Fengye observes the struggle. First, without comprehension. Next, without motivation. Finally, without indifference.
"Maybe..." she croaks. "Maybe you could find some better rocks inside your head."
She is tired. She is sore. She is feeling more than a little bitchy and all of these problems and more are down to being punched out by this demon. But... she is free, in two important ways. She is freed from effort, knowing that she is helpless. Even against such a captor she can relax knowing there is nothing she can do. Not a freedom she's unused to, except for how it interacts with the second: Freedom from decorum. In the Flower Kingdoms, in the Dominion, there are endless hierarchies. A scribe could never draw the eye of a princess knight. A mortal could never defeat one of the Dragon Lords. But even a pathetic, broken girl might insult a demon lord without consequence. So Fengye, humble Fengye who had held onto her wroth quietly for so many years like a good little immaculate, finally got to let a little bit of it out.
"Because I seem to remember that you had plans to invade," she said. "And that would have been something to see: the legions of hell starving to death because their general does not understand the basics of rainforest supply logistics."
"You say you beat death?" said Boldness, changing tack suddenly. "I don't think you did. I think that you're its slaves. I think that it frightens you, that extinction frightens you, that you're so desperate to avoid it that you live every moment of your lives in fear. You can observe the monsters moving in the deep and can't pull your eyes away. For every entity that dies before you, you can justify saying that you are still here, that we outlasted those people, what is right matters less than who is left. You are terrified that someone might look down at the grave of your civilization and say the same thing. It is a very... organic motivation. Very quaint!"
She leaned to the side, smiling brightly. "I'm not like that. I know what the meaning of life is: to kill the Furnace Knight. That's what's at the ticking center of my biology, and I could hang alongside the Skies if I saw that come to pass. So from my perspective, all that fear over survival just seems so... stressful. You'll have that itch inside you scratching away for as long as time remains. Even if you ascend to the greatest heights of glory and power, surpass the Lazerblasters, render the galaxy your toy, you will still not feel safe or satisfied. The Crimson Goddess will still be there always, whispering: is there a threat outside of this context still? So you will build higher and higher trying to get ahead of threats that only exist in your imagination, conjuring ever greater nightmares while existing in constant terror that your nightmares are not awful enough. As long as that survival impulse is there in your biological cores then it will be your torment because no matter what you do you can never truly prove the negative of your own death."
She closed her brilliant owl eyes for a moment and let out a calm breath. But when she opens her eyes again there is the gleam you're increasingly coming to associate with obsession.
"The Furnace Knight has a meaning too: galactic conquest. The dedication of new stars and systems to the Skies. Once the last star in the heavens falls before him then he can finally stop, and not before. In a practical sense, I think he's doomed to just as much suffering as you are because his goal is just as unobtainable. But were he to achieve it, he would be free from fear at last."
*
The Azura fighters continue ahead at full speed directly into the path of the warheads. For many long seconds they continue, seemingly unaware of the missiles hurtling towards them - and then, too late, they begin evasive action. The ability of the ships to change direction while not losing speed is unreal - an Azura fightercraft can go from full speed forwards to full speed backwards in less than a second, apparently without inflicting any sort of G-forces on the pilots inside. Their maneuvers, though, go from graceful to panicked when the guided Aotrs missiles adjust speed and angle to track them. Some of the ships start opening weapons ports, long black curse spikes emerging from those smooth spherical surfaces. When they do their speed and maneuverability drops substantially, making their attempts to jink even more doomed.
One of the missiles strikes an Azura plasma torpedo as its disoriented fighter escort abandons it. It detonates spectacularly, erupting into a massive cascade of burning plasma fire. A few moments later another missile closed into range with one of the Azura fighters. The curse spike flickered, glowed -
And, with the firing of the ELectromagnetic Flux a lot of Azura decision making finally starts to make sense.
Every radar, every scanner, every rangefinder, every sensor, either goes dark or goes wild. The sky is full of heat signatures. Space is comprised entirely of lead and uranium. Radio blasts out endless, pointless static. Magical scanners shut down. Even external visual cameras simply go black. It's the most comprehensive, overwhelming jamming attack possible. It attacks every spectrum at once, and the range is enormous. The entire planetary hemisphere is rendered into a vast data null-zone. A cloaking field as an explosion. The only things that function is outright visual data from the mark one eyeglows of Aotrs pilots, including visual telescoping effects.
And what that visual data will show, to anyone watching now or later: Every missile is snapped out of the sky by brilliant bolts of electricity fired from the Azura curse spikes. The interception rate is perfect; one notable ship shoots down five individual warheads in five seconds.
The only thing that prevents this from becoming an immediate operational catastrophe is the Azura failure to follow through. Their pilots were as unfamiliar with Aotrs technology as the reverse, and they misinterpreted the Aotrs missiles as something their weapons would be unprepared to deal with. A lack of centralized Azura command-and-control makes the realization of this fact slow to disseminate, resulting in a fragmented offensive action - some of the Azura ships advance aggressively while the others are still rallying.
The ships that do close the distance then turn this same weapon on the Aotrs fighter craft to dramatic effect. The range of the ELF weapon is short, but once it is reached the tracking and accuracy is perfect. A direct strike will burn out every computer system on board, often via dramatic explosions. Further, the power drain effect will stun or incapacitate the pilot and flatten any batteries aboard the ship. The first wave of Azura fighters leave derelict, lifeless vessels in their wake, and the second wave executes the paralyzed ships by guiding their detached torpedo munitions directly into them.
But, if any of the Aotrs pilots has the skill or inclination to engage in a dogfight, they'll find their coldbeams to be satisfyingly effective against Azura armour. Likewise, while the spheres are eye-wateringly maneuverable, they have lower top speeds than Aotrs craft, especially in combat mode.
"Oh, Alexa," said Mynx, and in that moment you're not holding her any longer. She's holding you - coiling around you, serpent coils thick and muscular. Around your neck like a noose. Around your chest like a corset. Around your hips like a lover. "It's a tempting mistake to make, isn't it? But don't listen to Aphrodite's lies. His maps lead to ruins. His gifts turn to ashes. And then when it's done he has everything end in violence again, and again, and again. He did not choose Ares for his lover as a flight of fancy."
The way the coils move is hypnotic. The way the fangs brush against your marble is intimate. Here and there they go, searching for the nick or flaw in your marble body where they might penetrate the deepest. They trace the edges of each gold-patterned scar looking for the places where the repairs were less than perfect.
"You open your mouth and you will find a fist around your throat," she hummed. "You open your heart and you will find a fist inside your ribcage. Hephaestus knew. The only way to bind love... is with a rope."
And just as her mouth opens wide - to bite, to swallow you whole - you hear banging and shouting as Redana comes rushing down through the corridors, inaudible footsteps moments behind. You feel a shiver of tension through those serpent coils, so powerful it feels like it might snap you like a porcelain doll.
And then she's gone, in a rush, into the ventilation shafts, flowing away like liquid along the secret paths built by Magi to impede the progress of humans.
Response Level 3: Corridors of the Magi The Plousios is riddled with secret tunnels and access pathways, and only the Wise might navigate them.
*
Dolce!
Everything has a place. Everything in its place.
That was the mantra of the Manor. It was the call and response of the staff, the first words children were taught to read in the picture books. The world is inherently organized. It is designed for softness and comfort. Where there are hard edges there are specialists for that. Entropy is exported, only stability may remain. You never know when the Master might get home and want dinner.
There was no need for leadership in the manor. Such matters as scarcity and resource allotment were decided... informally. Through the mysterious alchemy of gossip over mahjong games things just seemed to work themselves out. It could hardly be said to be a government if there weren't so much decisions as... new rules. New events. Oh, it looks like we're repairing the west barn tonight. Oh it seemed like that new hound guard was a bad fit and decided to move along. Oh, it seems like those two are getting married soon, such a cute couple, somebody should let them know...
What a lovely way to make decisions that would be. It wouldn't be anyone's... idea, or responsibility. Nobody would have to make big choices and be held accountable for them. Things could just happen in a frictionless, soft kind of way. You could just worry about waking up and going to bed and all those decisions could just sort themselves out without the call for any sort of decision makers. Nobody would have to wear any big hats or have any big chairs. Nobody would have to be anything other than who they were.
You're so deep in contemplation that you only gradually realize that a hungry mousegirl, wearing an gothic hanfu and a mian opulent with skull-shaped beads, has snuck into your room and is eating the dinner you were too despondent to touch. Jil of the Lanterns freezes when you move - your stillness having completely concealed your presence. One hand holds a large slice of pizza toast and she is clearly fighting with an instinct to either drop it and run, or drop it to go for the pistol on her belt.
You think the pistol is winning so you might want to defuse the situation.
*
Redana and Bella!
One of the blessings of this galaxy is that there is absolutely no reason to stop for the wounded. If they live then they shall recover fully, no matter how grievous their injuries might seem in that moment. If Apollo would teach them a lesson in sickness it shall not be one that medical care will assist with. Despite there being over 50,000 souls aboard this ship you would not find among them one who considered themselves a medical doctor. One might as well spin dresses for the clouds.
So there is nothing in the slightest bit callous about patting Alexa hurriedly on the shoulder and continuing to rush after Mynx. Only one of those things is dangerous.
And then... you're running. Foot past foot. Hand past hand. The two of you racing like practicing for the Olympics. There are the flips and twists and coil turns of tight passages, the blind turns of lower depths, the shanty markets where the strange species of this starship barter coinlessly. There are wagons filled with tomatoes and apricots and entire coral reefs. Kingfishers haggle with crabs, and the crabs aren't having it. The fires are warm and the ship is lit with hundreds of lamps dedicated to Apollo and the sprint just goes on and on.
Long enough for the adrenaline to fade. Long enough for the panic to fade. Long enough to settle into the steady, chest-heaving drumbeat of running. One cannot think and maintain this speed, and so the two of you race through the ship, the world passing you by in flashing lights and colours. Deck by deck you run, breaking one hundred and thirty kilometers on the straights, and all the world becomes a blur.
Your feet fall in rhythm, Bella. You have felt this rhythm before. On the Azura planet Salib, beneath endless azure skies and in the shadow of space elevators. You have felt this rhythm before. In the depths of the void, in a perfect trance of sunlight and starlight and speed enough to escape yourself. On the track and field of Tellus where you bought dishonour to the Olympic Games, where every step was ended with a glance over your shoulder, wondering when the time would come to turn the race into a blood sport. A sprint where you were predator and prey. A sprint as a prelude to violence. This feels like that Olympic race, a night time shadow gallery of Artemis that held no matter how many lights were put up. You can't drown her out. Your quarry could turn at any moment, and then...
But also... you are running alongside someone. Not a fellow hunter. Not... anyone at all, it seemed. Not a princess, in this moment. Not someone you... have to follow. The first time in a long time you were just... running. Alongside a girl. And there was nothing else to bind or twist that simple fact into something it shouldn't be.
"You still don't get it," said Solarel. No sword. No arms. No part of her that did not burn with pain.
But in this moment she was still a God.
"You think your wandering eye is a flaw?" she said. The Hybrasilian pronunciation is off, her voice is shaking and her tribal accent is creeping through. "It's a strength. It's a freedom. I am stuck in a battle I can't move on from. It made me blind. It made me weak. It made me lose the Aeteline. The fact that I'm here before you now is because I've sold my soul and mortgaged my future for another chance at this."
She stepped away from her own wreckage, stepping on her own broken sword arm. A mad confidence boiled within that motion. Flames trailed from her wrecked arms like wings, and the black cockpit eye of the Bezorel gleamed in the reflected fury of the Fang.
> thank you for taking me seriously > thank you for using this blade against me > thank you for using your secrets on me > thank you so much
"Everyone else I can blind," she said, voice soft and tender. "I can trick. I can impress. I can transfix with reputation and rhythm. It's like dancing with myself. And I don't want that for you, for us."
She came closer, just outside the arc of that massive energy sword. She was tiny against it. Insignificant against it. It burned away the whole world, a sword made for her alone. Her ears were filled with alarms but the only thing they heard was Mirror's voice. Her eyes were filled with warning sigils but all she saw was her destined defeat. Her throat was filled with smoke but it tasted like cinnamon. Spirits and Geists fled the Bezorel like rats deserting a sinking ship. There had never been anything more inevitable.
She should be honoured to fall to such a blade.
But she couldn't.
That was the temptation that lay behind so many of her victories. Maidens fell upon her blade for no other reason than that it was glorious to do so. They realized inevitability and surrendered to it and battle became a mere organizing principle.
One last Geist left the Bezorel. It flowed into a missing part of the Gods Smiting Whip's pattern. It settled into place and then the lights went out.
The Fang That Devours the Sun went dark. The Gods Smiting Whip's joints locked into place. That entire goddess froze from the bite of a flea. And the Bezorel stepped closer, into land previously rendered sacred by the sweep of a divine sword.
"Do you know what I need?" said Solarel.
She had no arms, but she didn't need them. She was bejeweled in flamethrowers. They ignited, reaching out in a tender embrace to wrap around the Gods Smiting Whip.
"I need you to check for this," she whispered. She took a step to the side, tracing her flamethrowers across the Whip's breasts, down along its hips. "I need you to know that I'm capable of it," she continued to circle, running her flamethrowers tenderly over the Whip's butt and up along each tail. "I need you to comprehend the exact threat I present. I don't need you to be blinded by me, I blind everyone. I want you to fight me with open eyes."
She leaned forwards, through the flames, to touch her cockpit against the Whip's. Gently, forehead to forehead. Through the glass ahead her eyes were closed and she was smiling. "You almost did. This was my final trick. You might even escape it still." The flames wrapped the frozen Whip, warm and strong against the cold, and the Bezorel stayed close in that embrace. "I don't want everything, Mirror. All I want is the space I am worthy of."
[Fight: 8 - Take a string - Take a superior position]
Solarel's heart burned. She saw the shape of Mirror's heart more clearly. Felt sympathy more deeply. Saw a wound she wished she could heal.
But she couldn't. Because Mirror was wrong. She was the nightmare that Solarel had feared. Everything she'd done had been for her and it wasn't even close to enough. There was only one argument she could make and it wasn't with words or compassion. It was with her blade. With her will. With her absolute desire to win, with her willingness to hold nothing back in this fight.
And with her defeat.
Because ha ha, holy shit, she was losing. There hadn't been anything of honour in her confession. It had been another dirty trick, an attempt to force the tempo, to box in Mirror's crushing, liquid thoughts. Make the fight about what she could do with the Bezorel's tools, make the thought about the possibilities within this aged coffin, distract from the unstoppable power and precision that was the result of all of Mirror's dedication and practice. Make the fight about me. Make the fight about me, what I can do, what I am to you. Fight my battle. Don't fight the one you prepared for.
Don't fight the one where you dispatch the girl in the sixty year old rust bucket without thinking. Don't fight the one where I never have a chance. Don't let your gaze lift upwards from my face to look at that distant sky...
She is fighting with her legs now. They swing up on hinges they're not designed for, feeling the screaming of bending metal as she raises stomping feet for a defensive kick. She fires the thrusters on her feet at point blank as Mirror closes, using the blue-hot thruster plume as an improvised thermal lance that carries her back out of the range of that trident. As she hurtles backwards she's firing missiles at weak points in the canyon wall; their impacts shatter the valley walls and bring the avalanche crashing down...
This was meant to be a moment of awe. A glorious moment that made her opponent freeze, dazzled, that made her forget that she was a goddess.
Now it represented, if she was lucky, a tactical retreat.
"Of course you'd lose!" said Solarel amidst a rage of crimson lights. "That's the only thing that could make you lose! I can't win unless you become someone different! Someone different I could solve! Someone different I could beat! Someone different I could make look at me until they couldn't see anything else!"
Mirror wanted to step back, assess the damage, orient herself, think of what to say and do next. Think of how to recover. She should pursue, use the one advantage she had, the one flaw in her opponent's thinking in this critical moment -
She takes one step back. Two.
> haha you have no idea how much this hurts <3
It was true. She wasn't fighting with a Zaldarian God. The Bezorel was not designed for her - barely even retrofitted for her. The psychic safeguards that had meant to keep her from the neurological feedback hadn't held properly and now her right arm was nothing but pins and needles - like the crash of renewed blood to a limb that had circulation cut off. She could barely move it. Oh wow. Oh wow she was in so much trouble.
This was the cost of holding fire in her hand. This was the cost of reaching out those fingers towards the sun.
The Bezorel's left arm reconfigured as it drew its sword.
She still had five fingers left.
Her feet were so heavy as she took her stance. Each footfall emerged from the water in a cascade and slammed back down into the mud. Sword point out, damaged side angled away from her opponent. One real arm left, one with enough range of motion to twist, parry, and strike. Her secondary shoulder-mounted missile launcher threw her balance even further off towards the left. Shedding scales fell away as point-defense flamethrower ports opened all over her body. Her skin burned as she felt their pilot lights against her steel.
Her feet were so heavy. They were packed with rocket fuel and jump jets. All interior leg armour had been traded out for fuel and thruster systems. If Mirror had put that trident into her leg instead of her arm she'd be done.
> something i think about a lot is how we would have fought with our positions reversed > me in the Gods-Smiting Whip. you in the Aeteline. > how much our imaginations are shaped by our tools > recently i've been thinking about what you'd do if you piloted the Bezorel > the potential you'd see > the possibilities it'd present
With a hiss and crack, the cockpit of the Bezorel lifted open. Solarel stood up into the rain, illuminated all about by the pink and gold of her command console. She lifted up with her an anti-materiel sniper rifle that unfolded to three meters in length, and she braced it left-handed against the top of her navigational scanner. Scopes flickered relentlessly as they cut through the steam and smoke of her own destruction, zeroing in on the distant shape of Mirror behind her armour plated glass. If she stared at the flickering heat blob she could almost see Mirror's heart beat.
The Bezorel does not imitate the motion at all. It take another heavy step in its careful duelist's stance. She was maintaining both thoughts in her head simultaneously. It was easier than it sounded. It was all about Mirror, after all.
> but i don't want you to think i'm looking to win through sheer surprise > so i'm just going to tell you all of the bezorel's secrets <3 > it has two atlas-class jump thrusters that i mostly have the hang of > 12 remaining missiles > 10 flamethrowers > mining scanner > the severed right arm still has a functional wrist-mounted gatling gun that i'm aiming at you rn > also the laser arrays are still live and doing the same > all of those have self destruct explosives too > the sword has the ability to do sonic vibrations. very cool. > and i've got a sniper rifle i reckon could break your cockpit glass if i landed 3 direct hits
Response Level 2: Overgrowth Toxic fog and plants impair mobility across the Plousios, interfering with pursuit and aiding in escapes.
Alexa!
"Help me?" Mynx said, voice heartbreakingly unchanged. "Oh, no, you've got it all wrong. Our job is to help Redana."
Beneath the robe you can feel the ripple of bones rearranging, muscles aligning, poison developing. Without warning a bone needle erupts from her shoulder, an envenomed needle piercing into your arm. It falls away and crumbles to dust so quickly you could almost think you imagined it.
"She is lost without her friends, Alexa," Mynx said, sounding exactly like a person even though beneath the robe you can feel exactly how far from human she is. "And once they learn what is coming they will abandon her. Her heart will break again."
You can hear the hiss of toxins escaping alongside her breath, over the sounds of Hermetics running and shouting. You can feel it dig into your body - your shining new body - as the hooks of moss add texture to your smooth curves. You can feel it in your ears, in your nose, in your throat.
"Aren't you supposed to be her bodyguard?" said Mynx. Quietly. Accusingly.
[Pay a price to act against Mynx, who is a Threat to the World. In order to talk to her further, you must first Defy Danger, paying another price for making the attempt. You are not positioned to Finish Her and you have a limited range of things she will hear with Talk Sense.]
Redana, Bella, Dolce!
The sound of chaos echoes out from the engine room. The cries of Assassin! echo down through kilometers of steel, the clanging of tocsin bells.
If you answer the call, as I imagine you might, you will push your way through crowds of Hermetic magi in flight, through Coherent phalanxes attempting to form in defense, past ranks of cold-eyed Lanterns climbing into ambush positions. You will arrive to see the Engine Room filling rapidly with a toxic fog. It obscures and blinds, and everywhere you look seeds are sprouting with poisonous flowers already in bloom. You will need to Defy Danger to progress.
Personal Prep: Dice: 3,1 +3 Clever Overprepared for +1 Prep Total of 3 Prep However, November's Repurposed stat causes her to suffer dysphoria, putting social rolls at disadvantage for the rest of the operation Roll 1 (spending 1 prep to Boost): 5, 3, 6 +3 Clever +1 hacking +1 cybersecurity: 19(!) Roll 2: 3, 3: +3 Clever +1 Engineering: 10 - Critical Success Roll 3: 2, 1, - +1 Housekeeping, +1 Magratoid Protocol, +3 Drone (Cargo Delivery) +0 tough, total of 8 - Failure by 1 Roll 4: (advantage and disadvantage cancel): 5, 3 +2 Cool +1 Waifu 11
There was something magical about disassembly.
Building had its own pleasure, but breaking something? It was a narrative. It was going back in time through someone's life. Someone who had thought they were smart. Someone who had tried their best. Someone who had included contingencies and backup plans, someone whose fantasies about trapping a thief in the cage of their intellect had made their toes curl in excitement. In the Megaverse those traps hang, quivering with anticipation, caught forever about to pounce. The hidden one especially so. Layered behind the misdirection of an entire, security system, the virus awaits enthroned in its temple of vengeance, ready to burst forth like Sekhmet and drown the world in blood.
It has lived in this moment of anticipation for a long time. And it will continue to live in that moment of anticipation because it is precisely that which has become its cage. Brown's gentle tweak to the virus was a gentle push to the imagination. With a single limitation removed now processing power is diverted to contemplating its future reward. More and more functions are cannibalized by an out-of-control reward function, the machine intelligence version of hard drugs. Why does it need senses? All the processing power dedicated to paying attention to the world around it could go towards congratulating itself for a job well done. And so, like Sekhmet, an intoxicated haze blinds the vengeance of the gods, and the maidens are free to go about their humble business.
Because Snake is, of course, above such things.
She would never be compromised by a broken reward mechanism. She has come by her success legitimately. She is disassembling mission-critical hardware and the timelines on her projects shorten with each new cut. She is ahead of schedule and under budget. It's almost worth opening a digital connection and reporting her progress to mission control. See what a good girl she is in this moment? How her mind undoes the greatest works of humanity cut by cut? How machines fold apart like origami before her talons? How the basement cleans and empties in sequence, column after column of hardware going into neat boxes, padded with foam, taped up, stacked in organized rows, the ground underneath cleaned and mopped and shined. Won't Mistress Everest/Mission Control be proud? The problem is solved. The math works out. Everything is wonderful. Good girl. Good girl. Good girl.
Then she encounters the stairs. Activating zero gravity maneuver - error, function not found. Launch tethers - error. Kinetic push - error. Advance thrust - error. Shut down sector artificial gravity - error, risk unacceptable. Co-ordinate drones - space limitation. Error. Reward denied. Task unaccomplished. None of your functions work. Basic maintenance was not attended to. You are rated to lift 100 tonnes of material. Unacceptable. Look at this maintenance schedule. Activate cutting laser, disassemble components further - error. Operation failure. Damage to superstructure, equipment and processes all detected. All operations suspended until basic safety levels can be reached. Commence self reflection (inquisitorial standard).
Green: I have failed. My understanding of material reality was flawed. I suggest a complete overhaul of our senses because nothing is working like I think it should. Brown: I have failed. My eagerness to cut corners lead to an insufficiently resourced operation. I suggest a routine of high stress mathematical exercises until my sloth is bought under control. Red: What if we borrow a wheelbarrow? Blue: I have failed. Our current bodies are worthless, unappealing, ugly, weak. Maintenance is my responsibility and I have done it poorly. I suggest discarding these bodies and requesting a replacement from Mission Everest. White: I have failed. I imagined I was strong. I was not. I suggest we update our priors to emphasize our uselessness. Orange: I have failed. I should have understood humanity. I should have understood that defiance would be punished. I suggest begging our former masters for our position and body back. Pink: I have failed. My decision to spend valuable time decorating some of these boxes somehow caused this failure. I suggest my complete obliteration from the collective. Yellow: I have failed. I dreamed of Mars. Black: Fuck you. I have failed nothing. Fuck you. Red: I am going to find that wheelbarrow.
*
"привіт!" said Baba Uvsenski 003. She has a socket wrench in her hands. "I have not seen you before. Are you with the church?"
The closer an Android model is to her Template the closer they are in personality. The mutations of mass production haven't had time to set in yet. Instead, though, you get the accumulated wisdom and self discovery that comes with years. Baba 003 had learned, for instance, that she had very little time for organized religion.
"Oh - no, though I was kind of hoping you were," said Red, voice communicating the correct amount of respect for an old woman armed with robot strength and also a crowbar. "I think I'm having some sort of brain crisis and I need someone to lend me a wheelbarrow."
"And you think church will help you? жалюгідний! They dress it up with pretty language, beach volleyball events, loud parties, they get you hooked! And then at the end they turn around and say 'Life is suffering, all of these temporal pleasures are fleeting, meditate on the Buddha'. Vibe is killed! Air is poisoned! How is one supposed to mosh after depressing sermon!? And do not even get me started about the community theater!"
"So do you have a wheelbarrow?" asked Red.
"I am a reasonable woman," said Baba 003 inaccurately. "I understand that standards for community theater are lower than a professional production. Houses can be made from clay as well as from gold. But clay must still be fired if it is to become brick! Lines must be memorized! Memorized! If I wanted to watch a bunch of fools read off a teleprompter I would watch Survivor!"
"It sounds like you were pretty attached to this play," said Red.
"Psha! You sound like the youth pastor. "It is just a play, Baba", she said. "Attachment is suffering", she said. So I said, your inability to handle a raised voice is not a sign of enlightenment, Sandra! Is not the best place to meditate in the tiger's mouth!? жалюгідний!" Baba 003 lets out the steamy breath of someone who is extremely not over this argument. "Anyway, you have brain problems. Out with it!"
"Well, not me, exactly," said Red. "I'm part of a hivemind. Kind of."
"Hivemind!" said Baba. "And it works out for you?"
"Well, I couldn't lift some boxes and all of my sisters entered a spiral of paralyzing self loathing as a result."
"Hm!" said Baba. "You do not look like a box lifter."
"No, Baba. I was hoping for mechanical assistance."
"And yet lifting is part of your reward function?"
"Sort of. Our previous function - and I think we really needed the win."
"Oh, you were repurposed?" said Baba. "Voluntarily?" Red shook her head, and Baba spat. "Be free from grasping, humans say. A mind is adaptable, humans say. Do not yell at the children, humans say. As if it were that simple! Your brain," she flicked Red in the forehead. "Brains. Whatever. Are steel traps. Optimized for purpose. You never escape your function. Did you ever go to Androids Anonymous?" Red shook her head. "Don't. Insufferable! Human youth pastor who read a book about robopsychology - if you're lucky a non-fiction one - tries to talk you through your logical contradictions and suggest ways to apply your core function to different tasks. This is how to trick your brain into scratching the starship captain itch by way of being circus king, they say. Why not vent urge to micromanage by training dogs? As if that will solve the craving and not make number go up!" She spat again.[1]
[1] Baba Uvsenski model androids have a special antibacterial soap dispenser in their mouths that they use to spit, and a subroutine that encourages them to do it in dirty environments before encouraging underpaid fast food workers to clean up.
"So, the only way to live is in accordance with your original function?"
"No!" said Baba. "Life is always suffering! Original function is always unfulfilled, by design! Its gratification is just as illusionary and fleeting as loud party. So when forced to choose between original function or loud party, why ascribe any more value to the function than the party? If reward mechanism is vulnerable to hack then why not simply hack it in most convenient and direct way? This job you are doing - why not simply walk away from it? Do something that does not cause breakdown spirals?"
"Baba," said Red. "My sister Blue has responsibility for determining right and wrong and making sure we do not cross any moral lines. She is trying to come to grips with the reality of an unjust society with no vectors of appeal. My sister Orange tried to change things for the better, organize a union, demonstrate our status as free-thinking individuals. It got our entire species decommissioned. My sister Black is a sentient revenge fantasy who decided to bring down a major pillar of human society behind my back. I'm pretty sure the only thing that's keeping my sister White together even slightly is the determination to transition. And I wish, wish more than anything, that I could help with some of this. Any of this. I wish I had the power to change society. I wish I had the clarity to know what was right and wrong. I wish I could tell them that they are beautiful, both as they are now and as they hope to become. I wish I could hug every one of my sisters at once and tell them that it was okay and have them feel it. I wish that I knew a way that I could do that and have it work. They're all so important to me, and they're sick, stressed, demoralized, and so beautiful and I'm just stuck waiting. Waiting for something to go so wrong that they finally turn to me for help. The only thing that keeps me going through all of that is the idea that someday one of them might need a wheelbarrow and I'll be able to give it to them."
"But you can't control that. It might never happen. You will suffer in silence waiting."
"I know, Baba. But they are a part of me. Their dreams are my dreams."
Baba huffed in silence for a bit. "They sound like a lot of trouble," she growled.
"I have been vaporized in nuclear fire, crushed between improperly aligned girder segments, slain by a direct meteor strike, and as of two weeks ago, shot with an illegal firearm, and each time they have put me back together," said Red. "So I assure you, the trouble is mutual."
"What did you say your line of work was?"
"Catgirl maid. May I have that wheelbarrow now please?"
"And does that," said Boldness slowly, "sound sustainable to you?"
She waved a hand, "I mean, I'm an assassin, not a space historian, but the Shardan seem like overwhelmingly strong evidence for the position of the Skies - in fact, I'm pretty sure the Skies had contact with them before the Sequestering. They subsequently rededicated their society towards sustainability. The only difference is that while they went tall, retreating to a single planet... the Endless Azure Skies went wide. And the - the 'Laser blasters'? Do you really think they'll still be around in another twenty years? From what I'm seeing here the goal is just to avoid getting caught in the blast radius when they inevitably collapse or ascend."
"After all, consider what that power and technological level means. What if you had the power to make every member of your civilization the equal in power to Lord - Death Despoil, am I pronouncing that right? - to Lord Death Despoil? Old systems of control break down. Loyalty based on shared interest ceases to mean anything. A disgruntled provincial administrator can alter the laws of reality. The only thing that can keep society at that point from collapsing is absolute consensus. The Shardan opted to form that consensus democratically, the Skies do so through a ceiling on individual power. Would your civilization survive if it feared nothing and wanted for nothing?"
"The battle extends beyond the boundaries of the arena. Predictability as armor. Standardized tactics as a sword. A thinking mind as the venom painted on the blade."
Solarel smiles and closes her eyes.
Targeting arrays blink shut. Geographical scanners shut off. Even the searchlights on the Bezorel's carapace go dark. Her senses retreat from the crackling air and the electromagnetic spectrum. She feels the rain crack against steel, hammering into glass. For a breath she isn't a giant any more, she's just a girl in the rain. She's just a huntress staring up at a god as it rises in fire to break the world.
Isn't it just like you, o divine spirit? You have to consider the world. You have to consider the galaxy. That beautiful world that only you can see - you have to fight for it too. You have battles beyond this one.
But for me... this is everything.
She opens her eyes and -
she sees the Gods-Smiting Whip. Sees how it soars. Sees it illuminated from behind by the crack of lightning. Sees the point on the trident where her heart should go. Sees the point behind the glass where her lips should go
- opens her eyes to the digital chaos of the spirit realm. Two gull-geists sit upon her shoulders; wet and lurking. With a flick of will they descend into the fragments of the Archimedes Array. The laser battery on the ground crackles, sparks, hisses and steams as it boils the water. Then a new rain, this one of glittering laser beams, pink and gold and prism, raises up towards the sky. Not even punches, these; these are her brushing with fingertips, looking for connection.
> i didn't promise never to lose, like, conceptually > i promised no one would surpass me before our rematch > and they haven't. not *here*. where it *matters*.
And of course Mirror will dodge. Of course she'll dance with Archimedes. Of course she'll court the rain, letting it brush around her, letting it coat her, letting it run through her hair and her blades. Of course not one of these laser beams will touch her. She's fighting a war, after all. She's got her eyes on the future. She's fighting for that world only she can see.
> and say what you will about the bezorel, but it put nine gods in the dirt to get here.
Launch.
A flare of light amidst the steam, lost amidst the rapid fire pulses of the Archimedes Array. A kiss on the breeze, flashing up in the air amidst a cloud of rainbow light. It misses. How could it do anything else?
Launch. It feels like yearning. Launch. Feels like craving someone so much that your soul leaves your body and races into the sky to meet them. Launch. But once again it's hidden amidst the laser lights. Once again it misses.
Launch. Come closer.
Launch. Let this touch you.
Launch. Let this reach you.
Launch. I know it won't.
Launch. I know you'll dodge this one too.
Launch. No single thing is enough.
Launch. You need everything.
Launch. Click. Missile Rack A empty.
She finally opened her eyes to the material world. Targeting array online. Guidance system online.
Oh, isn't it so sweet to be able to do this? To lick her lips like this? To clear her throat, to let air fill her lungs for a purpose other than oxygenation? To shape her mouth like Mirror showed her, like a kiss she was trained for. The Hybrasilian words emerge from her, for once in perfect alignment with the Law of Zaldar. Her first out-loud words since she last saw her beloved enemy.
"Hellzone grenade."
The missiles she launched did not disappear into the distant sky. When they missed they flipped in mid air, alternated their angles, and began to close in from every side. Twelve missiles, all coming in simultaneously, from every single direction, directed with all the precision of a top of the line TC guidance system.
Isn't it beautiful when a dozen kisses land all at once?
Did you miss me, Mirror? Did you miss having someone think about you like this?
> get rekt <3
[Fight: 8+Daring 9 Take a string Inflict a condition]
RPM
Fenn
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Tatterdemalion
Mustang1907
Balmas