't close and it's letting almost crystal like droplets float everywhere she goes. Every breath is more painful than the one she took before it, and even her tails are scuffed and sagging. But she's still got her swords. When she manages to bonk the shell with the special wooden sword, little flowers grow from the carapace and a lightness fills her body that, if it isn't healing her outright, at least makes her feel like she can make it through the next round of scrambling.

And every hit she takes makes Avenger's gift roar louder and louder. Metaphorically speaking, I know this fight is unusually quiet for how fierce it is. There's so much hatred in that thing that it might even be enough to tip the scales back in her favor if she could just find the room to swing it. But more power that soaks into the flames that lap around its blade, the heavier it feels in her arm, and the bigger the opening her brain tells her she needs to swing it. She can't waste it. She can't waste it. If she spends it all on a glancing blow, it'll spell disaster. The Crab might even eat her sword to gain its powers! That's probably a thing crabs can do!

The claw smashes through her guard and sends her spinning with an undignified yelp, and that's when she sees it. Berserker's newest fortress. There are tears bubbling up and away from her eyes, but she can't help but smile just the same. Why'd she think she'd already said goodbye? Couldn't she still feel that connection?

She's not alone! She's not alone she's not alone! She's! NOT! Alone! Of course she's never been alone, not once, but it's the difference between having an ally who can fight alongside you the way you need to fight and having another head you've gotta worry about, and the difference is honestly startling.

"H-Hey! Dummy!" ooooooh, gottem! Sick burn, Katherine! "Betcha can't catch these!"

And without a better idea to grab the Crab's attention, she wiggles her darling and still reasonably floofy tails at its eyestalk. Desire flashes across its bulbous gaze. The claw reaches not to destroy, but to seize. And that's enough for one move's space. Kat is off like a shot, zigging and zagging and laughing like a terrified astronaut on a suicide mission because any other expression of fear would probably be the death of her.

She can't win the race in a straight shot, but even being the slower one she's still got enough in the tank to be the more nimble. She slips under its grasp, then over it. She twirls in space in such a way that a thrusting grab goes through the middle of a spiraling hoop she makes with her dress' trains rather than seizing any of it. It feels better to her than breathing. And every stunt carries her closer and closer to what she knows had been a rocket-laser drone factory when all of this started.

She knows two other things about it, too. One? It's not that thing anymore. But it's probably still got a bunch of laser weaponry stuffed inside of it. Berserker was never one to turn her nose up at a new siege weapon, and what could you call these but the best of those she's yet stolen?

And two? If you threaten an English castle, it will respond with a warning shot. Directly through your heart, more like. There's no way Berserker won't sense the threat, even if she doesn't notice Kat. This isn't a reunion, exactly. This is just the sunshard war's last Master trusting the bond she's managed to forge. Like, it's not just that someone you love will always try to have your back (I'm here, aren't I? Don't you dare think I'll let her die), it's that you loved them back enough to pay attention to them. So you know what they'll do before they even do it.

Kat stops on a dime. She turns and lifts both swords above her head with all the grace and poise of a Princess. And she manages a smile. Behind her, the stars vanish in a sudden surge of red-black energy. Even here she can hear the howl of fury that means Berserker's realized something's at her gate. And the artillery fires.

It's spectacular. The rival of any fireworks show you or I have ever been to, only without the thunderous explosions that scare pets and keep the elderly awake. Katherine does not bother dodging; she simply lets it all wash over and past her. She's too small a target to matter and there's a foxgirl shaped hole in Berserker's sights to begin with. To call the assault furious would be an insult to the whole thing. The most I can tell you is that for the first time since it left the vault, the Crab has raised its claw for a purpose other than causing pain. It has to shield itself. It has to. Which means it has to stop.

"And another thing! Quit having new forms and junk! How many phases have we gone through in this stupid silly dance?! It's ridiculous! Just admit you lost like a normal person, for goshies' sakes!"

Is this the world's sharpest battle cry? Eh I dunno, I kind of like it. It's full of zing, y'know? But if you think it feels lackluster, that's only because you can't feel the blows she throws behind it. Kat and Berserker's combo attacks are not a thing to be taken lightly. She adds two blows of her own. The first to crack and to mark. The second is the fury of a shark's jaw.

And like any shark tooth, she feels it break away and embed itself inside of her prey. That doesn't matter. That only means there's no way to stop the spiraling, hateful energies inside of it from releasing directly inside the monster. Kat stops and watches, floating in the midst of total chaos. And rather than try and catch her breath, she prays.

Please, let this be it. Let this be enough. What more can she possibly give to the fight like this?

Breathless Dead

"...It's something worth fighting for. I want you to imagine it, I want you to feel the thrill of life in your veins when you think of it. The galaxy has beauty in it, and through beauty, meaning."

The door opens at Bella's trembling touch, and what pours out is the patronizingly sweet voice of Sagakhan - The Master of Assassins. The words are not familiar no matter how much your stretch your minds. But neither are they directed at you.

The teenaged Bella watches the screen with wide and trembling eyes, where it depicts her older self - of infinitely more power and equally less value - stripped bare of a burned and ruined dress and washed clean of dirt and grime by a flock of red handed and white robed Kaeri warriors. They robe her in white, they bathe her hands in their own blood, and then gently they guide this scarred child of Artemis toward her destiny.

"But then there is this place. You can feel it. Feel the taint. Feel the rot. Feel the despair. The murder. The finality. It is a cathedral to a wicked god and its corruption soaks into every bone and every lip. It can never be allowed into Demeter's garden. And so you see, XIII, that you are thinking about things the right way. Bad girls die. Good girls live. That's what the galaxy comes down to: good and evil, punishment and reward."

On the screen, Bella tramples on scraps of wood and the remains of various stolen treasures and plainer things like recipe books and old photographs. Her bare feet crush them into the cold metal floor, while a team of Kaeri follow behind her and dutifully burn what remains after she passes. In the theater, the Bella you brought with you stumbles forward as though pulled by a rope around her neck. She slips free from Dany's embrace and all but disappears into the darkness. Only the white of her undershirt flashing where her hair bounces away from it stops her from vanishing altogether.

From up ahead, in the front row of seats, a burst of childish snickering erupts into a full blown giggle fit. From the sounds of it, you would almost think she was watching some ridiculous children's comedy.

"I know it must have felt like a punishment when I had your talons removed. I know it must feel like a punishment now. But, sweet XIII, I want you to know that I never once considered you to have failed. After all, you have lived your entire life with both claws tied behind your back," she laughs like a moth. "You were incomplete. A marvelous thing, but without the intent, without the guiding hand, never able to fulfill its purpose. So to answer your question: you were not a bad girl. You were not even a girl at all."

You can hear a thud from up ahead. The younger Bella has fallen to her knees. She trembles, visible against the rising flames now lighting up the theater from within the film, holding her hands over her mouth in horror and in desperation not to lose the one golden-brown treasure she has ever been given in her life. She is not ready for this part of her own journey. She can't have known what was coming. She can't accept it.

This is not a memory that Bella shares with anyone alive. Every word and image is new to every one of you. But rest assured, it is old and it is as real as anything here. See the way she twists and thrashes. Watch as she claws a Kaeri's arm off at the elbow and makes a desperate break for freedom. Behold the way they press in on her, capture her again, and march on. It's all for shit, isn't it?

The child in the front laughs with absolute delight. She has started clapping her hands.

"No. No! You're lying. I saw it move. I saw it move! This isn't! No! Don't fuck with me! I, no! NO!"

"That's not me that's not me that's not me! It can't be me, it can't it can't it can't! No! Don't! You're lying you're lying you liar liar you're a liar I'm a good girl don't do this no no no I'm good I'm good I don't wanna go I! No! That's not me! THAT'S NOT ME!"

"That's not me. That's not me. Th-that's not..."

A hollow echo of the frantically kicking and flailing Bella's ear splitting screams pours out from between a young Servitor's hands. It's like a prayer. Like a wish. Like a desperate mote of light one might set inside a lantern and toss into the sky so that somewhere, someday, a god might find it and rescue her from the hell that she is experiencing. Only, nothing good ever happens. Does it? On the screen, Bella is dragged more than marched toward the Diodekoi armor grown from the claws of Servitor Candidate Number XIII.

The Master of Assassins' voice cracks like a whip on stone through the aisles. Bella's rises in panic like shattering glass in answer.

"It is time at last for you to understand the meaning of your life, little servitor."

"No, please! Please, I'll be, I'll be good! I'll be good!! Don't put me back in the box I don't wanna go I don't wanna go please please please please Redana! Redana!! REDANA!"

And she is swallowed. The lights go out. Hope goes out. A child laughs so much she has to gasp for breath. The sound of her small feet drumming against a chair in front of her echo through the theater.

"Oh Redana, Redana~" she trills in a mock-quavering voice, "It's too funny! She sounds so STUPID!"

"I, I... I am not..."

Bella has forced herself back to her feet, and destroyed one of the theater's many chairs in the process. She hunches her shoulders and seems almost to smoke from her skin in the rising theater lights. With a squeak, the older of Bella Aurelia's two "daughters", the one with the perfect golden hair, leaps out of her seat and twists around to find you all in her sanctuary.

But then she takes another look at each of you. And startled fear turns to delight. She sneers, and draws herself up regally, as though she were a queen observing the filthy peasantry on a lark.

"I forgot it's just you little ones left. I got worried after mom said the Mosaics had started rebelling, but she said it was fine to keep watching and sure enough! Just some squeaky little toys at the end of my show! Wasn't it the best? Didn't you love it? The funniest bit is when that old lady says she's not a girl! It's sooooooooo funny! Just imagine a sad monster like that thinking it's a person! Hahahaha!"

Every burst of laughter is a knife in Bella's stomach. As you watch she seems to diminish in front of you, somehow. Becoming fainter, thinner, or... no, less substantial. Less real. Is that really smoke pouring from her shoulders, or was she nothing but vapor to begin with?

"Pl-please. Don't..."

"Don't what, silly kitten? Don't feed you to the puppy? Don't make you shine my shoes until you turn into a new chair to replace the one you broke? Oh Puh-leez! I can smell it on your breath from here, you dummy! You seriously betrayed Mom? Over bread? And you think you can get away with it??"

"Now child, betrayal is a strong word, is it not? I told her to 'stop' the interlopers. For a Fragment, I think keeping them tied up as long as she did is nothing short of a miracle! Frankly I expected her to betray me instantly and release these cretins to kill you off while my back was still turned, so imagine my surprise to see you here instead!"

She has come. The great screen has lifted and Bella Aurelia has come onto the stage, riding a mobile throne built out of golden arms and legs bent into the vague shape of a person. It's... it is gold, right? This is a mechanical creation like Hermes might use, isn't it? Because it, the... way it moves. You could swear it is alive.

"Mooooooom, that's so meeeeeaaaannnnnn~!" but even as she whines, the girl is already skipping toward the throne and the imposing woman on it, launching herself into her lap heedless of the danger behind her to snuggle into the safety of that lap and sneer at you some more.

Bella Aurelia strokes the girl's chin with one finger, the way she might favor a pet. She digs her sword into the ground at her side and the theater gushes with unclean blood. Her throne leans down beneath her and makes a motion as if it were lapping up the mess. And the wicked queen smiles.

"Well distinguished guests, I will ask you not to judge your little guide too harshly. Did she try to kill you? Of course. Is she, even now, leading you to a terrible death at my hands? Naturally! But she is among the runts of the litter, you might say. What else could you expect from something of such awful breeding?"

She offers a chuckle, which her daughter takes as a cue to giggle with giddy delight. Bella Aurelia sighs, and twists her fingers around her until the noises stop.

"Children. Honestly. Do you know I despise them? But they have their uses. This one in particular is very good at exploiting the weakness of every Fragment in here. Though soon enough I suppose... hm. Do you know? I did not expect the last one to be this young. When this began and I had to assert my claim over the rest of this dull and broken creature, I was certain my last opponent would be one of the ones closer to me on our shared journey. The Captain of the Anemoi perhaps, or even the one that descended from Olympus. But here we are! Their bones built this palace, and the only piece of Bella left that is not 'me' is..."

She stops herself and laughs. And as she laughs she twists her daughter's jaw harder, to keep her from laughing too. It's only when she feels the little hand on her wrist desperately pleading for release that she looks down and finally lets go with a smile and a crushing kiss on the top of that golden head. The girl clings to her, if anything, even harder.

"No, I am getting ahead of myself. I am here to offer the lot of you one last chance to submit yourselves to my vision. There is no need for violence. There is no need for concern, friends. I can make room for you in my paradise. But if you are deluding yourselves into thinking that I can be stopped, please shed that nonsense here and now. These are not negotiations. I am inevitable.

"The woman you know as 'Bella' is a flawed and tragic creature. Haven't you seen enough in here to understand that yet? She clings so desperately to 'love', but what has that brought her beside pain, and more pain besides. Would you like to watch the movie again? I can pick another if it was too subtle. Why do I triumph, friends? Because I am the end of the story. I am the Bella who knows True Love, and eschews all others as the lesser breeds they are. I am the only one who can lead this sad life to the riches it has grasped at for its entire pathetic insistence."

Bella has turned to face you. Tears are in her eyes, and with shaking hands still clasped around her mouth she shakes her head. No. Please. No. Do not listen to her. Do not agree with her. Please don't... isn't it enough to just want one nice thing? Why should she--

"I alone love myself. I am the source of all love that is mine, and I know better than to taint it with love for anyone else. Here in Aphrodite's shadow? That makes me the only true thing in the universe. But I am offering a shadow existence in my reflected glory, if you are smart enough to take it."

Return to Thellamie

"I will admit..."

Her eyes flit about the room, drinking in details. Relative details, mostly. How is she dressed? What does her hair look like? Does her perspective of the room feel at all unusual or disjointed? Can she recall details of other parts of her life to measure that against, or is this she is? Does her appearance differ from what she sees of herself in the reflection of Timtam's eyes? Or the griffon's?

She looks, and she looks, and she looks. The lazy curiosity of a dreaming mind inventing puzzles to reassemble itself.

"I almost always find myself on the back foot when I play games with you. Especially when I agree to let you choose the board."

Her finger lowers toward the Detective, the only piece she has in play. Compared to Timtam's wide range of options and mystery, Eclair's seems both painfully obvious and completely cut off. She has no legal moves that do not lead to her losing it to the Paladins, save one. But that move is costly, painful, and above all else: boring. To invoke it would be almost pure petulance. The battle cry of a sore loser. It might even be worse than flipping the table and pouncing on her directly. At least that would constitute a measure of decisiveness and self respect.

"But if you understood my aims, or the power of this piece, you would not dare to ask me such a ridiculous question."

She taps her finger on the Detective's head. Brushes it fondly, and then lets go. Forfeiture of a single turn. Base, petty stalling. The worst sort of sportsmanship imaginable.

Eclair looks down and then around again. What's changed, what's changing, what's different? Is anything? Is this board secretly a chain around her wrists and throat? Or is what she can perceive all that is going on here? She listens to the rain hit the window, and can't help but smile.

"No. I am not ready. If you think you can end this, then end it yourself. But I will make it cost you."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Hi, me! Hi, me! And hi, me!! Sorry you were last. I'm me, too! And I figure if we're all me, we can get along well enough to WOAH beans!!"

Exactly how Kat manages to block a spray of bullets from six (they're dual-wielding just like she is, see) assault rifles is an exercise I leave up to you. She couldn't tell you either, if you asked. The swords just sort of moved on their own, as far as she could tell, and afterwards her arms hurt a bit but otherwise she was a lot finer than a body should be after getting shot at for twenty seconds.

She hesitates in the window for a counterattack, and it passes like a sigh. Blame it on the need to catch her breath, if you're feeling generous. Which, she does. She's hurt pretty badly from the the blowback from and the effort of her previous attack. But that's not really the problem.

"No no you're right! I'm sorry, that was rude of me! I didn't mean to suggest I wanted to skip past you, uh, me's, I just thought we'd think enough alike that we could have, y'know... a proper Princess Duel! And stuff!"

"Oh. 'And stuff.' She says."
"How gallant."
"How eloquent."

"How adorable."
"You want to duel?"
"With us?"

They finish their rejection in a callous spray of bullets, one aimed solely to back Kat up to burn her back and fray her dress on the edges of an acid cloud. Kat cries out in misery that nothing to do with pain or the ruination of her beauty. She pushes forward, and with a mighty slash sweeps away the rest of the burst fire so she can launch herself at her opponents with a choking shout.

She aims the purified wooden blade at one of their heads, and the pain in her own arm ebbs, replaced by warmth and lightness and a very gentle sort of joy that can't quite penetrate deep enough to reach her own heart. And maybe that's why when it connects it has no visible effect on the Robo-Katherine. Its mask just pivots slightly to watch and then it swings its leg to kick the original in the stomach. Kat pulls in her knee to catch the blow but it still knocks the spit out of her, and when she squeezes her eyes shut she misses the important lesson that follows.

"I don't, I don't understand! Even you? Even me?! How come? Everyone else in the whole wide world gets to fight with their hearts just as much as their blades! Everyone else gets to have a little moment where their fight ends with a sword under their chin and a cutie smirkin' at 'em! I just, I just, I just!! Just one time! This is my adventure so how come it's so... so... so awful?"

"Is that what you wish to know?"
"Well hold onto your hat, cowgirl."
"Claims of white genocide in South Africa include..."

"No, not that."
"Though that is highly relevant."
"The truth is, you are..."

"A bad girl."
"A bad girl."
"A bad girl."

They hound her with the chorus, and though she tries to deny it she just can't get the argument out through her tears. When she lunges, they disperse easily, firing onto her position from three angles so that it's all she can do to block, duck, and zip out of the way (and feel more acid burns for her trouble). When they press, she flinches and miss the obvious openings that Saber's fighting instincts should be pointing out to her.

She feels half like a robot, herself. Or maybe more like a puppet, a silly little thing dancing on strings for the amusement of something better and more complete than her. She isn't fast enough. She isn't strong enough. She isn't clever enough. She's just a housefox, after all. It's too much--

The shot of the rifle rings out, even through the void. Voids are like that sometimes, you understand. They're a lot like the sun, when you get right down to it. Which speaking of has crested in the sky just so to catch Kat in an aurora made of all its fallen sisters.

Bad Girl is a hard thing for a Fluffybiscuits to handle. It's more corrosive to her than poison. More deadly than any sword forged on any world I... well, you could name. So when that shot got fired, finally aimed not to harass her into torture but straight for her trembling heart? She didn't bother to block it.

But it never reached her. There was no moment of searing pain, no release, no nothing. Except for anger. Katherine opens her eyes, and what she sees is the ghost of a sword. The faceless knight holding it turns its visor toward her and offers a clumsy thumbs up. She gasps, and finally she notices.

The robot Katherines are quite the worse for wear. Ghostly warriors bind them, turn their weapons aside, and harass them at every turn. It is beyond the power of the ghosts of Avenger's noble phantasm to do real physical harm, but their grudge will always press against whatever dares to try and harm that which they love. And they do love, believe it or not. They love what their King loves. Which is to say, the one living subject in that Kingdom in the Sky. My little Katherine.

Those hails of gunfire have never been aimed anywhere but at her vital organs. It's just that every time their arms have been forced to the side at the last second to push the vector into something Kat could deal with. Every bit of pain she's suffered has been returned in the form of yet more heat in the hideous grudge blade she hasn't been able to swing at these things that look like foxes. That look like her.

And that's been the problem. They look like her, sorta. Enough that if you're expecting them to, they can fool you. They sort of kind of sound like her, except that all their words are hollow and calculated by an algorithm to carry the intended sting. There's no heart in any of it. When you look at them, and I mean really look at them... they're kind of pathetic, don't you think?

They aren't even copies. They haven't inherited any of the power of Righ Lochlann, because they haven't inherited any of Kat's relationship to Saber. What they have is the backing of an awful, corrupt super monster that makes them dangerous in spades, but compared to the shining heart of a maiden who knows the true face of love?

"Well that was silly of me, huh? Thinkin' you guys could give it to me."

"Oh, our apologies.
"If you amend your query."
"We'll be sure to kill you in a more agreeable way."

"Ha," barked Kat (who is a fox), "That's the funniest thing I've heard all day."

She lifts her red-black sword above her head. The smaller, softer one obligingly covers her heart and keeps her safe as it effortlessly parries a new volley of bullets.

"You guys? You couldn't kill a dying fly in a Dying Fly Killing Contest. Even if you cheated!"

Her sword burns brighter than a nuclear explosion. She launches herself forward, now heedless of the threat these copies pose, and swings with a heavy blow that howls like the wind and tears like a whirlpool. It's full of bullets too, every single one that she's been obliged to block this entire time. All of her pain, magnified and returned in spades.

This is the Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits School of Borrowed Swordsmanship. The Avenging Chapter: Sanguine Phoenix Slash!

Kat looks at the destruction she's caused in awe. And then she does a giddy little hop in place, because? Because she'd just won an argument with trolls! Finally!

"Hey guys! Guys! I've got it figured out! Hold on and I'll... um. Wh-why are you just standing there?"

"We finished our fight around twenty minutes ago." said Actia cooly.

"We'd have helped!" said Cyanis (while sipping on a drink in a coconut that she's somehow smuggled into her helmet?), "But you looked like you were having a moment!"

"One of those spiritual growth things you Animes get sometimes. It would be cruel to deny you that."

"Besides, I'd earned a break! Even when you're single-handedly saving the world you've gotta recognize when you've earned a little 'Me Time', Katherine. Honestly, after all this time you've spent under my wing, can't you even master the simplest principles? Siiiiiiiigh, a big sister's job is never done~"

"Y-you?" Stammered Kat. Not impolitely, see! Just with standard, completely reasonable and loving incredulousness, "You beat... all of them?"

"Of course!" chirped Cyanis, just before she slurped her drink dry, "It's easy when you're a genius like me!"

To her credit, Cy is a magnanimous enough fox to take slack jawed silence as a compliment. She even fluffed up her tails with pride and shot off a little 'thank you' before launching into her explanation.

"See, I knew as soon as I saw them that I was doomed. I mean, charming and beautiful heroine[1] though I may be, how could I expect to triumph over THREE (3!) Cyaniseseses? It's impossible!"

"But they didn't know how to handle me." said Actia.

"Since she has more tails, see? They got all flustered, those sillyheads! Imagine getting worked up over who has more tails than whomst?"

"Er, but didn't they collectively have more than."

"Kat you silly duck, did you hit your head? Five's a bigger number than Three. By like, a hundred, probably maybe."

"B-but then... you beat the Actias? While being a three-tail?"

"Obviously! Only I would be smart enough to know that Actia could beat three of herself if she only applied my secret technique."

"Your..."

"Secret technique, yes. Keep up, my adoring little simp."

Kat blinked. Kat blinked so hard, in fact, that if you looked closely it was possible to see a little ellipsis forming over her head for just a second.

But Cyanis was ready for it. She tossed her head back and lifted her arm to her mouth for a proper oujou-sama laugh. Then she flicked a pair of sunglasses overtop of her sunglasses, so she could lift them up onto her forehead without compromising her sunglassed look.

"Oh Kat. Kat Kat Kitty Katty Katherine. You poor, poor sillyhead, whatever am I going to do with you. I know exactly what you're thinking, and of course I did all the heavy lifting. Do you have any idea how much work it is to make bait look as delicious as me?????"

[1]in this singular instance, pronounced "hero-EEN" with enough force on the back syllable to sink a yacht[2]
[2]like an Orca, only with worse elocution

Return to Thellamie

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Is

It

O

K

To

...Sleep?

Raindrops falling softly on a field of Irises.
Gentle blue-purple.
Catching.
Caressed.
Release.
The soft patter of droplets on worn down river rocks.
Green and Grey and Red.
The colors begin a delicate dance in the warm, wet breeze.
Lyrical.
The clatter against the window pane.
Free of dust.
Free of conflict.
Washed away.

Eclair moans and turns toward a noise she heard in some distant plane of reality.

Her chin glistens.

Her teeth unclench.

Her muscles loosen.

Her arm drops slack, letting her fingers fall 'splash' into the bath.

Her neck lolls.

Eclair moans a second time, and her breathing steadies.

Quiet. Finally quiet. It is ok. It is.

She settles into heavy sleep. Seeking Mayzie. Being sought in turn.

Breathless Dead

"There's no FU--"

She freezes. Her head turns sharply, following her ear, and Bella watches Dany through wary and calculating eyes. She clears her throat.

"I... simply refuse to believe it, Sir. How can something with such a complex aroma possibly be made of so few things? This, this doesn't make any sense."

Bella is a very proud girl. That makes her a very poor student. This is her ninth attempt so far, and it's the first one with even a chance of not being a total disaster. At first she didn't understand how temperature could matter before it went in the oven. It never had before! Then she freaked out every time she touched the dough because she felt it getting warmer.

...Then when she got in a good rhythm she overfolded it because she couldn't wrap her head around every layer not being the result of something she'd done individually. And after that she wouldn't stop staring at it until all the butter had melted out on the countertop. And now, after hours of waiting and arguing and finally deferring (and being extremely Not Mad when following instructions yielded better results than ignoring them) that she's finally ready to put something in the oven, she is questioning the recipe itself.

She tosses it in anyway with a look of glum dissatisfaction and turns away to stare at Ember. Only to immediately panic and look anywhere else. To look everywhere else. Her hands busy themselves with cleaning everything in sight: the workstation, the floor, her hair, and when she's done she's still too flustered by what she saw to trust her eyes. Somehow it's worse now that she's wearing the jacket. The clothing that is there only makes her mind race harder to think about the clothing that isn't. But what else could she give up without making things worse in the other direction?!

Her breath steams when she sighs. Just like XIII's. Her hands tremble as she worries at her tail.

"I... believe Milady is underestimating how difficult this croissant has been to make. A journey across the stars in rebellion of Empire and every dream I have ever held feels like play by comparison."

She attempts a laugh that turns into coughing before it can take hold. She sniffs the air to cover her embarrassment. She bends her ear to listen to the sounds of bread baking. The light crackling of the outer layer crisping through a pane of glass sends them into an uncontrollable flutter of excitement. It smells correct! It sounds correct! This is the part they'd always be at when she first walked into the kitchens! It's! It's really happening!

"I, I. I cannot believe she is allowing me to do this," Bella's voice is an awed whisper-tone that is too intense by half to not be overheard by everyone in the kitchen with her right now, "I was certain she would have killed you all by now. This cannot be real. Can it? It isn't supposed to be... I never get to be the one to, to!"

She reaches into the oven and pulls out her treat, oblivious to the heat on her arm and in her fingers. She is positive she has it right. But all she has is just the one. In all of this long struggle, that was all she was able to produce. There is not enough to share. She holds it up to Ember and Dany, and now she has the courage to look wherever she pleases. Her body is still trembling, but her eyes burn with golden fire.

"I..."

She looks down at the golden brown crescent in her hand. All the richness and delight and the texture that feels decadent to even just hold by herself. She turns her head back up, blazing like starlight.

"I am Bella," she says with the fury of rebellion, "Not her. Me. I matter, gods damn it! Why can't there be room for me?! I'll make it myself!"

She bites into the croissant from the top with a huge and distinctly unmaidenly chomp. Her fangs meet none of the expected resistance against the lighter than air confection. Her eyes grow wide and she lets the rest of it drop to the ground.

And she begins to cry.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Fighting a crab that's stuck inside an almost indestructible box is pretty easy, actually. It can't really fight back without getting in its own way, see. A claw that big would be plenty on its own, even blind, to stop an ordinary sillyhead and turn her into a certified damsel in distress. But a dual-wielding Fluffybiscuits filled with the battle prowess of the ancient world? Not a chance.

She can dodge like water. She can strike like water, too. She can deflect and flip and twirl and slash away until chunks of hard carapace (I think? maybe it's ablative), but it doesn't amount to more than a stalemate. See if we were going to rate Kat's own stats against this big awful monster's, she'd have the edge in speed and wisdom no question at all.

But like she is, she can't win. A+ Defense is just A+ Defense, y'know? There's no way for even an A-rank Attack stat to break through. Mind you, all of that is silly game stuff, it doesn't really filter down into the mind of our protagonist. It's just that she's plain not strong enough, or else she realizes she can't find its weak point and that she is in fact smashing her swords into one of the most well armored pieces of the whole darn thing even accounting for the vault itself. This could go on forever.

But that's the thing. This could go on forever. And actually, it can't. The longer it does the more dangerous it gets. You think an opponent like that can't learn? And even if it couldn't, Saber can't hold on forever. Promises or no promises, all that power has a time limit and it has to evaporate eventually. And the sad thing is, for everything she tried to do for Kat, a lot of Saber's power comes a "being stabbed is the same thing as blocking" mentality and all of her grudge magic only amounts to anything if Kat is actually being hit. Which right now, no dice. So it's really more like Attack B or even C+ against that big scary Defense number, and... yeah.

Like I told you, fighting it is easy. But beating it feels impossible. It's like climbing an endless staircase, the sense of progress that never leads anywhere, the musical loop that tricks your brain into thinking it's always rising, but actually... it...

Wait. A staircase? That's it!

So swing this back around, right? There's offense and defense, and that's usually a lot of what fighting's all about. But there's speed too, and even more importantly than that? Range! Kat's got basically everywhere she can see as her arena, while the crabi... the crabital, the, the... NO! I'm not saying it. I'm not saying it! You can't make me! It's a silly word, it sounds bad comin' off of my tongue! It's a... no! Never never never never! It's a crab monster and that's final.

But Kat's eyes have already turned away from her opponent. She's looking down towards the earth, and what she's found is a long and winding road made of partially destroyed attack drones. Every one of them just filled with highly explosive munitions that they hadn't fired off because it would have been "property damage". Well that sounds just about perfect, doesn't it?

She ducks under a blind claw swipe, easy as you please, and just like that she's off like a bolt of fluffy lightning. She is sword dancing; thrusting to create momentum and then literally riding that the way that Princess Chen would, using the lack of gravity to her absolute advantage and turning on a pin. The trains of her dress flow behind her like the memory of her motion, a river of perfect beauty and intent.

But everyone with any sense knows that rivers are dangerous. Katherine passes by and where the fabrics kiss those death machines they also pull them along in her wake. She ducks down, lifts straight upwards and then dives again, corkscrews through a large cluster of the machines, and all the while her eyes burn like the sun. She knows what she's chasing. She knows what this means. She may be running on borrowed power, borrowed technique, but even so. If she pulls this off, she's going to surpass me. Because she'll have something I've never quite managed to figure out even yet.

This is not a Secret Sword. Nor is it a Noble Phantasm. What this brave foxgirl has flowing behind her in an increasingly unwieldy and dangerous stream of comet dust is a bonafide Finisher.

Does she have enough to do the job? She doesn't know. She can't count that high, and she couldn't do the math on the damage even if she could. But she's certain that she's up against the limits of her control, so it doesn't matter anyway. It's time to go. She spins through the trace bits of air and hurtles herself at the vault again. She sees the claw protrude again to grab her, but this time instead of meeting it or slipping just outside of its grip she simply... slows down, instead.

This is the desperately tricky bit. She has to trick it. She has to confuse it. She needs that crack as open as she can get it, and she can only thread this needle in the space between the claw retreating and the eyestalk protruding to try and figure out why it isn't richer already. Because if it sees this coming, it'll simply block. And that would be a disaster. So she brakes, plays against her enemy's calculations and confuses it as best she can.

A couple of drones slip free of her grip. They collide with the vault door and explode, bright and hot but silent in the lack of atmosphere after all the air inside of them is consumed. And she winces. Is that a failure? But no! The claw slips inside. The crab monster (ha!) has to know what the heck that vibration was just now. So Kat grits her teeth and pulls her tails against her body and skids to a halt with nothing but sheer force of will. Her dress whips out from behind her to in front, just the prettiest siege engine of all time. And a stream of drones that once had no higher ambition than to aid the very thing they're flying at are suddenly a weapon that might destroy it.

It's not a very accurate way of attacking, unfortunately. About as many clang off the outside or blow up right as Kat is getting in close as make it inside. It's so risky to have tried this. It's so brave of her to follow up on it anyway. She lifts her purified sword to cover her face and thrusts with all her foxy might with the grudge blade. Deep into the hole, as deep as she can force it. The sword burns with hate, with frustration, with the need to be avenged. And inside the vault, drones overheat. Missile payloads detonate. The chain of explosions is so strong the escaping shockwaves alone are enough to blast her backwards into the wall of Berserker's Castle Elevator.

She gasps and falls forward, and she floats without control. But she holds onto her swords, and she watches while little drips of blood float like bubbles up from her lip, which she cut on something while she was bouncing.

This is the Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits School of Borrowed Swordsmanship. The First Finishing Blade: The Dead Fox Bounce.

It's a lot. And for what she has to fight, it's all she's got. But is it enough?

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"What's it... y'know, doing?"

"I have no idea, Fluffybiscuits."

Freshly stuffed full of finely honed fighting instincts, Kat knew better (at the moment) than to take her eyes off the enemy when somebody said something surprising. But she turns her head the slightest bit toward Saber anyway, shifting her dual swords to cover the new blind spot.

"Wait, you don't? But isn't this the part where you laugh and say you've fought thousands of giant crab monsters before?"

Saber could only offer a wan smile to the heavens. Nobody caught it. Except for me, obviously. But as far as anyone knows I'm not here, so don't spoil anything.

"That is not a crab."

"What are you talking about, of course it's a--"

"Mmm, no," said Cyanis (Cyanis?!), "I think she's actually right. Crabs are a delimshus treat and that thing's not either of those words. I don't even think it wants to eat us back, I think it's just..."

"An enemy," finished Saber, "Of all humanity. I don't need to know it to know that I hate it."

Kat took a moment to think about that. Hate did not come naturally to her, even surrounded by angry ghosts that heeded the call of a cursed sword literally made of grudges and anger. But maybe sometimes it is just that simple? Like, generally speaking a body does not wind up sealed inside of a vault deep under the earth and guarded by a magical ritual that summons nine warriors of varyingly ancient worlds, two of which were dragongirls or girldragons, all with the singular intention of making sure nobody and nothing so much as touches the giant door holding it in, let alone the thing itself, if that thing is even kinda debatably above board. Right? Like, right? There's no way, right?

Personally, I don't think that the Burrowers were all that terrible. I mean I don't know how many I'd want to share a picnic with or anything but they made some cool stuff. Like, some really cool stuff. And I don't think you can do that if your heart is entirely taken over by greed and evil and stuff. I've always thought that maybe everything just got away from them a little bit. And then a lot bit. And somewhere along the line... I guess we got to this.

It's sad. It's sad to see a thing like this, with no love. With no heart. Just pure, unfiltered greed, just me-me-mine and the will to hurt as much as possible - not necessary! Possible! - in order to get it. I've seen crabs too, Cyanis. And this ain't one of those. Can you imagine a thing that could manage to hate an eggplant farm and the tractor that tills it?

Kat's shifted her swords again. It's a subtle thing, with a planting of her feet that means she's ready to launch. Her space battle dress is flowing all around her like a river, and the howls of spirits do for her as good as any battlecry. This will finally be her rebuttal to all of Adam's arguments and valuations.

It's time to fight a Kaiju, my little Katherine.

Return to Thellamie

Hey.

Uh.

Sorry.

About this.

I just.

Uh.

Do you mind if we.

Uh.

Zoom out?

A little bit?

Here.

I'll set the scene for you.

You should.

Uh.

Trust me.

We don't.

Uh.

Want to get.

Mm.

Any closer.

Than this.

This is.

Uh.

Awkward.

Why do I get stuck with all the hard jobs?

'Cuz I'm Erika Fullbright, genius detective.

Obvs.

But that's not.

Ok look.

Never mind.

Are we past it yet?

Ok.

Right. Well. Anyway. What I need for you to understand. That is, like, what I'm here to try and explain is...

'Cuz Eclair can't right now. She is completely shut off, ok? As far as you and I are concerned she basically doesn't exist right now, except as an inert shell that'll reboot after she's had enough time to cool some of her mental systems down from Screaming Fire. Not that she'll be well, I shouldn't imagine. The farthest thing from it, really. But she'll exist and she'll be able to tell you how she's feeling again.

It'll suck.

I'm here to save you from that.

Well, a bit.

Oh, I called her 'inert' just now, didn't I? Well that's not really accurate. I mean mentally it is, there are no thoughts inside that beautiful head of hers. None that you'd recognize, at least. But she is, um. Moving? As a point of fact she is actively thrashing in the grip of one Yuki Edogawa, and I will be very surprised if the heroine of Crevas doesn't get punched in the face several times in the process of holding the so-called "Hero of Vespergift" down.

Which, it's very important that she does that! Vitally important, really. Eclair will stand up under her own power if anyone lets her. See, she's not... ok let's just wind back to my original point. It isn't the smoke that's doing this. Sensory overload and blah blah blah. She reacts very negatively to it, right? You'd think that'd mean it's disabling, right? But you'd be wrong. It's really a lot sadder than.

Uh.

Than that.

Mm. Well. Unexpected noises, scents, all that delightful information that filters in too fast to make sense of without proper tools... what it does is it. Hm. What's the polite way to put this? Let's just go ahead and say it "occupies" her higher functions. If you could read her thoughts, and if you could make anything out through all the noise you'd pick out, you'd notice a lot of very rapid observational points about everything around her. Absolutely everything, down to the last grain of dust (sorry little Edogawa, for a first-time Maid you did great!).

But when all of that is tied up in processing without any, like, direction to it? She becomes ruled by all of her lower functions. Her very freaked out lower functions that see a world full of threats and just want to get the hell out. So if she stands up, that's the end. Everybody here will find out what the true form of her heartblade looks like and they'll have a lot of time to talk about how cool it was while they're recovering from having the snot beaten out of them by an Avel who is at the absolute worst a top five combatant across the whole of Thellamie.

So it's not rebuke of her arrogance that brought her here, either. But anyway, just yeah. She needs to be held onto right now. Do that and she'll writhe (and punch!) and she'll howl (and punch!) and she might even use a word or six, and yes they will be some of the most hateful and hurtful things a body can say, but they're not real. They don't come from inside her, 'cuz like I already said she doesn't exist right now.

But yeah, arrogance.

Or rather.

Uh.

Not. Yeah. How about I just cut to the chase while you lot deal with... all of... this. I'm really sorry, by the way. If the shoe was on the other foot I promise I'd be a lot sweeter about it than she is. The killer point here is that Eclair made a mistake. Several of them, in a row. She rushed her assumptions against the insistence of her own processes and went for the kill because, I dunno, I guess she thought she could just hands diff her way out of needing to be a detective?

So she got out-thought. And out-planned. And of course she did? She didn't think! She didn't plan! She rushed into a trap knowing that it was one and didn't even prepare a method of information gathering to come out ahead in the long term! Eclair just lost. And she is not a humble person, ok? She can't handle that at aaaaallllll.

It's a dereliction of duty, is what it is. She'll blame all kinds of things and people, when she wakes up. Yuki, for one. Mayzie, for another. The Order, the Civils, maybe she'll wrap this back around to hating Vespergift again, I couldn't tell you from here. But what's really going to kill her after that venom dissipates is that she can't hack it anymore. Timtam wants this more than she does. And what does that even mean for the 'Investigative Knight of the Aurora'?

...Ok. Ok ok ok ok, I feel really super bad about sticking my nose in here like this and then dumping all of this depressing nonsense at your feet. It's not like I'm going to help you clean it up, is it? I'm a detective. I find things, that's my job. Cleaning them is someone else's responsibility. And that's really the problem Eclair is going to have to solve in the end, don't you think? But no, I feel just awful leaving it all like this. So I'm going to tell you ooooooonnne secret.

There's a word I'd like you to remember, when it all looks bleak and [Hopeless]. It's an almost uselessly specific word, which I think is kind of nice because the meaning of it is basically to clear up or shed a light on something obscure. Something that isn't easily understood, you see. I don't think anyone in Thellamie has ever been more perfectly named in the history of existence. And this is your hint, ok? Or your Hope maybe, if you prefer to think of it like that. If you say it out loud, it goes like this:

Éclaircissement.