ZombiesAnHyenas

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Shield Town, Black Iron Workshop

---

Jemma had flown for a while, again. Her shape shrunken down from the emotional high of anger and indignation that expressed itself as a vaguely draconic ... Thing.
Instead, she was herself once more- humanoid with a few extra bits. Her back is populated with a quartet of dark brown and gray feathered wings. Two were used to provide some sort of modesty, even if that wasn't necessarily... Necessary. There were plates of chitin and bone acting as both armor and 'censors'. Because, y'know, people got weird about that, as the whisper of Wolf's voice in the back of her mind mentioned.

Wait. Focus. She was getting distracted as she flew. Jemma focused for a moment, letting her face fall blank as her thoughts rapidly spun back to the memories at the lake. That sensation of a gigantic titan of the deep, watching and moving and observing, but only just barely so. The feeling of serene enormity and immense inconsequence. The unsettling understanding of [that which is more than].
But that was then. This was now, IS, now. The understanding of how better to... charge? Change? Warp? Wield. Summon! Manipulate and control! The circles she could envision and build and fuel and-
FOCUS.

What to do now... Right. Go home, that's the plan. Going home. Go talk to the old boss at Black Iron Workshop, get that last paycheck, say the whole 'hey yeah, hi, I'm not dead!', repeat with Alex... Hm. Well. Maybe not, she did try to literally eat him upon meeting him again, for the first time, in years. Maybe she wasn't ready for that just yet. She'd figure it out later, it'd be fine.
First, the workshop.

---

The workshop, that was as busy as Jemma had ever seen it. Wow. WHY!?

Someone took one look at her walking up the way, stopped, and gasped. To which Jemma simply waved; and then froze as the poor woman paled, flushed, screamed in delight, and then fainted in short order.
Which was… certainly a thing! And made even more of a thing by a young man— Seb! He managed to live through his botched surgery! His eyes looked good!— turning about and shouting.
Which caused others to take up their shouting, between regulars or friends of family regulars or friends of friends… People were excited! Shouting and shrieking and laughing.
Oh. Wow! A welcome home! She was missed! That was a first. … Right? The memories were foggy, of this home place. Of these people, so excited to see her.
It felt somewhat wrong, but oh so right all the same.

Ignore the feeling of creeping apathy in the background, noting how some of those with little to no chrome were like small beacons of [manalight]. Fuel, so close… so… No.
Focus.
Focus on the call of ‘Dove’s home!’

And smile at that, push the feeling of skin crawling apathy away, and wave! Ignore the feeling of ink swirling under the surface! Ignore it!
“I’m home! Hey! Hi! Wow! Y’all are… way too kind! Hi! Hello!” Jemma laughed, smiling broadly and only barely restraining the urge to pull her wings tighter around her body. Ink threatened to pulse at her fingers and toes.
Focus.

Someone rushed up, and her astral eyes tracked every bit of [INTENT] that flowed through the excited figure. Mostly harmless, with twinges of [CONCERN-CURIOSITY-RELIEF]. They babbled at her, thrusting a deeply familiar pair of pants, under shirt, over shirt into her hands. Jemma laughed at this, staring in shock. Not quite her old uniform for the workshop, when she was just apprenticing, but… Familiar! Familiarity! This was good! Ignore the building shell shock of being recognized so widely! It’s fine!

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Felix merely shrugged at Dawn's admission. The whole physical touch thing was a problem at first, but considering that she at least told him ahead of time, he wasn't all that bothered! The fact that she did so ahead of time was surprising but, altogether unoffensive.
Communication! Yay!

Focus. His eyes darted to hers, flicking to the unfortunate detritus of his... Arrival. Before again returning to her. "Not how it works, huh... Less a precognitive and more of an intuition based clairvoyant! That's super neat! Y'know, the amount of research done into esper expressions is so minimal that it honestly kinda kills me. Like, you! You're incredibly versatile so far as I've seen, and apparently pretty strong to affect my emotional states! Which..."
Felix trailed off, staring into the middle distance as his volume slowly but surely dropped into a mutter-storm. The words 'potential for inspiration' rattled out at a mildly louder volume at some point, but he was otherwise inaudible.

Abruptly, he snapped his attention back onto her, wholly. "Well! Anyways, don't feel bad about it! I appreciate you telling me ahead of time y'know? Communication! It usually solves most problems, hah! I don't really mind, since, I'm aware of it now and, again, you told me. So, no worries," He reassured. Felix took another sip from his 'mixed drink' as he thought for a long moment, before tilting his head and staring at Dawn's manicured nails.

"Actually, that reminds me! Are you, I dunno, wholly skipping work today? Cuz if you are, I need to head back to the tower, eat again, and readjust my chrome! Annnnd I figure that'd be a good time for you to try and see if you could give my limbs tattoos, yeah? Hell, I'd even let you decide on what I'd be wearing!" Exclaimed the tinker. "Plus, I really wanna talk to you about literally anythin'. You're a super sweet conversationalist! And, also, I like watchin' you get fussy about Mister Asshat. It's funny!"

He stood then, wincing as the hard-light haptic feed-back once again screamed soreness and fatigue at him. His hips and shoulders were aching beyond belief by now. Oops. Should've just kept walking, be like a shark and all, right?
Oh.
Pay for her stuff, that'd be a good way to make up for the whole... Mess! Right? Eh. Yeah, and cover the tip! Was there a tip to be covered? Oh, wait, focus! Foooocus!

---

The Undercity, Lake Denton

---

Jemma had flown for a while by now, with thoughts flowing like rain-water down a sleepy suburban street. The anger had entirely fled by now, and a strange calmness had settled over her like a weighted blanket. Happiness at the freedom of her situation was distant and muted, as if coming to her from a tunnel far and away. One of her twinned heads was watching the ground below, noting the differing hunter crews that were mid butcher and carve. There was a truly large body, it appeared to be a giant crustacean of some sort, being pulled apart by a team of twelve in exo-suits. Huh.
Good eating, for whoever got the majority of that share.

She ignored that gasps of those who were more situationally aware than their peers, only barely noticing as they lifted hands and pointed at her. Even if they wanted to engage her, the fact that she only kept flying was enough to dissuade any aggression.
Don't poke a flying beast that's leaving you alone, right? Right.

Jemma flew, and flew, eventually settling into a rhythm as the sparkling refraction of Lake Denton made itself known. A quiet place, far and away from anyone and anything else. Her astral eyes picked up a few creatures, darting away from her considerable bulk, but ultimately? There was nothing else but her, and the quiet lapping of water upon a shoreline.
Safety assured, she leaned down, both heads peering into the water in silence. A singular wing-tip came forth, stirring the water and sending ripples of [MANA] down and out. Ripples returned in kind, clarifying her [VISION].

There were plenty of fish, or at least, fish-like beasts in the depths of the lake. Those that skimmed the surface were fast and small, silvery flesh flashing like blades before vanishing further out. A catfish flashed in the depths, sifting through silt and murk with a multitude of prehensile whiskers. [LIGHTNING-minor-SPARK] leapt from whisker to prey item, as the bottom feeder shocked its prey into stillness to be consumed.
And so she sat for a time, simply watching... And watching... And ever so slowly, falling into a trance.
The sounds of the lake filled her, from hearing to thought to spirit. The hush-shush of waves lulling a sort of true serenity forth.

The body slowly settled, [WATER-MANA-ASPECT] drawing up and into the core of Jemma's being, and fueling a waking dream.
A temporary memory of being submerged in unbelievable depths. Pressure and cold, crushing down and freezing out from all sides. Comfort in the abyss. An utter lack of noise, with whorls of [FORCE-MANA] and [WATER-MANA] sprawling for miles upon miles upon miles. In those miles, so far away that the inky black became even more pitch, a body stirred. A leviathan, a behemoth, an utterly gigantic thing. It moved, in that lightless space, stirring titanic currents with each shifting motion.
She felt like she was staring up into the stars, insignificant enough to derive true safety in a way. A peace found only in the presence of that which was truly larger than she'd ever comprehend.

Then, like a tide, the titan turned. It moved so slow, so methodically, that eons could have passed in the time it took for the thing to change its trajectory. Water rushed forth, pressing all that she could have ever been into the now rapidly eroding silt at her feet. Light, like a city, blazed to life across a body that she would never hope to see the end of. A wordless sound rippled forth, approaching like a tsunami from which there was no escape.
It had just barely crested over her, suffusing her with a minuscule moment of understanding, before abruptly...

The waking-dream faded, popped like a bubble.

And Jemma blinked at the feeling of a wolf-sized cat-fish trying to aggressively swallow her wingtip.
Huh.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Castle On the Clouds

---

To say that Felix was surprised by suddenly arriving in what was, objectively, far too fine dining for him to be welcome, would be... An understatement.
As would be the violent burst of vertigo and nausea. He caught about five words from Dawn before he was turning and desperately searching for a trash can. Upon not seeing one, Dawn was treated to the sight of someone stumbling as far away from her as possible, before upchucking. Basically everything that could have possibly been left in his stomach was rapidly not in his stomach.

It took a minute or two, before Felix gasped for air and groaned. "Oh god. Oh sweet merciless tit chafing god, fuck that. Holy shit. Never again." His voice was hoarse, and Sovereign was flashing all sorts of alerts across his HUD. It was probably for the best that some of his internals were cyberware, because damn. A heart rate sitting at around the 378 BPM mark was... Terrifying! Wow. Yikes.
That wasn't to mention the elevated levels of most of his stress hormones. Yikes!
His hearing slowly faded back in, with Dawn looking at him with a raised eyebrow. Oops.
'A little bird told me you'd be trying something dumb,' came her... Amused? He was gonna go with amused. Her amused voice slowly filtered back in. He waved a glowing hand nonchalantly, snorting once before gagging and dry heaving. "Yeah loo- Hurh- Look. I'm... Like... Eighteen percent stupid by volume. Anyways! Good morning! Ssssorry? At least you're not sitting around with major jackass?" He murmured, rolling his shoulders slowly and with... Some amount of shame!
He slowly made his way over, wincing at the burst of soreness that erupted along his spine and his lungs. Sovereign helpfully notified him that his cyberware was 'overtaxed', to put it lightly. He wouldn't be good to do that again. Not until he got back to work. Which... Was a good idea! Yup! Just not right now. Talking now.

Felix sat careful and slow, wincing again as he hummed noncommittally. He reached for the ice water, utterly nonchalant as he drank half the glass in one go, and then proceeded to mix some of the water into the pomegranate juice.
And then down half the juice in one go, mix the rest of the water in, and sip on that while they talked. He would NOT be taking criticism at the time. As evidenced by the eye contact he held the whole while he went about his 'ritual' as it were.
Which, if you asked him, was amusing because Dawn always seemed to get nervous about him staring her dead on. She was 'the goddess of light' or something like that, so he figured she'd have way more capability to handle a little staring but, well, what could you do.
FOCUS!

"So did your little bird also tell you that I was gonna finally succeed on a long term project today? 'Cause, not gonna lie here, that would've been a real good way to make up the morning beyond also seein' a new friend."

---

The Den, Shield Town, The Under City

Jemma crowed with glee, giving Jade another lick for good luck, before swiping up the proffered device from Wolf. Her form rapidly shifted, ink whirling like a ... Whirlpool. Gone was the bear-snake-thing. In its place was Jemma as she had looked the day before, save that the wings of feather had been replaced by wings of stretched leather and muscle. Her hands and feet were tipped with claws, and though she looked the same, her musculature was startlingly robust. She moved with measured grace and speed, tinged with chaos. "Oh! Yeah please still don't, I wanna surprise them all myself! I'm alive! Y'know? ... I should probably swing by and pick up my last paycheck from Black Iron... Hm! Thanks! Bye! Loveyoulotsmwahmwahmwah-" She chirped by way of goodbye, cackling brightly as Wolf's cyberarm pushed her face away.

Out the doorway and past Vi, slipped the shapeshifting gremlin, footsteps eerily quiet given that she was nearly running in her excitement. A quiet 'Oh thank god, she's leaving...' came from an open doorway. To which she chirped a complicated mix of hisses, birdsong, and whatever noise a mountain lion being shredded by a elk with a chainsaw would make. Leah, presumably, simply screamed her frustration back.
To which, again, Jemma only laughed.
Then she was moving through the airlock, smiling to herself and to those who were coming in and out. She gave some a wave, cackling at their confused expressions, before she was out and in the open air.
Jemma took a long, long breath in, savoring the smell of gun-metal, gun-powder, and steel.
Home. Or at least, part of home.

Ink swelled in her eyes, whorling away as the dimly lit area bloomed into practical daylight. Tapetum lucidum, bitch! She cackled madly, staring up at the de-powered sunlamp that hung overhead. There was a moment, staring at that long unused piece of human ingenuity, where a memory pulsed violently in the back of her head.
Murky gray clouds around a harbor, haloing the sun like pillows around a fortune teller's crystal ball. A sensation of deep satisfaction, a hunt completed and cherished. The urge to return home to a terrifying Mother-
The memory skipped. And Jemma blinked twice. "Huh... So... You were scared of that thing too." She whispered to herself, before grinning again and abruptly sprinting forth. People yelped and dived out of her way, one woman swinging reflexively with what appeared to be an arm-integrated machete. The muscles in her legs flexed, stronger than a tiger, before she leapt into the air.

She spread her wings and flew, cackling the whole while. Air whistled in her ears as Shield Town immediately came into view. Her eyes were sensitive enough to make out plenty of details, and considering the ... Less than half a mile she had to travel? Hah.
But going home could wait, she wanted to properly enjoy being free for the first time in three years. Three years... Wow. Time sure was a cloudy soup of non-permanent material!
As her wings powered her over to Shield Town, her astral eyes slowly opened, absorbing the flow and shift of [MANA] around her.
"Three years! Three years. Huh. We were away from our homes for three years. THREE! That's one thousand, ninety five days! Huh. Huh!" Jemma whispered to herself, staring at the settlement now below her. Thoughts rattled around her skull, smooth and mellow like butter at first, before rapidly spiraling. "Three. Fucking. Years! THREE! FUCKING! YEARS! People thought I was DEAD! What the FUCK! AUGH! I can't fucking BELIEVE this BULLSHIT!"

Her voice rose with her emotions, spiraling further and further as ink boiled over her skin. Anger seethed underneath, like worms with teeth, chewing through a corpse on the highway in the summer sun. "I HAD A LIFE! I HAD A HOME! I HAD FRIENDS, AND FAMILY!" Screamed the body, as the rational mind began sinking... Before she yanked back, pulling herself out of the comforting fog that another half of her tried to offer. Instead, the fury only built.
Wrathful, Jemma dissolved into wordless screaming. Shrieking. Roaring. Wailing. Inky tears rolled from her eyes, the pitch fluid otherwise finally coalescing into a new physical shape.

A quardrapedal build, with two long necks, a bull-like body, a pair of bat-like wings and a massive crocodile-esque tail. The tail whipped about, tipped with a wickedly hooked trio of bone-sickles. The wings were massive, easily twice the size of the muscled body, and just as muscular. The legs were more like jointed trunks of bone and muscle. Four, zygodactl digits, tipped with dagger-like claws, slashed at the air. The necks were topped with a pair of draconic heads, which each owned four eyes, arranged in a diamond on the skull. The maws were filled with teeth like needle thin shards of glass, and venom dripped from them all.
She screamed all the while, as two distorted voices cried in unison.

Eventually the anger petered out, and she slowly brought herself to calmness. Shield Town was far below, glaring up at her in indifference as, blithely, the massive sun-lamps above hummed. Her breathing was ragged, giant gasps for air, as [MANA] was pumped into the form. Not fast enough to offset the amount used, but still. A stop-gap.
She didn't want to have to eat again any time soon. Hunting for something [MANA]-rich in this are would mean... People.
Half of her responded apathetically to this, while the other half screamed in horror. Never again. Hopefully. By God please, hopefully.

The shape turned, flying off and away from Shield Town for a moment. Not once did she consider the ruckus she had made, nor the attention it might have grabbed. Instead, She just... Flew. For a while. Thinking.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Jemma was… intrigued by this whole situation. Her singing had stopped around the same time as Jade’s, mostly due to the surprise of someone immediately translating a song she thought was interesting.
The sensation of Leah trying to wrestle her out of the room was forgotten by a sudden burst of ‘hug it’.

So the bear shape darted forward, ignoring the words being whispered by almost everyone, and gently rammed its armored skull against Jade’s chest.
Shards of bone and strands of fur began flying around the room, disintegrating rapidly once removed from the still living body. The bear bellowed lowly, rumbling a comforting purr not too unlike a rather large engine.
Ink pulsed, and a snake-like neck and head sprouted from the hind-legs of the bear, turning to focus on Wolf and … Violet? Was that the name? Yeah it was.

An echo of Wolf’s voice in her thoughts repeated the name for Jemma. The snake head turned, tilting somewhat as it focused on Vi… There was a burst of soft chuckling, before a voice echoed forth,
“You should get someone to replace or look at your joint braces. Oh! Or, or, you could probably find somethin’ in section 7 of the graves. ‘S the last place I saw some higher tech scrap!” Jemma chirped, ignoring the social norms of… not… commenting on someone’s cyberware without prompting.

The bear leaned up, swiping a bloodless, mostly bone, tongue…? Over Jade’s cheek. “I can imagine! Does she often get ‘take out’?” Questioned the whispering bear-snake thing.
The question was answered for her when ‘Vi’ had started to bid her goodbyes. ‘I could call—‘ being cut off by a firm ‘No’? Made sense. Often, then, most likely, maybe, probably.
Silver one… Silver Templar? The Blonde Ally? … No! It had to be the other one, made out of crimson and [STRESS-FEAR-STRENGTH]. It couldn’t be the one of [BLADE-null-FOCUS]. That would be… difficult! Jemma liked that one! In-so-much as the foggy memories allowed her to like it. … Oh!
“Speaking of which! Hey! Wolf! Hey! Hey hey hey hey—”

The woman cut her off with a glare, to which both heads of Jemma’s current shape began laughing and smiling about. “So can I, like… Leave? Or whatever? You didn’t necessarily make it super clear so…?” She trailed off, shrugging and bobbing the snake head about.

---

Meanwhile, far and above the conversation hidden from the sun, a man slams his forehead into the workstation he sits at. A frustrated scream rips from his mouth, before he sits back up.

---

Felix was having… a morning. That’s how he would describe it. He had clearly stayed up well past his ‘bedtime’ as Ion occasionally put it. Dark bags sat under his eyes, and he had kept the luminosity of his hard-light limbs at a ‘distant candle in a storm’ low.
In the corner of his HUD, was an image that Ion had sent him. The time stamp had it at 6:38 AM.
It was him, or at least, a heavily doctored image of him.
He didn’t even own a tank top like that! … He thought. Maybe. Who knows. He rarely slept at his apartment anymore, so, eh.

The biggest issue was having his face fully associated with his ‘hero’ identity. Felix hadn’t even gone out on a field mission, yet. Still had two days to go to be cleared for active duty. Above board. Legally. If Eva’s not looking. And if it definitely doesn’t involve ARES in any way, shape, or form. Yup.
Back on topic.

While the image kept his genuine look, it frustrated him that it was edited in such a way to make him seem so, well, suspicious? Mischievous? Gremlin-esque? Troublemaking? A definite Loki-archetype.
Oh well, too late, and going through multiple different reverse image searches proved that it was a solely localized image, so, yay.
A rapid, incredibly irate, message was sent and read, and responded to. With a smiley emoji.
Fucking…

Felix heaved a sigh and stood, snatching up the still prototype A.R.I. Module from its workstation stand. A burst of information scattered itself over his HUD, artifacted and distorted. Another failed start-up sequence. The tinker growled, setting it back down again and picking up his micro-tools. He was getting frustrated with the damn thing, and Sovereign wasn’t really able to help. Something about ‘organic processing being hard to extrapolate in conjunction with inorganic processing.’
“In simple terms?” He had questioned, only to be met with, ‘Computer does a fast think better than a human does a pattern-recognition think.’
Jackass.

Anyways!
Felix focused on the suspended module, eyebrows furrowing as he adjusted the moorings for the motherboards AGAIN. Figured that soldering them would’ve worked right? No! Fuckin’ microtech. Half of a half of a millimeter off? Guess what suddenly can’t run power as it’s supposed to! Whatever.
He was in minute three, when a sudden idea sparked behind his eyes.

Sai had said his speciality seemed to be prosthetics, and to angle his inventions as if they were all prosthetics…
What… if…
Felix’ face exploded into a grin, as he rapidly began disassembling and then reassembling the ARI module. In the span of ten minutes at most, a pair of what Yue would call: ‘The best damn headphones,’ replaced the wrap-around-headband chassis.

Felix’ grin only widened when, with a bit of prompting on Sovereigns’ part, the boot up sequence started.

[ POWER ON…
SYNCHRONIZATION START…
SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE.
ALLOCATING…
ALLOCATION COMPLETE.
<silence notifications>
NOTIFICATIONS SILENCED.
<display ‘boot sequence’ progress>
PROGRESS: 88% COMPLETE.
PROGRESS: 92% COMPLETE.
PROGRESS: 99% COMPLETE.
PROGRESS: 91% COMPLETE.
<display_>
BOOT SEQUENCE COMPLETE.
welcome to A.R.I. Augmented Reality Interface.
fly with the dawn. ]

Yessss.
He was totally going to test this out. … Buuuuut having a witness for his success would be nicer than just Sovereign.
Hm.
Which building did Dawn say she worked in, again? Eh. He’d just send her a text to warn her ahead of time… And maybe trace the receiving device to wherever it’s physical location within the tower was.
And maybe input those coordinates into ARI.
And maaaaybe… Just… Close his eyes… And…
Go.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

[The Den - The Undercity - 07:07 AM, March 12th, 2045]

---

“Miss. Miss Dove, please— Just, a different song? If you have to sing, please… literally anything else.” Pleaded a woman in a nurse’s uniform. Her hair, normally kept in a tidy bun, was frazzled and somewhat unkempt, mostly as a result of chasing an unsleeping, remorseless, excitable Jemma.

‘Dove’ as she was occasionally called by anyone who either saw her, or overheard her conversation with wolf, was bored. Had been bored. She’d always had an over abundance of energy, but after what Menagerie had done to her?
She practically felt like sprinting when there was nothing for her to focus on.
And they wouldn’t let her go and sit with Jade until she woke up, because that was ‘creepy’. Whatever.
Not like Jade would even notice, she was sleeping! Sheesh.

Jemma groaned and tried to focus again, turning to face the nurse— Leah— with a soft sigh. The wings she had wrapped herself in fluttered their feathers. Leah stared, and Jemma stared in mind, before the winged woman threw her hands up into the air with a grumbled shout of “Fiiiine!”

She sighed, turning her gaze to the floor and thinking for a while before she raised her head and smirked. She maintained eye contact with Leah, cackling as the nurse nary blinked at the sound of rushing ink.
The pitch-fluid spread over Jemma’s body like a tidal wave, giving rise to black fur, bleached bone, and burgundy chitinous plates.
A quadrupedal figure rapidly replaced the bi-pedal human, vaguely ursine in general shape, but longer and taller. The claws were short, blunt, and nearly hidden by the shaggy fur that covered the majority of the body. Enormous plates of bone rose and covered the neck, forearms, and the straight portions of the back legs. Chitin covered everything else, save for the face. That too, was mostly covered by bone, like a mask.

Jemma smiled in this new shape, an expression that was deeply unnatural on the bear-like ‘face’.
Ink swelled in the massive neck of the beast, before singing ABRUPTLY exploded into the air. Three? Or was it four? A small group of voices ripped into the brief quiet that filled the Den.

And then the thumping of a bone-bear monster running for its life. Down and around the now somewhat cramped halls did she run, singing and screaming the whole while. Leah meanwhile gave chase, hissing for her to, ‘PLEASE be quieter!’

Jemma didn’t listen, of course. This was fun! Plus, it was seven in the morning, people needed to be awake anyways! Clearly! Obviously!
She turned a corner, faltering for a moment as she came upon the room that apparently belonged to Wolf…
She quickly returned to running, and singing, as Leah’s footsteps got closer. Her volume only grew before she abruptly and finally stopped. Sensitive ears caught the sounds of people groaning, or shouting, or whining, or generally complaining! Perfect.

Leah slammed into her at full force, and the two slammed through the doorway that Jemma had stopped in front of. Oops?
Oh! It was Jade’s room. Perfect-er.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

"Do you remember who I am?"
What an interesting question. Memories flashed through Jemma's minds' eye as she stared into open space for a moment or so. An early interaction with the woman in front of her, asking for maintenance on her cyberware in return for a favor. And then forever returned, "You do the best work, after-all." Wolf had said then. Both a long time ago and only just yesterday. Huh.

Jemma's face twisted into a frown, as ink pulsed to the surface of her skin. Wolf's sensitive hearing was treated to a cacophony of whispered sounds from deep within Jemma's chest.
There were whispers of twinned voices, cries of many different types of beasts, and the rushing boom of waves on a beach. All of it no louder than a whisper heard behind a doorway. The pitch-liquid settled around her chest, legs, and arms. Feathered wings, colored like amber with prismatic smears running through, gave her a semblance of modesty. Exposed skin was covered with 'tattoos', which occasionally writhed and shifted in shape. Sometimes, it was patterned as if she was a skeleton, with bright white bones shining against pure black skin. And other times, it was as if she were awash in lines of blue, purple, silver, and gold, vibrant and bright against her skin in an unnatural way.

"I... Yeah, duh? You're Wolf! I used to 'fix-up' your ware! You uh, helped me kick my cigarette addiction. Oh!" She stopped rambling, taking a moment to snap her fingers, "You once threatened to cut off my ex's giblets because he wouldn't let go of my arm!" Jemma chirped with a smile.
The ink came to a stop, as did the nearly silent sounds from within her chest. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, already antsy and needing to pace. "It's only been... Uh... Huh. It feels like its been about six hours, maybe? What day is it? I haven't, uh, really been keeping track of time! Haha..." She trailed off. If her heart was beating, if she HAD a heart to beat, it would've begun to speed up with barely contained panic.
Her face gave her emotions away anyways, as the panic got worse. She remembered both a lot, and a little. And the world was spinning with astral shapes, emotions, memories, impressions, and pure [MANA]. It was a lot!

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

The body was limp. Which was certainly a thing now. Silence had abruptly reigned supreme, as astral eyes suddenly shot open in the absence of proper sight.

Deep in the chest of what was and is Jemma, a core of pitch-black ink pulsed in place of a heart. Time slowed to a crawl, sped to a mad dash, and then settled on familiarity. She watched in limp silence as a figure composed of [RESIGNATION] and [REGRET] bustled in swiftly, taking away the blinding beacon of [THOUGHT-WIND].
Mana swirled around the ‘familiar’ shape of Jade, but also… Didn’t. It was as if she both was and was not in that space. Like the smell of rain within the deepest caverns. There and yet not.

It didn’t really make sense to Jemma. And so she ignored it for the time, focusing instead on how the [MANA] shifted around the two. They were leaving. The figure that was guiding Jade had a blank spot on its arm. A limb replaced by unliving metal. How interesting.
That was beyond the point.

She could think now that she wasn’t trapped. The swelling of fear and phobia fading rapidly. Another shape came upon her, unlatching the restraints at her hips and ankles. Probably meaning to clean up. As if she was just a corpse. A body to be removed. Well, that couldn’t stand for long!
And so, with not too terribly much aplomb…
Jemma sat up.

The spray of blood and ink came to an immediate end, not but moments after having started. Her body shifted and stood, astral eyes unblinking as she walked to the familiar mana shape of her head.
Hands came into contact with finely cut neck flesh, and ink pulsed from the fingertips. It spread over the head in organic, fractal, patterns. Then it began sinking in, like hot knives through butter, spreading further all the while.
Within the span of ten seconds at most, the loose head was gone.

Ink throbbed at the stump of Jemma’s neck, before rushing up and out, coalescing into a brand new skull.
Then into new muscle. New flesh came soon after. Then hair.
She turned around, blinking twice at the physician who stared back at her.
Before the woman began a short lived scream.
And then promptly passed the hell out.

“Uh… Oops?” Whispered the newly healed woman. She frowned, focusing on her feet as a foreign-familiar sensation pressed against her mind.
More fractal-spreading ink, over walls and floors and cloth. Blood vanishing and leaving no trace to having ever once been there beyond the smell.
The shapeshifter shuffled from foot to foot. Nervous. Oops!
Oh.

The woman with the metal arm was back, had been back. And was now just… Watching.
“Hi! Sorry! That- uh- that was a huge mess, huh?”

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Jemma… Jemma tried extraordinarily hard to focus on the woman in front of her. She really did.
But the world kept shifting. Astral eyes prying open and slamming shut. The woman, Jade, was a beacon of light that was almost blinding. Around her flowed currents of the concept of wind, to say nothing of the leakage of [PAIN] and [DISORIENTED] that radiated off of her in waves.

Jemma coughed once. Blinking in surprise at the ink that leapt from her lips and struck Jade across the cheek. Then once more as ink pulsed through the flesh of her face.
Jemma continued to stare at the woman across from her, processing and yet not, her words. Ink whirled on her cheeks, spreading across her entire face before settling into a bright array of colors and contrasts. Red that centered around her eyes, with pinks and blues and purples settling over her cheeks, forehead, eyebrows, and lips. White and black settled into the background, with floral patterns giving rise to a rapidly formed ‘Sugar Skull’ on her face.

Her irises shifted, colors rapidly rolling through before settling on a startlingly normal chocolate brown. Her pupils contracted to pinpoints, before exploding outward into four-pointed stars.
She took a breath…
“Wh- A zombie? No. I’m… I’m not, I don’t think? … Where are we?” She questioned, glancing down at her blanket covered form. “Why are… Why am I restrained? What’s going on? Am I allowed to leave? I want to leave.”
She continued, voice shifting between pauses, as ink pulsed at her throat and settled on… something familiar.

She tried to sit up again, yanking on the straps of nylon and steel buckles that kept her limbs still. “I want to leave. Let me leave. I want to leave! Let me go!”
Her skin thrummed, eyes slowly going wild as observational machinery began beeping and chirping in alarming tones. Jemma yanked again, slowly beginning to wail as she thrashed in place.
“Let. Me. Go! I want to go! Let me go! Alex?! Alex! Alex help! I want OUT!”
Jemma yanked once more, shrieking indignantly. The strap on her chest strained, pulling against her skin before snapping abruptly. Muscle mass that had formed in a bout of hysteria ached for a moment.
Then her forehead collided with Jade’s.
She paused, staring into Jade’s eyes for a brief moment. Just… staring!

And then her head sailed across the room with all the ceremony of a sneeze.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

The body was moving without input again. Memories were bubbling up, half formed and disjointed in their collection.
A flash of a child, with mouse brown hair, sitting on a slab of a table. Wires trailed from his shoulders, shiny metal gleaming in the surgical light—
It skipped. Again. Why couldn’t they hold onto the memories?!

Another flash, blooming like the pain of a migraine.
A birthday party. What was a birthday party again? … A celebration. A pair of hands reached forward, lifting a bottle of champagne. The collection of people— when did they get there? A surprise! They all cheered—
It skipped.

J-3 came to a stop in the middle of the street they had found themselves in. The world around them whirling and twisting as if in a dream.
Another flash. And another, and another. And another.

Memories of a birthday again, smaller and familial.
Memories of a question, “What is your name?”
Memories of an introduction, “Hi! My name is Jemma! You can call me Dove! I’ll be your Fixer today, okay sweetheart?”
One last memory, old and worn like a loved photograph out of its frame.

“Dude, I’m telling you. We shouldn’t take her to the caves. She’s arachnophobic!”
“Is she? I didn’t know! … There’s the Sword-Singer’s Descent? She would love that probably. Kasha’s weird like that.”
“’Kasha’s weird like that’, you’re only saying that ‘cuz SSD has way too many movement mechanics, mister ‘tanktastic’.”
And then… another response. But it was lost to a burst of mental static as J-3 abruptly crumpled.

The migraine was worse. Rippling through the core. Astral eyes closed, willpower was drawn upon like a well. An empty well. There was nothing left to give.
Ink exploded from the quadrupedal form, whipping through the air as the body began screaming. Pain worked through every aspect of J-3. Memories pressing up and forcibly slotting back into place.
Memories from two different existences.
A flash of the mana scape, staring up at [QUEEN-MOTHER-PROTECTOR-PROTECTED]. A pillar of marble white.
A flash of thought, chasing a beacon of [FEAR] and [FURY]. Subsuming it. Bringing it back.
One last flash, of searing pain and confusion, being forcibly melded with something. A shape. Small and [HATEFUL] and [TERRIFIED] and [REMORSEFUL].

J-3 abruptly stopped screaming. Laying on her side on the street, heaving exhausted gasps. The world spun slowly, the migraine had faded.
Jemma stood up, moving cautious and slow. She could hear and [SEE] a couple of shapes approaching her. People.
One knelt, spoke to her. She blinked up at it blearily. Heard nothing.
Understood nothing.
Something behind her sternum shuddered, and she coughed once. Ink spilled past her lips, and the shape exclaimed.

The world cut to black for a moment, then clicked back in. She was on a stretcher. Screaming, again, as a far far distant pain bloomed throughout her flesh. What was happening?
Voices above her, rushing quickly. “… Call her then! I can barely find…”
The world cut again.

And clicked back once more, a bright light in both pupils. Screaming had faded for weak whines, begging. Eyes followed the light as it shifted back and forth. Astonished voices.
“Hey! Hey I know her!”
A voice ignored, before it shouted again. The response?
“We’ll let’em know in the morning then! She’s fuckin’ dyin’!”
Her hand reached up, swiping through the air. Astral eyes opened to see mana shift. A sprinkle of salt water fell.
“She’s got powers!”
“You couldn’t tell from the fuckin’ INK?!”
The world cut once more.

And then returned. She was laying on her back in a dimly lit office. On a desk, or a proper table? There was a wire connected to her head, trailing to… a display? An EKG? No. Tracking brain activity.
Jemma groaned quietly, tried to sit up only to find she couldn’t move more than an inch or two.
She blinked a couple times, noted the blankets that covered her. The material was clean, stained in a couple places. The stains were black as pitch, and we’re scattered at random.
Where was she? What was going on now?
Astral eyes opened.

There were two presences just beyond a door, to her right. One was leaving, nearly running, while the other was fumbling with something.
Both pulsed with [DETERMINATION] and [WORRY].
Interesting.

Well… Shit.
She still needed to find The Blonde Ally and Rat. Shit.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Felix gave Dawn an impish smile, chuckling faintly as the world slowly- Ever so slowly- began to match his speed. Or perhaps he began to match the world's speed.
It didn't matter. Focus.

Focusing WAS easier now, and after a moment Felix shifted. His gaze snapped up, only able to take in the star-scape that had now exploded overhead for a brief moment. The falling motes of light made him cackle, as his eyes danced with ideas and thoughts aplenty.

He turned to her, still smiling as he made his way towards... Well.
He certainly wasn't heading towards the doors that led out of the lobby. He also wasn't heading towards the doors of the nearby elevator. Or stairwell. Instead, he was approaching a window.
"God, I hope this isn't rude sounding but... I think if I saw that as a kid, I'd assume you'd hung the stars. That was so, well, so pretty!"
He spread his arms as he walked, fingers moving in slow waves as he 'stretched' his limbs.

"Also! I really am sorry I forgot about you down here. You're entirely too kind, and I really do appreciate your patience." Felix emphasized. His expression was one of regret, and again, his eyes met Dawn's.
He took note of her stance, trying to place her mood on that alone. Was she upset? Had he fucked up far too much?
Felix had started frowning, brows furrowing, when sovereign 'bee-bee-beeped' a message onto his HUD.
Lux Discordia paused for a moment, letting his civilian mask slide away, as he observed the message sent to him.
Thoughts spiraled rapidly through his brain, each being carefully looked over and noted, before he let his face split into a wide grin.

"Before we go anywhere or go any further... Is there anythin' I can do to make up for it? There anywhere you'd like to go? ... We could maybe leave your brother a surprise for bein' such a smart-ass? Or I could take you somewhere for some actually good food! Since Sai was bein' an ass and didn't share his with us!" Another pause, before he continued.
"Or we could do anythin' else too! Your wish is my command, o' lady Light, bringer of Helios across our mortal skies!"

He finished with a flourish, that same impish smile only growing into a truly mischievous grin as he spoke. "Y'could even try tattooin' one of my arms, or legs, if you'd like! I refuse to let my slight against you go unanswered!"