[Masks IC] Resurrection Roundabout: Drawing Individuals

[Thanqol]

People always assume Errant will drop everything when they pull the hostage threat card on her. Not that she blames them: her reputation precedes her. But there are definitely times where they fail to understand what it really means to dedicate yourself to saving everyone you can see. Errant's hip is rocking back while the last syllables of Comstar's threat are still leaving her lips. That half second to get her gloat face set for the camera is all the further opening she needs. Errant snaps forward and delivers a powerful sidekick right into Comstar's stomach that sends her flopping back against the wall before bouncing her back down onto the floor on her stomach at Errant's feet. She leaves her foot hanging in the empty air for a moment before pulling it back to her body in a slow circle and stomping it on the ground. A less than gentle reminder that she knows how to play to cameras, too. She tosses a sharp glare over her shoulder at @Sarahphim.

"I have this handled!" she snaps, "Go make sure that girl is ok!"

[Spending final Hold to stun Comstar2]

Comstar impacts on the wall and just sits there, dazed. You expected her recovery time to be quicker but it's not - she is simply put someone who doesn't know how to take a kick and keep going. She's getting herself back together and will think of something soon but in this moment she's totally at your mercy. What do you do?

POTENTIAL 1
[X]: INSECURE

Oh, sure. Like it’s that easy, Euna. Some of us have a mild concussion and legs that are all bruise. Some of us aren’t #1 on the scoreboard for the AEGIS half-mile (not to mention the triathlon). But sure! Yeah! @SARAHPHIM will just sprint down the half-flooded corridor and stop an elevator from crashing!

I mean, she lifted a plane earlier. How hard can an elevator plummeting down towards the earth be? It’s so much smaller and more fragile and capable of being punched right through!!

[That’s a 5 on Defend Others. =x]

The elevator slams into the ground, burning shrapnel bursting from it. You're hit in the chaos, knocked down, dazed. There's smoke and dust everywhere. There's a ringing in your ears.

But then, from the chaos you see the face of an angel. Golden hair spilling radiantly from the jaws of a wolf. Azure eyes that cut through you as easily as they cut through the dust. She kneels down and gently wipes a trickle of blood from your forehead. She says, "I'm here to rescue you."

And then she picks you up in a princess carry like you weigh nothing, kicks open the door to the fire escape, and begins to run up the stairs, three at a time.

[Angel-IKA wants to shift your superior down and mundane up. Your Audience move applies here]

*

Locker: wait no dammit go back
Bode: Do you believe Errant is in danger without @Sarahphim? She seemed to be doing fine.
Locker: no i just wanted to see the fight ffs
Dominus: HOW IS ANGEL-IKA THE ONE PERSON WHO IS COMPLETELY UNTOUCHED BY ALL OF THIS?

Brainstorm stares at the departing car, jaw on the ground. "Oh, come on! You can't be serious right now! Who has the spare time and money to screw me over specifically? D'you know how many people you could feed with that shell? And you waste it on me?"

For Pete's sake. Fuming, he digs a hand into a popped-loose access panel. What he needs right now is something that'll knock that TAG offline--paralyze it, knock its sensors out, send its motors into a frenzy. And hey, free electronics!

You've got enough kit to make a discount off-brand E/Mauler. One shot to centre mass will stop Prometheus from being a threat. Which is good because that's all you've got: one shot. Make it count.

Then shockwaves start to ripple through the Jet Jaguar. Prometheus has been doing some engineering of his own on the opposite side from you. He has tore out the limiters that stop the synaptic feedback generated by the Jet Jaguar's sensors from overwhelming its pilot and now something terrible is happening to Ferra. There's energy like you literally would not believe leaking from her core.

It's the most scientifically meaningful moment since the VLHC went up but you don't have time to focus on it. Your insane AI son is using the opportunity to start coming around for you.

"Brainstorm." Ferra begins patiently. "I have a set of directives."

That's when the bullet hits.

The leg folds immediately out from under her. Honestly, all things considered, that's the good news, both of her are still standing and upright and not going to fall and crush Brainstorm. However, it's damage. It's massive damage, and never mind that it's a different body, everything that's there to monitor damage is screaming that she's literally lost enough body mass to be scrapped right now. She flickers and shivers, colors starting to blend, spreading out from her.

Gears Project 749.3 failure
no no no i'm still here damn you
reboot? y/n
don't you dare don't you fuc
y

"Victor. I don't want to go." And she starts falling from where she stood on the Jaguar's shoulder, disconnecting, a strange fluid leaking from her eyes leaving a trail behind her as she goes down.

"It broke my heart to put you into storage. After everything I went through! Sending you off to some unknown, terrifying future where I wouldn't be able to guide you, help you, explain things to you! Where I wouldn't get to see you grow up! But... I don't know what the corporations are like when you are. Maybe they're nicer. But if the ones in my time saw your power they'd ask questions. And sooner or later some amoral genius is going to ask the right ones. And then the technology will proliferate and I don't know if the world can survive that...

"So... I have a mission for you Ke - Seven Four Nine. If you are awake it means that somebody else is on the brink of figuring out how to harvest humans for Rx. It means there is going to be power in the world similar to yours very soon, and I don't know if there's anyone in the world who can be trusted with it. If there's not I need you to save the world. I need you to become the kind of person who can do that."

[Doctor Gears wants to shift your Mundane down and your Freak up. Accept his words or reject his influence]

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 1

“Noooo,” @SARAHPHIM says, but raggedly. Like a kid who doesn’t want to go to bed. She balls up a fist and gently baps Angel-IKA right on the chin, and frowns when she doesn’t fall down like Turbo Knight did. “No, I need to go save Euna,” she says, like someone with a hangover, or possibly someone who was doing a really decent job of handling the painkillers after getting her wisdom teeth extracted.

But... she feels a warmth in her chest. She failed. She messed up. She screwed up everything with Comstar. And her chat still loves her anyway. She ends up curled up in the princess carry around her screen projection, watching the chat emotes scroll by, nuzzling up against Angel-IKA’s collarbone very, very sapphically.

Sidekick candid selfie time! Click! And that’s going to Instagram.

[Shift accepted.]

[PhoeKun]

She'd already raised her fist and was halfway to dropping the next shot before it registered to Errant that Comstar was having trouble getting up. Right... right. Not a monster. Not. Protocol... protocol says to prioritize rehabilitation. Save lives. Do that. She lets out a breath and quickly slips a pair of handcuffs around Comstar's wrists, clicking them in place behind her back.

"Criminal Designation A-2664, codename: Comstar2, alias Comstar β, alias 'the other one', you are under arrest for the crimes of attempted homicide, possession of a controlled substance, attempted manufacture of a controlled substance, and interdimensional crimes too numerous to mention. You have the right to remain silent."

While she talks, she makes the very stupid choice to stand up and walk away from the corner. Handcuffs aren't useful against that power. But she has to give her the chance, or she's a monster. She walks toward her dimension's Comstar, instead. Have to be quick. Don't hesitate, don't think about how stupid this is or you might miss your chance. She raises a hand over the harness and its crackling pink energy.

"People are not puppets. People are not resources to be harvested. And I will die before I ever let that something like this happen within my sight."

The knife hand is fast, precise, and in her case very aptly named. She slices cleanly through the restraint and rips the rest of it off of her erstwhile nemesis. Then she stomps on the pieces.

[Unleash roll to invoke Errant's enhanced strength to reshape the environment: 2d6 = 9. She marks Insecure, and tell me that she's not]

[Balmas]

"Victor. I don't want to go." And she starts falling from where she stood on the Jaguar's shoulder, disconnecting, a strange fluid leaking from her eyes leaving a trail behind her as she goes down.

You've got enough kit to make a discount off-brand E/Mauler. One shot to centre mass will stop Prometheus from being a threat. Which is good because that's all you've got: one shot. Make it count.

Then shockwaves start to ripple through the Jet Jaguar. Prometheus has been doing some engineering of his own on the opposite side from you. He has tore out the limiters that stop the synaptic feedback generated by the Jet Jaguar's sensors from overwhelming its pilot and now something terrible is happening to Ferra. There's energy like you literally would not believe leaking from her core.

It's the most scientifically meaningful moment since the VLHC went up but you don't have time to focus on it. Your insane AI son is using the opportunity to start coming around for you.

She's not piloting a robot; she's directly connected to the robot. The realization hits Brainstorm like a punch to the gut, and ice-cold panic floods in. "Ferra!" Oh {scrubbed}, oh crap, it's not in his nature to pray but oh, God, if you're listening it sure would be nice to have a bit of a miracle sent his way. Run to her! Catch her! He has to, she just saved his life! But if he does that, he'll abandon the mauler, and Prometheus is right there and you just know that the bastard is gonna take no end of sadistic pleasure in shooting them both with his own gun...

And the sickest part of all is that there's a part of him, no matter how small, that just wants to watch. This is the first time, after all, that he's had a ringside seat for Ferra's regeneration process. It's already started, insists the treacherous little voice--she's flickering, falling, fading, as he watches. Wait for Prometheus to turn the corner, and get that rush of satisfaction at the look on his damn face when Prometheus is greeted with fifteen feet of E/Mauler barrel. Then, pull up a notepad file, and make notes on how Ferra's transformation occurs.

She's crying.

Heaven above, she's crying.

And he's at her side to catch her. How could he do anything else? It's illogical, it's irrational, and it's the right thing to do.

Carefully, Brainstorm eases her body down to rest against the robot, and then he rips off his left arm and hucks it at the mauler. He'll be firing essentially blind, but they're already well and screwed if he doesn't take the shot.

[Eldest]

She feels the lights go out and she goes down. It's calm, and cool, and dark. And then it's bright again. It's like one of those funhouse hall of mirrors exhibits. She's looking at herself, looking at herself, looking at herself, spread out in fractal patterns, each their own version. A shifted body, a new power, each time. A click, and she rotates, all of her. Minute gears, driving larger ones, scaling up as they go, shifting the shape of infinity such that there is one Ferra, there always was one Ferra, and it was... this one. Do not disregard the dead. Improve. Learn. Adapt.

She sees herself, whole, and understands for one brief moment as she hears her father. He has a job. She has the directives. She will finish The Work.

She rises, diagnostics clicking green as she passes from many to one. She is slender. She is silver and white and black, flexible strands of cable disrupting her silhouette. She absorbs the light, reflects it in odd, shimmering patterns, that don't quite reflect right. She is whole.

She opens her eyes, and stares into Victors. The liquid still flows, shimmering oil. She is one, and she did not want this.

Taking Out Of This World from the nomad. Accepting shift. Clearing Insecure from Regeneration.

[Thanqol]

POTENTIAL 1

“Noooo,” @SARAHPHIM says, but raggedly. Like a kid who doesn’t want to go to bed. She balls up a fist and gently baps Angel-IKA right on the chin, and frowns when she doesn’t fall down like Turbo Knight did. “No, I need to go save Euna,” she says, like someone with a hangover, or possibly someone who was doing a really decent job of handling the painkillers after getting her wisdom teeth extracted.

But... she feels a warmth in her chest. She failed. She messed up. She screwed up everything with Comstar. And her chat still loves her anyway. She ends up curled up in the princess carry around her screen projection, watching the chat emotes scroll by, nuzzling up against Angel-IKA’s collarbone very, very sapphically.

Sidekick candid selfie time! Click! And that’s going to Instagram.

[Shift accepted.]

Ferraphim1tp: Good gosh that's adorable. She's adorable. How is she so adorable. :'3
Dominus: YOU KNOW, I WAS ABLE TO FOCUS ON ROBBING THIS PLACE RIGHT UP UNTIL THIS POINT?
Locker: bah humbug
Ferraphim1tp: Let the cuteness flow through you, Locker! >:3
Locker: no
Bode: I am concerned that this may go to Angel-IKA's head.
Dominus: WHAT, YOU THINK SHE'LL DO SOMETHING CRAZY LIKE CRASH A HOVERCAR INTO A WARZONE?
Locker: man, you think sarafim is ok? she looks really out of it rn
Dominus: SHE'LL BE FINE
Locker: how do u know
Dominus: I'M SORT OF A DOCTOR?
Locker: yeah but what if you're wrong?
Ferraphim1tp: It's really sweet that you're worried, Locker.
Locker: i guess... i don't think ive seen her like this before
Dominus: ... ME EITHER.
Ferraphim1tp: Get well soon Sarah!!!

She'd already raised her fist and was halfway to dropping the next shot before it registered to Errant that Comstar was having trouble getting up. Right... right. Not a monster. Not. Protocol... protocol says to prioritize rehabilitation. Save lives. Do that. She lets out a breath and quickly slips a pair of handcuffs around Comstar's wrists, clicking them in place behind her back.

"Criminal Designation A-2664, codename: Comstar2, alias Comstar β, alias 'the other one', you are under arrest for the crimes of attempted homicide, possession of a controlled substance, attempted manufacture of a controlled substance, and interdimensional crimes too numerous to mention. You have the right to remain silent."

While she talks, she makes the very stupid choice to stand up and walk away from the corner. Handcuffs aren't useful against that power. But she has to give her the chance, or she's a monster. She walks toward her dimension's Comstar, instead. Have to be quick. Don't hesitate, don't think about how stupid this is or you might miss your chance. She raises a hand over the harness and its crackling pink energy.

"People are not puppets. People are not resources to be harvested. And I will die before I ever let that something like this happen within my sight."

The knife hand is fast, precise, and in her case very aptly named. She slices cleanly through the restraint and rips the rest of it off of her erstwhile nemesis. Then she stomps on the pieces.

[Unleash roll to invoke Errant's enhanced strength to reshape the environment: 2d6 = 9. She marks Insecure, and tell me that she's not]

Comstar lets out a sudden gasp when the restraint is pulled from her. She clutches her chest and squints her eyes shut and breathes heavily, full-body shivering as she starts to adjust to not being in pain. "T-thank you..." she managed, barely.

"Wouldn't that charge be attempted suicide?" said Comstar2 as she caught her breath at the same time. "Perhaps we can work on that 'attempted'..."

Your knife hand moves of its own volition. It stops an inch in front of Comstar's eyes. Pink light is crackling from each of the interdimensional twins, warring for control of your arm. Comstar takes the opportunity of the stalemate to shove you back - and then she dives for something on the ground. She's going for the portal gun Comstar2 had dropped. Comstar2 is getting back onto her feet and she's mistaking your discipline for weakness.

Both of them are applying their power to force you to go after the other one and, strangely, that gives you the deciding vote. Your actions feel strangely unconstrained. You can go to shut down Comstar2 before she escalates, or you can stop Comstar1 before she gets to that portal gun and does... something with it. Or, just maybe, you might just manage both...

[Make a Directly Engage roll here; the 'impress/surprise' result will stop Comstar2 for good, the 'take something from them' result will stop Comstar from getting to the portal gun]

And he's at her side to catch her. How could he do anything else? It's illogical, it's irrational, and it's the right thing to do.

Carefully, Brainstorm eases her body down to rest against the robot, and then he rips off his left arm and hucks it at the mauler. He'll be firing essentially blind, but they're already well and screwed if he doesn't take the shot.

She feels the lights go out and she goes down. It's calm, and cool, and dark. And then it's bright again. It's like one of those funhouse hall of mirrors exhibits. She's looking at herself, looking at herself, looking at herself, spread out in fractal patterns, each their own version. A shifted body, a new power, each time. A click, and she rotates, all of her. Minute gears, driving larger ones, scaling up as they go, shifting the shape of infinity such that there is one Ferra, there always was one Ferra, and it was... this one. Do not disregard the dead. Improve. Learn. Adapt.

She sees herself, whole, and understands for one brief moment as she hears her father. He has a job. She has the directives. She will finish The Work.

She rises, diagnostics clicking green as she passes from many to one. She is slender. She is silver and white and black, flexible strands of cable disrupting her silhouette. She absorbs the light, reflects it in odd, shimmering patterns, that don't quite reflect right. She is whole.

She opens her eyes, and stares into Victors. The liquid still flows, shimmering oil. She is one, and she did not want this.

Above you, through the chaos, the lights on the Jet Jaguar change to BlackSun yellow. Prometheus courses through the veins of the great machine and it howls into the air triumphantly. All around it, chaotically shifting reality bubbles overlay it - now it is a giant dinosaur with lasers rifles for arms, now it is a giant stop-motion model, now it is wearing a gigantic fedora and raincloak as black-and-white rain pelts down onto it...

But above all it's turning its great bulk about and charging the main cannon to aim directly at AEGIS headquarters.

It's up to you to save the day.

[PhoeKun]

The worst kept secret at AEGIS is the massive inferiority complex fully one third of its field agents harbor toward @SARAHPHIM. As a company, their rescue operations and crime responses number in the hundreds per week. They get more done in an hour than Sara does in three days. They're efficient, friendly, and extremely public about all of it. But when Sara beats a villain with a new light pattern, somebody makes a new video game about it. She's the queen of social media, she's the one who highlights the celebrity parties, she's the one with the rabid fanbase. True, she works with them and is very public about it, but she's not AEGIS. They're just another sponsor. Consequently there's a lot of pressure within the company to get the top performers on film showing her up. Hence, once a month there's a joke meeting called "Mandatory Stunt Training". It's really just an excuse to hang out and see who can come up with the craziest moves Command would never dream of putting in a standard field manual. And the joke, of course, is that if you put the words 'mandatory' and 'training' in a memo then Errant will show up and take it entirely too seriously. What a dork.

But at least she can say she's following her training right now! Two goals, two Comstars. One weakness. For the first time, Mandatory Stunt Training is not only practical, it's the best tool for the job. Errant runs for all she's worth straight at the portal rifle and reaches it slightly less than half a step before the diving Comstar1. She slips her foot under it and kicks it high into the air. Watch it soar, one, two: jump! It's like a scene from a movie. As she rises into the air, her back arches and her hair tumbles down underneath her while she starts a big, slow flip. She's upside down now with her arms spread out wide for balance. The rifle starts its trip back down. She catches the butt of it on her toe. There's an instant where time feels like it freezes, right before the moment of release.

Then the whole potential of the moment explodes like the kick she finishes her flip with. Now the gun is not a gun, but a javelin aimed straight at Comstar2's chest. You wanna be Odin? Then here's your spear, bitch. It tears across the room and collides with her solar plexus, knocking the wind back out of her. Meanwhile Errant drops back to the ground with a three point landing. She doesn't stop to relish her attack or check the damage, but instead pops back up, does a handspring and twists herself mid flight to launch a flying kick at Comstar2 while she's staggering back toward the wall again. Wham! Same point of contact. Suddenly, Comstar2 has a small taste of what it's like trying to breath while half stuck in a moon portal. That's just before she goes skidding across the floor, clocks her head on the wall again, and goes out. Errant slides to a stop in a wide lunging pose next to the dimensional rifle. She takes a deep breath, wincing when all of those gunshots and cyber-Mongol light arrows start talking back to her again. She glares at her dimension's Comstar.

"Don't. Even. Think about it."

And that's when she realizes there aren't any cameras on her right now. Well that... that sucks.

[Directly Engage! AEGIS exerts its Influence on Errant again to add +Soldier: 2d6+2= 10. Of course that's Impress/Surprise and Take Something, so there's no resisting blows. Go nuts!]

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2

Sara looks up at the perfect blond wolfpuppy princess who is carrying her, and... gosh, wouldn’t it be nice if it was Euna?

No! No time for thoughts like those! She is a cool badass superchick and she’s gonna prove that she’s so cool she doesn’t need to be carried off.

Right after she takes a quick catnap. Real quick. Just closing her eyes for a sec. Angel-IKA is super warm. And squishy. Hee. Squish squish. Okay. For serious reals. She’ll be super ready to beat people up at the top of the staiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzz

[So I wanted to Pierce the Mask here to figure out how to make Angel-IKA think of me as cool and badass and smart again, but I rolled a 4 which is why Mundane is the worst stat which sucks.]

[Balmas]

Above you, through the chaos, the lights on the Jet Jaguar change to BlackSun yellow. Prometheus courses through the veins of the great machine and it howls into the air triumphantly. All around it, chaotically shifting reality bubbles overlay it - now it is a giant dinosaur with lasers rifles for arms, now it is a giant stop-motion model, now it is wearing a gigantic fedora and raincloak as black-and-white rain pelts down onto it...

But above all it's turning its great bulk about and charging the main cannon to aim directly at AEGIS headquarters.

It's up to you to save the day.

"Dammit, boy, I didn't raise you to be a {scrubbed} neckbeard." Victor scowls after the Jet Jaguar. "Friggin' fedora-ass wearing prick..."

Wait. Standing next to Ferra. Tone down parental disapproval level.

"So," he says, almost conversationally, and hunkers down over his stolen hard-earned electronics, "I sure hope you have a plan for how to take care of... all of that. I can get us up there; can you get back into the system?"

[Always Prepared: 10. Brainstorm is making, in essence, a jetpack strong enough to get him and Ferra back up to the Jet Jaguar.]

[Eldest]

"I...." She blinks away tears (her dictionary had finally caught up with her surroundings, much as she personally disagrees) and stares up. "I can try." And she proceeds to do just that, reaching out for the robot, seeing what systems aren't locked out.

(2d6+2)[10] Unleash powers since it seems the best of the lot?

[Thanqol]

"I...." She blinks away tears (her dictionary had finally caught up with her surroundings, much as she personally disagrees) and stares up. "I can try." And she proceeds to do just that, reaching out for the robot, seeing what systems aren't locked out.

[Defending AEGIS from a giant laser is, in fact, Defend. Luckily that stat is also at +2! Make sure to pick one from the list.]

Brainstorm, you lift Ferra into the air upon a column of fire. You rise to be level with the Jet Jaguar as reality bubbles flow and pop all around you. Lightning flashes in the distance and you feel the rush of heat as the main cannon finishes charging. The rain evaporates. And then with a deafening roar and whoosh of spray, the terrible line of plasma soars across the sky and only the two of you were between it and AEGIS...

*

@Sarahphim, you come to the top of the stairs just in time for your bleary eyes to see the column of light coming right towards you. The Jet Jaguar has fired at its own open hangar, bypassing the reinforced exterior armour of AEGIS. It'll cut right through the entire building starting with you.

You only have a few moments to contemplate how small and helpless you are in comparison. At least the fortune teller was right - you'll die in the arms of a beautiful woman.

Mark Insecure.

*

Errant, you come down from the perfect action sequence. Both Comstars are down. Comstar2 is the one with all the gadgets and she's out cold, Comstar1 has no tricks and not enough gumption to take you one on one. You've done it. Mission success.

Then suddenly the lights go red. "Warning. Impact immanent. Brace. Brace."

Mark Afraid.

*

Ferra. It's time to save the world.

You leap off Brainstorm directly into the current of energy. It's enough to gut the AEGIS building like a firecracker in an eggshell. And you're heading directly into it, burning with all the power of multiple dimensions. Is this how Halfwoman feels?

The power splashes off you like water from a shower. The cosmic energy still bleeding from your reactor overwhelms, overpowers, cancels it out. Some of it crashes into the reality bubbles and is whisked off to distant worlds and planets. Some you absorb. Some you negate; power obliterating power and leaving nothing behind. Doctor Gears said you had power, and so you do. You never needed the body of the Jet Jaguar to fight on its level.

The beam burns away to nothingness. The Jet Jaguar's reactor is depleted. It stands there impotently, staring you down as Prometheus tries to figure out what happens next.

*

Comms crackle. AEGIS has disabled BlackSun's jammers. Heroes are pouring onto the site. The brace alert shuts down abruptly. Kill codes are transmitted to the Jet Jaguar at full blast, locking up every failsafe and pinning the AI in place. BlackSun gunships retreat from the sides of the AEGIS pyramid carrying less than half their crews with them. The words 'yellow alert' run through the building like a shudder of relief - active combat operations were over.

Errant, for you it's as simple as closing and locking two doors on two prisoners. They're done. You're done. You're safe. Everyone's alive. You did it.

@Sarahphim, Angel-IKA gets you straight to a medical bay - whereupon you are immediately set upon by journalists who risked life and arrest to get quotes from AEGIS' hottest new superhero - and try to get to the truth of who it is you're now dating.

Brainstorm, AEGIS shows you through to the containment facility they've built for Prometheus. They want your help in the interrogation - but only part time. You're support for this project, you're not the lead here.

*

And Ferra. A hand with stars on it touches you on the shoulder. Halfwoman looks at you with a gentle smile and realities swirl behind her eyes. "We should talk," she says.


=== END ISSUE TWO ===

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

“Yeah, it did hurt,” Sara says with a laugh. She’s got the biggest coffee cup Starbucks sells in her hands, and flashes a winning smile. “I’m just lucky I didn’t have to have any teeth glued back together!”

“No, I’m not jealous.” She rolls her eyes. “Comstar’s not “my” villain. She’s my stalker. There’s a difference. Do you feel jealous that the police take care of the lardass who takes pictures of you through the window at three in the morning? Same energy. So shoutout to Errant for dealing with her, kthnx.”

“There were some exciting times tonight, yes.” She coyly hides a smile behind her hand while the Automedic wraps bandaging around her head. “All I can say is wait and see! Though it’s really disappointing that I didn’t see Victor all night,” she adds, her finger on the pulse of the audience.

“No, I don’t agree that me beating Turbo Knight, with a loadout specifically designed to beat me, was the upset of the century. If you watched that and didn’t believe in me from the very start of the fight, get the f*ck out of this room. Right now. Go.” She points and waits until the journalist is bullied out of the room by everyone who wants more questions.

“Of course I’m going to get this mysterious Wolfpuppy some AEGIS training. She probably saved my life down there. I do know her identity, but out of respect for her privacy, I will glitterbomb anyone who asks. With literal glitters.”

“I don’t do labels,” she says, looking smug. “They straight-jacket us into believing we have to act a certain way, can only do certain things, can only love certain people. Life is too big and complex and beautiful to say: I’m like this, and I’ll always be like this. I like whoever I like and I f*ck whoever I like, babes.” Camera shutters flash like stars. The quote will end up in bigger font, imbedded into a different paragraph, to make sure you understand how deep and compelling it is, in five different publications.

“I’m probably going to turn in early and get some sleep, now that we’ve saved the day, y’know, as per usual,” she lies with the straightest of faces.

***

Euna Kim!

Click.

That’s the bedside lamp turning on when you enter your dark bedroom. You know, the soft orange-white reading lamp, all harsh blues filtered out to ensure that her circadian rhythm isn’t damaged by the light? That one. And wouldn’t you guess who’s sitting there?

“Let’s get one thing absolutely {scrubbed} straight,” Sara says, wearing a suit because of course she is. Suit, tie, smart black shoes. The same outfit she used for hosting SGDQ last year. Her hair is lank and wet from a cold shower, the red highlights dull, the white bandages a little damp. “I am a brand, Euna. Okay? And part of the @SARAHPHIM brand is that everyone wants me to kiss them. The otaku want me to kiss Victor because it’s like I’m kissing them. The technophiles want me to kiss Ferra because it’s like I’m kissing them. And the romantics who simper and swoon and use words like “frick-fracking” want me to kiss you because it’s like I’m kissing them. Do you get it?”

***

Ferra!

“So what happened with you and Halfwoman,” Sara asks, tossing a magnet onto your back. She’s ready to bolt and run into Euna’s Victor’s arms if you announce that you’re ready to try shipping again. “You probably don’t know it, but she’s a big shot. Huge.”

[PhoeKun]

Errant quietly turns, walks away, and shuts the door to Comstar's cell without a word. Then she pats down the other one for contraband, tosses her in a cell of her own, and locks that one two. It's over. It's done. She did it!

And now there's nothing left to distract her from the events of the day. She stands mutely in the corridor, and when the fear finally hits, it hits hard. She's nothing but quiet sobs and shaking, down on her knees and unable to move for anything in the world. Minutes pass, maybe. Probably. She couldn't tell you. Her eyes pass over all the little details of her battle down here. That's where the water knocked her over. Over there's the spot the Moon portal got stuck in. All around the walls and floor are the burn marks from rampaging Cyber-Mongolians. And that spot over there on the floor, though it doesn't look like anything special now that she looks at it, is where she...

Suddenly she's on her feet and running. The air is too thick. She's going to throw up, she's going to--! She runs as fast as her limiters will let her, straight to the elevator... which is, of course, destroyed. Right. That happened too. She turns around. Her arms are shaking. They're not supposed to, but they are. She makes a fist with one and punches the other. Stop that! Stop it! One long, deep breath. She makes for the door to the emergency exit and the stairs, with resolute and very measured steps. All the while dark thoughts eat at her, until by the time she makes the surface she's a total wreck again. Makeup running, hair a mess, uniform burned and torn, thoroughly unfit for duty.

There's an impromptu press conference happening in the hangar. That's Sara, doing the Sara thing. Euna stops cold and stares, half glad to see her ok and half screaming at herself to get out of there before she ruins everything by doing something stupid again. She stalks around the outside edge of the bay toward the doors to the main facility just as Sara's launching into some line about not doing labels. A camera happens to catch Errant's face just before she gets there.

Inside everything looks like a war zone. None of it is comforting. Euna doesn't stop to look at anything anymore. She walks, one careful step and then another, until she's reached the kiosk at the main desk. Nobody's there to help, but she knows what she's after. She files a request with the computer and walks away with Form 1697-C: Official Request For End to Relationship. She fills out her half as she walks, numb to time and her surroundings until she reaches Sector 20. Sasha's not at her desk. She hesitates for a moment, then leaves the tablet with the form on it at the top of her work and turns to walk away. She spins back again after another couple of steps, and adds one extra message to the display.

"I don't deserve you."

And she runs, before anyone can see.

***

Sara!

You've caught her completely off guard. You can tell because of that 'deer in headlights' look in her face. Or maybe it's more 'deer that noticed it's being stalked by a tiger'. Either way, she's got it bad. The other big hint is that she doesn't have anything on besides a sweaty tanktop and some running shorts. It's so soaked it's half transparent, and you can see the muscles on her body almost as clearly as you could if she were just in that entirely too visible sports bra she's stuffed into.

It's not clear if she's clear about your very clear message. She's just staring at you with eyes like tiny, panicked pinpricks. The door slides cruelly shut behind her, and now the two of you are alone. She doesn't know what to do with herself at all and it's embarrassing. All her strength, all that toughness, and yet if you blew on her right now she'd probably fall over. She glances at her bed, like she wants to sit down on it or something but she's afraid that if she moves from where she's standing something will break. So the silence just hangs there between the two of you.

Then she breaks anyway. It's this whole thing: she's in tears and she slumps to the floor and just stares up at you and your impressive suit.

"Sara I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I never meant-- I-I should never have... I took... it was just, I-I-I! I was so scared! I thought I lost you! I thought you were gone! And then I--"

What she is or what she did is lost in a wave of crying. She's baring her vulnerable little heart to you, Sara. So if that was the goal here, then good job! How do you feel about it?

***

Victor!

Errant's in her full dress uniform, which yes before anybody asks is a lot different than her combat one. It's the same deep blue, but tailored to flatter a figure instead of obscure it in pounds and pounds of armor. The shoulders have fancy lapels, and she's got a pair of medals pinned to her chest. The skirt is, believe it or not, a good look for her. Cyber legs and all. She should probably try it more often, but who's got the confidence for that? She runs a hand through her hair to cover up that she's not quite sure what she's really here to say.

"They're giving me a special commendation for my part in the last mission."

She laughs awkwardly, and a few strands of hair fall out of alignment. She obsessively brushes them back into place.

"It's not fair. It should be you and Ferra. I didn't do anything. And I'm not sure if..."

She's hesitating. How do you tell the most critical person you know that he might have been at least partially right about your job all along?

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

Euna Kim!

{scrubbed}. {scrubbed}. {scrubbed}. No. This is not how this goes. How this goes is that she’s got a presentation with examples of how all shows get worse once the main ship becomes canon, and how Psych is the outlier that proves the rule. Errant humbly accepts her explanation and apologizes like a grown-up. They don’t kiss. She accepts that @SARAHPHIM is the alpha and that’s that.

That is how this is going to go down once you stop crying like a baby and having snot on your face and having feelings at her, Euna. God.

“Well,” Sara says, staring at a point somewhere on the wall, feeling like squirming in the seat, feeling like begging Euna to stop, feeling really guilty even though it’s not her fault at all, “you didn’t. Like. I wasn’t even in danger. Moon, schmoon. I’m invincible, baby. But my public image isn’t, which brings me to... {scrubbed}.”

Okay, if she doesn’t get involved here, she’s going to explode and she doesn’t know why. She slides down out of the chair and kneels next to Euna with a grunt of exertion, and reaches out to awkwardly pat her on the head. “There there? Like, I get it, Ferra kissed me too, she’s got a lot to answer for, and I couldn’t even find Victor tonight to stabilize the shipping vectors, and I get it. I’m hot. It’s okay. Just... uh. Stop crying. Please? Don’t be a weak little {scrubbed} about this?” Damnit that was supposed to sound confident why did that trail up into her voice breaking??

[Balmas]

Victor!

Errant's in her full dress uniform, which yes before anybody asks is a lot different than her combat one. It's the same deep blue, but tailored to flatter a figure instead of obscure it in pounds and pounds of armor. The shoulders have fancy lapels, and she's got a pair of medals pinned to her chest. The skirt is, believe it or not, a good look for her. Cyber legs and all. She should probably try it more often, but who's got the confidence for that? She runs a hand through her hair to cover up that she's not quite sure what she's really here to say.

"They're giving me a special commendation for my part in the last mission."

She laughs awkwardly, and a few strands of hair fall out of alignment. She obsessively brushes them back into place.

"It's not fair. It should be you and Ferra. I didn't do anything. And I'm not sure if..."

She's hesitating. How do you tell the most critical person you know that he might have been at least partially right about your job all along?

Errant!

Victor ponders that "gaunt" is a word which does not get enough love in the English language. It's one of those old Norse words that get lost in the dictionary. And yet, as he meets his own reflection in the large wall mirror, he can't help but apply it to himself. He's noticably leaner than he was this morning, clothes hanging off him like sails in a doldrum.

And here she is, a goddess made flesh. Made steel. Dressed to the nines, every inch accentuating just what a damn hero she is.

Dammit.

"It... looks good on you," he decides. "...Not that it wouldn't, er. Er."

He's stalling. She has to know that, right? Has to know that he's dancing around the elephant in the room, has to know to call him out on his bull****, tell him that she told him so? Half the world knew about Dr. Gears' work. He's messaged the home computer to keep track of missing persons cases, and already it's blowing up his feed with notifications of people gone missing, of houses broken into, of hobos being dragged off of the street. Every two-bit Rx peddler's heard the news: you can harvest pepper from people, and heaven knows there's too many people that society says won't be missed.

Say it, damn you. You were right, and he was wrong. No need to rub it in by not saying anything about it.

Heaving a sigh, he sags bonelessly onto a bench, and hesitantly indicates the seat next to him. "You earned it. Really, you did. If it weren't for you, I'd be... I dunno, blown up by a mine, or shredded by anti-personnel fire twice over. You rescued me, saved @SARAPHIM's life, and took both Comstar's into custody. They didn't give you enough medals for today's work, and if you keep beating yourself up like this, I'll have to send Mami over with la chancla."

The joke hangs in the air like a bad fart, and Victor winces. "You certainly did more today than I did. Half the crap we did wouldn't have been necessary if Prometheus weren't involved."

Ferra!

Brainstorm stares at you, studies you, traces a whorl of light as it travels from shoulder to arm. It's probably not conscious, not intentional, but the effect is not dissimilar to a birdwatcher who's just spotted a rare finch and is trying not to startle it off.

Then he sighs, and the effect is gone--all that's left behind is a scared teenager with a too-high hardrate and sweaty palms. "I'm... "

No, horrible start. Of course he'd start with "i'm," because he's awful and self-centered and failing to apologize because, again, awful human being.

So he swallows the sentence and tries again. "How... are you feeling? About the change, I mean."

She was crying. She didn't want to go. She...

Dammit.

[Eldest]

Ferra!

“So what happened with you and Halfwoman,” Sara asks, tossing a magnet onto your back. She’s ready to bolt and run into Euna’s Victor’s arms if you announce that you’re ready to try shipping again. “You probably don’t know it, but she’s a big shot. Huge.”

"I am aware of her history with other heroes of her generation. She went over, ah. Safety protocols, would be the best way to describe it. Practical multiverse theory." She shrugs, sort of a rippling motion now with the cables hanging like ribbons off her. "She didn't want me to share too much of it, though. She's pretty sure the corporations are going to start focusing in on spying on me and the Comstars as best they can, as well as the Gears Foundation." She sits down on the mat. They've been doing practice runs in the Aegis gym, Ferra getting used to her new body and phasing, Sara getting some steam out and combat katas in. Ferra has managed to contain her flinch staring down a hardlight blast so far. "But something that did come up is that events as I remember them do not quite match up with your stream record. Did you edit in me kissing you? Why? I mean, I was curious about shipping, but that seems a little blunt."

Ferra!

Brainstorm stares at you, studies you, traces a whorl of light as it travels from shoulder to arm. It's probably not conscious, not intentional, but the effect is not dissimilar to a birdwatcher who's just spotted a rare finch and is trying not to startle it off.

Then he sighs, and the effect is gone--all that's left behind is a scared teenager with a too-high hardrate and sweaty palms. "I'm... "

No, horrible start. Of course he'd start with "i'm," because he's awful and self-centered and failing to apologize because, again, awful human being.

So he swallows the sentence and tries again. "How... are you feeling? About the change, I mean."

She was crying. She didn't want to go. She...

Dammit.

Ferra had showed up, unannounced, to Mami's apartment, green, tailored sundress matching a broad, ribbon-circled hat. She'd had a minor crisis over what to bring as a gift, and had ended up bringing a potted plant, a small crockpot of pot roast, and a bottle of wine: her research online before showing up had been conflicting. They were sitting on the tiny balcony, looking out at the shadows of the city's less affluent district. "I... this body should be more effective in the combat situations we have encountered so far. It is an efficient use of my resources." She holds onto the balcony railing and stares off into space, watching the pigeons fly by below, before breaking the silence. "The Rx transformation seems... exceptionally painful, to the human involved." The railing creaks a little as it bends, twisting in her grip.

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

Ferra!

Literal spit take. Sara was taking a swig from her AQUARIUS bottle, and sports drink ends up sprayed all over Ferra. “I— what? You—“

Think think thinks super quick. She laughs. “Yeah, sorry! I thought it would boost viewers, y’know? Get people hyped to see you on stream.” sotto voce: “You keep lagging in the polls.”

“But it didn’t work! That, plus, y’know, the ambiguous Errant thing... definitely a mistake! Let’s not do that for real.” Sip the sports drink, glance away, don’t be suspicious in front of the robot who can tell your heart’s racing because somebody has a seeeeeeeecret

[Eldest]

Sara!

"Oh, that's a great relief. I'd hate to start worrying about my memories." She takes a deep breath (she doesn't need to breath, after all, but she's got the lungs and they're great for emoting) and lets it out again after an uncomfortably long time. She's still getting the hang of it. "What do you mean I'm losing in the polls? What polls? Does that mean people don't like me? Should I do something different? Like those soap operas you showed me!"

[Balmas]

Ferra had showed up, unannounced, to Mami's apartment, green, tailored sundress matching a broad, ribbon-circled hat. She'd had a minor crisis over what to bring as a gift, and had ended up bringing a potted plant, a small crockpot of pot roast, and a bottle of wine: her research online before showing up had been conflicting. They were sitting on the tiny balcony, looking out at the shadows of the city's less affluent district. "I... this body should be more effective in the combat situations we have encountered so far. It is an efficient use of my resources." She holds onto the balcony railing and stares off into space, watching the pigeons fly by below, before breaking the silence. "The Rx transformation seems... exceptionally painful, to the human involved." The railing creaks a little as it bends, twisting in her grip.

Ferra!
Victor squints at her in confusion. "Death generally is, if accounts are to be believed." Then again, given some of the crackpots claiming to have died and come back, perhaps a more reliable source should be sought.

"A more efficient use of resources? That's... good, I suppose? Advantageous in confronting future battles." Talk about her. Pay attention to her. It's the least you can do after taking her for granted. "It seems a curious thing to focus on, given your... distress at assuming this form. You seemed... distraught."

[Raz_Fox]

Sara!

"Oh, that's a great relief. I'd hate to start worrying about my memories." She takes a deep breath (she doesn't need to breath, after all, but she's got the lungs and they're great for emoting) and lets it out again after an uncomfortably long time. She's still getting the hang of it. "What do you mean I'm losing in the polls? What polls? Does that mean people don't like me? Should I do something different? Like those soap operas you showed me!"

"Okay, so," Sara says, on slightly firmer ground now that we're talking about things that aren't her kissing her teammates. "I have regular Twitter polls on both teammate popularity and ship popularity, just to see where everyone's standing and who I need to promo more. Currently... well, actually, currently you're #1, but I think mostly because you saved my life and everyone in the building back when you blasted the heck out of the Jet Jaguar. Then Euna's #2 but really controversial--" bad subject dance away from that quick "--and Victor's regularly #3 for not having any T&A to show off. Unlike, uh." Real unsubtle look up and down Ferra. "Some of us."

Though one day, she'll get Victor in that Sailor Scout cosplay. One day. She's already got Errant on board. He will wear the miniskirt and it will be cute.

"But doing things based on the telenovelas can't hurt! Be a little flirty, be a little dangerous, be a little more like me." She grins. "But not too much. The remake is never better than the original, after all. That's a fact!" It may or may not be, but she's going to assert that it is! Take that, reality! Sara's in charge now!

[PhoeKun]

Sara!

"{scrubbed} Sara, don't start that {scrubbed} with me! Don't! D-don't..."

She's trying to go for angry right now and soak up all of the negative feelings in a wave of lecture, but her voice is cracking all over the place and all that comes across is desperation. No amount of headpatting and stupid insults is going to stem the flow of tears. She throws her arms around your neck. Those strong arms that can rip open doors and punch out cyber-Mongolians in a shot... how is she so gentle? For that matter, why? What the {scrubbed}?

"Y-you, you're not on camera so knock it off! You can barely stand, you idiot! You moron! She was closing that portal on you! It was closing and I had to hold it open or you'd have been stuck in space! I saw all the color leave your face! I b-- I barely grabbed your hand! I almost... you weren't breathing! You weren't! So d-d-" she loses it completely. Just crying into your shoulder and she can't make it stop.

"You a-a-always do this! It's not a {scrubbed} joke! You're not a brand! You're a god damn person. A person! And you... and I... we... we... did it really not mean anything?"

She pulls back when she asks it. Her eyes are shell shocked. Her eyes are so full of fear and hurt. And something... something else besides.

***

Victor!

Errant arches an eyebrow, unsure how to comment. Was he really not going to say it? What was with him today? She frowns, then realizes she's frowning at a compliment and starts saying... well, anything, really, just to make it stop feeling awkward.

"You... should get some sleep. Some food. You look..." no not that you idiot! Try again! Try again and act like a competent adult!

"You saw the footage, I take it? You saw what Comstar built? I'm worried, Victor. How can we possibly put the lid back on this thing? It's... abominable. And if the wrong person figures it out, or... no, there isn't any right person, is there? I saw things and I just... don't know what I should be doing. I wanted to hear your take."

That's not right at all. She's too formal. She's not saying it! Why is he not calling her out on it?!

[Raz_Fox]

Euna Kim!

Danger. Danger danger danger. Sara flinches when you lunge for her, expecting you to be furious. And you are! It comes across! But she doesn't go Tiger on you and verbally rip your face off, not immediately, because there's a weird undertone under your words, like, goddamn, stop beating yourself up over it, she could have died but she didn't and if she thinks about it too long she's going to be a mess so she's just not going to think about it, so stuff those emotions back inside you, Errant, and grow the {scrubbed} up like the rest of us.

Ow {scrubbed} {scrubbed} that's her hair Euna goddammit be careful with that heavy machinery

"Yeah, but you did," Sara tries to interrupt, "so get the {scrubbed} over it and--"

That's when you start bawling and throwing yourself onto Sara and, oh, god, {scrubbed}, goddammit, this is a lot of Euna in her arms right now and everything's emotional and tangled up and she's going to have a lot of private time with this thought later. Like usual. Because @SARAHPHIM doesn't get to make a ship official. Because once you make a ship official, the show's over. Once she starts going out with one of the three, everybody stops caring, because all that matters is everyone wondering if she ever would. That's, oh, another two dozen death threats on Twitter per day for choosing the wrong ship, probably not even more of the entertaining ones.

And then, oh. You look up into Sara's eyes and ask the question.

"Of course it {scrubbed} meant something," she hisses in your face, her face reddening. "And that's why I'm here telling you to put it out of your {scrubbed} mind instead of just shrugging it off! Because I'm a brand, and I don't get to make any of these ships happen, or else my whole career's over, you jackass! And, yeah, maybe I'm a person, and maybe I'm just going to go lock myself in the {scrubbed} bathroom later and finish myself off like I always do because I don't! get! to do this with you!" She's tearing up a little herself. HEY WHOOPS GUESS WHO'S BEEN BOTTLING THIS UP? She grabs you by the front of your sweat-drenched, translucent tank top, lifts your cyberknees off the floor, her fists trembling. "That's why I'm telling you not to {scrubbed} kiss me, you stupid skank! So that I can pretend it's all okay one more [I]{scrubbed} day! So I can just go jill myself off while I think about you, kissing me, the sounds you made, the way you wanted..."

There is a moment where it's not clear whether Sara is about to deck you. She's distraught.

"...the way you wanted me..."

Not @SARAHPHIM. Not the magazine cover. Not the streamer, not the model, not the superheroine.

You wanted Sara.

And that's why she pushes herself against you and pins you down against the floor and stops using her mouth to talk and starts using it to go for a second round of marking her territory. Her Euna! Her little cyborg! Hers hers hers she's allowed to be selfish she's not thinking about later she just knows she needs it now now now

She surfaces for air, her mouth wet and messy, panting like a tiger, holding herself above you like a predator. The look in her eyes is manic, needy, desperate. You could break her with a word.

You open your mouth. I don't know why. You tell us whatever you were going to say. But in a reversal of earlier, it's Sara that clamps her hand over your mouth, stops you from speaking, lets you smell her bodywash on her clammy skin, the web between her thumb and forefinger jammed against your nose, too jittery and rushed to do it sensual or careful. "Don't you {scrubbed} dare," she pants. "Don't. Just shut up. If you say one {scrubbed} thing that's not 'yes, Sara,' I'm leaving. If you want this, we're doing it my way. You understand me, chica?" She rolls her hips against you in a way that is decidedly unfair to either of you.

She starts to lift her hand, then presses it back down, harder. "Wait. Nope. Wait." She grins, unsteadily, still trying to show off, to strut, to be dominant. "You wanna call me 'princess?'" One might, say, guiltily remember using that, uh, that title. Earlier. In a derogatory manner. Before a certain moon portal incident. "'Yes, my princess,'" she says, with a {scrubbed}-eating grin and a cutsey little kid's-show-style flourish to her voice. "You have to say that."

As an impartial narrator, I feel obligated to point out that this is garbage domming from a trash can. But I don't think that matters to you? What matters to you is that Sara wants you. She wants to give you orders. She wants to bite you until you try to scream. She wants to not think about anything that happened tonight, and she wants to lock those cyberarms in place and make you the one who feels helpless, little miss romantic. She wants to be your princess, and you can be her knight. Her Lancelot, even.

So, when she lifts her hand and runs it down your neck, hooks the shirt and *yanks* the neckline down to your sports bra, and looks you in the eyes, vulnerable in a way that @SARAHPHIM never is, but Sara can't not be right now, her breath shuddery and through her nose and you can feel her shaking on top of you like a leaf... what do you say, Euna?

[Balmas]

Victor!

Errant arches an eyebrow, unsure how to comment. Was he really not going to say it? What was with him today? She frowns, then realizes she's frowning at a compliment and starts saying... well, anything, really, just to make it stop feeling awkward.

"You... should get some sleep. Some food. You look..." no not that you idiot! Try again! Try again and act like a competent adult!

"You saw the footage, I take it? You saw what Comstar built? I'm worried, Victor. How can we possibly put the lid back on this thing? It's... abominable. And if the wrong person figures it out, or... no, there isn't any right person, is there? I saw things and I just... don't know what I should be doing. I wanted to hear your take."

That's not right at all. She's too formal. She's not saying it! Why is he not calling her out on it?!

Errant!

And just like that, his face goes nuclear-meltdown red. Oh, yes. He'd seen that stream. Whoof, wasn't that a stream and a half? The forums were split pretty evenly. One side debated what this did to the shipping dynamics of the team. More disturbing, though, were the GIFs that sprouted like weeds in every corner, in every signature, from every angle, captured in perfect 8K120fps clarity... The Kiss.

He'd been good, and not saved any. Honest.

Oh, thank goodness. Another topic. Not that it was any more pleasant, but at least it had fewer mental alarms shrieking.

"...Yeah," he eventually allows. Smooth, Victor. Pinnacle of the english language, real genius work there. Sigh, squint, nod, search for composure. "Yeah. I'll be honest. That... You were right, you know? Thanks for not gloating about it, but you were entirely right in what you said earlier today. She's {scrubbed}, man. This whole affair--Dr Gears' work? {scrubbed} me, man. That is some scary crap.

"Aaaand thanks to the stream, the entire world knows about it." Not that @SARAPHIM could really be blamed, much as he wanted to do so. With Comstar in the equation, there was no way that the information wasnt' getting streamed out to the world.

"Hoboes are vanishing, did you know that? Kids and adults alike disappearing. Entire blocks of buildings go dark in the night. Everyone wants in on this--infinite Rx, at the cost of a few slums?" He lets out a raggard, shaking laugh. "That's not even a factor on the risk-reward sheets of the people doing this.

"Euna, this technology is evil. It turns people, quite literally, into things in the minds of those who know about it. Nobody should have it. Not Comstar, definitely not megacorps, not the people, not me, not AEGIS. Barring Ferra's existence, I struggle to think of a way in which the world would not be better on the whole if Dr. Gears hadn't destroyed his work, moved to Australia, and been eaten by something venomous."

Distantly, he realizes that if he had skin, his hands would be bleeding from being clenched so hard. "And I can't do a damn thing about it. Pandora's box has been opened, and woe released into the world."

[Eldest]

Sara

Ferra pauses. "So... be spontanious? And flamboyant?" She ponders for a moment. Then she starts the beat of a song that has featured in far too many cheesy AMVs (Internets top choice for dancing, in fact), and sweeps Sara into a dance, flickering through the nearby wall as she does. What follows becomes part of Aegis urban legends, a dance across rooms, floors and walls.

Ferra!
Victor squints at her in confusion. "Death generally is, if accounts are to be believed." Then again, given some of the crackpots claiming to have died and come back, perhaps a more reliable source should be sought.

"A more efficient use of resources? That's... good, I suppose? Advantageous in confronting future battles." Talk about her. Pay attention to her. It's the least you can do after taking her for granted. "It seems a curious thing to focus on, given your... distress at assuming this form. You seemed... distraught."

She pauses, again, looking down at her hands. "I... I don't know what happens when I di- get decommissioned. I remember understanding while I was down there. I remember being calm. And then I was back with you and there was a giant robot and saving lives always comes first.So I focused on that and I don't know..." she's leaking, no, crying again. "I don't feel like I'm dead..."

[PhoeKun]

Sara!

That was a step too far. Euna's not a natural sub, your little power play ruined everything. She's a battle commander, and that's what she's going to retreat to, so she can do the smart practical Euna thing and use her words to say the thing you tried to stop her saying, which you already know without her needing to open her stupid mouth: that you shouldn't be doing this, she and you. That you had to stop. Then she'll be the 'good friend' and pat your back or something just before you run out of the room. And despite all the wonders of modern technology you know there's not a toy in the world that's going to satisfy you tonight.

Here it comes. She's opening her mouth. Look at her, twisting her face up like that and trying so hard to stop gasping and making those desperate little motions with her mouth so she can say something incredibly stupid she'll never be able to take back. Which is exactly what she does. Her voice is breathy and full of stupid Euna romanticism when she says it.

"...Yes, my princess."

She doesn't even blush. She just reaches up and pulls your head down so you'll start kissing her again. Which of course, you do. What follows is a war for dominance. She gets her fingers in your hair again, but she does it right this time and her fingers softly massage your scalp while her lips find yours. A soft moan escapes her throat and travels up into your mouth, following her tongue. You push her back down onto the floor, tear at her useless, disgusting shirt until it starts to rip. Not that it matters. You've thrown out way more expensive shirts than this for getting half as dirty. Meanwhile, she'll probably fold it in a corner somewhere and try to sew it back together, then wash it and tuck it away in whatever pre-approved drawer she keeps this stuff in. She reaches for it herself and tears it in half and tosses the remains carelessly to one side, so that it's out of her princess' way. Kissing turns to biting. Her lip is bleeding. No part of her looks like she even notices.

Neither of you find the bed. Her mouth finds your neck. Your hands find her pathetic little chest. Hers find your tie, your jacket, the buttons on your shirt. These, she's careful with. Your knight is chivalrous. Tristan courts Isolde, and later if anybody learns the story they'll say it must have been a love potion that brought you to this, because nothing else could have. Softer hearts will say she and you drank it voluntarily, that this wasn't a mistake but a choice. But this is stupid nerd stuff and none of it matters because tonight doesn't exist anywhere but behind a locked door. It's a mistake. But mistakes are things that other people make. You're @SARAHPHIM. You're perfect.

Except you're not. You're Sara. You're a princess. You and your knight are running out of clothes. Her hands and legs, always so cold, brush inexpertly against your skin. Up your spine, pressed against your hips. They're... warmer than you remember. Some adjustment or response is making Euna's whole body grow warmer. Not soft, like you, but still. You did this. You did this. She's on the floor and even though it would be so easy she's never once done more than sit up so she can kiss some other part of you before you push her right back down. It would be so easy for her to pin you. But your knight is courteous, and lets you take the lead. So if you ever wind up on the bottom, it's because you chose to roll her over.

You can see each other in the light of that reading lamp. Is she beautiful, your Lancelot? Do you let her cuddle after you both finally run out of energy? Or are you immediately @SARAHPHIM again, with nobody there to see?

***

Victor!

You can pinpoint the moment where she realizes where your brain went when she mentioned the stream. It doesn't even take a genius, because it's also the moment where she forgets how to breathe. She doesn't blush or awkwardly look in another direction, or even stammer when she tries to speak. But her eyes get really distant and her skin goes white and clammy and she starts making involuntary fists. Pain. That's what it looks like. Some really ugly thought is clawing its way through her brain and trying to take it over.

She fights it off.

"That's the thing!" she says with a hint of panic in her voice, "That's the thing exactly! I keep thinking and thinking about this and I don't have any way to stop it! How do I sleep at night knowing this could be happening to anyone at any moment? Nobody can be trusted with this technology. Nobody should have it. But it's out there and now we're just waiting until everybody does. And the only thing I can think of, the only countermeasure to stamp it out as much as possible I've got is AEGIS. We need that scale of operations and oversight. Bigger even. More. But, Victor..."

Her uniform is perfect. She's finally got every last strand of hair where it should be. Errant is prim and proper and literally gleaming in the light. Her posture is perfect, and even just talking to a friend like this she's reflexively standing At Ease instead of... well, at ease. She's even fought her face to a perfect, polite neutral. From the soles of her boots to the top of her head, every inch of her looks the model soldier. And that's the person whose voice drops to a whisper and says:

"I don't know if they want to stop it at all. I saw..."

She stops. What did she see? Rookies getting carried away in wartime. And the Shogun, watching over things. She's being paranoid. She's being stupid. This is her family; if she can't trust them she's got nobody. Her voice rises back to normal.

"I'm just scared, Victor. God. I'm really scared..."

[Raz_Fox]

Sara

Ferra pauses. "So... be spontanious? And flamboyant?" She ponders for a moment. Then she starts the beat of a song that has featured in far too many cheesy AMVs (Internets top choice for dancing, in fact), and sweeps Sara into a dance, flickering through the nearby wall as she does. What follows becomes part of Aegis urban legends, a dance across rooms, floors and walls.

Ohohoho young lady I like the fact that you think that anyone can dance with Best Tiger and not end up on the back foot. She trusts Ferra (weird dimension-shifting doesn't-remember-kissing-me Ferra) enough to swing herself into walls and through desks and across people's paths.

What's it like? The sensation, I mean. The moment of flickering through a place where that wall isn't there. That lurch, that sudden chill up the spine-- c'mon, don't leave us in the dark. What's that like? What sensations are running up and down Sara's nerves right as we speak, as we watch them dance with laughter in her teeth and fire in her limbs.

This? This is the good kind of shipping. This is the kind that gets the base fired up. The kind that makes people write fanfiction about what the dance is like, where those hands are touching (as Sara possessively squeezes Ferra's hip, never mind whether it yields under her fingers), how dizzying and freeing it is to shift between dimensions with each bound (quick, look up those old interviews with Halfwoman), the kind that lavishes an entire paragraph on the way Sara throws her head back and laughs and dips Ferra's head down through a wall and then pulls her back up to nuzzle noses.

This is on the razor's edge of "good shipping," with no kisses needed. Thank you, she might say, if she was not Best Tiger. Thank you for helping me settle myself and reestablish my Brand.

Sara! You can see each other in the light of that reading lamp. Is she beautiful, your Lancelot? Do you let her cuddle after you both finally run out of energy? Or are you immediately @SARAHPHIM again, with nobody there to see?

Euna!

Even after you're both spent, Sara can't surrender, can't relent. She wraps her limbs possessively around you, rolls over onto her side, and lazily peppers your face with kisses. Mine, they say, with each wet little smooch on your eyelids, on your cheeks, on your bloody lip. Mine. My Euna. She doesn't say it, but she doesn't have to. You're beautiful, Euna Kim. Every inch of you, scars and all. Her fingers trace the grooves and welts of your back, as if exploring a foreign land for the first time.

And she cares just enough about you--

just enough--

To wait until she thinks you're safely asleep to murmur "{scrubbed}," and start crying. It's all sniffles and shakes and self-loathing, even as she holds you close and refuses to let go. She's never going to be able to even so much as allude to this. She can't have it again. She's going to have to short-circuit her own desires to be nice to you and deliberately be an ass, just so that the shipping matrixes don't fall apart.

I don't think that wakes you up.

I think what wakes you up is the sound of your door closing behind her in the middle of the night, and the empty space where she used to be.

[PhoeKun]

Sara!

It's ok if I call you Sara, right? I'm sorry, I don't mean to make you feel any worse about this. It's just that I know some stuff about what happened after you left, and... I dunno. It feels important that you know about it too.

She didn't cry, your Euna. You have to be able to feel things to cry. There was a moment after the door sliding shut again startled her awake where she might have, when what was actually happening sank in. Actually she very nearly went scrambling after you, despite how she was dressed. I mean, obviously she didn't or else you'd have seen her, but she was on her feet and halfway to the door before she felt it. The drop in her stomach. The feeling that somebody had cut her open and hollowed out what was left of her insides. It cut her off mid stride, and she turned and walked to the shower instead.

AEGIS regulations limit the amount of hot water per agent per day to 10 minutes, because they've got a lot of fancy spreadsheets that conclude job performance increases 6.7% on average when employees are made to cut their morning routines shorter. She was in there for an hour before it even occurred to her to try washing her hair, so this was not a pleasant experience on any level. She sat on the floor with her legs pulled close against her body while sensors continuously fed her data about her body temperature lowering. I don't know what she was thinking about in there. I really don't. I wish I did; I'd love to be able to tell you she was psyching herself up to go try and win you over and prove that neither of you made a mistake. But she just sat there in the water with a blank expression on her face, and hardly seemed to breathe.

She stared at herself in the mirror for a long while. Looking at the scars, looking at the ugly seams where flesh grew over metal. Looking at the bruises you left with your mouth. Normally she's not a makeup girl, but today she's got no choice. I don't know how long it took her to find a mix of foundations that matched her skin, but it was an ordeal. Predictably, she made a mess of it. Eye shadow too heavy, the wrong color liner, the line not smooth at all. Forget making her look better, she couldn't even hide what just happened. Total skank job. She quietly punched out her mirror and washed it all off before walking to her terminal, plugging something into her arm, and downloading a routine to do it for her. Went much better after that. Very professional, very flattering. Might've even bumped her from your 8.5 to a 9; I couldn't say. I'm really not the expert on these things that people think I am.

You can't really tell in her room or anything, but I think dawn was breaking over the pyramid by the time she started getting dressed. Super basic stuff, not even worth getting into. I just thought I'd mention it so you'd know she didn't embarrass herself when she got a video call telling her about a commendation she'd be needed for later that morning. Didn't embarrass you, either. And it meant she had to strip again, which she definitely hated, to get her dress uniform on instead.

But the last thing she did, before leaving? She went back to that terminal, pulled up your stream, and skipped through the VOD until she found that moment of the two of you in the elevator. And she watched it, you falling on top of her, her making that stupid 'I need it' face, you making the whole thing about decking Turbo Knight, on a loop until she couldn't stand it anymore. She skipped ahead. Found the kiss. Paused it on one of the handful of frames she thought she could see it clearly. She made a screenshot, deleted it, made it again and hastily turned off the monitor before stomping out the door on the most measured steps I've ever seen.

You hurt her, ok? You really hurt her. But she hurt you too, so I think you gals are even. Don't worry about it, Sara. @SARAHPHIM. She'll... ok let's be real, she's never getting over this. But so what? You're literally worth a hundred Euna Kims. You should try not to worry about it too much, or those shipping matrices might disintegrate. Like I said, it's just stuff I thought you should know about. So you don't have to wonder.

[Eldest]

Ohohoho young lady I like the fact that you think that anyone can dance with Best Tiger and not end up on the back foot. She trusts Ferra (weird dimension-shifting doesn't-remember-kissing-me Ferra) enough to swing herself into walls and through desks and across people's paths.

What's it like? The sensation, I mean. The moment of flickering through a place where that wall isn't there. That lurch, that sudden chill up the spine-- c'mon, don't leave us in the dark. What's that like? What sensations are running up and down Sara's nerves right as we speak, as we watch them dance with laughter in her teeth and fire in her limbs.

This? This is the good kind of shipping. This is the kind that gets the base fired up. The kind that makes people write fanfiction about what the dance is like, where those hands are touching (as Sara possessively squeezes Ferra's hip, never mind whether it yields under her fingers), how dizzying and freeing it is to shift between dimensions with each bound (quick, look up those old interviews with Halfwoman), the kind that lavishes an entire paragraph on the way Sara throws her head back and laughs and dips Ferra's head down through a wall and then pulls her back up to nuzzle noses.

This is on the razor's edge of "good shipping," with no kisses needed. Thank you, she might say, if she was not Best Tiger. Thank you for helping me settle myself and reestablish my Brand.

Best Tiger

Well, you see, it's different. Not different, Different. You aren't where you are, you're someplace else that's close enough that you can just slip aside and go through an area where, by all logic and physics, you can't. It doesn't feel, physically, much more than dancing through air, and that's why it feels so Different, because you know, in your monkey hind brain, that this is Not How It Works. You have shivers of danger as all your years of running into solid objects and bouncing off yield to new experiences of being twirled through walls and desks and desk workers.

And then there's how it feels for Ferra. She's not so bothered by it, is Ferra. She hasn't got the evolutionary buildup of millions of years of not going through solid objects, and she's riding a high of showing off, experimenting, laughing at the wonder of it all and the dance. She's taking a song so overdone that it's corny, and then making it enjoyable and authentic just by sheer enjoyment. It's her first proper creative act, and of course it goes up on YouTube from dozens of cameras and angles and surprised guards who just had the medium security entrance to the medbay slowdanced across from wall to wall.

"I'm trying shipping!"

Embracing the lesson to maintain her humanity. Up Mundane, down Danger. Will wait till response post to see if I get potential from a misunderstanding or unintended consequences.

[Balmas]

Victor!

You can pinpoint the moment where she realizes where your brain went when she mentioned the stream. It doesn't even take a genius, because it's also the moment where she forgets how to breathe. She doesn't blush or awkwardly look in another direction, or even stammer when she tries to speak. But her eyes get really distant and her skin goes white and clammy and she starts making involuntary fists. Pain. That's what it looks like. Some really ugly thought is clawing its way through her brain and trying to take it over.

She fights it off.

"That's the thing!" she says with a hint of panic in her voice, "That's the thing exactly! I keep thinking and thinking about this and I don't have any way to stop it! How do I sleep at night knowing this could be happening to anyone at any moment? Nobody can be trusted with this technology. Nobody should have it. But it's out there and now we're just waiting until everybody does. And the only thing I can think of, the only countermeasure to stamp it out as much as possible I've got is AEGIS. We need that scale of operations and oversight. Bigger even. More. But, Victor..."

Her uniform is perfect. She's finally got every last strand of hair where it should be. Errant is prim and proper and literally gleaming in the light. Her posture is perfect, and even just talking to a friend like this she's reflexively standing At Ease instead of... well, at ease. She's even fought her face to a perfect, polite neutral. From the soles of her boots to the top of her head, every inch of her looks the model soldier. And that's the person whose voice drops to a whisper and says:

"I don't know if they want to stop it at all. I saw..."

She stops. What did she see? Rookies getting carried away in wartime. And the Shogun, watching over things. She's being paranoid. She's being stupid. This is her family; if she can't trust them she's got nobody. Her voice rises back to normal.

"I'm just scared, Victor. God. I'm really scared..."

Being right has never felt so terrible. Seeing Errant--seeing Euna like this, it just feels wrong, like seeing a bizarro-world painting of something so familiar.

"I don't have the right words," he starts, carefully, "to make this right, I don't think. I've..." What? Known for years that the megacorps are evil? She's hurting. Don't rub it in, *******. Start over. I've...

He sits there, probably for too long to be comfortable, struggling for words.

"I'm scared too," he finally confesses. "I don't have the kind of confidence you do. In AEGIS. In my own abilities. I'm a genius, but this... this is so far outside my own ability to deal with that I'm kind of paralyzed.

"As far as devils go, AEGIS is decent, I suppose. But..." He shakes his head, and offers a broken smile. "If they don't want to stop this, then they're the right hands. And if they're not going to try, then I have to."

Not really an inspiring or reassuring message, Victor. Oh, sure, she's having a crisis of faith about her home, her friends, her family, and here's Brainstorm to assure her that he'll be the first one to stab her in the back. ****ing hell, man, what're you doing?

"I gues the question becomes then, what do we do about it?"

She pauses, again, looking down at her hands. "I... I don't know what happens when I di- get decommissioned. I remember understanding while I was down there. I remember being calm. And then I was back with you and there was a giant robot and saving lives always comes first.So I focused on that and I don't know..." she's leaking, no, crying again. "I don't feel like I'm dead..."

All Victor can do is sweep an arm across the mattress to clear a space, and offer an arm for a hug. "Let it out. I don't know what you're going through, but I can at least be here, I guess?"

[Eldest]

All Victor can do is sweep an arm across the mattress to clear a space, and offer an arm for a hug. "Let it out. I don't know what you're going through, but I can at least be here, I guess?"

She thinks, for a bare moment, that she should withdraw. This isn't important to anybody else, after all. Just her, and does she really matter? Only the Directives truly matter, and her ability to focus on that, spend her resources there, and anything else is wasted energy.

And the dam breaks, and she flops on the bed, face down. "I don't know what's going on. I don't even know what I should feel about, who I am! There's a person, somebody who died to make me, or become me, and am I her? Am I simply made of her fossil? Did I hurt her? Am I responsible? Or am I her, but as the next evolution, a butterfly emerging from a cocoon?" The torrent of questions keeps coming. "Was it right of me to focus on not wanting to experience death again? Am I selfish for that? Can I trust myself, knowing who made me, and what he did? Can I trust him? I didn't want to go, no, to die, I still like my old body, but this one is nice, and I don't know why it matters!" She gestures to the dress. "Why do I want this and feel happy? I don't need clothes! But I want them. And I want them to be f*cking pretty." She's quivering, needing answers, exposed emotionally and worried that maybe she should have kept the shell of being a robot and not reached for more.

Rolling to reject never use resources for non-task functions: (2d6)[8]. Removing it's influence, and thus it as a lesson. Will replace with a new one by the end of the conversation.