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2026-07-27 - Autobiographies and Mental Scars

2026-08-03T23:16:33Z

Crux:

{{Logsummary|
Title = Autobiographies and Mental Scars
|Summary = Liyara and Yoiko reveal their pasts in an effort to finally to quit hiding their secrets.
|Who = [[Liyara]], [[Yoiko Hax]]
|Date = July 27th, 2026
|Where = Yoiko's Apartment
|Log=

Yoiko and Liyara are currently sitting in a shuttle built in an apartment inside the Integra's Arms. Outside the shuttle, bits of the original apartment are floating in silence. Power cables, waterlines, and anything else that Yoiko could leach are flowing into the ship as it hums softly in the darkness. In the rear of the shuttle, in a compact quarters, the two are sitting on a couch discussing all the things that the blonde engineer should have probably talked about sooner.

There are reasons for it. Chief among them being the secrecy that her entire race shares over their very private culture, and some questionable decisions that won't be public knowledge to the residents of Trillius Prime for at least another few centuries. Not that Yoiko has any part of that, nor an inkling that it exists.

Right now what she knows is that recent events have made her realize the need for transparency, something that doesn't come easy to her. Luckily she can feel the weight of the importance of this on her shoulders and is using that as motivation.

Leaning her arms on her knees, she rubs at her face and sighs, "Alright. So..."

----

From the beginning Yoiko was fascinated by technology. She was that annoying child that took apart the television to see how all the parts worked, even if in this case it was a view screen. The only thing more interesting was finding out how to build something like that from scratch. Yoiko poured everything she had into the dream of becoming an engineer. Not just to build and repair, but to see the stars. To be important even if she wasn't always the one on an away mission. To make a difference in the universe, even if no one realized it was her turning the screws.

Unfortunately she was never going to get that opportunity on her home planet. Not officially part of the Federation of Planets for a many more decades, and with an entire culture built around keeping their secrets, there was never going to be an opportunity for Yoiko to hone her craft without leaving.

----

"I tried everything before actually leaving Trillius Prime. I even went to the Symbiosis Commission and tried to be joined with a Symbiont thinking it would either give me the knowledge to satisfy my need to travel the stars, or give me some kind of edge that would let me convince them to let me leave."

Yoiko lets out a soft sigh, "Needless to say that didn't go over very well. Eventually I said my goodbyes to my friends and family, arranged passage on a cargo ship, and made my way to the Sol system convinced I was never going to be able to go back home."

So far, that draws a raised eyebrow from Liyara. She doesn't know a lot about this, obviously, with Yoiko being the first Trill she's met, but she knows that Yoiko is joined, both from discussion and that brief bit of firsthand observation. "You left without it? That's a twist. Somehow I was under the impression it was this integral part of your people's being..." Liyara waves a hand through the air, loftily indicating in a nebulous sense that she is waxing poetic. "...But then you have told me the selection process is rigorous, for a select few, so I suppose that was foolish of me."

The blonde woman lets out a slight chuckle at that, "I can see where you'd think that but I used to be my own person. I swear. A little quieter, a little less willing to jump in somewhere without looking first." She pulls one leg up on the couch under the other, resting her hands on her lower leg. "I was also a little too young for joining."

There's a frown as she ponders the importance of everything, "The Symbionts are these depositories of so much knowledge and experience. There's so few of them, and even then most of our people aren't compatible. Being put in an incompatible host could be a death sentence. Once you're joined you can't be un-joined again. They have to be extra careful when it comes to getting approved."

Yoiko pauses, placing a hand on her chest, "It eventually worked out, obviously, but it took a bit to get there..."

----

At twenty she was able to start classes at the Star Fleet Academy, dumping all of her studies into Astrophysics, a little Xenobiology, and of course Advanced Warp Theory and System Repair. It was there that she met her eventual captain and close friend, Jonathon Munster. The two weren't exactly top of their class, but when they put their heads together they were able to do amazing things.

Together they started work on a new design for the standard Warp Engine, pushing out a bit more output that paired with a better delivery system could make crossing vastness of space far easier. It didn't change the world, but it made a name for the two of them in the Engineering world.

However, Jonathon went the command route and Yoiko... fell in with an Orion science major named Fiona Habilis, whom Yoiko affectionately nicknamed Flea. While they weren't dating yet, the two where joined at the hip even going so far as to get assigned to the USS Vesuvius together, forcing a reunion with the now Captain Munster.

----

The blonde woman laughs happily as she thinks to her time with Fiona. "Flea was easily my best friend, and let me tell you hanging out with an Orion is a wild ride. Do you know anything about them? They're the ones with green skin you see in all the Star Trek stuff." She has looked into it after one too many comments about the Enterprise.

"A lot of Orions are into some pretty shady stuff. Crime syndicates, drug trafficking, slavery - you name it. Their biggest thing to the rest of the galaxy are the Orion Slave girls. Picture someone very exotic, very versed in every sort of pleasuring you can imagine. They even produce this pheromone that makes men instantly fall in love with them." Yoiko lets out a laugh again, "Except the thing is, they're not slaves. They're in charge. They deliberately have their men 'sell' them to other races and when everyone's guard is down they rob them blind!"

She openly giggles, "Except Flea. Flea wanted to go into counseling. She wanted to be a therapist and help people with all the trauma they're walking around with." Another giggle, "Only if she didn't constantly take a pheromone inhibiter, every male on deck would suddenly be following her around like little sad puppies."

Her voice drops conspiratorially, "There may have been a time or two that she neglected to use it. Accidentally of course."

Liyara sees no reason to doubt Yoiko's recounting of events. Somehow this Mary Sue won't be solving Trillius Prime's bizarre machinations from a couch in a runabout. Shocking. "I caught an episode about them when I was trying to find information on your origins." Liyara casually admits, and then blinks and tucks her chin in, looking a bit defensive. She didn't mean to admit she went looking when Yoiko was gone. That's an awful lot like saying you miss someone. Is that even allowed?

When Yoiko admits that Flea may have once or twice... neglected the use of pheremon suppressants, purely by accident Liyara chuckles. "Somehow, instead of accidentally, I had expected you to say 'For Science'."

Of course that sets off another round of laughter, "Oh, no. Can't dress it up as anything less than it was. It was absolutely deliberate and far more fun than it had any right to be." Yoiko takes a moment to compose herself, "Honestly I'm pretty sure that's why she got assigned to a ship with a permanent skeleton crew."

She pauses again with a frown, "Don't get me wrong, Flea was amazing at what she did, and the people on that ship needed someone to dump all that isolation and overworking onto. But I kiiinda suspect that half the reason she was assigned to the Vesuvius was because there would be less men around for her to 'accidentally' sway."

Yoiko stretches her legs out again before continuing the story.

----

The Vesuvius was originally a training ship that had been rechristened as a test-bed for new technologies and existed with a skeleton crew of engineers and designers paving the way for what would become the Constitution Class Refit Program. Yoiko and Jon worked side by side on a new design for the Nacelles that would take advantage of a newly designed Warp Core, which had exceeded the expectations they'd had back when they were in the Academy.

Following two years of hard work, Yoiko was promoted to the Chief Engineer of the Vesuvius, and another year later Yoiko and Fiona decided to try their hand at a serious relationship - only to be caught off guard by the Trill Symbiosis Commission contacting, and granting Yoiko to be joined with the Hax symbiont.

Becoming joined was the highest honor amongst her people, so after a very awkward explanation, Yoiko went home and returned a new person. Sadly the strain proved to be too much, eventually pushing Fiona away and leaving the newly joined Engineer with nothing left but her work.

----

The blonde woman lets out a heavy sigh as she gets to the end of Fiona's part in this story. "She had the patience of a saint, but I think the new me was a little too much. Every day I could see her getting more and more tired. I should have stayed on Trillius Prime longer. I mean, I would have if I'd known how it was going to affect me."

Her eyes shimmer a little as she thinks back, "Eventually she told me it was over. She was going to ask to be reassigned to another ship and that was the end of it." Yoiko forces a weak smile, "It was for the best in the end, but it still hurts when I think about it too much."

She sighs again, wiping her eyes a second before realizing she should probably reassure Liyara. "I don't miss that relationship. I miss my friend." She smiles again, more genuinely this time. "I'm much happier where I am now." Abruptly she pauses and gestures around herself, "Weird planetoids, gravitational pulls, and not-a-God Gods notwithstanding."

"You can have it both ways, Yoiko." Liyara says, sounding oddly insightful in this specific area. "You can miss how a person made you feel, and not want to return to that at the same time. People are complicated, and their feelings moreso." The dragoness reaches out and gives Yoiko's shoulder a soft squeeze.

"For what it's worth, I understand why losing the Yoiko she knew would have been painful, but she missed out on an incredible person." Her smile could thaw a glacier. "I will agree with her though, proper mental health professionals seem like they would be desperately needed in deep space, with what Starfleet gets up to."

Yoiko actually blushes a bit from the compliment and nods slowly at the assessment of mental health. "Yeah, that's probably more true than anyone would ever give it credit for." She ponders a bit and gives a sigh knowing what comes next in the story.

"After a while it became clear that Jonathon needed a permanent First Officer. The Star Fleet was willing to keep sending out temporary assignments for the position, since the smaller crew number meant there wasn't a lot of resource management for an XO to worry about. But with Outpost 17 being decommissioned -and- the V getting ready for her first big field test of the new engines, Jon was stretched pretty thin." She smiles a little at this part, "To my surprise, but apparently not to anyone else involved, I got the job. I'd run the ship when he was busy and spend the rest of the time either in Engineering or offering guidance - which I was pretty much already doing anyways."

She sighs again, "There we were, working with a team from Leeding Engines Ltd on the prototype FWG-1 nacelles. It's the first major change in about fifty four years. We have the old FWF-1's removed, we have all the new systems online. This was going to be /epic/."

She pauses long enough to chew her thumbnail nervously. "We get the green. Everything's good to go. All this work and effort, all these people involved. We were ready. ...or so we thought." Another soft sigh, "Soon as they start building up power, soon as the warp envelope starts to form around the ship... the struts holding the nacelles crumble."

Yoiko's eyes begin to water as the moment replays vividly in her memory. "There was this awful noise like metal being ripped apart. The Engineering Hull buckled. Coolant, plasma, the main power supply... it all just starts spilling into the lower decks. The forcefields managed to keep oxygen from being sucked out of the ship, but that just made it worse because it helped ignite all those gasses. Warp Engineering went up in flames."

The tears begin flowing freely at this point. Her hands clearly shaking. "Chief Medical Officer Saunders was on standby. We'd kept telling him everything was fine, but he insisted. When the flames got past the main bulkhead he just marches into the room like this was just a normal day. He started grabbing people two at a time, yelling at everyone who wasn't writhing in pain to make a break for it." She pauses to wipe her eyes, but when the tears don't stop, she just stares at her open palms.

"I was in Impulse Engineering. On the saucer section. It's like the main part of the spine in a body, with Warp Engineering being it's belly. I managed to cut off the Warp Engines before everything backed up into the neck of the ship. Saunders got everyone to safety without any lives lost. I remember the sound of the alarms screaming and people shouting. Within a minute the entire ship smelled like burning flesh. We did everything we could to make sure everyone was going to make it, even as the nacelles tore themselves from the secondary hull." She takes a deep breath, "...and that's when the forcefields failed. Everyone had been evacuated from Warp Engineering except for CMO Saunders. We think he'd stayed behind to take one last look to make sure no one was left behind when the vacuum of space just hurled everything through the jagged metal like some kind of cheese grater..."

Yoiko takes one more hitching breath, wiping her eyes again. "We have a plaque in Sickbay for him. When they went through his personal logs there was this one entry that detailed what it should say if anything ever happened to him." She makes an odd sound, almost like choking, but it's a laugh being choked out through the sorrow. "The plaque reads, 'In Memorium. Chief Medical Officer Caliga Saunders. Perished in the line of duty 2266' and under it this stupid quote, '...and I never even got my first paycheck!'"

Liyara makes the appropriate sympathetic faces when Yoiko begins to cry at the memories of what happened to her ship. To her medical officer. What nearly happened to the rest of them if it wasn't for his stalwart composure in that madness. She doesn't know him, and still finds it hard to fully empathize with a loss if she can't relate it to one of her own she's experienced, but she knows it hurt Yoiko, and that is good enough for the sympathy to be genuine. Her hand is on Yoiko's shoulder again, squeezing with reassurance.

"He sounds like he died full of spite and right. Your Starfleet seems to produce a great number of such dedicated officers. Petty Officer Rebane notwithstanding." He's not a petty of-- ah... wordplay.

A laugh rings out again, this time a much more obvious one. Yoiko wipes her eyes and shakes her head. "Petty?" A brief snort. "He's pretty good in his own right, but.... yeah." She chuckles lightly before continuing on with the story. "It took about a year to repair the damages, get everything working properly again, and yes... transferring Dr. Rebane onto the ship as the 'Petty' Chief Medical Officer."

Her eyes are still stinging a bit, but her mood has clearly improved. "We doubled down on reinforcing the nacelles and redesigned half the lower hull to make damn sure nothing like that ever happened again. There where months of testing; jumping here and there, looking for any local anomalies - all that sort of space exporery type of stuff. And that's when we found it. SEH-01, that giant black hole in space that hides Twisted. Some locals had referred to it as the Florpus Hole."

"We'd fired one of our new probes into it and it came back with tons of data about a thriving planetoid slightly out of phase deep inside. Jon assumed it was a fluke, but the match checked out. Furthermore, parts of it where just stable enough to allow transport. We parked the ship over its gaping maw and the Captain and I beamed down along with Lieutenant Galpin, our best pilot. I assumed if nothing else if we could find a shuttle, he'd be able to get us back." She gives a shrug, "Obviously, that didn't quite happen."

She shakes her head, "We beamed down, and only I materialized. I was stuck. I had no idea the ship was locked in a broken chroniton field, or that I'd be stuck here for the next year. Matter of fact the very first person I encountered was that goofy guy from the Devil May Cry commercial."

----

Two days later, the Commander would encounter Mackenzie Mihangle (Kenzie for short), a prisoner who found themselves dumped onto Twisted and for some reason assigned a new gender. It would take months before Yoiko realized that the instability that kept her here was also affecting her Symbiont to give off an effect not unlike being drunk. Sadly that came with a few other questionable decisions, like dating Kenzie and disassembling her apartment - something that made the Telekinetic vanish in the night, leaving Yoiko alone again to obsess over the shuttle she'd eventually build.

----

"...but with that, I finally come to the best part of the story. Meeting you." She smiles happily, both for the memory and to finally be at the end of her story so far. "Now, if you need me to break all this down even further, I could tell you about the first time I stubbed my toe, or the first time I ever kissed someone - but I don't think any of that is vital right now."

Yoiko chuckles softly, "But there you go. I hope all of that helps in some way." She straightens up, sighing away the humor and says seriously, "I don't like talking about all of this, but if you ever feel like I'm not being open with you - please just ask. I'll probably get mad, or embarrassed, but you're worth all that." She adds mischievously, "For now."

A look of satisfaction crosses Liyara's face when Yoiko's mood has improved, and she nods, listening closely. She didn't get a ton of Yoiko's memories - it's not like Yoiko was able to rapid fire off 8 billion specific thoughts in a few seconds like some people. But she got enough that this all rather... coheres. It makes sense. The lizard gets it. Most of it. She doesn't fully understand Starfleet yet, but she's already referred to it with some respect once, which is... frankly more than she does of almost anyone she has spoken of or interacted with.

Liyara is a judgmental creature, and this is not at all hidden from Yoiko. However, other things may have been. Some intentionally so, some not.

"I could feel how difficult some of that was for you. Both now, and ... retroactively. Thank you for sharing your stories with me." The dragoness leans back a ways, looking imperiously across her own form at Yoiko now. "They are now eternal." ... Sure, whatever that means. Sounds very formal.

Those emerald eyes just study Yoiko in silence for a few moments, and then the redhead quirks her lips into something that resembles a smile, but nearly crosses the line into a smirk. "I will reciprocate, but I am no bard. I answer questions." Her eyes glimmer, blaze brighter green than normal, and those slit pupils dilate a bit. "I... will withhold nothing in my answers." She shifts, very slightly, like the sentence made her uncomfortable.

The blonde woman lets out a laugh, "A bard? Like my ramblings where anything more than that?" She shakes her head at the very thought as she rises to her feet, stepping over to a small cooler where she was keeping a few drinks. Opening it up, and frowning at how warm they are now, she plucks a couple of cans out of the tepid water and returns, offering one to Liyara.

"In hindsight I should have picked up a small refrigerator or something." The mostly room temperature can of soda she kept for herself is popped open with a crack and a hiss, and Yoiko takes a few drinks from it, sitting on the bed this time to stare at Liyara more comfortably.

She points at the fire-haired woman on the couch, "You can withhold 'nothing' all you like, but I'll do my best not to ask too many mundane questions before you get to the end. Unless you want me interrupting you every few minutes to ask you how the politics and science works in each passing sentence." She grins and takes another drink before rolling over so she's laying across the bed on her stomach, ready to see what comes next.

Liyara reaches a hand out and takes the can of soda when it is offered. She looks at it for a moment, then sees Yoiko open it, and decides her first instinct, to carve it open with a ~~claw~~ nail, was perhaps excessive. She pops the top in the same way and takes a sip, then looking surprised. "...Ah, sparkling ale, portable. Delightful." She drains the rest of the can immediately and then her hand heats up hot enough to sublimate the can, taking it from solid to gas in a matter of moments, skipping right past that pesky liquid phase. Damn.

"I appreciate your... restraint." She finally says and then gestures regally towards Yoiko, indicating she may ask her questions now. Why thank you, your majesty.

Yoiko simply raises a brow at the evaporating aluminum. "Y'know, we could plug you into a warp core and probably power a whole fleet of ships." She lets her voice drop conspiratorially. "Although I'd still rather keep you for myself. Maybe plug you into this shuttle somehow and use you like my own personal reactor? I bet you'd enjoy it."

Teasing and flirting aside, she is simply distracting what might be an equally long story and knows it. So she takes another drink, setting her can on the floor. "But seriously, go on. I concede the floor to little Miss Furnace."

"Having read a brief synopsis of your warp travel, I am given to understand your anti-matter reactions make my pyrotechnics look quite tame." Liyara says, deflating the compliment, but also being quite visibly pleased by it. Her smile is warm, and it grants permission to overinflate her not-inconsiderable power whenever Yoiko pleases. "...Your civilizations were not stopped by an expanse of highly flammable liquid outside your solar systems, simply more wildspace. Which, I suppose, is dangerous enough for most lifeforms. But my solar system is contained within crystal spheres, surrounded by Phlogiston, a highly reactive material that would destroy your ships the moment they tried to go to impulse. Not because they are weak, but because it is everpresent."

An odd explanation when trying to get to one's life, but Liyara will, perhaps, be forgiven for a slight tangent. "You may compare our solar containment to Dyson spheres; I have read enough since my arrival to understand they are similarly impressive, though the crystal spheres do not harvest energy or sustain life themselves, that is up to the planets within, carefully placed in curated locations to allow life by the ones that call themselves our gods." This explanation... makes sense, actually. "They are, of course, not gods, but sufficiently powerful enough creatures to present as such, even to powerful and educated mages." But not to her, is the obvious implication Liyara is putting out.

"...And so a great skeptic was needed..."

<div style="text-decoration: underline;">In Another World. Another Time. In an Age of Wonder.

A misty rainbow ocean, The Flow, suffused all things, for it was the way of space to be filled, and the way of phlogiston to fill it. You think you know space, that black void you travel through by lashing bulkheads together around a billion billion explosions and calling it a ship. But your space is a dead and empty thing, and it gives you nothing but what you brought with you. Power-hungry CO2 scrubbers and industrial replicators the only thing between your crew and CO2 scrubbers. How crippled must you feel, trapped within the walls you built, knowing that a rend in that thin wall could spell your doom. How cramped and constrained, your hallways and your quarters. How... grey.

How then would you feel, standing on the deck of a mighty ship of the line as it sailed the rainbow sea? Tides the color of your imagination swirling around your ship as you paced the deck, breathing the open air, hoisting the sails and letting the currents take you on your next voyage? A ship's plants constantly breathing oxygen back into your ship's gravitational bubble?

Oh yes, these ships had sails, and their own gravitational field. For all mass has gravity, and all matter cannot help but be attracted. It was not a spell or a technology or a miracle, simply nature. The multi-hued phlogiston permeated all things to be certain, but you'd nothing to fear from it. It was falling overboard that was the danger, and even then, The Flow was kind. You would not suffocate if you fell out of your ship's air bubble. Rather, it would grip you tightly in stasis, until some traveler, perhaps your own crew doubling back for you, could fish you out, and it would release you gently back into life. If there is anything that could truly be said to be divine, it was The Flow.

And within it, hung the crystal spheres. Massive, impossibly large spherical walls that blocked entry to the Phlogiston. Within them, without the flow, planets, stars, and moons spun in formations much like your own, carefully and strategically placed to allow life to bloom without the gentle stasis of The Flow.</div>

---

"The Gods had us believe life was their gift. That they were the answer to why, and how." Liyara says, sighing and gesturing at nothing. "And none sought further. How comforting, an answer one could understand. Gods made it. Easy. Simple." She sounds... dismissive. "...None ever thought to ask how the Phlogiston came to be. Why the Gods could not travel through it. Why their powers diminished rapidly across the barrier of the Crystal Spheres until even their most ardent, powerful priests could not so much as be granted a cantrip. No, the Gods were the answer and they would have you stop looking any further, if they could."

As Liyara began her tale, Yoiko stayed attentive, but her eyes held a bemused expression. Each reference to ships and bulkheads got a dismissive shake of her head and she'd smile. It wasn't until Liyara finally paused that the Engineer finally spoke up. "So, you're making me feel like I should have started with the founding of the Federation and the christening of the Star Fleet."

She laughs, reaching for her can on the floor to finish it off the last little bit. She gestures towards the cooler as she sits the now empty can back down. "There's more if you want it, by the way." She twists onto her side, grabbing a pillow and holding it to her chest giving her the distinct look of a teen girl at a sleepover. "I do appreciate the extra background though. Thank you!"

"It's necessary." Liyara says, tucking her chin in. The redhead looks a little sheepish, but continues, not one to let something like hesitation derail her tale. "To understand who I am. What I am." She shifts, turning about on the couch, then spinning around and bringing a knee up to her chest in that way that looks comfortable and casual, but because of her dress, also looks risque and appealing. It's probably a move she's calculated the angles and ratios on a thousand times over to maximize its impact.

"The Gods are liars. They are no moral authorities. No better or worse than us. I know that to be true..." She pauses for just a moment, furrowing her brows, taking a deep breath, and then looking Yoiko in the eyes and deflating just a little. She can't run from this. It has to happen sooner or later. "...Because my father is one."

Come again?

Liyara steamrolls over the idea of a question here, in spite of her promise to answer questions, perhaps hoping that providing context will satisfy without the pain of true illumination and introspection a smartly worded question might draw. "He wasn't when he and my mother conceived." That's even more confusing - God isn't just some temporary title. Right?

<div style="text-decoration: underline;">Long ago, but also a time achingly close, there was a murder. As is the way of any good and proper murder, it was a death with three parts. A jilted lover, a jealous rival, and the devil. Mystra, the goddess of magic, was loved by Cyric, the God of Lies. This love began before they had ascended to godhood, but as Mystra became enamored with another, Cyric's affection curdled, turning to rage. Unfortunately for Cyric, Mystra was far too powerful to be slain by his hand alone, and so entered our first accomplice.

Shar was the sister of Selune, of whom Mystra was an aspect. She was both Mystra's aunt and sister at once, for divinity is complicated, messy and makes the rules up after it has done what it willed. From the moment of Mystra's birth, Shar desired her complete control over Magic, her structural underpinning to The Weave. But so long as Mystra lived, Shar could do nothing to usurp her place. So long as she lived.

A plan was formed. Shar would help Cyric murder Mystra, and the two of them would split the spoils of her divine spark and domain. Shar, of course, had no intention of sharing ultimate power, but ironically Cyric being the god of lies was blind to them himself. She planned to supplant Mystra's Weave with her own, the Shadow Weave, and become goddess of Magic and Darkness alike. She gave Cyric a cloak of purest shadow, devised to keep him invisible to Mystra's gaze as he glided unseen through her magical domain of Dweomerheart. And so they schemed.

But they were both of them deceived.

For while Shar was told the Staff of Azuth would allow Cyric to unlock Mystra's defenses, and she distracted Azuth so that Cyric could steal it, Cyric was also given a black blade that could deal the final blow. And so it did, as he plunged it into Mystra's heart, but it did not simply kill the goddess. It detonated all the magic within her, rippling through the weave. A thousand different living wards upon Toril struggled valiantly against the surge, and all thousand fell at the exact same time. Coincidentally. Impossibly. Each killed in separate, unrelated events that had nothing to do, absolutely nothing at all, with this murder. An ancient druid burned down with her forest. A wizard that had lived a century longer than expected slipped and fell, cracking his skull. King Nasher of Neverwinter was assassinated in his throne room.

And so the Weave collapsed. Dweomerheart exploded. A spellplague scoured the lands, and sorcerers and wizards alike were suddenly powerless for the first time since humanity's founding. Chaos reigned. Cyric was found guilty of murdering Mystra and imprisoned. Shar had successfully fled and was nowhere near the crime scene. And what of Azuth, the god of wizards, who lived in Dweomerheart? Why, in all the chaos, noone noticed him fall straight into the hells. Noone save one particular devil, who had been waiting to consume his Divine Spark, and did just that.

So Cyric killed Mystra. Shar gave him the cloak and staff. And noone once thought to ask him who gave him the blade.

Just as Asmodeus intended.</div>

"My father is many things. A liar. A cheat. A fiend. But he has never been short-sighted. He gave Cyric that knife twenty years before Shar came up with her plan. Barely a week before I was conceived." Liyara hugs that knee to her a little closer. "...A coincidence, surely."

... What the hell?

Yoiko's eyes widen when Liyara first references her father and her eyes remain locked in from that point forward. When she pauses to hug her knee, Yoiko stands up, walks closer, and gives her a hug. "Hey, it's alright. You can't change where you came from and I'm not judging anything."

When she finally stands up again, she glances around the room a moment before settling on a stack of papers and a pen. She marches over to pick them up and plops down beside Liyara on the couch. Each page is covered with scribbles and notes, mostly diagrams and mathematical formulas. She flips through until she finds a blank page. "If you're gonna keep talking about all these other people, I'm going to start making a flow chart." While she sounds as borderline sarcastic as always, there's no humor in her expression. She's serious.

She jots down a few names, at the top. 'Syric, Mistra, Sharr' and draws lines between them, crossing out Mystra and adding 'Asmodeous' underneath with a dash and then 'Dad.' "Okay. Please go on!"

Liyara just stares at Yoiko as she pulls out diagrams, and then offers the weakest laugh and scoots over on the couch, then leans against Yoiko for comfort even as she corrects the Commander's spelling. "... I found this all out not long before I ended up here. It was the dead end in a long trail of bodies left in my wake. Most of them deserved to perish." She says, with utmost certainty. "...But not all."

<div style="text-decoration: underline;">There are many schools of the arcane in Toril. Schools of evocation, schools of transmutation, and schools of illusion or enchantment. Relatively few schools of necromancy, yet they existed all the same. The Tolarian Academy for the Arcane Arts was general purpose, which you may be forgiven for believing was a varied and diverse curriculum. But that general purpose was god-slaying. This was, of course, not advertised on the syllabus, but its Headmistress directed the content courses almost as surely as if she was teaching them herself.

Her name was Liyara, daughter of Lux, and many other titles besides. Nestled comfortably within the nation of Amn, the Academy was the only place licensed for free practice of magic anywhere in the country. To say that Amn was a mercantile nation is to say that Klingons are obstinate. It is true, but the full scope of the greed is not easily understood.

Practice of unlicensed spellcraft was illegal in Amn, and Liyara had to perform quite a sizable service to gain an exemption for an entire school. However, this was hardly an inconvenience. It just so happened that by the time Amn become aware of Liyara's presence, it also became aware of a Cowled Wizard that ran an extremely illegal child-soldier program, creating expendable mages, under the cover of the Council's blessing. Liyara was able to prove this because she had been one such child-soldier, but no longer. They trained her, Hoshimaru, and the others to destabilize entire governments covertly, and they were very good at it. By the time Liyara made Amn aware it was in her debt, it was not a request for forgiveness for killing a Cowled Wizard. It was an invoice for services rendered.

Under the cover of the Headmistress of the Tolarian Academy, she traveled the continents for her... research. Found people she was looking for, tortured information out of them, and killed them, unless they were more useful to her alive.

Most weren't.

She was seeking those responsible for an attack on Mount Hotenow decades prior. The humans she tracked down first, for they were short lived and she would be damned if any of them would die of natural causes.

She would be damned if they didn't, too.</div>

"When I killed the King of Neverwinter, I had thought I was closing the loop. He had ordered the attack, he had financed everything. But it was worse than I'd feared. He did not order the attacks out of vanity or fear, but duty." Liyara brings her other leg up, hugging both knees together now. "...He had done it to stop my father's plans, believing that Father's corruption could not be allowed to spread. I chastised him as I cut him down, proclaiming that I was more than that monster's twisted schemes. Yet even as I protested, when I struck him down, I felt it. The weave surged. The king fell, and with him, another living ward entrusted to bear the load should anything happen to Mystra." Her eyes start to glass over a bit, and she bites her lip. "Of course... What was one ward? There were thousands. And who could even hurt Mystra in the first place?" Magma wells up slightly where she bit her lip too hard. It's as beautiful as it is dangerous to touch, ruby lips indented only for brilliant orange to glow and pool in that dent. "...I was naive. In my quest for vengeance, I had enabled my father's ascent. He was now forever out of my reach." ... Vengeance?

The blonde woman taps her pencil against the page filled with notes and at least one doodle of a chibi Liyara breathing fire. "Wait, back up. I thought Mystra was already dead? I thought Cyric killed her?" She continues tapping a moment as she thinks, "Or is this one of those 'someone new becomes them'/reincarnation-type situations?"

It takes her a full minute to back out of 'study mode' and go back to addressing the emotions on display. "Crap. I'm sorry, I got a little too into that." She places a hand on Liyara's cheek, being very careful to avoid the searing trickle of heat on her lip, and tilts her face towards her to look into her eyes. "We don't have to do all this right now."

Yoiko glances down at her page of notes and shakes her head, "I'm not going to judge you for things that happened before I met you, and I'm not going to think any less of you if you leave this story unfinished." At that she puts her hands in her own lap because dangit, the urge to wipe that 'blood' away is strong and she enjoys having thumbs.

Liyara looks into Yoiko's eyes like the blonde has just asked her if water is a liquid or a solid. "...I was explaining my part in Mystra's death. This happened concurrently to Cyric stabbing her with the black blade, and is why the weave could not survive her death." She frowns a little, and then tosses a hand off to one side. "You see? I am no bard. I am telling you everything backwards. Let me explain from my beginning. That will be easier." She breaks their locked gaze after a moment, and takes a deep breath, beginning again.

<div style="text-decoration: underline;">In Realmspace, for that is what we call the crystal sphere containing Toril, there are many dragons. Chromatic dragons of many hues, Metallic Dragons of many casts, and even Gem dragons of many facets. Now it so happens that Chromatic dragons are evil. This is not a slight or a judgement upon them, it is an inherent magical law of their being in the same way that all Metallic dragons are good. Neither choose this for themselves, it is chosen for them before they are born, and none have ever noticed the yoke, let alone chafed under it.

Red dragons are some of the most evil of all, but for one, an unusual exception. Lux, daughter of Hoondarrh, the Red Rage of Mintarn. Unusually bright for a Red, Lux took in her youth to wearing human shapes and toying with mortals, finding them pleasant company and pleasant snacks. Her mortal guise pretended to be caring and kind, and so it was a great surprise to everyone involved when a trickster placed a Helm of Opposite Alignment upon her head. Such a thing is normally a brainwashing, yet for a Chromatic dragon, it had to be more, for her alignment was decided magically, not by choice like mortals. She became good in every way, the very thing she had merely pretended to be to lure travelers to their demise. Her entire magical structure was re-written, and she became a staunch ally of the righteous, even if she had to do it from the shadows.

If Lux was to sire children, they would likewise turn out as her, kind and virtuous, a true anomaly in the world of Red dragons. But Lux's secret was not so secret; one creature, one devil, had sussed out the truth of her, and had a delicious idea, more of a whim, really. The world's first and only clutch of good Red dragons was all well and fine, but what if they carried the taint of the hells within them? What delicious corruption - what a delightful back and forth as their nature forced them to be one thing, while the darkness in their hearts forced them to be another? This was the kind of thing he lived for, and his name was Asmodeus.

So he appeared to Lux as a handsome and beguiling Red Dragon with a story, a perfect lie. A dragon who had walked amongst humans and grown fond of them, had freed himself from Tiamat's shackles and was becoming something... more. Not Good, necessarily, but neutral, his own dragon. It was the perfect bait. Lux believed she could help him come to the light, and they shared a night of passion before her charming suitor disappeared into the black, never to be seen again. She soon found she was pregnant with a clutch of his children. But she did not know what she truly carried.</div>

"...I never knew any of this part growing up. I would learn it later with scrying magics, legend-lore, spells that let me observe the past as if it was happening in the present." Liyara admits, and shrugs a bit. She reaches up and wipes her own orange-hot blood away from her lip absent-mindedly. There, taken care of. Now she just has this slightly glowing stain across the lips. It's fine.

Yoiko had gone back to furiously scribbling notes as the red haired woman continued. Eventually she holds the page at arm's length, turns it sideways, then slowly shakes her head. "You're not telling it backwards. Not everything can be understood chronologically."

She finally turns the page, starting with a clean slate, and then thoughtfully chews on her pencil. "You know, if nothing else you could probably sell this as a TV series." Looking up with a wide grin, Yoiko then turns to face Liyara, pulling up her knees to angle the paper like an easel. "Okay, so Asmodeus is a bit of a jerk - no offense intended. He manipulates your Mom, plays a long con for power, and you get saddled with being a weapon while you're stuck in Magic Academy because teachers seem to suck in every reality."

There's something scribbled on the new sheet of paper before she looks over the page and asks, "Totally off topic, but did you ever listen to the Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin? Earth song, mid-twentieth century? I've got this hunch it'd be up your alley." She grins like this was meant to be funny, but doesn't elaborate further.

"The... immigrant song?" Liyara blinks at that, then shakes her head. She doesn't have to do her 'reading in her memory' thing to know she's never heard that. "No. What is that? Do you have it?" The dragoness actually drops the thread, pulled out of her thoughts. She looks curious, which is better than pensive, probably. Yoiko is very good at that.

The Commander jumps up to her feet, walking over to the desk across from them. She knocks taps a few buttons on the small keyboard there (with keycaps that look like cats playing) and the monitor on the wall above blinks to life. "Old Earth music is kinda my favorite. It's got an edge to it that you don't really hear anywhere else. The Klingons have their big sweeping operas, but the humans.... they have this sound they call 'rock' that I just absolutely love."

She's opening apps as she's speaking, searching through some kind of music player branded with the Canarybox logo. What won't they stream to people? "Here it is!" A loud guitar riff echoed by drums comes out of speakers hidden around the small quarters. The music gallops like a steed charging into battle. "This is something to do with these nomadic people in Earth's past. Vikings, I think they're called? Really doesn't matter." A voice cries out under the music screaming a melodic 'AAAAAA' that shifts pitch.

''We come from the land of the ice and snow/From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow''<br />
''The Hammer of the Gods/Will drive our ships to new lands/To fight the horde and sing and cry''<br />
''Valhalla, I am coming...''<br />
''On we sweep! With threshing oar! Our only goal will be the Western Shore!!"''<br />

''We come from the land of the ice and snow/From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow''<br />
''How soft your fields, so green/Can whisper tales of gore/Of how we calmed the tides of war''<br />
''We are your Overlords...''<br />
''On we sweep! With threshing oar! Our only goal will be the Western Shore!!"''<br />

''So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins! For peace and trust can win the day, despite of all your losing!!''

The remainder of the song trails off with soft 'ooooo'ing.

Yoiko shrugs as the song slowly comes to a close, "I did say it was totally off-topic." When it finally fades out she turns it off, returning again to the couch. "Sorry, something about the story just made it click and it suddenly felt very you."

Liyara listens to the song intently from the first "Aaaaaaaa", and her slit pupils dilate. She looks kind of enraptured, and then she grins midway through the song, starting to enjoy it. She looks very impressed. But she doesn't speak up until after the song is over.

"...This is very impressive music. The bards who made it should be very proud, and well-rewarded." Well, Yoiko did say it was old earth music, but ... that could mean a lot of things.

"It makes me think of the Eddas from the north." It would.

The blonde woman chuckles at the reaction but insists on apologizing again. "I didn't mean to derail everything, but you know how it goes once an idea pops in there..." She laughs again as she tries to get comfortable. "So, y'know. Now that the theme is set, I guess. Shall we continue?"

"No, it was... good." Liyara admits when Yoiko apologizes, and there's a nod of her head. "Music is one of the things these human worlds have in impossible abundance. Best to partake." The dragoness takes a deep, steadying breath, and then nods a second time, this time giving herself permission to continue.

"Lux was a good mother, not that I have much to compare her to. She was kind, she loved us, and she never let us doubt that." Running a hand slowly through her own hair, Liyara's eyes take on a distant look, remembering. "I would later learn not all mothers could manage that."

<div style="text-decoration: underline;">In the land of Faerun, in the world of Toril, in the sphere of Realmspace, there was a queen. Her name was Lux, and she was powerful, for she was a red dragon, and they are never weak. She was beautiful, for all dragons are beautiful in their own way, but also because of her heart. Unlike other red dragons, she was good and kind. This marked her as unique amongst her kin, and the country that she ruled over was one of magic and adventure. Under her protection, mortal cities flourished, and those that would prey on them withered. Her children were many, having laid nine eggs in total, a number that would have given her pause if she'd had cause to contemplate the reason.

The first to hatch was Liyara, a full three days before the others. To Lux, she was a miracle - bright, earnest, and observant. Her brilliant green eyes took in everything, and she took her first human shape on her first birthday, a full hundred years ahead of schedule. The other eight children were equally brilliant, but Liyara was given to be the favorite. Having the advantage of an early hatching, she was the clear firstborn, and as much as a bunch of unruly children can be said to be "led", Liyara led them. Lux taught them all about the world outside Mount Hotenow, and the mortals that lived there, and after Liyara's first transformation, all of the children were eager to learn more about how mortals lived and what it was like to walk amongst them. Lux urged caution, because mortals, and humans in particular, came in all varieties. Kind, cruel, smart, vapid, pious and covetous.

That was a word she did not have to teach them - covetous. While Lux's nature had been re-written, dragons will still be dragons, and each of them had something they collected and squirreled away to roost on, without really even needing to understand why. For Liyara, it was gold, truly she was the most like the red dragons of old, but for Lisan, it was tomes. He slept on them with care, arranging them just so, for he could not bear the thought of his weight crinkling a single page. He was the smartest of the children, for he was more well read than any of them, and dragons do not forget. Liandrin hoarded swords, and his scales naturally toughened to be able to roost upon even enchanted ones without discomfort. Liyara leaned on him to help teach them all how to fight in their human forms, which all of them managed within a week of their first birthday. It was understood they would one day go amongst the mortals and be ambassadors for their new Dragonflight. For that, Liyara learned much from her sister Lila, who gathered works of mortal art. There was much you could learn about people through their art, she would insist at length, and the firstborn agreed, for the artistic wyrmling espoused insights that surprised even Lux with their veracity.

And Lucian, cunning Lucian with his invisible hoard. He collected debts, favors owed, promises made, because he said what better hoard than the one people cannot see, and cannot take from you? Lux was impressed with his pragmatism. She was far less impressed with Lena's hoard, if only for the difficulties it caused. Lena chose to make her metaphorical nest atop piles of clothing, claiming that garments were the key to identity, and that if one controlled how the world saw them, they controlled who they were in the world. Lux was less certain about this, but Liyara believed her sister was onto something, and would praise Lena while gently prying her own outfits free of the child's hoard. Not so, with Lon, however. Liyara's youngest brother was given to collecting explosives, sleeping on them every night and occasionally waking himself (and everyone else) when an errant snort set them off. He would always be found laughing amidst the smoldering ruins of his room, charred from head to foot but elsewise hardly damaged. He claimed that there was no such thing as too much fire, and Liyara just couldn't make herself see things his way.

Lux, of course, had her favorites beside Liyara, and it was the second and third oldest that held those spots, though she would never tell this to the others. Second born, Landon collected animals. Beasts, magical creatures, prey, predator, it did not matter, he gathered them and he slept in a giant pile with them. He had an incredible knack for taming and befriending the creatures, and he always explained that friends and allies that trusted you, and could be trusted in turn, were more valuable than any gold or art or clothing. While she saw the wisdom in his words, Liyara found she just did not have his easygoing knack for friendship. She got along much better with her own personal favorite, the thirdborn - Luna. Named after Selune and nearly as beautiful, Luna hoarded magical scrolls, artifacts, and tomes, the last of which she generously shared with Lisan, lest he come up short in magical knowledge, which would be a shame. Luna studied magic lustfully and with great passion. Before the age of four, she had already learned how to convince magical items that she was of the appropriate skill, experience, and alignment to use them. Liyara loved her, and if there was one sibling she could have chosen to be, it would have been Luna.</div>

"It was a good family, if perhaps a little unruly. None of us could hold a candle to Mother, but even she could see that in our fields of expertise, we would soon overtake her, and she saw to it that none of us neglected an area of education just because one of us was better at it than the others. She was wise, I think, for a Dragon. It is..." Liyara tucks her chin in, realizing first what she just said, and then that she has to finish it honestly, in spite of her reservations. "...not a common trait for our kind. Wisdom." She gives Yoiko a look that says she will deny that vehemently if it is ever mentioned outside this room.

Yoiko nods her head at the statement about other mothers not being so kind and gives a knowing sigh. She's had a few lifetimes and known a number of people. "A shame kindness isn't quite so universal as it should be..."

As the story carries on Yoiko goes back to her notebook. A few sketches of eggs in a nest with names written across each one. Admittedly she aww's at the idea of baby Liyara. There's a few notes she makes at the bottom of the page to ask when there's a more natural pause in the story.

At the explanations about their various hordes, Yoiko quickly scribbles into the margins, *Buy gold sheets* with several underlines. This does get another question for later though, which she'll ask in just a moment.

When Liyara gives her *''the look''* Yoiko giggles, deciding this is the time to start with more questions. "Okay, couple of things. When you took your first forms, where they already adult, or did you have to grow into them?" She adds quietly, mostly under her breath, "I kinda wanna see a cute tiny you..."

She'll wait until some sort of answer is given before moving on to the next question. "Alright, secondly: The hordes? Is it the physical presence of the objects, or the knowledge of its existence? Lucian makes it sound like it's more about the existence." There's no mockery in her tone. She's genuinely curious and wanting to learn more about it assuming Liyara is willing to explain.

"The first one I took was who I felt like inside. I believe humans would view it as an eight year old girl. She grew with me." Liyara answers softly, smiling at Yoiko. "...You're looking at a version of her now." So... while her base form is a dragon, this is who Liyara identifies as? Best not to call the dragon form her true form, then.

She stands from the couch, giving Yoiko an affectionate head bop first, and then takes a breath, spinning slowly, just enough for the skirt of her dress to flare out, and it flares out more dramatically than usual, covering her from view completely for a fraction of a second, and then it comes back down, and the dress is different. White, linen, simple, with gold laces in the front that don't really need to be there, and a tiny little redheaded girl with soft, cherubic cheeks and brilliant, piercing green eyes is staring at Yoiko. Short, stubby little horns and wings so tiny they make Adult Liyara's mostly ornamental wings look strong and powerful. She smiles, and it's a devastating, adorable thing that makes a heart ache.

"It's normally..." The tiny voice that comes out is so cute it actually hurts, and the little girl winces. She throws an arm up, and a capelet that she wasn't wearing a moment ago swirls through the air, and when it passes, the form of Liyara that Yoiko is used to appears again, crouched down to make the transition more... geometrically probable. "...it's normally the physical collection. The things you have and therefore noone else can have them. But Lucian was a very special child."

She stands to her full height again, and takes a little breath. She makes a small gesture, and flames flicker to life in the air, resolving into the surprisingly clear shape of a young boy. He wears a smug smile, has eyebrows that are a little too arched, and has the easy bearing of someone that's going to grow up to break every heart. "He was his father's son. Always violating the spirit of the law, never the form."

With a brief nod Yoiko acknowledges Liyara's description, understanding the mental image of one's self better than most. But when she stands and bops her in the head, Yoiko shakes her head in disbelief. She barely manages a "What are you-?" before the transformation takes her breath away.

It makes her heart melt a little at first, but when the little voice speaks up the Trill woman's maternal instincts kick in and it takes all she has not to wrap her up in her arms and vow to protect her forever. Luckily that heavy dose of Linda's influence gets to take a back seat when Liyara shifts back to normal, but it doesn't stop a brief sound of disappointment from being muttered unconsciously.

"...that would be such a dangerous ability with a Symbiont. I don't even want to think what that'd do to me." She takes in the rest of the answers to her question with another nod, but her mind is still reeling from the transformation she'd witnessed. "...does it hurt to do that?"

That question draws an eyebrow arch from Liyara, and then she shakes her head slowly. "No. I can be anyone, as long as they're me." She delivers the statement rote, her bog-standard confession to two dozen close friends and lovers, before she tucks her chin in and looks closer into Yoiko's eyes. "...I must keep one of the wings, the tail, or the horns. And my hair will always be red. Feathers if I turn into a bird, and I have, and it was strangely comfortable and I do not wish to examine that."

The woman looks thoughtful, and then manages to look a little guilty. "...That was a lie. I'm sorry, it's a force of habit. These are rules about who I am, but who I am can be shifted, these rules are not hard and fast, and I have impersonated other specific people that are very much not me."

Yoiko tilts her head to the side and nods at the confession. "Hey... It's okay." She gestures around at everything around them, "Look. I know what it's like. You should see some of the things I've had to say to get out of doing a physical. Think about what other cultures would do if they knew they could have immortality given to them and potentially infinite knowledge just for having a Symbiont inside them?"

She puts a hand to her side where they had to cut her open to allow it to bond with her. "It doesn't matter that only about 10% of our population is even compatible. They'd find out and the Klingons, the Romulans, and who knows what else would descend on Trillius Prime to raid the Caves of Mak'ala. The Symbionts would be taken, dissected, and our history and legacy would be destroyed."

"If it hadn't been for Twisted making me feel like I'm constantly a little drunk, I probably wouldn't have even told you." She sighs, "It's not anything personal, but that's a lot of trust." Yoiko frowns just thinking about everything she's admitted. "I'm not saying that my secrets and yours are any more or less important. But I know the feeling. It becomes an automatic response that never wants to go fade away." She looks up at Liyara and gives a weak smile, "...and I think that means we've come full circle already."

If allowed, she'll reach out and grab Liyara's hand, her own shaking slightly. "Nothing we say leaves this shuttle. I promise."

"Ah..." Liyara looks surprised at Yoiko's declaration about the risk of other races finding out, and then her eyes widen. She understands this threat very well, and she is frankly surprised she didn't consider it. "I... think I understand."

The redhead bites her lip again, and then nods. "...Mother always told us, people's envy is the most dangerous thing. They hate, fear, and desire what they don't understand, sometimes all in equal measure." Well, yes, that's true. But it does seem like perhaps she might have learned that from her own experiences, not just what she was told.

"...I've always understood that. I'm sorry I didn't think of it, but I won't make that mistake again. Noone else will learn it from me." She swears to Yoiko, and she seems... unusually earnest? Genuine. It's a little unlike her, letting the distance evaporate from between her mistakes and her accountability. Maybe that's special for Yoiko.

For no easily explainable reason Yoiko's mind suddenly conjures up the two of them in chibi form fist bumping suddenly, and it unexpectantly causes her to snort and start doodling exactly that. "Sorry, not the best timing." She's blushing a little, but she holds up the sketch a moment later - revealing that Yoiko was never the best artist, but it's clear what she was going for.

She grins, looks at the page, frowns, tries to grin again. It'd be more comical if she wasn't so sure she just ruined a genuine moment between them. She sets the page down and brushes some of her hair out of her face. "I believe you. I trust you. I wouldn't have told you, well, any of this otherwise." She adds after a moment of thought about how Twisted affects her, "...most likely."

Yoiko tries to play that last part off as a joke, but she's actually worried about it now that she's had a moment to think. "Note to self, no more away missions to weird gravitational paradoxes without some sort of inhibiter." She frowns again.

Realizing she's still probably coming off like she's downplaying the moment, Yoiko gives a weak smile, "I'm sorry. I'm going off on a tangent again." She rises up and puts an arm around Liyara's shoulders. "But again, I promise I won't breathe a word of this to anyone." She tilts her head from side to side in an extra moment of thought, "...but if held at gunpoint I'm going to gush about how cute little you was." A sage nod is given. "I'll have to return that favor with some old photos next time I'm back on the station."

There's a tiny laugh at that, Liyara smiling at the idea. "As if I'd let anyone hold you at gunpoint." There's that possessiveness again. She relaxes visibly, and takes a slow, deep breath, straightening out her clothes. It's ritualistic, of course. Her githweave adjusts in any way she wants, no touch needed. But running her hands down her sides fills space in the conversation and draws attention to her silhouette.

Everything always has to be just so.

"Yes, let's avoid jumping into any more black holes unexplored. In my world, we would send a scrying sensor first. Or some other form of remote detection." Well. Her world can't be THAT backward if they actually take safety precautions. That's one thing she and Starfleet often have in common. ... But wait, is she saying they have a protocol, or this is just... something people know to do?

When Yoiko apologizes, Liyara shakes her head. "It's good. Tangents are good. Memories are... hard." Are they? Liyara hasn't really given the impression that anything is hard for her, save perhaps considering other people's feelings. In fact, she routinely denies it.

Hmm.

Yoiko gives a bit of mock offense to the very idea, "We sent sensor probes first! It's not like anyone on the ship would have known to calibrate it to a Trill's Symbiont's physiology before we beamed down." She shrugs playfully, holding up her hands in defeat. "Y'know, 'cause of all the other things we've just talked about."

Sitting back on the couch again, Yoiko curls up against the armrest and lowers her voice a little. "Soooo... speaking of. Federation transporters like the one we used earlier have a filter built into them that identifies any foreign bodies and removes them during transport. It's a safety function to prevent beaming up from a planet where a viral outbreak might contaminate the ship and kill everyone." She gives another light shrug, "It happens, maybe not to that extent, but you get the idea..."

She taps her chest, "...and then we introduce the best kept secret of my race." She lets out a long, slow sigh. "Talking to you about all this is one thing. Having to explain to Jon that the transporter could literally kill me because of a safety measure was not a fun conversation when I hadn't even told him what a Symbiont was." She pauses and counts on her fingers, "So you are the fifth person I've told about the Symbiont, you know. Two where because I had to - because I needed to be able to disable the biofilters without getting court martialed. One because she was there to help me when I was joined, one because she had to teach me about Star Trek because one of the first things she did was ask if I was a Joined Trill..." She adds under her breath, "...stupid Twisted." And then with a smile, "And you. Because I trust you, and I don't want to have to keep secrets from you. Especially those that might hurt you somehow."

Yoiko bites her lip thoughtfully a moment and then taps her notes. "I've derailed everything again, haven't I?" She shoo's Liyara. "Back to your story! Stop letting me ramble!"

"Wouldn't... that have killed you?" Liyara immediately makes the connection about the transporter filter, because of course she does. But then a moment later. "...You have to manually program it to not kill you?!" Aaaand there it is. She's righteously indignant again.

"How did you know I didn't have a magical symbiote that would kill me?" She looks like she's going to get all worked up again, and then she laughs and runs a hand through her hair, sighing. It's already done, isn't it? She didn't die, and now they're back.

"Your derailing is much more entertaining than..." Liyara trails off, her eyes losing focus, glassing over. She shivers, just a little. Easy to miss. And then tiny little magma pearls bead around her tear ducts and her face twists up, unhappy.

"...This." She waves at her face like she make it stop doing this treasonous, leaking thing. She brushes the irridescent, molten tears away and shakes her head. "Sorry. I'm not... it's not like the way you remember." How would she kn-- oh, right, she actually would know how Yoiko remembers, specifically.

"I'm here, with you, but I'm also standing there, five years old, and it's... I don't normally do this." She swallows, and sweat beads on her forehead.

Instinctively Yoiko leaps forward to try and comfort her, but... obviously that might be more dangerous than the unmodified transporter. She hesitates at the last second, remembering hot=bad and decides to try and help in a different direction. "Hey-heeeeey! Listen to my voice. Focus on my words. Liyara, this moment. Right now. Not any of those other ones. You're sitting with me in my little crappy ship that I made in my apartment. We're telling stories and not thinking about all those scary things going on we have no control over yet." Yet is the important thing to remember.

Maybe distracting is the right thing to do? "And I knew you'd be okay because Jon had already made sure my changes were made on the station. Anything larger than a microbe is automatically ignored. We're talking things smaller than a grain of sand." She huffs a bit, "Not like I'm going to let some crappy future tech break my favorite person!" Well, it feels like future tech on Twisted at least, and she knows it. Especially to Liyara.

Not sure if it's working or not, she goes back to her first efforts to get through. "Look, we have to have a whole thing with guided meditations to merge the voices of our past Hosts into the background of our lives, but that said it's still totally possible for an unfocused mind to be taken over by them - especially if they have a very loud and dominate personality. It sounds like that's what you're going through right now. Just ignore all that other stuff and focus on now. This moment is the most important one at the moment. Not your past. Not your future. Those things can come bother you in their own time."

"It wasn't that crappy." Liyara admits in a small voice, almost like she's afraid someone will hear her and never let her live that admission down.

She takes a deep breath, and tries again. There's a moment where her breath is unsteady, and she opens her mouth to speak, and then the tears come again and she wipes them away furiously. She laughs, trying to deflect the embarrassment, but what she's embarrassed for is anyone's guess.

Crying? Everybody cries.

Crying in front of Yoiko maybe?

"It all happens at once. It's not like... I can fully control it." It seems an awful lot like she's skirting around some serious trauma, which... Yeah, people have described PTSD before as being unable to turn a memory off. Is it worse with magical, eidetic memory?

Yoiko has to correct her, make her focus on the now. "It *isn't* that crappy. Not *wasn't* that crappy." She places a hand on Liyara's shoulder and squeezes gently. "Yeah, I completely get it. It's like living the entire lives of three different people. No idea what that's like, babe." She smiles playfully and tries to keep Liyara's eyes focused on her.

"C'mon. If you don't come back to this moment, you're going to miss out on whatever I might do next." She gestures wildly with her free hand. "I've told you all these dark secrets, maybe I'm going to show you where all my spots are next." She wiggles her eyebrows at the idea and smirks.

"Pretty sure you've not seen them under proper lighting, y'know. They actually go down to my little toes." She reaches up and tugs the collar of her shirt. "I can't show that to some five year old, y'know - and I'm not going to show them to someone who I haven't met yet. So get it together, girl." Hey, if nothing else has worked. May as well try this approach.

"Did you know I'm totally going against my people having crawled in a bed with you?" She grins, "We're supposed to be better than that. 'Intimacy is for procreation, not entertainment.' It's all about expanding your mind and becoming a better being." She squeezes Liyara's shoulder again, "I make exceptions for you. But only if you're gonna come back to me in the here and now." She then lowers her head, almost close enough to touch foreheads together but not enough to start burning. "You can do this. I believe in you. Don't make a liar out of me."

"I'll try." Liyara says, and she sniffs and she smiles and she makes another face. "...This is absolutely unacceptable, I look like a troll." No, even when trying to hold in tears and grimacing, she's gorgeous. The lighting always hits right, the dress always sits perfect, and the occasional glowing trail leaking from an eye is like the heavenly ichor.

"I can... Maybe I can show you?" Liyara says, and then she takes some of those tears, gently brushing them onto her fingertips, and begins tracing. Sigil-work. Rituals to make the magic believe it is powered by the weave, and not her elemental essence. She learned this long ago.

"It will likely be easier." Her voice is steadying again, finding her composure. Whether it's the embarrassment or simply to spite her treasonous body, she's locking it down.

A complex mandala of burning sigils bleed off her finger, painted into the air with fire and magic, essence and will. And sure enough, after a moment, she waves a hand at the barest section of bulkhead wall. It almost doesn't matter if it's actually bare. Much like a projector it will display over whatever is there regardless. But it's less distracting if there aren't other things to see at the same time.

The image flickers to life. Brilliant colors that are more vivid than the most brilliant display. The interior of a keep buried in a mountain, which should be drab and brown and gray, but somehow it is vibrant. The browns have more color, and everything has some kind of... Aura?

The Trill woman can't help but laugh at the comment about looking like a troll, barely getting a chance to shake her head in objection before Liyara starts working her craft. She backs up enough to get out of her way, and her eyes go wide as another world suddenly projects itself above her desk.

She's about to comment on the aura when she sniffs the air, realizing that she smells something burning. Something other than Liyara's sweat - or whatever you call it. With a little flailing she dashes out of the room and into the tiny bathroom adjacent the room they came in from. Water can be heard flowing suddenly and a second later Yoiko comes back with her hair wet. One tiny strand of hair is singed above her left eye.

"Shit." She huffs and flops back onto the couch with her arms crossed. "We've gotta work on personal space." This is a joke. A bad one. "Clearly I don't know to keep my distance when you're all hot and bothered like that." And now a pun or two. She huffs a bit and settles in to see whatever the magic has been crafted to share.

"I told you I'm smoking." Liyara says, her voice quietly amused, but at the same time, there's an effort, a strain to it that isn't normally there. She is forcing herself composed. It is a struggle. It is hard.

The image above Yoiko's desk bobs about, the view of someone walking down the gray and brown halls. It's more than just the vivid colors; everything has some sort of faint glow surrounding it. The glows remind vaguely of heat maps; the stronger and more colorful the glow, the more magical the item - this is immediately apparent as the viewer looks from a bare wooden table to an ancient suit of armor standing guard over the hallway. The former has an incredibly faint green glow, barely enchanted at all, whereas the armor has the bright golden nimbus of transmutation magic infusing it.

"I did it." The voice is small, hushed, and awed. It came from Liyara, but it almost sounds like it could have been that tiny version of herself from earlier. "I cast 'Detect Magic'. Luna was right. Of course she was." The voice sounds as unsurprised that Luna was right as it sounds envious.

The image jumps, it blurs. The memory is perfectly clear, probably clearer than it would have seemed to most people while it was happening, but the way her mind winds through it isn't linear, not chronological, it's thought to thought, memory to memory. The image jumps to a new one, with no magical auras displayed, though the colors that are shown remain too-vibrant. There is now a small girl, who looks a little older than that tiny Liyara from before. She has long and lustrous black hair with red streaks running through it, and she is slowly running a brush down the length while looking at a tome in front of her. She is studying the book closely, and not looking at the viewer at all. She is abstractly beautiful in that very specific way that some children can be - clearly hinting at the person they'll become, but still small and evoking the need to be protected.

This girl has no horns, and her wings are folded elegantly down the small of her back. While she appears to be about ten years old, she has none of those awkwardly sized features or nervous tics associated with a child still growing and learning. No, she looks like a woman writ small. Without turning, the girl, Luna probably, tells the viewer in a voice sounding like bells ringing in the new year, that it isn't going to work if she simply tries to force it. The trick is to emulate what the spell gets from the weave. Remember that our blood is stronger than the ambient magic in the air, you have to dilute it, it's about precision. You'll get it soon enough, the girl assures the viewer, and then she finally spares a glance their way, and her expression softens.

The image flickers back to the hallway with the suit of armor, auras jumping back into view, and Liyara takes a deep breath, looking away from the image as if it isn't coming from her own head anyway. With careful control, the image pulls away from the hallways of the keep, showing a montage now of her world.

<div style="text-decoration: underline;">There are rules for all things, and while some are flexible, meant to be teased and cajoled, others are rigid and immutable. In the year 1359, the Time of Troubles, every single one of these rules was being tested. Gods fell, and their replacements walked among men. The weave was in turmoil, and paranoia was rampant. Rumors abounded that Asmodeus was growing a small army of corrupted dragons to blight and scour the land, and were believed as a manner of course. For if there was one rule everyone could agree on, it was that Asmodeus is cruel, and his cunning without limit. </div>

Yoiko can't help but snicker at Liyara's joke, but she stays quiet - especially as voices begin to call out from the moving images being displayed. She tilts her head as she watches, trying to figure out the context, but casting an occasional side glance at Liyara worried about how much she seems to be straining.

Still, the fact that she was able to play around is a good sign. Maybe she's not quite as lost as she seemed to have been getting.

There was a moment where Yoiko almost asked what the point of being shown this was, but as the story continues she slides over to her notebook and starts taking notes again. Her eyes constantly flickering back up to the memory being presented.

The images show kingdoms, armies, a whole host of visual effects that don't quite make sense - fiery explosions that don't ignite vegetation - lightning that springs from fingertips rather than arcing from ground to sky - crowds of people. Eventually they settle back on a mountain. A child. A child that Yoiko recognizes because she was just standing in her runabout minutes ago.

<div style="text-decoration: underline;">But in spite of the rumors, none knew where to look for these dragons, and for years Lux's anti-scrying magic kept it that way. Noone in Toril could find them.</div>

The images play. Young Liyara playing with her brothers and sisters. It's an easy guess of who's who. And unintuitively, it's also easy to see some elements of Adult Liyara in them. Lena's dress. Lila's capelet. Liandrin's dagger in particular stands out. The dress and capelet share similarities to what Liyara wears, but the dagger... that's the same dagger. That edged guard that curves around the fingers with a notch for catching enemy blades is... rather unique.

<div style="text-decoration: underline;">And so in the dormant volcano of Mount Hotenow, a family grew. Exceptional. Brilliant. Happy. Safe. Until the humans came. Until the day I--</div>

Five people in medieval garb, striding down the keep hall. Two women, three men, in silhouette. The auras surrounding them are blinding, incredibly potent and varied, the mix of colors indistinguishable with the amount of magical artifacts they carry. This is an adventuring party. This is ''the'' adventuring party.

"--I... Until the day I lost everything." Her register changes, that dramatic high cant narrative collapsing into a first person accounting. Her voice trembles once, then grows still. Interesting, because she won't stop shaking.

"I often dream of that moment."

The room gets colder as Liyara's warmth retreats from it. The dragon's eyes focus somewhere beyond the runabout walls. She's in that mountain, a hundred years ago. It's happening now.

"If I had made a different choice..." A five year old girl is afraid. She is told to get her siblings and run. She hides. She's never ''been'' afraid before.

It's just until she gets her fear under control.

"...If I'd found you sooner..."

It was only a few minutes.

"...If you had been the ones to survive that day." If she'd done something, anything.

If she'd been brave.

"You would be '''''far''''' more impressive than I am now." A small, horned girl counts eight dead children on the ground. She watches a great dragon's head roll slowly towards her. Her mother's gaze finds her as it goes dark.

The girl takes them with her.

<div style="text-decoration: underline;">"She still carries them now."</div>

At some point, Yoiko had dropped what was in her hands. The notepad had ended up on the floor and the pen rolling somewhere on the ground beside it. Right now she's watching wide-eyed with her hands clamped over her mouth. It takes her a long moment of silence before she can react and when she does that protective instinct hits her at full force.

Yoiko practically tackles Liyara, wrapping her up in her arms and holding tightly. It doesn't matter that this is an adult woman she's been running around with non-stop for what feels like years. Right now all Yoiko can see is the pain she must be holding inside and she wants to do everything she can to hug it away.

Liyara will likely feel the Trill woman's own tears falling on her as well as hearing an odd, instinctive shushing sound. Unless pushed away, Yoiko will likely continue to hold her like that, rocking her gently for at least a few moments before she'll even realize she's doing it.

When she comes back to her senses, she'll wipe her own eyes and let Liyara mostly go save for an arm kept around her shoulders. "That's too much to deal with at that age. I don't know how you survived it."

When Yoiko tackle-hugs Liyara, there is no give. The skin is soft but the muscles underneath are rigid, unmoving, like they've frozen in place to brace for pain they must've known was coming. Golden scales have crept up around her throat and eyes, her signature invulnerability evocation, inherited from Liandrin, doing absolutely nothing to protect her from this.

The dragon's eyes - Liyara's eyes - shift back from one time to this one, and they fall on Yoiko. The muscles relax, the scales recede, and the room grows warmer once again. Yoiko brought her back. Because of course Yoiko brought her back.

<div style="text-decoration: underline;">The others--</div>

"...The others didn't, so I had to." Her voice is small, quiet, without the imperious sense she usually layers over it. Just a woman, in this moment. Nothing more. "Have to. Present tense." She corrects herself quietly, and then slowly wraps an arm around Yoiko's waist to match the Trill's arm around her shoulders.

There's a soft sigh of relief when the room begins to warm again, and not just because Yoiko is always cold, but because it seems to be working. She squeezes the poor woman's shoulder once more before gently rubbing circles on Liyara's back. She wants to tell her everything will be alright. She wants to give her hope - they are in a very obvious multiverse setting, after all. Infinite worlds, infinite possibilities, so maybe they're all still alive out there somewhere?

But she doesn't, because that would be cruel. Almost more cruel than that original act itself.

Instead Yoiko literally bites her lip and sighs, "If nothing else, I'm here. You can lean on me all you need. I don't plan on going anywhere. I'm not going to judge. I'm not going to belittle you." She tries to give Liyara a warm smile despite the awful things she'd just witnessed. "I'm just here. For you. Right now."

Yoiko leans over and kisses Liyara's temple, just to make damn sure she realizes she's here. She lets the moment hang in the air for a long, quiet while. But now she has to know, what happened to the people who did this to her? Surely they're not still alive somewhere out there? If the information isn't offered she'll eventually ask, but at least she knows better than to do so before Liyara is ready to talk about it again.

Liyara's eyes shimmer as they hold Yoiko's, and Yoiko can see in them something she's never seen on Liyara before. Genuine fear. Not of what she just went through. Of Yoiko. Of what Yoiko will say. Judgement?

Maybe.

"...Thank you." She finally says, and holds Yoiko close, as much for comfort as for that possessive instinct. "For not trying to make it ok." Ah, she knew. That's what she was afraid of. Not the judgement. The kindness. The kind of thoughtless kindness that could kill a woman who can't be hurt.

The dragon is more than content to wait in silence, so when Yoiko finally asks, she nods slowly. "Talbot and Nea Uskevren. I killed them with my bare hands. They were the hardest - Nea was remorseful when she realized who I was. She didn't ask for forgiveness. She just said they were sorry. She apologized while her husband lay dead and she was bleeding to death. She meant it. The other three were..." Liyara tucks in her chin, closing her eyes. "...considerably easier."

After a long moment, she opens those eyes again. "...I found the one who sent them, the Xanathar, a beholder crime-lord that runs the city of Waterdeep. And found that he was simply a middle-man, given the quest by the king of neverwinter himself. Nasher Alagondar. I let the Xanathar... live." That word is doing some impressive lifting in that sentence, as is the pause before it.

True to her word, Yoiko doesn't judge, but she nods knowing that revenge would have been first on her own priority list as well. Yes, her training forces her to remember that these where people with lives, families, and children. But sometimes retribution is just as valid as preserving life.

"I'm not sure how I would react in that situation." Oh, yes she does. Daemon would have slaughtered them without hesitation. Linda would have found a way to crawl through hell if something had happened to her children. Yoiko would probably steal the ship if it meant making things right even if it meant a court-martial. The look in her eyes probably sells that better than her instinctive urge to play dumb.

She hears the description of Xanathar with a raised brow, not quite understanding the term 'beholder' in this context, but definitely understanding the rest of the implication. "So, I imagine the King was the next person you sought out?"

'Sought out' sounded so much better than murdered.

Liyara looks Yoiko over, seeing that look in Yoiko's eyes, and nods slowly. "...It turns out I am very sure how I would react." She closes her eyes again, and takes a deep breath. There's another tremble, but it's calming. The breath is to help work that out.

"He was, and you already know what happened to him. How my killing him played into my father's plans. How it may have been the entire reason my father sired us. I don't know. It is hard to tell how his mind works. For all our strengths, none of us were our father, not even Lucian." She opens her eyes, wondering, not for the first time, if her brother would have been able to figure the plot out.

Or Luna. Or Lisan. Any of the smart ones, and not just... her.

Yoiko grabs the hand around her own waist and guides it from her back onto her knee and holds it tightly, locking their fingers together. She tries to think of the best way to react to that, but decides against tact and goes for lightening the mood instead, "I guess Father's Day is not your favorite holiday?"

Wait, did they even have a 'fathers day' where Liyara comes from? Welp, too late to take it back now.

"I think after all of this we need to put our plans on hold. Trying to bring down everything half-cocked has kinda lost its momentum in light of all of this." She gives a weak smile and sighs, "Let's put the world on hold and find some place to let off some steam. Maybe grab a bite to eat?"

She adds after a moment's thought, "Something positively neutral. No adventures. No drama." She gives a weak grin again, "And no bookstores. I promise."

"Father's day?" Liyara looks aghast at the question - both never having heard of it and finding it repellent in the same moment. Mission accomplished. "Why would anyone?" Right, because... fathers are not historically her favorite, as surmised.

When Yoiko suggests they put their plans on hold, Liyara furrows her brow. "...I'm not afraid of them, Yoiko." Well, no, but that's kind of the problem, isn't it? Liyara doesn't do afraid anymore. Not anywhere except in this room, in this moment, where it's safe and it didn't cost the world entire.

Her stomach rumbles immediately, though, betraying her. "Apparently I am hungry though."

Before Liyara can comment on whether or not she was afraid, Yoiko interrupts to explain. "Father's Day. It's an Earth holiday. There's a Mother's Day too." She shakes her head softly, "Humans like having excuses to have holidays, I guess."

Of course she knows Liyara isn't afraid of anyone. She could see that in everything she's been told. So instead of responding, she raises an eyebrow, ready to argue that no one was calling her afraid.

Until that low grumble distracts them both. "AH-HAH!" As if she knew this somehow. "See? It was a good plan after all. The plan is not to have a plan!" She adds after a moment of thought, "Have you had pizza yet?"

|}}

2026-07-26 - The Advent Returns: Curse of the Nekojin!

2026-07-27T03:33:17Z

Marr0w: Created page with "{{Logsummary| Title = The Advent Returns: Curse of the Nekojin! |Summary = Continuing from last time, Superboy and Satyrn ma..."

{{Logsummary|
Title = The Advent Returns: Curse of the Nekojin!
|Summary = [[2026-07-19 - Satyrn, S-Mart, and_Superboy | Continuing from last time]], Superboy and Satyrn make their way to the UR only to be interrupted by the return of the one person Satyrn has vowed to destroy...
|Who = [[Satyrn]], [[Superboy]], [[Crux]]
|Date = July 26th, 2026
|Where = [[S-Mart Parking Lot]], [[The Arena]]
|Log=

Satyrn's entire body, while looking slim and toned, is a massive ball of dense muscle. It's also incredibly tense, and everything about her posture gets rigid as Superboy puts an arm around her shoulders to help her. Her first instinct is to attack, drive an elbow into the ribs, stamp onto a toe, or multiple other ways to attack him, but the tiredness running through her body and mind after her travels, and the fact that she knows he's just trying to help let's her keep this auto-reflexes at bay.

The saiyan emits a light grunt, which might be a thanks, as she feels like her body is getting lighter. Okay. That's...useful right now. She focuses her chi on her wounds, forcing the blood there to hold in place so it starts to clot. It's not like she has a lot of energy right now, but bleeding out is never a way to recover faster.

"What? Why in the dry wells are you calling Twisted Street your mother's base?" And he used to be part of TASK? She doesn't remember him. Oh, he must be from the reformed TASK that let all the Kept escape and cast the Keepers to the winds. At least that's her interpretation of events.

The ever helpful Superboy tilts his head at that one. "Mother's Base...?" Like a base of operations? Mother? Mom? Oh, Ma-base. He shakes his head a little, "Mabase. Weird word. There's some record of some city ruins from back in the day called that and now somehow that's the name of this city. It's a little less confusing than everything named Twisted-something at least."

He shakes his head again, "Also, do NOT try to use the library to find this stuff out. There's like, nobody keeping anything organized anymore. Had to spend half a day in there speed-reading everything to connect anything around here."

"It was better back when all the little kiosks worked right, but Bishop stopped updating them." He ponders a moment with a frown, "Actually Bishop rarely even makes an appearance. No one does. It's why I went and joined up with TASK for awhile thinking it'd help with the whole saving-people schtick, but Cosgrove is so hands off it's like there might as well not even be a police presence around here." It's not even occurring to him that Satryn might not be following any of this, but then he's not here half the time himself so what does he know?

After a moment's thought he adds, "Also, sorry about the whole walking thing. I'd normally just fly us there but that burning guy kinda sapped me. Feelin' better though. How about yourself? What's your name, anyways? They call me Superboy, but my friends tend to call me Kon or Kon-El." He grins proudly, "It's like my legal name, I guess, but not officially." Sure. That makes sense.

"-uck?!" The latter half of what was almost certainly inappropriate rings out across the Twisted Street. It actually... it doesn't even sound like it's nearby. Someone was just really really lou-- "What did you do to my city?!" Oh, sure. No, it's fine, it's not like I was narrating or anything. Please. Finish your rant.

A continuation of said rant begins, but unlike those first bits, it's not loud enough to be clear. There's just some voice that is *still loud enough to be heard a good distance away* yelling things that are probably best not heard.

Huh. Voice sounds oddly familiar.

...It's probably nothing.

Satyrn takes in slow purposeful breaths. If this isn't all some elaborate hell dimension trick that accessed her memories and is creating some sick scenario then after all her travels and hardships she's wound up right back where she left. Had meant to leave forever. But then her G-PADVII stopped working and she got stuck in her pocket dimension home. Sure, it's a nice place, but she didn't want to be stuck there for the rest of her existence. Alone. She glances at Superboy as he talks, wow he likes to talk. She takes it all in. "What happened to Gegoshi?" Maybe he doesn't even know who that is. "Who's Bishop?" She then actually trembles, goosebumps running across her flesh. Her saiyan tail, which has been loose, winds itself slowly around her left leg. "By the dawn, how long have I been gone." She murmurs. She has more questions than that, and a really, really pressing one. You know what, she's to tired not to ask even though it makes her grind her teeth when she says his name, "Is Crux still around?" She almost doesn't want the answer, but she was raised to be strategic, to get as much information as possible at all times in all situations.

She also hears the distant voices, but they're distant, so, she disregards them for now.

He DOES like to talk! Thank you for noticing! "Geogshi? The old angel/synth-chick?" How many Gegoshis does he know, exactly? "According to the records she got her freedom, got invited to join a new Council when Setsuna Meioh took over from Senor Diablo, and then for some reason everyone just kinda checked out and vanished."

He shrugs again, "Far as I can tell Setsuna is still in charge. Some place called 'The Cradle' claimed they made Gegoshi and sent Bishop to take her place running everything." He gives an apologetic smile, "So, uh. Part of the whole being-a-clone thing makes me a bit of a book nerd. When I got told to come help out here, first thing I did was read everything I could get my little gloved hands on." He IS wearing little gloves, aww. "So I've got you covered on the history lesson."

Whether he doesn't know Crux or simply skipped over the question is hard to say. He's been hearing the man rambling himself for a while, "Jeeze, I wish he'd give it a rest. Some people just love to hear the sound of their own voice."

Satyrn furrows her brow at that. Checked out and vanished? She growls lowly. "The Cradle? The Core made Gegoshi. I've never heard of Bishop." People are always getting things wrong. No one ever knows the truth. People have probably forgotten all about Concordance at this point. Not that it matters. Why does she even care? None of this matters anymore. But her elders forced curiosity into her being when she was growing up, made her always want to learn more about the enemy, opposition, and everything else. And she's not going to risk ripping a hole in the dimensions only to end up in another hell to escape this place. She's having multiple dilemma's which, when you get three or more, they start becoming a crisis.

She takes him saying people checked out and vanished to include Crux. That...that angers her, because she wants to take every piece of his existence and tear it to pieces with her bare hands. Everything is his fault. "Have any of the gods retur-" Is the start of her next question, but then a semi-truck spirals and slams into the street nearby. She looks around for threats, probing out to sense any threats, her body already tense for battle anyway. Then again, this is Twisted Street, these kind of chaotic things are expected.

And no, techincally, Satyrn never turned in a resignation. Do they not fire for absenteeism? Maybe they don't. Does she get back pay? Not that Satyrn thinks any of this, just...saiyan.

Superboy, of course, tenses up. If he didn't quite literally have his hands full he would have been all over that truck, but at least no one seems to be hurt. Instead he releases Satyrn to stand on her own, "Just a sec..." before throwing himself into the air to stop whatever that man-sized blur that's flying through the air in an attempt to stop it from crashing, not that there's enough time.

If he'd been more on top of his game he might have caught up, but instead all he can do is watch it hit about 100 yards away with a wince. He calls out with a bit of hesitation, "...you okay, buddy?" Let's just hope the man-sized blur was in fact a man, or this whole exchange is going to look really weird.

Surprising noone with a basic grasp of ballistic arcs, the white hot streak slams back down into the parking lot about a hundred meters past the crumpled cabin of a truck, just as Superboy likely predicted. The pulverized asphalt and rock dust alone kicks up a nice cloud of black, don't-breathe-this smoke around the landing point, and there is a low, offended cough from inside the plume.

"...Good to be home." The voice is gravely, sarcastic, and has about a century's worth of exhaustion behind it. There's a long, drawn out breath, and then two golden lights blaze from within the smoke, each roughly the size of an eye, and spaced apart the right amount too. Glowing golden eyes. Cool, cool.

Only a moment passes before there's a low skree-ing sound and a tiny red ball of murder comes screeching through the air at nearly the same speed as the other two objects - it's a little imp demon that can't be more than a foot tall, but it's flying and holding what looks like rear-axle of a semi-truck - perhaps the SAME semi truck? It rears it above its head, clearly aiming to clock whoever's in the cloud of smoke with it, but then it... disappears? No, wait, it reappears about twelve meters back, still screeching, travels another twelve meters, and disappears again, doing the re-appear and disappear trick once more.

This continues for a bit, until the momentum of whatever leap the thing took starts to fall off, and that's when one might notice the ripples in the air - one where the thing is disappearing, and one where it is reappearing. The "disappear" ripple is slowly getting lower with each arc, like it's a catcher's mitt and whenever the demon is caught, it is launched out of the first one again. Well, this IS an odd show. Slowly but surely the ripples move closer to each other now, so that the arc remains uninterrupted, and the demon that is effectively falling sideways looks as perturbed as one has time to look while in an infinite portal loop.

"Well, I'm not *great*," says the low voice in response to Superboy's question. "But I'm also not surprised. What does that say about me?"

Satyrn settles her feet under herself as Superboy releases her. That's for the best. She needs to see where she's at. Whatever that is it could be a threat, something to attack, defend, or kill. She rests back on her heels, letting her tail relax. Multiple lesions across her body, hair's a mess, and completely black, her beautiful grey dye having burned away through her travels. Her tail's black too. And her clothing is tatters, but enough to hold in place, she is good with a needle and thread, or a small horn and some intestine. Sometimes you use what you're given.

The saiyan glances at Superboy, who obviously has a 'I need to help others' beat into him, likely the same way her elders raised her, though with different mantras. She looks at the smoke, cloud, and the imp portal show. A weird pang in her heart hits her, things just happening like this, it makes her think of home. Of Twisted Street. She really wanted to forsake this place for the rest of her life, but here she is. She holds back a sigh.

As the demon shows up swinging a truck axle, Superboy just gestures at it incredulously. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" He points towards it, and then back at the man in the smoking crater, "We JUST went through this." He looks down at the remains of his jacket, sighs, and then ponders punching the imp that seems strangely under control.

So instead he offers a hand to the stranger to help pull him up. "Y'know, this is why Gotham doesn't bother me anymore. Sure you can't throw a rock without hitting a supervillain, but at least there's not a weird tear in reality twice a week."

"You would think," The low voice begins with some regret, "that I would have learned how to properly call Diablo by now. But apparently..." From within the cloud, the eyes rise up toward Superboy, and there's a swirling motion as the man inside takes the offered hand and stands. With his other hand, he tries to fan some of the smoke away.

"...I'm still an idiot." As he succeeds at dispersing the asphalt-smoke, and rather slowly at that, the image of a man with a brown leather jacket and black trousers slowly appears. Well. The Jacket is more...black with brown highlights now. His hair... is also black, but given the environment he's standing in, it was probably a different color a minute ago. Same with his black shirt underneath the open jacket. That one was almost certainly white; it's a jersey tee, you can tell how those things stain.

He coughs again, for good measure.

"Thanks. Give me a second." The man steps past Superboy, looks past him too, and squares his posture as he strides towards the looping demon. He clenches his right hand, which is wearing a black fingerless glove, unlike the left which is wrapped in black bandages, and as he clenches it, you can actually *hear* the tendons tightening, but perhaps more alarmingly, the air around it ripples, like it's being forced away by the strength of that fist. And then he pivots and drives the fist towards the demon, but riiiiiiight at the point of contact, instead of the man's fist, out of the ripple tears an actual Freight Train, accept no substitutions. It plows through the demon and carries it a good three feet before disappearing in another ripple, leaving ten feet of continually moving freight train to tear through the air for a good twelve seconds before finishes its journey and the tail end of the train comes out of one portal and leaves through the other, both closing afterward.

"... ...And just like that I'm feeling better."

Satyrn stands there watching as Superboy goes to help the being obscured by smoke. She turns her head, looking around the area. Parts look familiar, but is this place really Twisted Street? It could be some kind of weird semblance. She doubts that though, it would tend to just absorb those into itself. She lets out another sigh as she thinks of everything she's lost, Concordance, The Council, TASK. Maybe she was wrong and this place doesn't need anything. Maybe those gods like Power won't ever return. She looks back towards Superboy and the entity as the smoke clears to reveals him and her entire body freezes in place.

She stares. And stares. And stares as he goes and deals with the imp by opening portals for a Freight Train. It starts at the tip of her tail, the smallest of twitches. The goosebumps that'd been occupying her skin disappear as her blood starts to run hot, her heartrate increasing with every millisecond. Edges of her hair start to wisp out from her. It's him. It's him. o O ( It's him. It's him. It's him. IT'S HIM. ) Her mouth won't even let her say words, her teeth clenched together as fury ripples its way through her. The bane of her existence. The cause for all of her torment for over thirteen years of hell dimensions. The reason she's not even a full saiyan anymore. The reason Concordance is dead and everything fell apart.

"CRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUX" she finally finds her voice as a black and grey aura explodes around her, bricks, loose debris, dirt, and even some cobblestone that was certainly solid a moment before erupting away from her in all directions with murder levels of velocity. Sorry windows and walls. The aura starts to shift to a golden hue, her hair starting to spike, but then...fatigue. Her chi levels give out, she falls to a knee as she emits a gutteral groan from the depths of her soul. Her aura doesn't disappear though, rage, if nothing else, is going to get her what she wants.

The Boy of Steel can appreciate a good leather jacket, not to mention obliterating an annoyance in the most video-game special attack he's ever seen outside a screen. "Dope!" Really? Really.

That's when the noise starts. The low, primal, guttural yell that seems to cut through everything like a wrecking ball. He turns, notices the woman he was helping clearly doing something that normally only happens in anime, and takes a step to the side a little further away from Crux.

"Y'know, she was fine until a minute ago. I take it you two have some history?" What could have given him that idea?

The man, (Crux, apparently?), straightens up from the rather dramatic-looking punch and cricks his neck, taking a slow breath. Then as he looks down at himself to survey all the asphalt-soot on him, he notices that some of the pebbles and asphalt start lifting up into the air.

"...Hold on. I've seen this before, I think it's what happened whe--" He is cut off by Satyrn's rage-scream, and he looks a bit surprised and turns to face her. Hah! See? That's what it's like you interrupting little sh--

"Nice lung capacity, there." Oh come on, you did that one on purpose.

He examines the Saiyan as she rages. He actually still doesn't have a ton of experience with their race, but he knows enough to understand they can be cosmically dangerous when provoked. So who the hell is... Oh, hey.

"Oh! That reminds me." He gestures to his left and another ripple opens up. He leans in to the ripple, his upper torso disappearing, but his voice can still be heard. "Satyrn! Hey! I found a girl out here who kinda reminds me of you! She looks real strong, you should come... ... Satyrn?" He seems to be just sort of leaning half in, half out of this ripple, which ... is almost certainly a portal to another location.

"Did she LEAVE?! Who leaves?!"

The man pulls his torso back out and looks at Satyrn, finishing tracing her temporal trail to see what happened. Oh wow. Ohhhhhhh wow. Oh wow. He sort of glances towards Superboy without actually taking his eyes off Satyrn.

"Yeah, I guess I put her on a time-out and she decided she'd rather go to hell than spend another minute with me." A long pause, a beat. "...Honestly that seems fair."

The seething rage does not stop for the saiyan. She feels like she's going to vomit. Some of her wounds, recently clotted, re-open, blood slowly oozing out of them, floating around her in small globules as they're caught up in her aura of animosity. Her lips pull back exposing her teeth like some kind of weird animlaistic smile, or more likely anger expressing itself in ways she can't really control. "You." She seethes. And then...and then he LOOKS for her. He actually LOOKS for her in that pocket dimension he stuck him into. The one that made her miss the battle with Concordance, where SHE could have turned the tide, and everything would be perfect, the way it was, when her life was ordered and she would deal with portal trespassers contaminating pure untouched worlds. But oh no, all that's gone now. Lost in time like tears in the rain and all that philosophical madness that Satyrn actually likes.

Satyrn's eyes scrunch, twitching, everything about her is twitching now. "You only think to look. Only now? ONLY NOW?!" Her normal expansive vocabulary has been buried beneath the rolling ocean of tsunami rage. That's it, she doesn't care. She doesn't care how humiliating it is. The ground, nay, the air itself begins to shake. Her aura explodes outwards, the black and grey starting to shift colors to something more akin to red and silver. Small bumps start to form on either side of her head. Maybe they're horns? She has been through a lot of hell dimensions. Of course, if Crux just looked through her entire existence he knows what's coming. The saiyan slowly pulls herself back up to standing, then floats off of the ground, more from her aura starting to expand with untold of power than conscious effort.

"Okay, in my defense, if you hadn't left, you'd still be there and I could've pulled you out like five seconds after I put you there from your perspective." Crux says, sounding surprisingly calm, and his voice... is weirdly easy to hear over the raging aura that she's putting out. He stares at her like he's trying to see through her, and then blinks and glances at Superboy.

"Hey, Saiyans get really strong when they do this thing, maybe you should..." His golden eyes swirl with black flecks for a moment as he looks the kid over, and then he blinks and laughs. "Oh... Oh, nevermind, you're Kryptonian. Yeah. Wow. You're gonna be fine. I'll just ... juice you up with some yellow-sun rads if it gets dicey." He reaches out and pats Superboy on the shoulder, leaving asphalt soot dust all over the poor kid's jacket. His confident smirk turns to an apologetic look at that. "...Sorry." He turns his attention back to Satyrn.

"You know," He begins, cupping a hand up to his lips as if it will help her hear him, which it will not, "if you keep stressing yourself out, your blood pressure's gonna cause you to lose too much blood and then I'm gonna have to pick you up off the floor after you pass out. You sure you want that? Because I don't have any Saiyan blood and you're gonna have to just take some of mine." He... he doesn't even sound a little afraid. The *nerve* of this man.

Satyrn hears what Crux is saying. She can process it, even though her bottomless rage that feels like a never ending full well (that analogy makes a lot of sense to her don't worry about it too much), but... "You think I CARE for your EXCUSES?!" Everyone knows saiyan transformations take forever, and this one for Satyrn is no different, thankfully finding the source of what she believes to be everything wrong with her life is making up for the fact that she's physically and mentally exhausted. She'd swore on her elders that if she ever found Crux again she'd fight him when she was well rested and had a solid plan. What plan? Satyrn could never come up with a good one, she knows Crux has insane powers, but she also knows that sometimes if you hit something hard enough, even dimensions, they'll break for you.

Her aura is definitely red now with silvery veins pumping through it in time with her heartbeat. "You stole victory from Concordance! You made me go through over a decade of hell dimensions! You made me experience things I'll never recover from! You...you changed me! The humiliation of this." She sneers, knowing what she's saying probably makes little sense to anyone but her, well maybe Crux if she knew he just theater played her existence a bit ago. "But it's worth it. I'm going to destroy you." Her voice breaks a little, like she's about to cry, shaky, frail, a bit of a contrast to the raging aura that's cracking and breaking everything around her from its intensity.

The bumps on her head push out further, and then with a massive outrush of energy and power releases in a shockwave from the saiyan. Her black hair flashes, changing to a blood red with silvery tips, then back to black, then back to the colors. Looks like she's just about there. But again, long transformation sequences the first time they happen on screen, what can you do.

There a long inhale and exhale from Kon as he takes all this in. This is about to be bad, isn't it? He doesn't want to pick sides here, but he knows from experience that person A is probably not going to stop until person B is in pieces from here to Keystone.

He glides over, holding his hands up in a peaceful gesture. Putting two and two together he assumes her name is Satyrn and addresses her thusly. "Satryrn? I think I get where you're coming from. You sound like you have every right to go on a rampage and obliterate everything in sight." Superboy drops to the ground, walking slowly towards the warrior powering up before him.

"But can we take just a moment to think about the people who live here?" He gestures around at the street around him, pausing on the wreckage of the S-Mart parking lot and mentally kicking himself because it looked a lot better than this just an hour ago.

He gestures down the street in the direction they where already traveling before Crux made his grand return. "There's an arena just at the end of this street. It's contained. I'm sure it has some wards of some kind to prevent blowing up this city and all the innocent people in it."

At this point he's almost arms length away and leaning into the power emanating from her with a little effort. "We can take this whole show over there, you can get it out of your system, and hopefully no one else has to get hurt. I'll even still buy you dinner, alright? Can we make this happen?"

"O-Oh," Crux actually lets a little laughter creep into his voice and then immediately feels bad about it, "is that what you think happened? That Concordance *lost*?" The man just runs his hands through his hair, trying to get the soot out and at least some of the original silver color is showing through now. He turns his head like he's about to shake it the way a dog shakes their fur to get everything out, and then glances at Superboy apologetically. No, he's not going to do that to the poor kid. It's fine. Whatever Satyrn hits him with will probably bleach the skin and muscles from his bones, let alone the soot from his clothes. He can be patient. His dignity isn't really salvageable at this point.

"...Woman, she *left*. I don't know what happened after that because I haven't seen her since, but..." There's more of that laughter, and this time he doesn't bother holding it back. "The only thing that defeated Concordance was public opinion." He shrugs, waiting for the blow that'll just clean him out entirely. When Kon suggests that there is a safe place for the fight, Crux blinks, and then turns to look at the Metropolis kid again.

"The Metropolis Kid, huh? Thanks for the idea." Crux's eyes blaze gold again, and he lifts one hand up. The end of the S-mart parking lot, like the entire damn skydown to the pavement, ripples. He makes a quick gesture, a flick of a finger, and the ripple travels towards them all at the actual speed of light, no dramatic exaggeration, just swallowing them up... and actually nothing happens, it just passes over them and hey wait they're in the Arena now. The other end of which ripples briefly and then the ripple fades out. "Sometimes I forget I'm not the only one who stands to get hurt. You probably just saved some lives. ... ... Okay, the kind of lives that shop at Wal-Mart, but still." S-mart, dude. S-mart. Like K... nevermind.

Of course... he brought Kon with them. Maybe not full marks for this effort.

----

'''The Arena - Pit(#5278R)'''

Well, this is lovely.

After dropping from the entrance gates above, competitors on the pit floor are greeted first by the heady stench of sweat, blood, and other less-savory bodily fluids, and then by the squelching sensation of their feet being enveloped by the same. Nobody has cleaned this place in... well, ever. It's a plentifully large area to work with, at least, with a good thirty feet of headspace at the highest point.

From this side it's apparent that several monitors have been slung up inside the cage, so those not able or bold enough to press themselves against the cage can be sure not to miss anything, but the experience is clearly geared toward the fighters more than the audience. There's liable to be plenty of fallen weapons around, and any attempts to flee are met on the outside with blistering metal spikes, rough-textured truck tyres, and plyboards covered in rusted tin cans and broken bottles. It's a whole mess of tetanus waiting to happen, just for you, and you!

There is one apparent exit; a small, unassuming door on the east side of the pit. It's stalwartly locked, and apparently unbreakable, so long as more than one person remains conscious and/or breathing inside. Upon a combatant achieving victory, it 'pings' open with a delightful little fanfare - customized to the participants... somehow - and allows the winning competitor to make their dramatic exit.

The loser... who cares? Probably they'll be hauled out and left up top somewhere, where their miserable fans can kiss them better.

----

Satyrn screams, straight up, at Superboy. "You think I give a droplet about insane people who CHOOSE to make their home on an UNSTABLE place like this?! Two dimensional tears opened up here and a freight train came through. They knew what they were doing when they decided, against ALL REASON, to live in such a place! They can go dig a well in a connected world!" She's probably operating on old principles, but, ya know, the rage and all. She has little patience right now, and to be fair she normally has quite a bit for her race. None of this is calming her down. And as Crux blathers on about Concordance, she continues to scream, "AS IF I DON'T KNOW HOW CONCORDANCE'S EXISTENCE WORKS?!" She started a church! She had worshippers! She was bringing her back! Oh, oh if this is not the end of the desert caravan she doesn't know what is. She doesn't even register the scenery change. Her aura explodes outwards in multiple shockwaves, if buildings were still around they'd be getting leveled, broken up, and destroyed, including the people in them. She does care about life, in general, just not right now. Not with Crux here.

The bumps on her head fully form, into a pair of cat ears! Adorable. Her hair goes fully red with silver tips and stays that way. Power, strength, beauty(cute), exude from her as she goes fully super saiyaneko. Her time spent in the catgirl hell dimension really, really messed her up, but this new form came with it. She hates it for how it makes her look, and the slight mind alteration that comes with it, but she hates Crux more.

Superboy's fist tightens as Satyrn damns all of Twisted. He was starting to like her before she went full villain monologue. He does notice the change in scenery, and is grateful for it despite the immediate threat in hand.

Even though he knows she's probably past hearing him, he tries anyways, "These 'insane people' didn't have a choice! I don't know what this place was like when you were here last but most of the people living here are refugees from worlds that collapsed or realities that moved on without them. The old guard is gone. Take out your rage, but if you go after anyone else outside of this arena, I'm rescinding my offer for food."

With that, less than stellar ultimatum, Superboy floats up, giving the two the floor. There's a part of him that feels like he should apologize to Crux for getting him in this situation, but he did bring it upon himself from the way he described it. At least Kon can try to keep it from getting out of control.

It's been a long time since Crux was faced with anything else that can move as fast as he can. Longer still since faced with anything that can hit as HARD as Satyrn can. And yet, he has dealt with things that are much, much scarier, just in a different way. He would've tensed before. Would've tried to stop her. Would've moved to do something to slow her down. But instead... he just waits. His pupils dilate. His perception of time dilates. Kon is probably experiencing something similar next to him, if not in response to Satyrn, then in response to the portal. After all, that's how Kryptonians work, right? Crux is pretty sure they scale to the speed needed same as anyone with speed powers that let them remain rational and sane.

"She doesn't mean that, she was a good cop. Saiyans just have this weird rage thing. If one ever got one of those red rings, I'm pretty sure they'd hard-delete their universe." Scary thought.

At any rate, because of this time dilation, it is with wide open eyes and full focused speed that Crux watches Satyrn... turn into a catgirl. Yup. A Super Saiyan Catgirl. A Super Neko-jin as it were.

"I have the most profound sense of Deja vu."

When she starts raging further, he just shrugs. Indifference, that's how he meets her insane battle rage. "...Then you know there's nothing you could've done to change it. And I wasn't even there, you know, I was busy getting my clock cleaned somewhere else." There's a slow pause and a beat. "...I'm guessing you'd be thrilled to watch THAT. I can give you a recording later. I died sixteen times in the first minute, Locke was really in a groove that day." ...Not even a hint of animosity or fear, even still. "...Probably gonna be more satisfying than what happens here. No offense, I'm sure you're unreasonably strong. But..." He points at Satyrn's wounds again. "I already told you what's going to happen. You sure you want my blood coursing through your veins? Because I'm not gonna let you die."

Satyrn's transformation complete, she revels in her power. This form is incredible, beyond anything she every imagined or dreamed was possible. Speed. Strength. Durability. Self-healing would be nice, but she's just ignoring the blood loss at this point. Who cares if she's oozing out of multiple wounds and likely going to pass out rather quickly, she certainly does not. "Oh I could of! I could of obliterated everyone wanting her gone!" Her body shakes, she knows Crux can die and somehow not die, she doesn't know how he does anything he does. And Gegoshi isn't around to get information from. But you know what, whatever. "You won't be around to put blood back me. I'm going to obliterate you, right here, right nyao." Did she just kind of...meow there?

The saiyaneko blinks out of existence, or rather, travels as such an insane amount of speed, it looks like she disappears. Some eyes might see better than others. Either way, she'll end up next to Crux, swinging her fist with every ounce of strength, power, and chi she has within her, a red silvery blaze rippling from her entire arm. The fist is, of course, aimed right for Crux's face. These are the kind of punches that obliterate planets. One might note, she is angled slightly, so she's punching upwards at a slight angle, so any energy that goes past, or hopefully through, would go into the skies above. Maybe she did listen to Superboy a bit, and again she hasn't even noticed the location change.

Superboy hovers above the stands lining the four walls of the arena, looking down into the blood soaked pit that drops down to the dusty floor below. He watches the catgirl move at a speed that would impress the Flash and winces from the thrown punch that should have easily taken his head off. Speaking of moving fast, he really wishes Impulse was around right now. At least he'd go get them some popcorn or a pizza or something.

Wait. Catgirl? With a moment to breathe, Superboy finds himself struggling not to laugh, especially at the 'nyao' thing. Twisted is always interesting, at least.

"I'm not sure you understand how this wo--" Crux begins to attempt to explain, because unlike those annoying cryptic god-types, Crux is an actual person that talks like people talk. Since he's not afraid of Satyrn, he is more than happy to explain how his powers work. But he made the mistake of thinking she was going to continue listening, so that's what he gets.

Despite being fully dialed in, he doesn't even notice her move. It's not a matter of seeing. People at these speeds don't rely on sight; Photons have to bounce off your target and then your retina for you to see. No, they rely on additional senses, and Crux has a pretty good one: when he's nice and locked in, Crux can tell when his target even *brushes* a photon. It's really hard to photon dodge, even for crazy fast people, so this is a pretty foolproof sense in most of his considerable experience. However, there's this tiny limitation. So... his brain processes things at lightspeed - the literal speed of light. Dramatically, dramatically faster than normal human thought. But it still takes an (incredibly small) amount of time for that warning to travel from the part of his brain that sensed it to the part of his brain that needs to know it.

Why are we having this anatomical breakdown of Crux's powers, you might ask?

Because the time between Satyrn nudging that first photon, and Crux getting walloped in the head, is actually shorter than the time it takes the thought to travel through Crux's brain.

From Crux's perspective, she's still not moved yet when his head explodes.

Ok, explodes is the wrong word. Can something really be said to explode when it atomizes? I think we can agree that the answer is no. One minute there is a Crux there, the next minute there is not. If he died the way normal people die, the entire half of the arena inside the ballistic trajectory of Satyrn's fist would be lightly coated with carbon and other atomic debris as the air literally undergoes fusion around her fist, pushing the gas molecules past their Columb barrier and into a state of highly excited plasma.

This, incidentally, is what's left of Crux, a blazing pillar of plasma that used to be organic matter, as it rockets into the wards of the arena, tests them, finds them a bit wanting, and then is joined by the photonic boom and coruscating fusion wake that hits a nanosecond behind it.

Did you know the Arena roof can have a hole put in it?

That's something you know now.

As the purple Cherenkov radiation settles from the blow, there is no physical sign of Crux to be seen. He's just... gone. But in fairness, wouldn't you be?

Satyrn connected. She actually connected. She didn't think she would connect. She didn't think she'd actually managed to get next to him, much less touch him, but she actually hit him, and he vaporized. He vaporized like anything else would if she hit with this kind of insane amount of power. She floats there, fist outstretched, heaving in breaths, blood floating out around her wounds, many of which have opened up further from this exertion, in disbelief. Crux can use portals and do all sorts of unexplainable nonsense. At least, she thought he could. Is this really a different dimension like she'd assumed? It can't be, can it?

Tears edge up in her eyes, and she doesn't have the will to stop them anymore. Her body slowly descends downwards towards the arena floor as her aura fades, her hair returns to black, and her cat ears recede. She settles down on a knee, gritting her teeth as she starts to straight up sob into her sleeve. "There's no way he's dead. I'm sure of it, it's all a trick, but I got to explode his big stupid sand filled head off." She weeps, talking to herself even though Superboy is present. She's been alone a lonnnnnng time.

Floating quietly, Kon-El just observes. He's nowhere near Flash-speed, but he can see enough to realize Satyrn is right and Crux is in some other state of being. He watches her collapse and hesitates. He knows about pride and exhaustion, so he gives her this moment before going to offer any kind of comfort.

Instead he looks up at the new skylight with a slow shake of his head. At least no one innocent died. That's win right? Why doesn't it feel like a win...?

It takes a moment. Actually it takes several moments, but eventually, some of that flickering Cherenkov radiation seems to distort. The purple light that came from extremely localized atomic fusion and atmospheric ionization warps, brightens, and becomes white. After a moment, that white light twists and alters into the form of a humanoid. It's not REALLY a man, more like a brilliant light shining through a man-shaped aperture in the fabric of space-time. Two blazing aureate orbs form in the light, somehow distinct from the white light, appear, and track to Satyrn. She's bleeding on the ground. What are the odds?

"Satyrn Tarn." The voice isn't... a voice. It's a reverberation in space that just... exists. It's not audibly coming from anywhere, but it's no stretch to guess it's from the humanoid shape that is probably Crux. "I see you." The orbs blaze intensely, as if trying to connect with her soul. After a brief delay, there is a... crack? No, a line of light that resembles a crack in reality as a wing crowds through into this dimension. Much like the shape of the man, it is more like the suggestion of a wing, it is identical when viewed from any angle, unshifting, unchanging. Another joins it, and after a moment, there is the sound of a deep, deep sigh.

The figure sweeps a hand below it, creating a horizontal line of light. This movement is at exactly light speed, so to Satyrn it would have been objectively slow a moment ago. Maybe it still is?

Regardless, the humanoid figure seems to fall down through that line of light, and Crux, this time without the soot stains, falls out the other side. His jacket is clean. His hair is clean. Without the soot covering his face, it is clear to be seen that he has not slept in... longer than you can live through not sleeping. Probably much longer. He lands on the arena floor next to Satyrn and crouches next to her, hoping she won't erase him from existence again, it's *really* frustrating and he'd JUST promised not to make a habit of it.

"...Nice punch. Poor girl." He looks at her for a moment, then looks up to Kon, who very smartly got the hell out of the way, unlike Crux. "...Hey, kid. What's your bloodtype?"

Uh...

oO(Welp, guess I'm back in this.) Superboy descends finally, keeping his distance just in case tempers flare up again, "Type-O-Clone Virus." He shrugs, "Look, I don't know what I'm carrying, but I know there was a whole clone disease and it's probably better off not testing the waters to see if what I've got running in my veins is compatible with..." He frowns, looking at Satyrn, "...whatever the bleeding, sleepy kitty is."

He just keeps expecting her to pull a Deadite, fake death, and murder someone the second she's touched. That's just what they /do/ in fights like this. "Maybe give her a chance to cat-nap before you try to rebuild her? No one goes through all that just to die off-screen in a dirt pit." Off-screen? Well, at least he doesn't fancy himself the main character unlike SOME people we could mention.

Satyrn would probably have yelled at Superboy if he'd come over and tried to comfort her, so he's right in his decision to stay a bit back. Then again, a burger sounds nice about now. Either way, her body wracks itself with a ugly sob as she hears that voice. Crux's voice. Of course. She knew. She's not surprised. She knew this would happen. She doesn't know how to kill him, she hasn't taken the time to study her opponent, learn everything about them, figure out their weaknesses, and any other number of things she'd sometimes do when facing such an enemy. She looks up through her tears, wiping at her face with her sleeve as he fully manifests next to her. Unphased. Untouched. Pristine. "I hate you." She growls...maybe hisses...maybe a combination of both, but despite her words will actually reach out to try and grab his leg, or arm, or whichever of those two appendages are close, and bury her face into it. She's close to passing out, she knows it. She's gone over the limit, and all she can do is sandstorming cry into this entity that's occupied her every waking moment for the last thirteen years. It's a matter of seconds before her consciousness goes byebye. She is going to just NOT process Superboy's kitty comments as he floats down next to them.

"Type-0-Clone Virus?" Crux looks at Kon in consternation. "That's not a real blood.... type..." He continues to stare at Kon for a LONG second as he tracks through his temporal trail alllllllllll the way back to the beginning. "...Kid your origin story is really messed up."

He turns his attention back to Satyrn. "You know, it's subtle, but I'm starting to get that impression you don't like me." He lets that sit for just a beat, and then taps two fingers on the side of her neck, somehow exactly tapping her carotid artery through the skin. His eyes blaze gold for a moment as he analyzes the Saiyan's blood by examining it through a micrometer long portal he opens inside the blood vessel, and sighs. "...Sorry, Satyrn. I stock a lotta stuff, but not blood. I did warn you." And with that he opens a similar one inside his aorta, and just quietly pumps blood into the girl at a rate faster than she's losing. Once he's sure he's got those portals locked conceptually to their locations, he stands and looks to Kon.

"I can stop her from passing out. She's going to need SO much food, and I'm... ... ninety percent certain she's not a psychopath." He shrugs at the Superboy. "...They still have the Pizza Cats' place 'round here?"

Superboy tilts his head to the side at the question, "Yes and no.... it's around, you can order stuff." He looks up at the hole in the ceiling, "I just have no idea where they're coming from. Plus, uh. Don't know if Pizza CAT is the best idea at the moment." Assuming she doesn't always turn into a catgirl when she's pissed. That's possible, after all.

He shakes his head and sighs, "Either way the UR is just up the road." He just assumes the Crux would know the Usual Restaurant. Most people do.

"I've probably had enough time to recoup and fly her there if need be." He looks down at the woman ugly-crying on his cuffs and mutters under his breath, "Can't say the same for the jacket, but I've been needing a fashion update for a while now anyways."

Satyrn has, more or less, given up on controlling any semblance of consciousness. The edges of her vision are growing dark. She doesn't want to pass out here, in front of people, but she doesn't have a choice either. She finally got to do SOMETHING about all of her pent up rage and anger. It probably wasn't enough, but getting the murder punch in broke the dam on containing her feelings. That, and she was already exhausted from getting out of the most recent hell dimension. Sanding black fire monsters.

Then, Crux does his blood portal thing. It's not like she really feels it right away, she's not monitoring her blood with her chi at the moment, but the fact that her breathing starts to become more regular and her vision doesn't get completely black are indicators. She pulls her head and arms away from Crux, realizing what she's doing there. Ugh. Still, despite it all, she remains on one knee. She won't fall until she's actually out, which doesn't look like it'll happen. "Did you kill the gods too? And Gegoshi?" That is probably out of context, but it's addressed at Crux. Her stomach...it rumbles loudly as they mention food.

"Which ones were the gods? I've killed like five people tops since I got here, and those ones tried to kill me first." Crux says, not bothering to explain that the Council was *discussing* killing him rather than in the process of it. When people have you prisoner and are discussing your execution, you're basically dead.

"Well, technically Iloken and Harpanic were dead for a minute. But I had that fixed." He blinks again, and then tilts his head. "And Gegoshi's not dead. She's fine. Well. She's Gegoshi." He shrugs at that, like Satyrn would know what that means.

"...I guess the Usual works." He reaches down and hefts Satyrn up by the underarms unless she actually tries to kill him for the endeavor, in which cause he either becomes immaterial, dropping her, or dies, dropping her. You know. Standard responses. Either way he grumbles afterwards. "Come on, on your feet, walk it off."

Superboy hovers down, shakes his head at Crux trying to help her to her feet, holds both hands up dramatically a moment before reaching over and touching them both on the shoulders. They'll feel gravity stop affecting them almost instantly. "Or I could FLY you there, like I offered a few moments ago." He shakes his head again, "Look. Don't count out the Kid with Tactile Telekinesis. Useful for stopping bullets, disassembling equipment, saving damsels in distress, and escorting new friends to the best burger joint in Mabase." He shrugs, leaving them with their feet still planted about an inch from the ground, "Or you could walk...?"

Satyrn emits an exasperated sigh as she wipes at her face. She can't believe she cried. It's a waste of good water. "Power for one." What were the other names? Oh. "Chaos and Order." And...she can't remember the others. It's been a long time. It's not like she was a big student on all that nonsense. From what she was told they wouldn't ever come around unless what happened happened, and that seemed like an impossibility to her. "And if Gegoshi were fine, I wouldn't have got stuck in my pocket dimension, and my G-PADVII would be working." She grits her teeth as she's lifted and does steady her feet. Her vision is starting to clear up. How is Crux doing that? He mentioned blood. Oh. Is he actually somehow putting blood inside of her? She's not going to think about it right now. She doesn't want to risk losing it all over again. "It astounds me how ignorant you murderer existence destroying types are." Her stomach grumbles again as gravity stops affecting her and let's herself get floated, or whatever. She looks at the ground, builds up some moisture in her mouth, and spits. The most offensive thing anyone could ever do. At least where she's from. "Whatever. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. I just want food." She wants to say please, she almost does, but it's Crux, she isn't going to say please to Crux, so Superboy doesn't get to hear it either.

"It amazes me how many people have accused me of being a murderer or destroying existence after I save their lives." Crux muses aloud, and then watches Satyrn spit. "...Twice actually, since someone I know was tried to kill an Uchiha and she was going to die." He looks surprised for a moment when he and Satyrn start floating, then looks to Superboy.

"Is that how that works? That's... honestly really nice. Thanks, kid." He tests his limb movement for a moment, and then looks back to Satyrn.

"...I think it's probably better if you take her alone. That is not the look of someone who is going to enjoy a burger with me around. I'll just monitor her vitals until she seems stable and then break off the connection. That way she can heal, have her burger, and complain about the terrible Doctor who's kept her alive twice now despite her trying to kill him. He's a real monster." Now that Satyrn basically doesn't weigh anything , he can just sort of hand her off to Superboy and wash his hands of this whole thing. Now what else did he have left over to do? Bitch at Diablo, failed. Release Satyrn before she realizes he's been gone, failed. ... Get Lain takeout? ... Surely he can't fail at that too.

Superboy isn't really carrying anyone, so much as letting them have a moment without the pain that gravity causes beings with fleshy-hurty insides, so he's quite confused by the spit and just assumes it was directed at Crux. Meanwhile Crux makes a bit too much sense, so he releases his shoulder and lets the world claim him again. "Alright, suit yourself."

With a quick glance at Satyrn to make sure she's not going to murder him even if she did say 'whatever' he launches upwards through the hole in the ceiling, making his way South.

Out of respect for what he's sure is some kind of warrior pride, he ducks through the trees, bringing them around the back side of the Usual so no one can see, and then moves his arm to a more supportive looking gesture around her waist to walk her around the parking lot and into the front door.

"For the record the way you punched him was crazy bad-ass. I've seen speedsters run around worlds who couldn't have taken someone's head off like that." Is he saying this because he means it, or to make her feel better? Then again, does it really matter which it is?

Satyrn is absolutely not thanking Crux for supposedly saving her, much less twice. Her life would be easier if she were dead. Well, maybe. She might be in a hell dimension AND dead, that would probably be worse. As she starts to get floated away by Superboy, she stares down towards Crux, her black hair trailing off. Frazzled ends. Unkempt. Dirty. Like her life. She'll probably never see him again. She doesn't know how it happened so quick on her return. Fate or destiny maybe. Oh, that was the name of the other gods. Whatever. They didn't seem like the intervene on a single life type people if Power was any indication. "May your well run dry and your sun never set." She says towards him, though she barely means it. She doesn't even know how to feel towards the gross creature that is Crux. Whatever dimension created him should be sorry for what its done.

She looks over at Superboy as she's brought down behind the back of the UR. Figures that of all things is still here. She even found one in a hell dimension, but she couldn't get inside, it had some weird barrier pass that only allowed entry to the dead that belonged there. She shakes the thoughts of hell dimensions away, though they'll likely plague her dreams. "Thank you." She responds to the clone boy. She'll never forget how good it felt to land that blow.

Crux glances at Satyrn when she speaks to him again, and opens his mouth as she drifts away. "..." He doesn't say anything snarky. Why bother? "...Live well, lady." Once they're gone he heads off on his own. Hell, where was the exit again? Well. Noone's around to witness his embarrassment if he just portals out instead of remembering how to leave.

|}}

2024-05-17 - Read any Good Books Lately?

2026-07-27T01:45:39Z

Marr0w:

{{Logsummary|
Title = Read any good books lately?
|Summary = The Thespians go to visit a book store. How quaint.
|Who = [[Coop]], [[Liyara]], [[Yoiko Hax]], [[Kylie Griffin]], [[Lain Iwakura|"@̏͐[ͦͣ͒=̈́̈́̍̑͐͆ḡ͛̂3͑̉͗̽,ͦͫ̽͛ͭ8d̅ͤ]͌\̂&̆ͣ̈ͩf̔͛̔bḃ̒̀͌̆̿ͮ=ͯ͑ͦ͒̆̏̈-͂qͯ̈̔̚]/̔hk̾ͬ͂͐ͣ%̃f̈́͂͒̃g̈́̅̍ͨ"]], [[Crux]]
|Date = May 17th, 2024.
|Where = [[24*7|The 24*7]], The streets of Mabase, [[Rays Occult Books|Ray's Occult Books]]
|Log=

That's the way it goes, isn't it? A scene never seems to end and then… poof. They drop it. Like a festering piece of rotting meat dripping out of the mouth of some lost dog picking scraps out of the gutter. I am not a lost dog, nor am I a piece of rotting meat. No. I am the maggot swimming happily on the rotten carcass of this dead game trying to convert the decaying matter into a delicious meal fit for kings!

But I admit I've been away. Far away. Between the woke romance of our two female thespians (that's not an abbreviation of "the lesbians" you uncultured swines) and the sappy anime of Little Watcher Girl and Captain Lightbulb, I needed to step away. However, rather than leave you, the dear reader, in the dark. How about we recap a few things, eh? After all. You'll never figure out my plan if you've forgotten all the work I've put into laying it out and carefully tooling over every finite detail…

Now, where to start…? If I go all the way back to the beginning I'm just spelling it all out for you. That won't do. Maybe just an overview will be best - such as, The Devil has been busy rebuilding Hell in his own image. No, I don’t mean he's making it look like a giant robed ghoul with horns! He was the head honcho, the one in charge of Twisted and now he's back to being hated and feared. So he's been busy rebuilding things like the utopia he tried to make Mabase. He may have even gotten a little tip of a certain someone who might have reincarnated and be busy raising a little Hellspawn of his own. Alessa, you ingrate. Not Pepito. Keep up.

No, this won't do at all. It's too…. Impersonal. I'm just regurgitating information. Such as the Maniac sitting and being good for so long that his brain checked out leaving him sitting and starring for hours on end at the dismay of the demons who are meant to carry out his instructions on the damned. I could have jazzed that up. Maybe told it from his perspective. "Sitting atop a throne of skulls, the Maniac drooled slightly on himself as he watched the ongoing mundane judgments paraded before him." But of course the problem with that is you start getting invested in him and then we forget the story we're actually here to read.

If we're going to just spew out knowledge, why would we stop with a recap? Maybe I should just start giving away all the dark and spooky secrets of Twisted that you pea-brained idiots haven't even bothered to start asking questions about. Like, why do the irons built by Medical Mechanica not have any doors if they where built BEFORE they had the technology to create tunnels into N.O. space or even before they stole the ability to create pocket dimensions from little Mary Sue and her clearly original fog gimmick. Did it occur to anyone that they exist to contain something so terrible and horrible that it had to be sealed away but powerful enough that each one could be used to literally flatten a planet?

The answer of course is no because no one has time for ten year old plots and stories that sputter out into nothingness. No one cares anymore about the little demon girl who ran a coffee shop or the abused imp that was forced to cross-dress. No one spends a moment wondering about the forgotten reaper with the cute little bow who haunted the Cathedral in Truce or what else the fountain being in the center of Mabase might imply.

I've pushed and I've poked. I've started people down quests that seemingly go nowhere simply because no one bothered to start asking the right questions - so it's not MY fault things have stagnated, it's YOURS. You little muses reading your little tales and bragging about the size and girth of your logs. YOU'RE the reason things haven't gone anywhere as of late. And what of it? Why am I bothering to even begin this incessant rant on this lonely Sunday evening when I could be spending my time getting some of that long sought after rest that I can never seem to get enough of?

Because there's a story that needs to be told. Why else would the Lesbians be getting ready to go back to Twisted and use their considerable abilities to break into one of the irons prepared even now to smooth out the wrinkles in existence? Yes, this time I called them that on purpose. You may have your cookie.

Of course they won't make it inside. I've seen to that. The little Mary Sue crawling around in the literal brains of a locked scene has made sure they won't get in until the Dragonmaster remembers he's left a scene on pause. But trying to get through that barrier should lead to some entertaining situations. By the way, do you know what's required to activate one of these view-blocking irons? A hand large enough to wield it…

- - - -

As the ding from the door chime echoes through the basement garage, Harold "Coop" Cooplowski drops his sandwich and makes a run for the exit. In this case a pneumatic hose which somehow sucks one upwards into the frozen yogurt cooler of the 24/7 which he managed to build one day out of some old vacuum cleaners and the old Fizz-Wizz machine before they changed out the flavors. Zipping upwards and defying the pull of gravity, Coop waves to his lost sandwich mournfully but to make himself feel more macho he pretends he's waving at his giant mecha robot the M.E.G.A.S. instead.

"I'll get you back up and running soon. Just you wait."

The inside of the 24/7 is suddenly filled with the sound of human fat on glass as Coop realizes he's snacked one too many today and nearly suffocates pushing open the cooler door only to fall flat on his face. With a soft click the shelves behind him snap back into place revealing nothing more than expired half-melted ice cream labeled as "low-fat Yogurt" to keep people from digging around. Pealing himself off the tiled floor, Coop calls out to the latest customer, "Be with you in just a minute!"

Across the room Yoiko Hax enters, presumably with Liyara in tow. "Look. If I learned anything by studying and living in the 21st century for a bit, it's that you can't do anything role play related without Cheetos and Mountain Dew. It's a fundamental law. We can't get those things on the station, thus we have to come here. I don't see why this is annoying you." As if in response to what little he's overheard, Coop nods his head sagely.

"It's true." He mutters, "Dungeon Masters Guide, 1st Edition Revised - page 203. Always have Cheetos and Sodas on hand. The more caffeine the better. Aisle 2, by the way."

Yoiko raises an eyebrow but gives him a warm smile in response, "Thanks!" With a bit of a skip in her step she makes her way to the chips and starts grabbing some day-glo orange bags. "Like I said, we're gonna re-write our character sheets. It's the only way. Besides, what's the worst that happens? We get overly caffeinated and roll around in my sheets another night?" Coop is heard knocking over a display of lighters at the comment. "Besides, I'm pretty sure those weird dreams where just from being in artificial gravity again. Stop worrying about them."

It's not particularly hard to get Liyara to follow someone. Honestly. You just have to know or stumble upon the trick. Something that sounds new, and like it's either exciting, challenging, or an opportunity for her to show off how amazing she is? Well, you're done. Curiosity may kill the cat, but it has a harder time with draconic sorcerers. Of course, like any proper dragon or housecat, Liyara demurs like she was born to it.

"I still fail to see the appeal of this roleplaying," Liyara lies effortlessly, glancing around the 24/7 and taking every inch of it in with that perfect recall of hers, "why would I want to pretend to be someone else when I am already perfect?" Her flaunting and deflection hide the fact that Liyara greatly enjoys portraying other people, but in a very different context than that of a game. And it always has to end with "Surprise, I was a dragon all along!" or else where is the fun in that?

Look, she has to be bad at something. It's not going to be rules-lawyering, everyone who's spent five minutes talking with her knows that.

She glances at Coop when he nods and offers a specific quote. Her eyes glass over for a moment, as if she's reading something just out of sight. "Strange, I though the back of the books was where they kept the appendices," she states in a matter of fact way that is both designed to undermine Coop and showcase that she doesn't get the joke. She's above all of this. Clearly. Can't you tell just by looking at her? She tosses her hair once, just in case, and it billows briefly in a non-existent breeze before settling down.

None of this fronting stops her from following Yoiko and raising an eyebrow as she effectively gets to be a chips and soda carriage device. "You've been listening to the tuning fork too much. I'm telling you, nothing good comes from that lout and his feathered cap, imaginary or otherwise." Another lie, that, though this one is... quite defensible.

The Commander lets out a brief groan and gives her head a shake at Liyara's words. "Look, I don't mean literally. Although I'm sure there is some reality where we're just text on a paper and a few seconds with a pencil could change our lives dramatically." She ponders that another moment after saying it out loud. Surely she knows someone who could actually make that happen in passing…? She shakes her head again realizing that path only leads to madness.

"Look, you and your fork buddy, " She knows exactly how that sounds and peeks at Coop to confirm as much, "come from what I'd describe as a rich fantasy world where people explore dungeons and fight dragons. Thus I related things to D&D. What I mean is like changing our fate - taking advantage of the way our contrary physics react in this weird little rock." As she says this she makes her way to the counter and drops her arms full of stuff to eye Coop again. "You know what I mean, right? Surely you've seen people from other realities show up and defy all logic from whatever world you come from?"

Coop raises an eyebrow. "Look, lady. I just work here. If I wanted to talk about the fundamental nature of the universe I'd just go find the biggest jock and have him start punching me now. Besides, brains don't get you nowhere 'round here unless you count getting chopped up by the Icehouse killer."

Yoiko simply stares blankly a moment and then turns her attention back to Liyara. "Do you want anything else while we're here? We've kinda got unlimited money at the moment. Just don't ask me to explain how it works or we're gonna be here for the rest of the day."

Liyara balks at Yoiko's words. "There is no world in which I am anything less than this. I am fairly certain I exist in all timelines, just not WHEN I exist in all timelines." The confidence she states that with is staggering - considering there's absolutely no way anyone could verify her statement as true, it's quite a leap. "Though, admittedly, I am probably the best version in any of them. It's not their fault, even I almost wasn't me."

She glances to Coop, then back to Yoiko. "Fine... show me these books and explain your idea further. I'm not foolish enough to dismiss an idea just because I don't understand it yet." She loads all of her stuff on the counter next to Yoiko's, and then looks around. "...Infinite money is only helpful if there are things of value to purchase." Her head snaps back to Coop. "You don't have any enchanted weapons, legendary artifacts, or..." She looks thoughtful and then traces a fiery sigil in the air that is the spitting image of a green lantern ring she saw in a comic book, then snaps her fingers and the flames flicker green just long enough to clarify the intent. "...One of these, do you?" Nooone has any of those things for sale in a convenience store, Liyara.

If we could take a few moments and have an aside from this pair, it would behoove the reader to note that there is a more than passing chance that at least one edition of these sourcebooks will actually have Liyara's home in it, depending on which books Yoiko collected. Now, this is mentioned, dear reader, not to point out an amusing coincidence, but to warn you of the consequences of introducing such material to her. Not that anyone reading can stop this train, but you still have time to get off at the next exit. For once she gets going on the lore of her homeworld, Liyara is unlikely to stop ranting and raving for some time, and when most people talk about an angry person spitting fire, it's usually not so literal. Or in other words, dear reader... there be dragons ahead.

"...Perhaps a small aurochs for the road?" There is no such thing as a small aurochs, Liyara. Really.

Once again staring blankly, Yoiko looks to Liyara's leaps of logic as her mouth hangs open, twitching as she tries to form words that never come. Instead she just raises a hand to cover her own eyes, "Why do I always fall for the ones with egos? What does that say about me? Am I a terrible person?" Before anyone can assume she's expecting an answer, Yoiko lowers her hand with a roll of her eyes, "I never said anything about books!" She gestures towards Coop frantically, "He did! I only know about table top games in passing!"

Coop raises a brow mid-way through ringing up their order. "Look, I already said I didn't want any of this nerd stuff. If you need magical do-dads and old books, go to Ray's. This is just the 24/7."

Yoiko slowly nods her head at his words, handing over a credit card with a UFP logo on it. "Liyara? Babe? This is a mini-mart. Like a small market. They sell…" She reaches deep into her knowledge of fantasy settings, "…food and refreshments for long voyages. They don't sell any weapons more threatening than a cheap pocket knife."

Holding it up to the light, Coop blinks calmly at the credit card. "Darndest thing. I swear there's no chip in it but it picked it up anyways."

The Commander snatches it out of his hands and pockets it into her tool belt. "See? Don't ask me to explain. It just works. Future-magic." The last bit was meant as a joke so she smiles mischievously at Liyara only to sigh a moment later realizing she'll probably take it seriously…

There's a long, drawn out stretch as Liyara just looks back over her shoulder at Yoiko, followed by a slow smirk. "Confidence is an attractive trait." She says in response to Yoiko's question, as if remarking upon the weather. "Doubly so if earned." The redhead just looks from Coop to Yoiko for a moment, like she's sizing them both up. As if she hasn't already done plenty of that. Then there's a delighted laugh. It's musical, but also more than a little haughty. Imagine if Naga's laugh was somehow pleasant. "I know what a convenience store is, Yoiko."

... Wait. Was she messing with them? Oh, that's not good. It's already hard enough to follow her with their disparate approaches to analyzing reality. "Just driving home the point that there isn't anything here for me, is all." Nevermind, it's worse. Her sarcasm doesn't translate. This is going to be a rough ride, isn't it?

"...I confess some confusion, though. What exactly IS your plan?" The dragoness watches the exchange with the credit card and notes it silently. Money hasn't really been a problem for her here, she can take or earn what she needs fairly effortlessly, and get brontosaurus ribs from the UR if she needs them. That was, admittedly, a surprise. But not an unpleasant one.

Unfortunately, nobody just "sells" magical artifacts or reality altering powers, magic or otherwise, here. At least not that she's encountered. Back in Neverwinter and Waterdeep, there were shops a plenty where she could buy scrolls that were effectively weapons of mass destruction. It seemed a bit much power to concentrate in the hands of mortal capitalism, which is why she so frequently... took charge of them for safe keeping. It was the only ethical thing to do. If you ask her, anyway.

"My plan…?" Yoiko's voice pauses as she grabs the bags from Coop and makes her way towards the door (deliberately ignoring trying to figure out where her sarcasm levels begin and end). "Well, it's kinda…. 40% whim and 20% thought admittedly. I'm hoping luck will fill in the rest." She pushes open the door and winces at the perceived sunlight. "You wanted to get out there and see what's outside Mabase. My tech and your magic seems to have unexpected results. I figure we put our heads together, figure out how to get the ship I built in the apartment outside, and then we see where that road leads us."

The Commander lifts up the bags of snacks, "This is just some junk food to get us going. It absolutely doesn't help but humans are convinced it does - so why not?" She glances around at the occasional cars going up and down Fukuoka Court and Twisted Street and tilts her head, thinking about Coop's comment regarding Ray's Occult. "What do you need for your magic, anyways? Like do you actually need scrolls and dusty old books or do you like, pull them out of the air or something?"

The question isn't something Liyara was expecting, but being the headmaster of an arcane academy produces a great number of rote responses, one of which starts up right away. "Well, you see, mortal magic in Toril generally relies upon the weave, a generalized magical under layer to reality that...." She slows down, and tilts her head to one side for a moment. "....If I want to cast spells that aren't very specific types of fire magic, I need to harness the magic inherent in a proper universe, and not this isolated pocket cut off from the rest."

She huffs a little, and then crosses her arms. "All universes have magic, but not all of them have the weave, and trying to call upon it in a location without the weave can have unpredictable consequences. As per our little telepathic conundrum earlier." Right, where she accidentally admitted an incredibly minor aesthetic preference that she seemed unusually embarrassed to let slip. Dragons are weird.

"...So I either need to go somewhere infused with the weave, like my Solace Bole." Liyara has previously identified that as the grove within her magically growing tree. "Or I have to brute force it by meticulously reproducing the exact design of the weave involved in the spell, and then powering it with my own, highly magical, blood." Oh. Well. That sounds exciting.

Liyara looks back to Yoiko, and then shrugs. "...It's like if there were universes where different physics just rendered your phaser inert, or worse, made it fire beams of anti-matter instead. More caution was warranted, and I didn't excercise it. A mistake, if you will."

The blonde woman shrugs as they start making their way North along Fukuoka Court. Luckily the foot traffic is rather light today making the walk a bit easier. "Mistakes happen. I can't tell you how many time I jumped into something head-first on impulse without even considering that it was dangerous." It takes a moment but suddenly she lets out a slight giggle at a particularly note-worthy example, "Like, we should probably be more worried about carving ourselves into billions of tiny pieces and throwing them through a black hole at the speed of light, but teleporting is so much easier than trying to navigate a ship through and the insane math involved."

Crossing her arms a moment, the Commander lets out a sigh, "So you need this magical weave to pull magic from. Some places have it, and some do not. You can use your blood as a quick substitute, so it's gotta be something relating to the planet or the nature of the universe itself. Like it's written into your DNA. That also explains why you can create a battery like your Solace Bowl to store that energy." Yes, she said Bowl not Bole. She doesn't know what a Bole is so it's either a Bowl or a Boole.

"So an old occult library filled with documentation from all the intersecting worlds in the area wouldn't help you. So much for that clerk's suggestion." The blonde woman gives another shrug. "Otherwise that wasn't a bad idea. I was hoping some of that random luck might be kicking in when he brought it up."

Liyara actually slows to a stop when Yoiko admits that maybe tearing themselves apart at the atomic level and photocasting themselves in a slingshot orbit around a black hole is dangerous. Her jaw actually drops open a little bit, and she stomps her foot and flails her arms up in the air. "Oh, NOW it was risky, now that we've murdered ourselves twice." Her tail thumps on the ground behind them, and she lowers her arms after a moments and crosses them under her chest, intentionally framing her assets while she pouts. It's a choice.

"Next time we're using magic like the gods intended." ...There's not enough time in the day to go into what's wrong with that statement from Yoiko's perspective, probably.

"... And yes, the weave exists in most crystal spheres where people worship Mystra or Mystryl or whatever she's calling herself this week." Crystal spheres? Mystryl? Ok. "...And a good guess, but my blood is elemental magic in pure form. It's not from Toril or from ... well. Not from the prime material plane." Is that what she calls her universe? "... It's complicated. Just think of it as a power source, not a pattern. The pattern has to come from my sigil tracing." But wouldn't that leave room for mistakes? "...It's a very time consuming and error prone process normally. I wouldn't recommend mortals, even brilliant ones, try to do it with any speed." Doesn't she do it within only ten seconds or so? ... Oh, right, she's bragging again. She does that.

When Yoiko mentions an old occult library, Liyara's eyes light up, and she bites her lip, squirming just a little. "Well. There's no guarantee that it wouldn't have anything useful." Oh no. She floated the possibility of finding a library when she was on the station, too.

...It's probably nothing.

Probably.

The blonde woman lets out a laugh as Liyara not-so-subtly suggests there may be something to the idea after all. She looks up at the apartment complex on the far side of the fountain, but gestures in the opposite direction. "I know it's over by the mall, so we should head that way."

Moving her bag from one arm to another, Yoiko lets out a momentary sigh from the weight. "I've never been there myself, but I know that old commercial they show late at night. The one that always comes on after that stupid Devil May Cry ad?" Another cheerful laugh escapes her. "I love that one so much." She lowers her voice trying to imitate Dante poorly, "I don't want your damn business!" Another laugh, "All the while Stayin' Alive is playing in the background for whatever reason. Oh, it's too good."

She hums the tune a little as they pause for the crosswalk light to change. "Ugh, how does that ad go? I'm usually too busy laughing at the Devil Guy to pay attention." Yoiko lets out a soft sigh, "…something about due to the," she makes air quotes with her hands, "dimensional resonance of Twisted they have access to every book in existence? Sounds like a load of crap to me, but it might be fun!"

Walking quietly a moment she tries to give her red-headed friend a chance to talk but can't help but blurt out, "Besides, I think Ray's one of the Ghostbusters. That movie is AMAZING."

"Lead the way then, my fair-haired flame." Liyara winks and then intentionally starts ahead, completely negating her statement that Yoiko should lead. Why is communication so difficult with her?

As they walk, she confesses. "I don't have a television - that would require obtaining some sort of domicile, and electricity, and a television." She explains, as if these things are obviously self explanatory. "...Then I'd be setting down roots here, and I've always planned to help get people out of here, one way or the other." She's already found a few ways, but unfortunately in spite of trying to come off like she's forged no connections, she hasn't scarpered off at the first sign of freedom - she told people here that she would help them get home and she meant it. A promise is a promise.

"A dragon's debt is always paid." She says simply, and then her tail swishes behind her as they walk. "...Commercial sounds like fun. Every book in existence is certainly quite dangerous, though. I hope it's an exaggeration. I wouldn't want a copy of the Book of Vile Darkness or the Nether Scrolls floating around." ...Whatever those are.

"... What's a Ghostbuster?"

Ahh, yes. Your narrator here again to save us all from a disparaging scene where the blonde with the slug spots tells the red head with the wings in detail about the cultural icon that is the movie Ghostbusters - completely breaking the unwritten rules of RP and discussing someone's life as though they where placed on this planet just to entertain. Of course on one hand the awkward nature of the conversation does have some merit, and I'm sure Liyara's "scribe" (as he had one of his characters refer to himself) would find it helpful to know the specifics of what they talked about, but where is the fun of that? No, let's just skip this part and get straight to the next scene. Besides, as a pair of wise men once said, "It's a fact. Positrons don't react like that. You built a laser grid with no safety switch and Walter Peck was right, that's some shady shit."

----

The door opens with a too familiar jingle as a small bell is rung, much as the same was true for all old shops. Ray's Occult is a dusty place filled with books the likes of which only exist in old movies as we enlightened few know that any book can be acquired somewhere on the internet and read digitally - otherwise it's not worth reading. Of course Ray Stantz would say otherwise, and that's exactly what got him started and has kept him going all these years - to catalogue those that the world had forgotten.

Upon the glass case being used as a counter sleeps an old black and white cat known as Pagan. The pride and joy of one Kylie Griffin, a creepy gothling who runs the shop when Ray and his partner Egon Spengler are out chasing shadows and missing extremely important moments like this one. Oh, but what could they have learned from me, dear reader? What indeed…

Yoiko holds the door open for Liyara, and only releases it once the dragonborn woman's tail sways in behind her. "…but of course it's Twisted, so all of that really happened somewhere. Isn't it exciting??"

Hearing her voice, Kylie peeks her head out from the back office. "Welcome to Ray's Occult. There's books and stuff. Feel free to browse." Clearly her attention is strongly focused on something else. A series of electronic chirps can be heard before Miss Griffin steps out fully holding a smoking piece of electrical equipment like a rotting fish. "I don't get why Ray keeps these old shoe polishers around. Not a single one has worked right since I've been here." She drops it on the countertop to Pagan's dismay and sighs at the two women. "You need help with anything?"

Liyara tilts her head as she squeezes by Yoiko into the shop, her tail dragging along the ground for mere moments before the dusty nature of the shop causes her to lift it up. She glances down at it with a look of distaste, then coughs once as they enter. This isn't to say the place is actually dusty enough to be worth coughing - Liyara is a judgemental and sometimes rude person, so she very well may be coughing just to make a point and cast aspersions on the store. "Not every story can be real..." She murmurs, still having a bit of a hard time with it conceptually. She didn't seem to have any difficulty accepting that Star Trek was real... maybe it's easier for her if she sees it. The visual medium of shows and movies are a lot more immersive, after all.

"Well, I would hope there are books." The dragoness says, glancing over to Kylie. She realizes that the young woman is paying attention to a smoking device rather than her, but decides not to let it rattle her. That has become worryingly common since Liyara arrived here. "...Well, what's it do?" She asks, looking at the smoking device, her eyes occasionally glancing over at the shelves full of books. She quietly traces a sigil in the air behind her, and then pricks her own palm to let some blood flow into it and power a detect magic ritual. It will let her see everything in the room that's magic, as well as what kind of magic it is and how strongly it is magic. Well, anything not guarded by specific anti-detection measures like herself, anyway. She'd better hope Ray keeps the really good stuff in the back, that sounds like a recipe to blind yourself in a place like this.

<s>Meanwhile, in between the margins…</s>

"...The Dragon and the space Barbie are back in Twisted, some cat-creature is talking with a senshi, and ... ... is that raccoon flying a tank?"

My question is rhetorical. I can very clearly see one "Rocket Raccoon" piloting some sort of flying tank that did not exist five minutes ago. I place the blame on the girl in the gunner's seat, Dani Moonstar. She seems like the type to be at fault. It's good to know things just by looking at people.

I turn my view back to Lain, my golden eyes lidding, partially hiding the swirling flecks of black within. "What just happened? A moment ago they were still in their little tree thing, and nothing was happening on Twisted." Lain seems like she might answer questions, and even though I feel like this has already been explained to me, I still don't get it. Pretending to know more than you do works great on people. Not so great on infinite repositories of knowledge that identify as a kid. So I ask.

With a tilt of her head, Lain smiles. "Life. Good or bad; imagination will run wild when given half a chance." The young woman's outfit has changed once again. This time she's wearing an orange tank top and a baggy pair of brown carpenter jeans. It's as if she can't decide how she should look. Patting her pockets down a moment the girl looks worried, then with another smile she produces a cap modeled off of the bear pajamas she'd worn briefly. Pulling it down over her head, Lain lets out a soft giggle - another reminder of the child she was never quite allowed to be. True to form the cap is a brown bear head complete with little ears.

"Also a moment ago is a moment imagined, or have you forgotten our new timeline? Unless you've been watching the people of Twisted too." Falling into character, Lain gets a wishful look in her eyes and excitedly claps her hands together, holding them tightly to her chest. "Please tell me you're a watcher too! It's been so lonely as of late!"

- - - -

Kylie gives a shrug to the winged girl's question. "What's what do? This thing?" She points towards the smoking device on the counter. "It's a Psycho-Kinetic Energy Detector, or as Dr Venkman calls it a 'PKE Meter.' Do you know anything about the theory of Free Neutron Flux?" She notices the glazed look in Liyara's eyes but raises an eyebrow at what she assumes is interest in Yoiko's. "Okay, so spiritual energies produce psycho-kinetic valances. When a spirit manifests it ionizes atoms so quickly that neurons are ejected into the air - thus free neutrons. The PKE meter is supposed to detect those fluctuations to home in on a ghost as a way of tracking them. The problem is the nature of this place itself is chalked full of neutrons. It's like this whole rock of a world we're living on was inside a giant containment grid. There's too much background radiation and the meters just fizz out and start smoking."

The gothic woman lets out a sigh, crossing her arms to lean on the counter. "I've spent a lot of time studying Dr Spengler's research. It's how I ended up meeting these guys and getting a job here. So anyways, what do you ladies need? I've got a near photographic memory for this place so whatever you're looking for I can probably save you the time and tell you where to get it."

Yoiko inches closer to the counter, wanting desperately to get a look at that PKE meter and more so to see what's inside it, but instead of speaking up she glances over at Liyara since she's the one wanting to look up magical tomes and what-not. The last thing she could have possibly expected in that moment was to see her newest fling back lit in a blinding explosion of light. Because let's face it. Dr Ray Stantz is too absent minded to hide the good stuff in the back, only the dangerous stuff. Meaning the magical force of a bomb would likely hit Liyara if she tried to detect magic. After all, it takes a lot more than science to deliberately move a piece of New York City across dimensions and onto Twisted. It also takes magic, some incredibly powerful talismans, and an engineered dimensional vortex tethered to the very building itself. Just how do they have any book you can imagine? Because the building itself has been forced to exist everywhere at once…

- - - -

Lain suddenly cries out in pain as Liyara's spell erupts across the city of Mabase. In a brief moment the shattered remains of Twisted seem to collapse onto itself and balloon out across the multiverse in a spectacular flash of pink light. The young girl can feel her own timeline being burned like a roll of negatives tossed out into the sun. She drops into a ball, pulling her bear cap over her face and screams!

- - - -

Somewhere deep within the Medical Mechanica factory a quiet "ding" can be heard, not unlike the sound an old microwave makes when the timer runs out. The room is black and in the darkness seems to go on forever. With a click and a hum a series of florescent lights flicker into existence shinning light over a room full to the brim of monitoring equipment. This was the moment they where waiting for.

One by one the equipment roars to life letting off a vibration that echoes through the facility, agitating everything inside. The vibration spreads and echoes until it becomes a triumphant roar. The heat from all the equipment running at once blasts out of the factory filling Twisted with a dense layer of steam that blankets everything in hot fog.

As quickly as it starts, everything inside the factory shuts back down again save for a single display in that again darkened monitoring room. It's screen reads, "N.O. DETECTED - PORTAL ACQUIRED. CONNECTION WITH ATOMSK: 100%. ACTIVATOR EN ROUTE."

The silver-haired advent just shrugs. "I've been watching since I changed out of my work uniform, but I don't s--"

"A psycho-kinetic..." Liyara's eyes glass over a little, like she's reading things noone else can see, but then shakes her head. "Never heard those words arranged in that order bef-"

A scribe somewhere glances at a screen, reading the description of a bookstore. "...What's the metaphysical word for 'oops'?"

Back in the bookstore, Liyara yelps, a thoroughly undignified sound, as she sees into an infinite number of bookstores at once, which are also just this bookstore, and her pupils dilate to tiny points. "Tiamat's tits!" She curses, just comprehending enough of what she's seeing to get an arm up. "Yoiko, get behi--"

Outside of Space-time, Crux raises an eyebrow. "Oh, how cute, she triggered some kind of 𝕆𝕙 𝕊𝕙𝕚𝕥!" Golden eyes open wide, and both the pupils and the black flecks within dilate. "Not again!"

-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉

ℍ𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕙𝕚𝕥 𝕓𝕪 𝕒 𝕦𝕟𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕖? 𝕀𝕥'𝕤 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕓𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕪 𝕒 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 𝕢𝕦𝕖𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟. 𝕆𝕗 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕤𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖𝕟'𝕥. ℙ𝕖𝕠𝕡𝕝𝕖 𝕕𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕘𝕠 𝕒𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕 𝕘𝕖𝕥𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕕 𝕓𝕪 𝕦𝕟𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕤. 𝔹𝕦𝕥 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕕 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕒 𝕞𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖. 𝕀𝕞𝕒𝕘𝕚𝕟𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕒𝕟 𝕚𝕟𝕗𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕤𝕚𝕞𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕪 𝕤𝕞𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕚𝕟 𝕠𝕗 𝕤𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕚𝕟 𝕒𝕟 𝕚𝕟𝕗𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕝𝕪 𝕝𝕒𝕣𝕘𝕖 𝕞𝕚𝕒𝕤𝕞𝕒 𝕗𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕕 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕢𝕦𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕤𝕨𝕚𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕘𝕒𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕔 𝕔𝕝𝕦𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤, 𝕤𝕦𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕞𝕒𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕓𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕙𝕠𝕝𝕖𝕤, 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕕𝕒𝕣𝕜 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕚-𝕞𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕟𝕖𝕓𝕦𝕝𝕒𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕕𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕪 𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕣𝕖 𝕘𝕒𝕝𝕒𝕩𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕒 𝕔𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕤𝕠 𝕧𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕝𝕚𝕗𝕖 𝕚𝕟 𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕟𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕤 𝕨𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕦𝕘𝕘𝕝𝕖 𝕛𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕥𝕠 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕞𝕒𝕛𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕪 𝕠𝕗 𝕚𝕥.

ℕ𝕠𝕨 𝕚𝕞𝕒𝕘𝕚𝕟𝕖 𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕓𝕖𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕣𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕕 𝕦𝕡 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕒 𝕟𝕖𝕨𝕤𝕡𝕒𝕡𝕖𝕣 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕦𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕠 𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕡 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕗𝕒𝕔𝕖 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕒 𝕓𝕒𝕕 𝕕𝕠𝕘. 𝔻𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕘𝕖𝕥 𝕚𝕥 𝕟𝕠𝕨? 𝕆𝕗 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕤𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕕𝕠𝕟'𝕥. 𝔹𝕦𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕥𝕣𝕪. 𝔹𝕖𝕔𝕒𝕦𝕤𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕠𝕟𝕖'𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕒 𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕪 𝕓𝕒𝕕 𝕕𝕠𝕘.

-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉

"Lain?" Crux turns to look to the girl-goddess next to him, and he's practically blinded by what he just saw, but he still tries to gaze down her temporal trail to see what's happening to her. "You aren't allowed to die, you're literally the only person I can talk to." Yes, as usual, the Advent has sussed out that the appropriate response to a very serious situation is Sarcasm. Good job. Way to go.

Did I mention he's an idiot?
-҉

Liyara has never, EVER, been hit with a multiversal-scalar hexavelent anti-divination bomb of reciprocity before. She's never even conceived of such a thing, even after reading up on "ZIP bombs" when she first arrived here. The idea that so much magic would be gathered in one place that when she gazed upon it all, it would slap her with the multiversal equivalent of walking in on Elminster in the shower is something far beyond her ability to comprehend.

It is devastating. It is incomprehensible. It is multiversal in scope and perhaps even in damage.

But it's still just the surprise round.

<font color=#FF0000>[Liyara used 1 AP!]</font>

Alright, first things first. Liyara blocks. Do you want more detail than that? Fine. Golden Dragon scales creep up around her neck, her hairline, her eyes, and her hands, and she steps between Yoiko and Kylie and the blinding flash of light. Her teeth sharpen to something that shouldn't fit in a humanoid mouth, and she growls as she lifts a hand up to block this nonsense, whatever it is. It's bigger than she can see. Bigger than anyone can see. It's grander in scope than the world-spiral that contains a trillion trillion planets.

It's literally infinite.

And it's nothing compared to the size of her ego. The light - the magical impact - the multiversal fucking collapse and expansion... literally stops upon contact with her outstretched palm.

"𝕹𝖔. 𝕵𝖚𝖘𝖙 𝖓𝖔."

The voice is a powerful rumble, the shaking of all things, and here, in connection with a single magic point that connects to an infinite array of other magic points in an infinite array of other book stores... the word-shaped thunder echoes through all of them. "𝕴 𝖉𝖔𝖓'𝖙 𝖍𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖙𝖎𝖒𝖊 𝖋𝖔𝖗 𝖜𝖍𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖎𝖘. 𝕾𝖔 𝖓𝖔." Everywhere, across every timeline in every universe, the disaster just sort of stops expanding. It doesn't... go back together. It doesn't re-ravel or un-burn or anything so neat and tidy. It just... stops. It holds still. The force is abated. All of it. Physics be damned, and they most certainly are.

She reaches back behind her, and traces her fingers backwards in a precise pattern through the fire-blood still hanging in the air, undoing her detect-magic ritual as though her own ritual were an attack on herself and she's deflecting it, because 𝖐𝖆𝖗𝖘𝖍𝖔𝖏 𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖆𝖍𝖐.

It doesn't undo the other consequences of what she did, but at least she doesn't have to look at them anymore.

[[2026-07-21 - The Space Between the Panels | ...part 2?]]
|}}
[[Category:Nobody]]

2026-07-21- The Space Between the Panels

2026-07-27T01:35:00Z

Marr0w:

{{Logsummary|
Title = The Space Between the Panels
|Summary = So here we are, dear reader. The moment you've all been waiting for. The proper, dramatic reveal of yours truly. Your handsome narrator. Here we see me act on my brilliant plan's next step. Luckily it goes perfectly according to plan without any hitches what so ever. What plan, you ask? That's for me to know, and you to find out when it's too late to stop it. There's some other people in the scene too. I guess.
|Who = [[Liyara]], [[:Category:Nobody|Mr. Nobody]], [[Yoiko Hax]], [[Kylie Griffin]], [[Lain Iwakura|"@̏͐[ͦͣ͒=̈́̈́̍̑͐͆ḡ͛̂3͑̉͗̽,ͦͫ̽͛ͭ8d̅ͤ]͌\̂&̆ͣ̈ͩf̔͛̔bḃ̒̀͌̆̿ͮ=ͯ͑ͦ͒̆̏̈-͂qͯ̈̔̚]/̔hk̾ͬ͂͐ͣ%̃f̈́͂͒̃g̈́̅̍ͨ"]], [[Crux]]
|Date = July 21st, 2026.
|Where = The White Space, [[Rays Occult Books|Ray's Occult Books]], The streets of Mabase, [[Integra's Arms Apartments]], Yoiko's Apartment.
|Log=

[[2024-05-17 - Read any Good Books Lately? | ...part 1?]]

<div style="background-color: #FFF;color: #000; width=100%; padding: 0px 20px 0px 20px;"><br />
White. Blinding white light. The light that shines from every star. The blistering brightness from which the existence was created. The big bang? Sure. That light.

A soft trumpet begins to play. The soft whistling of a happy tune. A deep voice begins to sing, "Maaaaagic moooooooments, when two hearts are carrrrrin'! Maaaaagic Moooooooments, memories we've been sharrrrring."

As your eyes begin to adjust to the infinite, blinding, nothingness it fixates on a singular point. An old radio playing a cheerful song on top of a small table. Beside it slowly fades in a comfortable chair, and sitting upon it the most dashing and attractive man you've ever seen in your life. Looking smart in his well pressed suit. A wool vest beneath it and a smart blouse beneath it. The fancy type, not some woman's vestments, you ingrate.

Yes, the most handsome man in existence. Me. I stand, I clap my hands, and I step towards you. "WELCOME!! Welcome. I've been waiting so long to meet you." I flash you that million dollar smile and you find yourself strangely smitten by how staggeringly perfect I am. "I trust you found your trip here comfortably, my dear?"

I offer my hand to be kissed. A sweet embrace shared between your dashing narrator and the beautiful dragon woman I've brought before me. Dressed in a beautiful gown, swirling with every shade of blue and sparkling as if illuminated from an unseen light from every angle. Your gloved hand reaches for mine, and we twirl. Listening as the beautiful music changes to another track.

I can't help myself as I sing along, "It's impooooossible… Tell the sun to leave the sky….. It's just impooooossible…" I bend you at the waist, looking into those dazzling green eyes. "Ask a baby not to crrrry…. It's just impooooooossible….."

Liyara feels her breath taken away as she finds herself just smitten with me. I bow, I gesture towards the recliner. "I imagine you have questions for me. Rest my dear. We have all the time in the world to answer them."

"Hhhhhhhhhow?" Liyara finds herself strangely, suddenly, and most inexplicably in a white space. Is it blinding light or is it just white? She can't tell, but when the music starts playing, and the vocal track starts crooning, her slit pupils dilate then contract rapidly. Too rapidly. Several times faster than sound, her pupils swallow her irises, then contract down paper thin, then widen again. She can't. Quite. Seem to...

There!

Wait. What is this she sees? An end table and a sitting chair, an attractive man, and... Wait. His clothing, his manner of dress and bearing and the radio on the table. She knows this. This is an artifice of the many human worlds that are surrounded by wildspace and not phlogiston. The wrong ones. The ones that brute forced faster than light travel by simply... Exploding things really, really hard.

She thinks back, briefly to Yoiko's world, and the sort of God that answered her spell. Trelane? For some reason she feels like there is a sort of... Tangential connection here, not that thing, that stupid, stupid God, but ... Adjacent.

How the hell does she know that? It's easy. Simple. She's been wanting to slap one her entire life, and they all act like this. Past the imagery she recognizes only from her studies since arriving in Mabase, past the ... Surprisingly charming voice, it is really quite nice... And that stupidly perfect face ... That's a God. Or, well, one of the things that act like them, anyway. Liyara is an atheist; it's not that she believes Gods don't exist, more that she believes they're just strong beings that claim authority by virtue of power, same as anything else.

"..." She looks down at the man's hand, attempting to decipher what he is waiting for. She is not exactly up to date on her period pieces from alternative history human culture. "...I..." She's in a gown? When did she get a gown? Oh, it's a nice one though. Well, she doesn't love being treated as a doll but bonus points for being treated as a pretty one.

"My journey was acceptably serene, given what preceded it." She feels her hand reach for his, feels herself twirl in a dance. Feels herself appreciate music she's never heard before. Something is... Off. She does know to bow after the impromptu dance, but she imitates the man's bow rather than getting the woman's role properly. No context. She takes a seat as suggested, carefully shifting her gown for maximum elegance and presentation. She's only just begun wearing it, but it's hardly her first.

"...Which one are you then?" Beg pardon? Liyara, you're going to have to be much more specific than-- "Which human God are you?" Oh fine, just cut me off then, sure, go ahead.

"The god of detonated bookstores perhaps? I assure that was not my fault, anything that explodes when someone casts a simple first circle ritual is quite inherently unstable to begin with..." So she's chosen to go with defensive. That makes sense.

I clasp my hands upon my heart and simply gaze lovingly at the question. How quaint. Surely no malice to be had behind those words. "Dearest Liyara. Daughter of Lux, Grand…" Hmmph. I reach into my pocket, taking out a pair of spectacles and a small notepad. "GrandSCION of Hoondarrh: The Red Rage of Mintarn who lives Eternal." I throw the card and put the glasses away.

"I am but a humble narrator. Sitting in outside the panels of the world you'd found yourself in, and weaving a tale as old as time. Two love sick children, smitten with one another, and about to embark on a dangerous quest to see what lurks through thine iron makes."

I smile a wicket smile, showing far too many teeth for a normal man. Oh, but they are the normal amount of teeth for a man of my stature. I'm just that good of an ACTOR. "Oh, but alas. It is the way of the star-crossed lovers that some driving force comes between them and it ends in sadness or death." I lower my head in a show of sad resignation. "Oh, but I am remiss if I didn't point out that there was a way out of course. A simple favor to myself which you'll so willingly agree to, won't you? Yes. Of course you will."

"Do this task for me and I'll reset this entire chain of events and put you back with your little blonde tart as though nothing had ever happened." I shrug, "Or we can let events play out as they do now. Either way the alarm has already been sounded and events will continue." I shrug, "But one reality allows you to have it all, and the other…." I shrug. "The other ends up with her pretty blonde head in pieces across the back wall of the book store alongside the little gothling and her cat."

Holding up a finger, I call for a pause, "Oh, but do not think this is a threat, my dear. I'm not one of those little rabble-rousers like those so-called Gods you've had to deal with. That is just how these events play out." I smile… "As for who I am? I'm simply a Nobody."

There's a long, momentary silence, as Liyara gives a languid blink. Then two. Then she opens her mouth slowly. She isn't taking a long time to think, she's taking a long time to perform thinking. She is accustomed to people underestimating her speed and playing into it, utterly. "...But I blocked." Liyara, the headmaster of an academy of arcane arts, which surely requires a potent intelligence and remarkable education, says this simple thing as if it could rectify any and all situations.

"...Mr. uh... ..." Liyara pauses, reaching about her gown and only really now noticing that she is wearing quite elegant gloves. Oh, that is nice. She reaches into the slight excuse for a pocket in the gown, a seam that really is only there for visibility, not to hold anything for that would ruin the silhouette. Despite that, she pulls out... oh. It's a card made of flame, not a real card. Well. That makes sense. She is rather one note. She scrupulously examines the card she just created, furrowing her brows to highlight the performance. "...Mr. Nobody." She casually hits on the proper name, but also completely whiffs as she assumes it to be an incredibly minor slight, taking him at his word. She tosses the flaming "card" in the same manner, leaning forward with a smile that, by contrast, has the perfect amount of teeth. Radiant. Dripping with charm.

"...You are obviously a man of impeccable taste. Some sort of otherworldly power that will doubtless take me centuries to achieve." The nerve! "And you were watching us despite very much not being in the room OR setting off my scrying wards." She has scrying wards? Of course she does. "So I will assume you know many things I do not, while I am dreadfully limited by my own mind and lackluster imagination." She bats her eyes once, twice, and then sighs. "And the only thing I know is that I am far too important to be bothered by that silly explosion, and it won't get to Yoiko through me."

A single, tiny beat. "So do tell me then, good sir. Remarkable sir. Sir who looks quite sharp in that vest. Why will Yoiko be dying and what will you be asking of me to stop her from doing so?"

I pick at the dirt under my nails and shrug, "I'm only speaking the facts. There are two ways this scene ends for you. In the first version the localized break in reality takes out the building and everyone inside it, save for you of course because you're the magical Mary Sue of your own story and everything revolves around you." I give a polite nod to her exquisitely chosen attire. "Thus the gown you currently wear."

I pause with a smile as I peak behind the veil, "Of course I'm well aware that the original Mary Sue happened to be an original Star Trek character who everyone on the USS Enterprise fell absolutely in love with. The irony is not lost on me."

But I digress and must continue. "The other way this scene ends involves you taking advantage of the weave in the moment it's presence will be felt in the explosion and you heroically save the day, possibly showing off that impressive dragon form you have. One requires only a few more seconds on the clock than the other."

At this point I expected a few more mind games. Of course, dear readers, I expected a fight. Not obedience. I expected a struggle against the narrative as I presented it, but I'm sure the dear muse thinks it's funny to have her play along. To have her go with the flow in that trademarked passive way that she's doing. It doesn't amuse me. It doesn't amuse you. It doesn't amuse that annoying bard in the fork who….

I glance around looking for some trace of him. He was here. I swear he was. Or I am confusing things because it's been two years since last time…? No matter.

"I don't care what happens. It's not important to me. What is important to me is a bird. A single black bird that may or may not be locked inside that ugly appliance spewing steam into the air when you triggered the incident that brought you here. Sure, I may have nudged things along slightly, but you would have either ended up here or died in the process - so I consider it a win." With that settled, I make my request clear again.

"Should you find the bird, and believe me - you'll know it when you see it. You find a way to get it into a box. A little Schrodinger situation. That way I can claim it. Do that and you go back, and I'll go back to staying out of your way. Aside from a little amusing dream sequence here and there, of course." I smile that wicked smile of mine, "It's not like that little mirror incursion affected anything more than a little sand in your eyes…."

"Mary... Sue?" The meta-title is this time completely lost on Liyara, with no red mage to unhelpfully point out exactly what's happening. "...I don't know what that is, but you're right. Everything does revolve around me. I'm glad you understand." She tosses her hair once, very clearly for effect as she basically never does that, and then crosses her arms.

"And if I do this, you'll... what? Give me that extra time?" Liyara watches the man for a moment, her eyes shining. "...Or rather, give it back to me since you're stealing it now?" She attempts to imitate his studied disinterest, but her gloves are not nearly as interesting as her nails would have been, and she furrows her brows sincerely this time.

"...My death will simply be my cue to take over hell," She says simply and earnestly, still looking distraught, "but I'd prefer to spare Yoiko and, I suppose that cat..." What about the person, Liyara? What about the one running the book shop?!

Mirror incursion... mirror incursion... Liyara's eyes narrow, like she's trying to piece together a puzzle but she can't get at the piece. It's just out of sight, out of mind, or was it out of mind out of sight? Her eyes glass over, and she does that "reading something in her memory" thing that she is known to do when collating immense amounts of data, but for once, she comes back with nothing.

"...You don't affect my dreams." She finally states after a moment, looking back at the Nobody. "...My Oneiromantic precautions remain intact." Is that even a real word?! "...I don't think I'm privy to your jokes, and I rather don't enjoy that."

The omniscient narrator's smile widens. "Ah-hah. There's a kindling of that flame I was waiting for. It's not so hard to push back when you have something worth the attention, is it?" I smile and gesture around at the White Space. "You are outside of your reality. Outside of," a chuckle, "well… everything. This is the white that peers beyond the darkness. This is the blank space at the margins of the book of your life." I lean forward, a subtle darkness showing itself behind my brilliant blue eyes. "Time means nothing here."

After a moment I dismiss the notion itself, choosing instead to continue with my villain monologue, "But let's cut the bullshit. I don't care about you, or that piece of ass you're running around with. I don't care about that cat, or the woman who feeds it." My voice darkens to reflect the look in my eyes, "I don't even care about that stupid bird."

And just like that the darkness is gone again and I'm back to my cheerful, charming self. "But right now it's all a means to an end. My life gets easier if you go from point A to B to C without mucking about in the middle crying over something you cannot change alone - and even if it results in your sudden but inevitable betrayal of my bargain, I've already gotten what I need from you." I shrug, "So take it or don't. It doesn't matter to me."

"Oh?" Liyara's voice perks up several octaves when the man explains where... when... what... this is. She doesn't believe it, of course, but since when has the path to the truth been about belief?

"Vahrimiss."
The word doesn't sound in the way a normal word sounds. Which is to say, it is shaped by a tongue, given weight by air, and passes from lips, but that's where the similarities to other words end. The word is a placeholder, a word left in the oldest of languages, that reverberates like every unanswered prayer, every incomplete goal, and every abandoned promise all at once, a sort of sonar ping that only those who speak the languages above Celestial and below Abyssal can utter. How it reflects back to her will determine the shape of this place in a way no eyes can see or ears can hear. It is not sound. It is what came before sound. And what word did she use?

Vahrimiss. Loosely translated, it means "You're lying." But is he? She'll determine that herself.

Cut the bullshit? "Yes, let's." She agrees, and sits forward. The gown was, of course, immaculate, so even though it hugs her curves nicely, it is tasteful. This too, she appreciates. "If Time means nothing here, then you are my new favorite antagonist, Mr. Nobody." She still thinks she's being catty calling him that. She has no idea. And I'm not telling her.

"...If you've done anything to warrant my enmity, I don't remember it. And I remember everything." Do you, though? Do you? "So in the interest of making friends, I'm inclined to make your life easier contingent on two things. If you're lying to me..." And she'll know momentarily, unless she has, once again, dramatically overestimated herself. It would not be the first time today, and yet it is still something of a rarity otherwise. A paradox. Like this place. Like this conversation.

"...and if I can come back." Oh?

For what it's worth, I'm not lying. Not even by omission. "I'm not your antagonist. Not yet. Not specifically yours either. I'm just a man displaced from reality with a beautiful voice and a penchant for narrating, existing in a space that lets me bend an ear or two and manipulate events by simply doing so."

"I admitted to having some fun with a dream or two, but that's child's play. Nothing more." I shrug as I begin to briskly walk around the table and chair, "My influence is more subtle than that, but my anger can be much more… direct." I pause, a simple demonstration would perhaps be efficient? "Allow me to give you an example. If I'd wanted to I could have killed you before I ever brought you here…"

My voice grows more serious as I begin to hone my craft at her expense, "Liyara sits, disbelieving the words she's currently hearing. Of course every strange want-to-be God tries to act like they're more important than anyone else. That they're omniscient and they can bend reality at their will. What makes this one any different? Is it his voice? His devilishly good looks?" I turn to face her directly, hovering a few inches from her gaze, "…or is it his words, which even now seem to be turning her fiery blood to ice. The chill starts in her fingertips and traces along her arms, ice crystals forming on her skin even as she looks down in disbelief."

"She leaps to her feet, knocking the chair backwards and glaring at the handsome man ready to call upon her magic to destroy him, but the words don't come to her suddenly missing mouth - yet she feels the need to scream!" I stand straight again, holding my hands to the heavens. "BUT THEN…. Then it's all over. Liyara feels her body return to normal, albeit with a temporary stutter as even now her teeth continue to chatter from the cold."

I clap my hands and laugh, "Oh, but that's not enough is it? A simple trick of hypnosis? A creative suggestion? Some indigestion caused by those awful cheese flavored puffs Yoiko insisted on purchasing earlier? Which is when the narrator snaps his fingers. Realizing the next best thing, something definitive that couldn't be easily done with a mind game or two. Suddenly she feels herself shift, turning her into the young Engineer. The sensation of her insides twisting and turning not entirely uncomfortable, but certainly foreign. It's not until the Hax symbiont is suddenly nestled inside her, latching itself into her nervous system, and the memories of three previous lifetimes including Yoiko's herself, come flooding into her thoughts."

"Daemon, the proud Dilithium miner who couldn't have children and died alone. His only talent being the ability to drink anyone and everyone under the table. Linda the paraplegic musician who wasted her resources on her children instead of making sure she could have the ability to walk. …and of course Yoiko Enoch. The young engineer who offset her years of training with the knowledge of the other two to get a fast pass into the Star Fleet, despite having to abandon most contact with her home world, and helped design one of the prototype nacelles that would eventually rip her precious ship apart and take the life their dear doctor." I smile wickedly, "…and even now as the thoughts try to merge themselves into Liyara's mind she seethes in anger that this weak little human before her could rewrite her existence with only a few words."

"Look, Liyara. I'm not here to fight you or grandstand about how great I am. I meant when I said I've already gotten what I needed from you. Oh, and I do hope you hate me for this. Enough to warrant finding a way back here to kill me, perhaps? I'd like that very much." I must admit I'm almost giddy at this point. "I just needed you to know I EXIST. Why specifically you? Because you where the easiest one to lure here and the one most likely to realize that I can be killed and find a way to do so. After all, now you'll spend the rest of eternity wondering if your actions are your own, or if I'm just being a bastard."

"Wh---" The chill stops Liyara, and as her mouth disappears and she finds herself on her feet, staring at first herself, then back up into the man's eyes, those brilliant green eyes of hers frost over, as if to flash-freeze, but then the pupils dilate again, and bafflingly, her pupils, JUST her pupils dilating, are enough to shake off the sheet of ice forming.

When her mouth returns, she takes a breath, her eyes racing back and forth, mapping out everything. Whatever else is about to happen, she needs to be aware, she needs to be focused, she needs to be cataloguing, she needs to be...

Yoiko. She needs to be Yoiko, apparently. The brief moment of dysphoria, of feeling genuinely vulnerable for the first time in a while, of everything she is being stripped away, is still not enough to break her concentration, not completely. She... was cataloguing. What was she cataloguing? As Liyara's blazing fast mind, crystal clear focus, and iron will are completely sublimated, Yoiko's takes over. Task-based, scientific, rigorous, razor-sharp. She was cataloguing. She can't remember what, she is not Liyara anymore. But the thought, the thought echoes. Focus. Remember. Pay attention.

So Yoiko does. The method. Observe all, discard nothing, observe again. Her memories. Sharp. The feeling of the symbiont attached to her nervous system. Accurate. True. Anchoring. The memories pulled through it, not so sharp. Soft, engulfing, supportive. They are warm and comforting like ambrosia drawn through a sieve. This is who she is, who they were, who we are. All good. All there. Linda's songs, her children. Check. Daemon's favorite booze and how it changes three shots in. Check. The sensations of her ears, eyes, smell, ambient internal temperature in so much as she can consciously assess them all. White space. A human man. Handsome. Great voice. Lies with the truth, instantly clocked. Currently on a power trip. Talking ... not to her. To... Liyara?

Liyara. Her memories of Liyara surface, and she catalogues them, too. There is a different kind of warmth there, but dwelling is not the task at hand. Observe. Analyze. Some incredibly small part of her, distant as the stars, assesses whether she would be comfortable wearing a nice pair of pumps.

That's a weird thought to come unbidden.

She is passing this information on. To... someone. Herself? To Liyara? Not the weirdest thing that's happened to her this week, probably. Wait. Did she just explode? No, focus.

"...The cheese puffs were awful." Liyara Yoiko finally admits, looking... lost? No. Never lost. Concerned? Maybe. Thoughtful? Certainly.

That's when she hears it. The reverberation. The man isn't lying. And she remembers. Some part of her, of Liyara witnessing herself breaking down, remembers. And Liyara Yoiko goes completely still.

It's only a second, maybe two. For her, and people like her, it's a small eternity, as she waits, cataloguing every single part of her mind and her brain, for they are two separate things. A normal person, or perhaps a sane person, would be worrying about whether or not they are in control. And ... in a way, she is. But her first act, when faced with a complete loss of control of her body, the fabric of her reality, her very identity and memory... is to commit every memory of Yoiko's, Daemon's, and Linda's that she experienced into her own memory, and run the mental equivalent of a CRC check on them, herself, and everything else second to that.

"You hope I hate you?" She eventually looks back up to the Nobody, those eyes watering with... well, actual saline flows from her tear ducts... She's crying? Is this what crying feels like for humanoids, and not giant molten lizards cosplaying at being human? "You've just given me three of the most beautiful gifts you could have given me."

Oh, here we go. We've all read these stories, time and again. How lovely and heart-warming, to know that she so cherishes the memories of Yoiko and her past lives.

"You showed me you exist." She says quietly, and those eyes, brightest cobalt now, dilate in a "normal" fashion.

"You let me experience... this." She puts a hand on her Yoiko's sternum, taking a deep breath and just... feeling. Yes, even this decrepit old lizard heart does have room for sentimentality after all. Were you starting to doubt her for a moment?

"And you told me you can die." Those eyes brighten, and somehow, just for an instant, an impossible instant briefer than the window between the stepped electrons reaching down from the sky and summoning a Forked Leader back up into the sky, they blaze green again. Or maybe it's a hallucination, a trick of the light. After all, she can't manipulate reality. Yes, perhaps our unreliable narrator's senses are just being unreliable. It's probably just that.

"You're my third favorite person now. Because you've solved all of my problems all at once. You want me to put a crow in a box? Of course, darling," she drawls, somehow lapsing into Liyara's more imperious, Faerunian accent, "for you, I'll slap a label on the box and ship it, too."

She sounds... ... happy.

Well.

That's... probably fine.

Well, that won't do. That won't do at all. I narrow my eyes and reality comes flooding back in. "Cute. See? That's the fire I was expecting this whole time. Defiant. Stubborn. Liyara shifts back into control as her body returns to normal. The extra minds fading away slowly but surely." The very nerve of her. Beautiful gifts!? Are you fucking kidding me? I don't even care that she just agreed to everything. The very thought of her suddenly sickens me.

Gone is the illusion of the man I once was and replaced is the form I am now cursed to hold. Broken pieces of a man floating in a rough approximation of my form. Half of my face gone. Glowing light shimmering from the cracks between my pieces. Pale human skin and what looks like a sliming black body suit are stretched over the chunks. Look, I didn't get any consultation regarding how I look. What's your excuse?

"…whatever." The word tastes foul on my lips. "Go save your other half, cherish your little lives, and enjoy watching it all crumble when it inevitably falls apart." The very nerve of her. "Just make sure you ask Satoshi about ATOMSK before you eventually waste your time chasing steam. Otherwise you won't understand the third act at all." I shrug to dismiss her. She only has to walk away. Why I don't just SEND her away is a question I don't feel like answering right now.

I don't even feel like listening to music anymore.

Liyara watches him as her body is hers again. Her mind is hers again. She snatches what she can, like every microsecond more of Yoiko's memories is water and she has wandered, parched, for centuries. And then they are gone, and she is whole again.

"...Amazing." She says as her eyes behold the creature that was once human. He still looks human, after a fashion, like someone unspooled a human, unwrapped his human suit and found nothing inside. "You are this ethereal thing, beyond whatever human form you once wore, perhaps beyond any human." Her voice intones softly, getting quieter, like she is speaking to a frightened animal instead of an incredibly powerful creature that could unmake her, and in fact already has. "But you don't realize what you've done."

She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, concentrates for a moment, and then she weaves an image in the air with fire, drawing before this Nobody what she sees in her mind. And what she sees in her mind is... complex.

Neural pathways that would give a positronic brain an inferiority complex retrieve the architecture, the anatomy of her universe at dizzying speeds, delivering them to her hand as she traces the lines, the esoteric math, shape, constants, and structure that underpin it all. A line from hers to other adjacent ones, planes of fire, ether, and dozens more, all traced in nearly an instant. And then... another line... from this cluster to what she clearly draws as a smaller cluster inside a singularity. And from that, to another cluster. Even before she gets far, it's obviously Yoiko's universe. The math is different. The shape is different. Even the constants are different. Only the vaguest of similarities remain.

"I could spend eternity mapping these out. Do you know how long it takes? Of course you do." She says, as if her operations to covertly map the infrastructure of the universes and pocket universes she finds herself in were completely public knowledge. Well, he said she's the main character. That means he was reading. Watching? Yes.

"...Or..." She traces a wide circle around everything, and alights this one with pure white flame that expands and fills all the spaces in between everything she's drawn out. "...I can get it all from here without wasting an instant of time." She stares Mr. Nobody in the eyes, which requires a tilting of her head with the way his... ness... moves.

"Are you going to stop me? Or are we going to be friends?" She's smiling, but... there's a manic excitement behind her eyes now. Something obsessive. Something inhuman. She wants this. She wants it badly. She will kill him die trying to get it, if she has to.

I turn and stare, my one eye twitching. "This place doesn't give you power. You can't just take it for yourself. Even if you could I could just narrate it away from you. The trouble with being omniscient is how painfully mundane each interaction can truly be. I let a little bit spill over here. I nudge a few things over there. Then the little peons like yourself decide, 'Oh, I have this brilliant idea.' Then you dance for me until I grow tired of the song."

I let out a deep breath, and resolve myself back to my old form again. "I'm tired of this song." I walk back, glaring into her amber eyes. My voice much more matter-of-fact. "I can rewrite you into nothingness and there's little you can do about it." Let's set that in stone, shall we? "Liyara knows she cannot kill Mr. Nobody. Not just yet. She has to return here before that door will open up for her." There. Is that solid enough? "And she will return here. By the Nine Hells of Baator, she will return here."

With that I offer an apologetic smile, "But for now you need to leave, because if you stay here you won't ever be able to do so and your little gal-pal meets her end alone, and the only pussy she'll ever see again is Kylie's little Pagan, splattering along with the rest of her across the street outside Ray's little bookstore. Capiche?"

"I have power, darling." She uses that term again, she's never used it on Yoiko which means it's not a term of affection, but a knife. "What I don't have is time. Dragons age. Events come and go. Universes collapse." She says all of this like she's witnessed it, but our narrator can read her profiles and her secret histories, he knows she's not even cracked two hundred years yet. She's merely an adult red dragon, and barely one at that, just out of young adulthood. In dragon terms she's "barely legal." If Dragons cared about consent.

"...I don't want YOUR power. How droll." She waves a hand at him, almost dismissively. "To take someone else's power is the absolute height of insecurity and shows a weak pride. No. This place represents infinite time, and therefore infinite knowledge."

She looks away for a moment, then feels this narration wrapping around her and snaps her head back, green eyes blazing as they meet his. "Don't you go visiting my understanding, my knowledge. Not ever!" There's the rage. Not before. Not when she and her entire reality was putty in his hands for his demonstration, but when they were talking like two people and he had the audacity to press "skip cutscene."

She turns away again and marches off. "It was strange meeting you. But you looked better in your true form. In case you wanted MY consultation in how you look."

Oh how sweet, she likes the glowing unspooling tapeworm loo-- ... wait. Run that back?

I watch her go with a shake of my head. "You know, when you were regaling me with her tales, you didn't tell me she'd be so FEISTY." The comment, of course, being directed at our absent little mage who SHOULD HAVE PROBABLY SPOKEN UP BY NOW. "And don't try to tell me that you've suddenly gone mute because the little Trill hooked your fork up to a communicator. Probably voided the warranty too."

Oh, but I suppose I should hold up to my end of the bargain. I did promise to help get rid of that nasty little scene lock I suppose. Liyara will find herself stepping out of the White Space like walking out of a fog.

</div>

Lain finds herself curled up in a ball, floating beside her new friend. She pulls off her bear cap and slowly pulls herself back to her feet. "I'm fine. Thank you." He's given a side-glance about that 'only person I can talk to' comment, but then she pulls out her mobile device, flicking screens showing Twisted into the air around them.

It takes a moment of searching before she points towards a screen showing Ray's Occult. Kylie Griffin stands over a smoking PKE meter while Yoiko Hax tries to get a closer look. Liyara stands on the opposite side of where she had been before the explosion. "Did something just get edited?" She looks up at Crux with a face full of concern. "Is that possible?" For Lain to be unsure of something is a bad thing. Potentially a very bad thing. Let's hope it never happens again.

𝕊𝕠. 𝕎𝕖'𝕣𝕖 𝕓𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕣𝕠𝕠𝕞 𝕟𝕠𝕨.

ℕ𝕠, 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕝𝕠𝕓𝕓𝕪 𝕠𝕗 ℝ𝕒𝕪'𝕤 𝕆𝕔𝕔𝕦𝕝𝕥, 𝕚𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕡𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕖 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕟 𝕓𝕖 𝕤𝕒𝕚𝕕 𝕥𝕠 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕒 𝕝𝕠𝕓𝕓𝕪. 𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕧𝕒𝕤𝕥, 𝕦𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝕔𝕝𝕦𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕠𝕗 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕘𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕝𝕖𝕪𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕤, 𝕡𝕝𝕠𝕥𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕤, 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕓𝕪𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕘𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕟 𝕛𝕒𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕠𝕘𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕟𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕝𝕪 𝕕𝕖𝕥𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕒 𝕞𝕦𝕝𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕖'𝕤 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕙 𝕠𝕗 𝕓𝕠𝕠𝕜𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕖𝕤. 𝔸𝕟𝕕 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥? 𝕊𝕠 𝕃𝕚𝕪𝕒𝕣𝕒 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕒 𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕪 𝕓𝕚𝕥 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕜𝕟𝕠𝕨𝕝𝕖𝕕𝕘𝕖? 𝕊𝕙𝕖 𝕤𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕤𝕖𝕖𝕞𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕜 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕤 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕚𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕒𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤, 𝕠𝕣 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕟 𝕛𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕣𝕖𝕘𝕦𝕝𝕒𝕣 𝕔𝕒𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤. ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕜 𝕠𝕗 𝕚𝕥, 𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕐𝕠𝕚𝕜𝕠 𝕥𝕠𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕕 𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕓𝕠𝕠𝕜, 𝕤𝕙𝕖 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕 𝕚𝕥 𝕚𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕝𝕪 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕣𝕒𝕡𝕚𝕕𝕝𝕪. 𝕊𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕟𝕠 𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕖. 𝕀𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥... 𝕕𝕠𝕖𝕤 𝕤𝕙𝕖 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕕𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟?

𝕎𝕒𝕚𝕥, 𝕟𝕠, 𝕓𝕖𝕗𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥.

-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉-҉

"Edited?" Crux's still basically blind for a moment; his normally golden irises are basically all black now, with little gold flecks swirling in them instead of the normal gold-with-black-flecks look they usually sport. "What do you mean edited?" The pupils slooooowly contract, here where time has no flow, and he winces. "...Oh. She's not standing in the same spot. The hell did she do?"

And that's when the Advent does a double take. He was looking with his temporal-spatial vision. Because, OBVIOUSLY trying to look at someone in a different universe entirely with your basic human eyesight is an endeavor in futility. So. Then. Why does he find himself staring directly at Liyara? In the normal "she's right over there and she can see me" way?

He slowly lowers the arm he'd instinctively held up to shield his vision from the "light", even though that could never have helped. His eyes narrow, and he sees Liyara directly in front of him - a hole in the fabric of space-time ripped in between himself and the dragoness. It's a jagged, pixelated tear, as if someone tore through a video game screen to get to him.

"Well. You don't see that every day."

-҉

"...Bahamut's blood, what an odd creature." Liyara murmurs, before realizing that where there should be a gaping hole in the building, there is instead a gaping hole in time space. And she is face to face with a man with silver hair and narrowed, golden eyes. He looks irritated, which... in fairness, so is she.

"...Yoiko?" She affords herself a slight glance behind her before returning her attention to the man. If it's not one weirdo it's another. Who just casually sits in a hole between realities? Nobody. Heh.

Alright, so, none of that was my fault, and for the record I absolutely told you she was feisty. You just "couldn't hear me" because I "wasn't in the scene" or something. As if that's my fault. Skill issue, clearly.

Yoiko glances over at Liyara as she calls out. It's clear from her eyes still lingering on the device in the shopkeeper's hands that she's hesitating a moment, "What's up?" Her eyes finally catch up to her face and she looks directly at Liyara, not seeing anything amiss.

She does pause a moment though and looks to her other side and back, realizing that something was off but not registering it as important enough to focus on. "Don't tell me you already found something that'd help us." So far she doesn't see the gaping hole in time and space, probably because it wasn't meant for her. A shame, because she'd be far more interested in that than the toy on the counter.

----

Lain raises an eyebrow at Crux's portal, shaking her head and the needlessly flashy method of looking across the vast expanse. It only lasts a moment before she's peering at Liyara too. Unfortunately for all her time watching individuals, she never quite figured out that necessary 'how to read them' part. She narrows her eyes as if trying to see something that isn't there, but quickly gives up and goes back to trying to understand how something edits a moment in time.

----

Elsewhere, the monitor continues to display it's warning about ATOMSK. Seems like Liyara wasn't the only thing not properly put back exactly as it should have been…

There's a long moment where Crux and Liyara just seem to stare at each other. Crux's eyes narrow further, like he's squinting, trying to see something, while Liyara becomes unnaturally still, and the ambient temperature in the room increases by three or four degrees.

It only lasts for a few brief moments, and then Crux's eyes slide off of the dragoness and down to the dagger at her hip. He furrows his brows for a moment, then smiles to himself and looks back to Liyara with a bit of a smug smirk. And then the portal closes, leaving the two scenes separate once more.

"Well. That was about as successful as was suggested." Crux offers to Lain, turning to the girl now that they're "alone" again, but doesn't bother elaborating what was successful or who suggested it. "She didn't do it. Someone else did." He holds a hand out to Lain, offering to show her what he saw. "Wanna see?" Oh hey, this position is reversed from what it was a while back. Now he's offering and she almost certainly isn't thrilled.

-҉

"Found... a few somethings..." The dragoness watches the portal close, and for the first time in Yoiko's memory, Liyara is sweating. "...Today is not at all going like I expected." She turns back to Yoiko and Kylie, looking over the meter.

"...Bird, what bird?" She asks herself, but really she's asking a certain Michelin Man Cosplayer where the hell this weird creature she's supposed to box up is. She said she'd do it. She'll do it. She just... doesn't understand. Even if he'd dropped the name Atomsk, she's only heard it once before interconnected with gibberish. Though the recollection of WHEN she'd heard it might set her nerves atingle again. Why did she come back here again? Right. Promises. She should stop making those.

At this point Liyara has Yoiko's full attention. Although a smile does cross her lips when she realizes that Liyara is looking at a Stay Puff figurine. "Did you say something about a bird?" She reaches over, pickup up the figure and marching it across the counter. "Mister Puff isn't a bird. He's the form of the destructor! Many schlubs and zools where burned that day."

Kylie just rolls her eyes at the conversation, deciding to use her photographic memory to recite Vinz's quote. "During the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex supplicants, they chose a new form for him, that of a giant Sloar. Many Shubs and Zulls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I tell you." It was weird having people quote things from your world, but at least this one seems to respect it.

Yoiko laughs and gestures back with her thumb. "That! Exactly!" She giggles a little, putting the Stay Puff back where she found it. "You wanna talk about it?"

----

Lain raises an eyebrow, very aware of the sudden shift in their dynamic. As if to answer his question, she pulls the bear hat back over her head. "After you…"

Crux just offers Lain a brilliant, devastatingly radiant smile. "Alright, but this is gonna be weird and wild, I don't have any psychic memory transfer or whatever the newfangled kids use these days, so I'm gonna just have to brute force it, alright?"

...Alright.

...What does that m--

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

And then Crux is literally re-shaping the light that's hitting Lain's eyes, just straight up playing a projector onto her retina, but not in the painful way, just in the sudden and probably unexpected way, as Lain will suddenly see exactly what he saw as he was staring at Liyara, but cued up as if it was all being seen through a normal visual cortex and not whatever strange organ Crux uses to see fifth dimensionally.

It begins with the portal, massless space-time ejecta parting around it to reveal Liyara's form, and then the woman turning to look directly at Crux Lain. Weirdly, Lain will also hear what Crux heard - some sort of inner-ear stimulation, perhaps?

"Bahamut's blood, what an odd creature." She said microseconds before her expression registered that she saw Crux through the portal. The feed is played back in slow motion, but there's no audio warping, like time dilation still thoughtfully plays all the right notes at the right speed. There is an... emptiness behind Liyara, a wrongness. Like a wake she leaves in the timestream - Lain can see it follows Yoiko, too. The absence is confusing, but it is Kylie's presence that gives it context; effortlessly, as a tiny side thing in the corner of her "vision", Crux Lain can see a blurred, steady line of after-images behind Kylie of everything the girl did before Yoiko and Liyara walked in for the day. It's... quiet, subtle, like the notes of a perfume in the air or the slight sound of someone's breathing, but it's there and visible and becomes more and less clear depending on how much of Crux'sLain's attention drifts to Kylie. "Yoiko?" The recording of Liyara doesn't break his her gaze, but allows some glance back towards her blonde companion.

There is the sense of Crux's Lain's eyes narrowing, not the physical sensation but the visuals being played back to her. The emptiness in her wake grows, distorts very slightly, but still does not resolve into anything, like eyes trying to focus on an image that just won't be focused upon. The recording of Liyara becomes stone-still now, and the insane detail with which this "recording" was captured allows Lain to perhaps see what she did not the first time. Blood vessels constricting. Pupils thinning. Face flushing. Muscles tensing. Liyara was afraid. Lain can "hear" the recording of Yoiko's response, and that's when stuff gets... weird.

Crux's Lain's gaze drifts down to Liyara's dagger, and the slightly blurred trail behind it just explodes into visual focus, the result of so much effort being attempted to focus on Liyara suddenly succeeding on the dagger that the last week of the dagger's existence just sort of leaps into view. A disintegration, a space station, a pleasant grove, a skip in the recording, a pleasant grove, a space station again, another disintegration, Twisted, a bookstore. Wait. Go back. A skip in the recording?

The dagger's history rewinds as Crux Lain goes back over the visuals. The dagger's owner and her blonde companion in the grove. A skip. The dagger's owner waking up. Rewind. Skip. Rewind. Skip. Rewind. Slowly forward. Frame by fr--skip. Fast forward to the bookstore. The dagger's owner casting some basic magic ritual, a hand motion that has temporal weight - it has been performed hundreds of thousands of times before, but none of those times blew anything up. A flash of light, the universe staggering under the weight of Ray's folly... and then... skip. The dagger's owner has changed locations in the store. ... Rewind. Skip. Rewind. Skip. ... The same pattern. Like a bit of the film was simply... edited out.

The visuals rush away from Lain's eyes finally, Crux releasing her from this picture show.

"...See?" That's Crux this time. Wow. Someone needs to slap that guy.

-҉

"Some of those words made sense to me, and almost as many sound like you made them up." Liyara replies to Kylie and Yoiko's little quote off, her eyes searching around them for some sign of this black bird. Crow? Raven? Shapeshifty familiar? She won't miss it. She's a very good multitasker.

"Talk about what? About the Destructor, Schlubs, and Zools?" Liyara blinks once, and tilts her head. Then looks back at Kylie, who is giving very "disaffected youth" energy. "...Are these things you speak of real? Not some elaborate fiction humans conjured for entertainment?"

Lain's expression from the outside is probably far too amusing. The young woman tilts her head, blinks, winces, blinks, stares. Her head tilts from one side to the other. Each time things seem to rewind she opens her mouth to speak but completely fails to do so making her repeat the entire process.

Once things go back to normal, Lain simply lowers her head rubbing the bridge of her nose with one hand. "That can't be right. It doesn't work like that." She finally looks up again, crossing her arms.

"Who would even have the power to do something like that? Twisted doesn't have a normal flow of time. You can't rewind a fixed quantity of time energy. When it's gone, it's gone. There's not enough to 'time travel.'" One can almost hear the air quotes in her voice. "Even when Twisted was 'young' time didn't actually move backwards. It just aged at an accelerated rate as it burned off the energy is stole from Chronos and the chaos from Trinune."

Look, we're not going to talk about how she knows these things. She's proved she can read our wiki in her spare time. Don't question it.

After a moment's hesitation, she addresses the elephant in the room with a look of worry. "Is there a third watcher somewhere?"

----

Kylie shrugs her shoulders at Liyara's question, stating rather matter-of-factly, "It is where I come from. You guys are the weirdos who think the Manhattan Cross Rip of '85 is a movie." She ponders that a moment before sliding still-smoking PKE meter into a drawer. "The movie you guys know is almost identical to the one they made in Dimension 68-R, but they didn't look anything like the Ghostbusters in that world."

"Speaking of, my favorite alternate dimension the guys have charted is 68-E. I'm a badass in that one, but the time frame is all screwed up and Dr Spengler is older than he should be."

Yoiko tilts her head as she listens to Kylie speak, "No chance you wouldn't mind filling out some paperwork to document all that, would you? The Federation would love to add that to our database."

Kylie just laughs, "You think they didn't document everything the moment they had a chance? Come by here later and I'll get you a printout. I'd do it now but we'd run out of ink before I got to volume 4."

It should probably be a worry that the Commander is suddenly far too excited about that offer...

"I see." Liyara muses quietly, taking Kylie at her word. "So any idea anyone had for a story may have a matching or at least rhyming reality somewhere." Her eyes glass over for a moment. She really should have asked Mr. Nobody for his name. She can't well search up "Mr. Nobody" and expect any useful results. A complete failure on her part. She rifles through her perfect memories, narrowing her eyes for a moment.

Wait. She's back here, she can corroborate that man's story. See if she was being taken for a loop, for a mind-game, or if she really did become Yoiko for that brief moment. "...Yoiko, what was Daemon's favorite alcoholic refreshment? And what about three shots in?" If she remembers that correctly, that's a detail she likely couldn't have made up - for instance, she didn't even know those beverages until moments ago.

-҉

"Probably." Crux says casually to Lain's question, sounding relatively unconcerned about the idea of another watcher. "In my experience there's always someone skulking about. Usually it's me, but still." The young girl can see the Advent looking lost in thought for a moment. "...I don't... actually understand time the way you just described it, like it has some sort of finite quantity. I'm a bit more instinctive. But..." He taps his chin for a moment, looking pensive.

"Probably..." He starts and trails off again, and starts tapping his foot on the empty space. It's an obvious habit that marks him as having grown up human immediately. "... Probably whoever they are isn't manipulating time. It's probably something else, entirely, and this is just a side effect."

Well look at him, he got there in the end. Sort of. Anyway it's pretty good for an idiot.

But what would that mean, Crux?

"Probably means some sort of reality warping, some anti-scrying measures, or extremely high speed teleportation, faster than even my eyes." There's a pause for a moment, then a chuckle. "That last one's pretty unlikely."

The blonde engineer is still a little too engrossed into the idea of a Stanz/Spengler multiverse guide to really click to the question being presented. Amusingly, or almost because of this, she doesn't quite realize what she's about to say until it's too late. "Depends on what I'm feeling, really. If I can get it, a Saurian Brandy. If I can't..." Slowly realization starts to dawn on her, "...an Aldebaran Whiskey."

She turns her head slowly, looking at Liyara with narrowing eyes. "...and the third shot don't matter. Surprise me...?" There's a couple of things that go through her mind; none of them particularly pleasant. "When did I ever tell you about Daemon?"

Yoiko actually looks offended, and that takes a lot these days. "At first I thought you were asking me some confused question about Ghostbusters, and then..." She folds her arms across her chest, trying to calm herself. "I actually feel a little violated."

She hugs herself, trying to get the goosebumps to go away where her skin feels like it's crawling, "You'd better have a dammed good reason for asking me that."

"When you told me he's why you chew your nails." Liyara answers Yoiko's question with zero hesitation, somehow remembering the exact moment and context, because of course she does. "But you didn't tell me his favorite drinks. Nor about Linda's children, only her music. So."

There's a long pause from Liyara, and then she tucks her chin in. She looks... worried? Concerned. But also excited. "It was real. ...Something big is happening, I suspect. I just met one of Twisted's 'Gods'. Or, well, he was honest enough to say he wasn't a God, which means I don't have to kill him to prove he can die, and frankly that saves me a lot of time." ... What is she going on about now?

"..." After a moment, she looks to Kylie. "...Right, yes. I almost forgot. You should tell your employer that his magical setup with the store's inventory is very dangerous, I almost killed all of us simply by inspecting it. No, I don't know why, I couldn't finish inspecting it. I suspect he's performed some shenanigans with dimensional space."

...Ok. You could possibly have paced this better, Dragon.

-҉

"Well there you go, see?" Crux gestures off screen in the vague direction of Yoiko and Liyara's scene. "She just answered it for us. What a helpful monster." He seems entertained. Also, while he's here... He looks back at her dagger, taking his time to get all of that lovely temporal vision in before she can find time to ward it against him like she clearly has done with herself and Yoiko. What's a little bit of metadata sniffing between frenemies? The future Liyara practically told him to.

"...What? Are you used to being able to see all the others? I'm not. Must be nice."

Yoiko seems to accept the answer, but her skin continues to crawl anyways as Liyara expands her scope of Hax's lives. It's hard for her to be open about... well, anything really. She is a Trill after all. Being secretive about themselves is kinda their defining trait - not that anyone should know that!

Her face seems to become almost green as her body tries to blush and go pale at the same time. Someone on Twisted has told Liyara a lot more than she was willing to divulge, and that's a problem. "We're going to have a very long talk about this later, but can you please stop talking about me?" That probably came out wrong, but Kylie is RIGHT THERE.

Kylie, meanwhile, is completely unphased. "Yeah. That sounds about right. Not to mention the amount of cursed objects they've been stockpiling. I swear, every time I walk into the back room expect I'm going to see some Cenobite chattering it's teeth at me." She lets out a long sigh, "Welp. I'm going to be thinking of that all day now, thanks."

----

Lain raises an eyebrow as Crux largely speaks to himself. Having her suspicions confirmed isn't exactly helpful. She's also not entirely sure how much of what he's saying is directed at her or just out loud to himself. She's used to watching quietly, so she does.

At least until the silence just starts to become uncomfortable.

"I'm not a 'God,' just an observer. I'm not part of any specific reality anymore." She tilts her head to the side and sighs, "Everyone here likes to have a label or a title. It's not very becoming." So says the entity who's name redacts itself whenever it's typed on the wiki.

"...Right, well, neither am I but people make that mistake a lot." Crux's not really looking at Lain right now. He puts a hand to his chin and starts musing. "...It's awfully convenient that the dagger was there to keep a record that the dragon would otherwise have blocked me from seeing." Yes. Actually, yes, that is rather convenient.

-҉

"...Right." Liyara just sort of shuts her mouth and looks at Yoiko for a moment. There's analysis, recognition, understanding in those eyes, but they arrive in that specific order. "I am sorry. I was just unmade, turned into something else entirely, and then reshaped back into myself. I am still processing." That's a lie, and we'll call it that on its face. She finished processing that before she walked out. What she is still processing is Yoiko's feelings because somehow, in all of that, she didn't take any of THOSE into consideration at all. And now she is realizing that is... ... not the way to treat a loved one.

"...I will show you what happened, but you will not like it, so perhaps later is better, yes." The dragoness takes a deep breath, and then looks to Kylie. "... Do you have anything on the uh... white space?" She hopes that's the right term. It's probably not.

Kylie tilts her head as she ponders what that might mean. "White Space?" She taps her finger on the countertop. "I assume that's not a bad joke about a Starbucks?" Ba-dum-tiiiiish. "White Space….. White Space… In comic books that tends to be a reference to the blank margins outside the panels. Marvel tends to call it the Gutter Space, but I think DC is the White Space. Either way it's the infinite potential, the pristine nothingness outside of reality. It's usually a white void or a universe of infinite energy."

Look out, she's gone full librarian mode. "There's not really any books about it *specifically* but you'll find referenced in specific comic books. Gwenpool delves into it a lot as she jumps from page to page within her stories. Deadpool will acknowledge it, usually to make some kind of meta joke. Grant Morison, I believe, used it in a few different stories but he was never entirely clear if it was a space or an entity of itself."

Crossing her arms, she ponders a bit more. "The closest thing you're going to find is maybe Purgatory? A place of cleansing, from the verb purgo, 'to clean, cleanse.' Some see it as a state or location between the Earthly Plane and Heaven. Traditionally that's more of a process than a physical location, however. It's also often a type of limbo." She offers up her hands, gesturing in two directions. The first towards the store windows, "You're either going to want to grab a stack of comic books and hope for the best." She then uses her other hand to vaguely motion towards the religious section. "Or you're going to have to get Biblical."

"Comic books?" Liyara looks rather dismayed for a moment. It's possible she's never heard of them, or has and thinks little of them. Probably the latter.

"...Gwenpool. Deadpool. These aren't words I'm familiar with. Are these pools like the Zools?" ...She has no idea what any of these words are. At all.

When Kylie says Biblical, Liyara just crosses her own arms. "There are many bibles, I believe you will have to be dramatically more specific." Hoo boy.

-҉

"Welp." Crux says and stretches his arms over his head. "She's getting sucked into the wide world of comic books, I think I'm done with her." He creates another portal, this time more of a gentle ripple. "You wanted me back here, I'm back here. Are you uh... you gonna come with? Seems kinda lonely out here. When was the last time you had a choco taco?"

Kylie simply shrugs at the question. "Most Bibles have their own views of Heaven and Hell. Even Buddhism has it's Naraka. You're kinda asking me what life forms breathe oxygen. It wouldn't be all of them, but it's going to be a lot." She sighs, shaking her head, "I also have nothing to go by but a vague inkling. You need to dish up a lot more detail before I'm going to know what you're looking for."

Almost as an afterthought she adds, "Unless you want to go the coffee shop route? I hear Coffee of Doom used to be pretty popular." She's kidding of course. Maybe. Probably.

----

Lain lets out a sigh at the question about going back. "I'll be there, but I can't go with you. Going would be getting involved and that's not something I can directly do." However, there's an anxiousness there that wasn't apparent before. She wants to go. She wants friends, but that is not her nature or her destiny.

"I'll keep looking where I can and see if I can find something else to help answer questions. They do tend to come from the strangest of places after all. I wouldn't be surprised if Dexter somehow knew more about this than we do." That seems strangely prophetic. "When you need me, just call my name. I'll probably be near."

With a rather depressing wave she paints on a smile, "Good luck, Mister Caedon. It's been a pleasure to meet you face to face." Her words echoing a greeting that no longer happened.

Crux just tilts his head to one side at that, frowning. "Well. I can come back here, unlike the temporally moored." He jerks a thumb at the portal. "So... uhm. Maybe just tell me what you want for takeout, and I'll bring some back after I deal with the absolute certainty of a cluster that's going to converge on me the second I step foot in there. Come on, a girl's gotta eat, even if she don't gotta eat."

Well. It was suggested he should be nice to her.

-҉

"I don't.... none of this is helpful. It was a white liminal space where concepts like time and space were relatively meaningless." Liyara tries again, looking frustrated. "It occupied the space between things. Around things?" She's beginning to think there isn't going to be a book on this, which is... frustrating. Most of her study comes from ancient tomes that time forgot

Yoiko just watches the exchange quietly. Her arms are still crossed and that sick look hasn't left her face. She's struggling to rationalize whatever's just transpired. They left the 24*7 in good spirits. The walk seemed to be brisk, but fun. But once they arrived at the bookstore, instead of geeking out of old tomes and magic - Liyara started aggressively dismissing everything. Then the bombshell about Yoiko's past, blurting it out loud where anyone could listen. Now...

Now whatever this was. Liyara felt manic to her, like someone obsessed. What did she say? Something about being unmade and put back together again? Was she still holding some grudge about the teleporter? Maybe Yoiko should have been more respectful. It was easy to dismiss the way a normal part of her life would affect those who weren't familiar with it. Clearly Yoiko had done something horrible in Liyara's eyes, but what did this have to do with white space and bible studies? Did Liyara believe that she'd lost her soul in the transport?

Shaking a little, Yoiko reaches out a hand to touch Liyara's shoulder. "Hey. It's going to be okay. I'm sorry if the transporter frightened you. It was wrong of me not to tell you about it first, but that doesn't mean you need to go to such an extreme. Let's go somewhere quiet and talk about all of this."

Kylie's blind to people being weird with everything she's seen. Between the paranormal, the doorways to other dimensions, and the weird talking turtles, nothing was really 'weird' anymore. Annoying maybe, but not weird. The chick with the wings was just becoming another bossy customer. She'd delt with her kind before. "Eh, maybe you passed through a dimensional gateway. Maybe you're not looking for some other plane of existence but another universe entirely. Happens on Twisted all the time. One minute you're fine, the next minute you're standing in Gotham City."

She gives a slight shrug of dismissal and checks on the PKE Meter she'd tossed in a drawer. Yep. Still smoking. "Without more to go on, I can't help you. I'm sorry."

----

Lain gives a warm smile at the offer of him coming back, "I'd like that." But she glances around and sighs, "But not here. The ethereal prison is nice and all, but lacking a little atmosphere, isn't it?" Wait, is she making a joke about space? "Either way, good luck. We'll see each other again soon."

Crux gives a small smirk. "I'm used to not being able to breathe." A pause. "Real used to it now." And then he shrugs. "Anyway, you know how to find me, I bet. So think about what you want to eat so you can let me know. Otherwise I'll have to track you down. You don't want that. I only ever show up at the worst time. You've been warned!" With that, he gives Lain a wave and steps through the portal back to Twisted Street.

To Mabase.

To Truce Fountain.

...

"Oh what the f--" The portal closes.

-҉

Liyara just sort of stares at Kylie for a moment, then shrugs and sighs. A place with all the books and none on this very specific thing. Except comic books? ... That sounds like a worthless endeavor.

She turns back to Yoiko at the touch, and sees the sick look on her face. "It's..." She blinks at Yoiko's misunderstanding, and then gives a tiny, pained laugh. "...The transporter? Oh, no. This all just happened the moment after that strange device started smoking." She winces a little, furrowing her brows as she goes back over the conversation with the man-that-was-no-longer-a-man. "It is possible that somehow it also never occurred. My understanding of time here is rudimentary."

A moment drags on, before she looks down at Yoiko's shaking hand. She looks back up to Yoiko, and actually connects with her gaze for a moment. "...You don't tell people." There it is. That took forever. Liyara pales, which is not something she generally does. "Oh. You don't tell people." Her tail thumps against the floor and then twitches and swishes back and forth. "...𝖐𝖆𝖗𝖘𝖍𝖔𝖏." Translator didn't catch that one, but it was definitely an expletive.

There's an urge in the Commander to yell. To scream exlipdatives! But also to cry. There's nothing rational about these thoughts, but the weight of whatever is going on unspoken is suffocating her. She withdraws her hand, choosing to fold her arms around to hug herself again. Now that Liyara is paying a bit more attention Yoiko tries it again, "So can we go somewhere and talk about things? Somewhere that's not in a book store with a-" an audiance? "I need some air either way. I'm going to step outside. I hope you join me."

Kylie watches the exchange with a raised brow. Did she just watch a break-up? It felt like a break-up. If so, good going Blondie! The chick with the wings and the tail feels a bit too self absorbed for her liking. She makes herself look like she's distracted by deciding to come over and bug Pagan for a bit of overdue scratching. "Hey, um. Just in case, you two have some bags over by the door. You don't want to forget them if you need to dash in a hurry." She means the bags from the 24*7 of course. You didn't think they just vanished into nothingness, did you?

Liyara blinks when Yoiko withdraws her hand, and then nods when Yoiko asks if they can do this elsewhere. She looks back to Kylie with surprise, as if she'd forgotten the girl existed once she was no longer of use, and then looks down to the bags. "...Yes. Apologies." For forgetting her, or the bags? Best not to ask.

Liyara grabs the bags and heads outside on Yoiko's heels, tossing Kylie a good coin that's probably worth several of the less expensive tomes... Even though she didn't buy anything. It's just custom, apparently. She fights back the urge to snatch it out of the air. It's always present, but today she wins.

Once outside, Liyara sighs. She slips out of emergency triage mode, and something like actual emotion slides back into her green eyes. Her slit pupils dilate a bit, and she quirks her lips into a painfully pretty frown. How do you frown prettily?

"I'm sorry." That's all she says for now. She doesn't know what else to say in public. So she just... Doesn't.

Yoiko is leaning against the wall beside the door when Liyara comes out, her gaze locked on the sidewalk. When she appologizes, Yoiko lifts her head up too offering a forced smile. "It's... fine. I'm sorry too." She can feel the weight pressing down on her of guilt, embarssment, and something more. Something she isn't able to define yet.

She tries to rationalize things, but she also realizes it might be time - whether she wants to or not - to come clean. This wouldn't have happened if she'd have been more open about things. Plus she still wasn't sure that this whole situation wasn't her fault to begin with. "Okay, let's... go ...uh, somewhere." They where headed somewhere when all this started right? Was it her apartment? That's probably fine.

"You okay with walking to my apartment, or would you rather go somewhere else?" She glances around herself, suddenly feeling like every eye and ear in range is studying her every movement. Yoiko rubs her arms to fade away the goosebumps that feeling brings with it.

There's a lot of feelings bubbling up inside her to unpack, and she wasn't prepared for any of them. This is going to be a day…

Liyara blinks at Yoiko's apology, still looking a bit flummoxed now that her viridian eyes finally have feeling behind them again. "You've sincerely done nothing wrong, Yoiko." Liyara says simply, and then nods, moving the bags to the crook of her arm so that she can offer a hand to the engineer.

"I am... Not an easy person to be close to." The dragoness' voice lowers, and she sighs.

With a shake of her head and a soft laugh, Yoiko locks her arm around Liyara's, taking her hand in the process. Already she's walking in the direction of Integra's Arms, dragging Liyara along for the ride.

Even after the laugh her voice sounds sad. "No, you're fine. I'm fine. We're fine. I think we both need to talk. ACTUALLY talk about some of this stuff. We can do it now, or you can walk me back and take a breather. It's less of a walk than the one we took from the 24*7, so at least there's that."

The sadness creeps into her face again and she squeezes the arm a little tighter. Sadness may not be the right description, but it's certainly the closest emotion it appears as from the outside. Her mind is racing through all the things that she's been avoiding talking about and the contemplative dread is not doing wonders for her mood.

"Yes, well," Liyara begins, happy for the proximity but still looking a bit stiff, "Communication is supposedly key to healthy relationships." And like that she is already smiling again. Or ... Is she trying to be funny?

"...Let's go back to your place." She keeps walking, but then drops it whole while they amble along. "...I tried to use a 'detect magic' ritual to find the most interesting tomes in the book store, but the bookstore exploded, which is atypical of 'detect magic'." One would hope?

"I was able to block the damage but there was a nonzero chance that you and the others inside the bookstore would have died, and that's when some strange, god-like entity who claims to be narrating our lives pulled me into a liminal space between realities, turned my blood to literal ice, removed my mouth, and then turned me into you. In an actual, very real sense. I asked those questions because I was verifying my memory of, well, your memory, was not fabricated." She doesn't even miss a step if Yoiko doesn't.

"It's been a strange day." ...No shit.

The pace of Yoiko's steps slow as she listens to Liyara speak. When she gets to the bit about a god-like entity, Yoiko stops and stares quietly. There's a pause long enough for a few breaths, and then she finally replies back, "Yeah. We're going to talk about *that*."

By now they're not too far from the apartment building, and the blonde woman stares up trying to guestimate where her apartment was specifically. Briefly she tries to calculate how big of an opening it might rip if she just tore through the micro dimension behind her door and tried to fly her tiny shuttle out of the side of the building.

She frowns at the distracting thoughts and makes herself focus on the current conversation. "I probably should have told you about... all of me. My whole past. Not just Yoiko. My people try to disassociate with our previous hosts. Even talking to their families are frowned upon." She lets out a deep sigh, "It's not because we're ignoring them, but because even though their memories live on inside us, we're all part of the new host now. The new 'us'.

Yoiko offers a weak smile and a shrug, "I got grilled about this the last time I shared any of that. Apparently some people think it's wrong not to live in the past and try to continue the past relationships we once had." There's a tone to her words that sounds like she might agree with that assessment herself, but she'll never admit it.

"It's the only way we can move forward in life after being joined. So many thoughts and memories just flooding in at once. It's a lot." She reaches the door and holds it open, letting Liyara enter the building so she doesn't have to release her arm. "It's not like we pretend they don't exist. We have a whole ritual, Zhian'tara, that we use to communicate with our previous hosts. It's actually mandatory for those of us who are joined."

Stepping through the lobby towards the elevator, Yoiko bites her lip softly before pressing the button to call it. "I'm going to do what I should have done a long time ago. You ask the questions, and I'll answer it. All of them." Her hand begins to shake ever so slightly as the doors open with a ding.

"This is your free pass, but when we're done I want to know everything you've seen of me, even the small unimportant stuff. Then we'll figure out what to do about this new God."

Liyara hefts the bags slightly, more for comfort than because they have any real weight to her, and then she enters the door that Yoiko kindly holds open for her.

"...I think I know some of this. It's half-remembered now. I was trying to observe and notice everything when he... changed me... and so logically 'you' picked up on that and caught everything, including running a basic check to make sure your memories were all as they should be before becoming 'me' again." Huh. If that ain't a brand new sentence.

As the elevator doors open, Liyara gives Yoiko's shoulder a squeeze, gently. "Well, to give him credit where it's due, he's the first one of them that admitted they weren't a God, and that they can die. So, the good news is I don't have to kill him to prove that. Saves me a lot of time. His existence and confession both validate my long-running hypothesis about our own 'gods' back on Faerun. That and the structure of his strange white... place."

As Liyara chooses the floor by memory, she smiles. "...I will let you ask questions of me, too, and I will answer them. I don't mean to brag, but that is a very rare opportunity." She means to brag. She definitely means to brag.

Once the elevator begins to move, Yoiko simply shakes her head with a smirk. On the bright side that little self-indulgent denial actually made her feel a little more at ease. She spends the elevator ride trying to ponder questions, but the gravity of the situation and the mystery of this Not-A-God God has her perplexed.

As the elevator finally comes to a stop, she asks, "What do you suppose his game was?" It's common sense, of course, "There's always an end-game. Like, what was the point of showing you... me?" Being used as an example certainly didn't make her feel better, let alone the invasion of privacy that entailed.

Arriving at her door, she fumbles with the lock a moment before they step in. She steps to the edge of where she'd pulled up the floor tiles, glancing nostalgically at the bits of floating furniture drifting around the void she'd exposed. Following the cables and wires running from the exposed wiring into her shuttle, she carefully leads the way into her ship choosing to go into the rear section where a bed and a small couch offer more comfortable seating.

To no one in particularly she mutters, "I'm not looking forward to the act of getting this out of here, but I think I know how to make it happen. Gonna take a few hours when I get started though..."

Sitting on the couch, and gesturing for Liyara to join her, Yoiko takes a moment to glance around the small cabin. There's a door separating it from the mid-section. A bed that extends across the rear wall. The couch is on the starboard side between the door and the bed and opposite is a small desk with a computer set up. It's not the most luxurious quarters, but compared to her room on the station, it's about the same size in total.

"And now that you've got context, I suppose you see why I prefer to this to that awkward little apartment."

"Well, he wanted me to do something for him and he promised he'd reset the clock back to before I killed--" The dragoness trails off, then grimaces and restarts. "Before the bookstore owner killed everyone in the bookstore." She looks to Yoiko as they walk, and watches her unlock her room.

"Maybe he wished to convince me he had the power to do so. Or maybe he wished to anger me. Or maybe he just doesn't like me very much. He said he hoped I would hate him; he didn't realize he was handing me the completion of my thesis, a rather intimate moment with a loved one, and the knowledge of his plane of existence. He seemed to think something like a few moment's torture would overrule all that. Strange man."

The redhead puts a hand to her chin thoughtfully. "...Sharp dresser, though. Very insightful." What, because he knows everything revolves around her? Oi.

"It's as though we just left." She says, somewhat wistfully. She joins Yoiko in the runabout, and then casually reclines on the couch like she owns the place. Her tail curls around and underneath. "...Can one be nostalgic for a time like a little while ago?"

Yoiko is still pondering what this thing's plan is when Liyara waxes nostalgic. "I guess a lot has happened since we were here last." She sighs wistfully. "Already feels like it's been years."

"...why would some random being you've never met care if you hated him or not?" This is going to bother her. "For that matter, why remove you from here to do it?" She hmms softly. "Kinda sounds like he was baiting you for some reason." That much should probably be obvious.

"Anyways." There's another sigh. "Let's start this from the beginning and see how much I've neglected to tell you." Yoiko places her hand on her chest, "Yoiko Enoch. Joined with the Hax Symbiont. Thus Yoiko Hax. I'm a Trill, but we refer to it as a Joined Trill because of being, well. Joined." She lets out a sigh, "My planet is Trillius Prime. M-Class planet. One moon. Our Science Council is probably the most advanced in the Federation, even rivaling the one on Vulcan - not that anyone knows that."

She frowns at that, "...okay, maybe we are a little too secretive." She gives a weak smile before continuing, "Hax has had two previous hosts. Dameon and Linda. Daemon wanted to be an architect, but ended up as a Dilithium Miner to make ends meet after the love of his life dumped us to go be with that rotten little moisture farmer who came strolling in to sell his trash wares." Mid-sentence her voice had deepened a bit and her posture changed, her shoulders rose a little higher, and she leaned both arms on her knees almost like a crouch. It wasn't hard to picture her as a grizzled miner for a moment before she caught herself and settled back, crossing her legs. "...sorry."

Letting her mind reset a moment she continued, "Linda was a musician." Her voice softens a little more, almost like she was singing, "She was married, had three beautiful children and a husband that was willing to move mountains for her to make up for the fact she couldn't walk." Yoiko finds herself wanting to chew on her fingernail, but dismisses it by pressing her hands together in her lap. "If we'd saved some of our concert money I could have gotten an operation done, but the children had to come first." With a clear sense of pride she adds, "They became little artists themselves. The oldest was able to join the Echevarria Orchestra. I was so proud!"

"I actually got your last name from the... thing..." Liyara gestures vaguely in the air, but doesn't otherwise interrupt beyond that. She listens, patiently, actually paying attention. It is surprising how much of this she remembers from the two seconds she actually was Yoiko, but hey, teamwork? After Yoiko admits all of that, Liyara gives a low chuckle.

"...Doesn't the federation think of you as if you were some sort of tourist destination? Like the Rice planet?" Rice planet? Rysa? Oi.

After another moment, she sits up and nods. "I knew that about Linda, but not from memories, the narrator man-god-thing just intimated that she put her children before fixing herself, and I figured out the rest." She watches Yoiko for a moment, and then takes a deep, slow breath, and brings a hand to her chest. "I appreciate you sharing this with me, and I am sorry I pre-empted it by accidentally stealing a few seconds of your life." ...New sentences all over the place today.

The young woman settles into her normal body language again as Liyara confesses everything, choosing to let out a sigh. "I'm not a big fan of that, y'know." She crosses her arms and sulks back into the couch, "But I believe you that it wasn't a choice."

She regards the 'rice planet' comment with a shake of her head, "It's between a ton of Federation trade routes. If they had their way it'd just be a hub for supplies coming and going. We do get a lot of off-world traffic though."

Briefly she flicks a strand of loose hair out of her eyes, "I could break them down more if that'd somehow help, or tell you about *me*." She places her hand on her chest again before she crosses her arms back. "Trying to get into Starfleet, trying to get stationed on a ship. Meeting Jon. Getting obsessed with trying to redesign the warp nacelles that..." She trails off remembering the disaster, "Or about Fiona ("Flea") or Kenzie, or any of the other random dates I've been on that weren't nearly as memorable."

Liyara looks thoughtful at that, and then smiles. "I think I'd like to hear about all of that." She stretches out on the couch, languidly, sort of like a cat in how almost liquid-like her grace is, and of course she lays in that exact right way that looks appealing, as if she was perfectly angling things for Yoiko's vantage point. Oh hell, she probably is.

"...And afterward, I'll tell you all about me. I can also show you ... not my memories, but a visual of them... from what happened. If you still like me after all that... then I'll consider myself very fortunate." She somehow rolls over onto her stomach after a moment, her tail now looping over the back of the couch, and she keeps staring at Yoiko.

"...The only people I've ever met who wouldn't run screaming aren't people I like very much. So." Her tail thumps once, a nervous indicator. "...Take your time with yours first, if you don't mind..." Yeah, they're gonna be here a while.

|}}
[[Category:Nobody]]

2026-07-19 - Satyrn, S-Mart, and Superboy (Oh My)

2026-07-19T07:08:39Z

Marr0w: Marr0w moved page 2026-07-19 - Satyrn, S-Mart, and Superboy (Oh My) to 2026-07-19 - Satyrn, S-Mart, and Superboy without leaving a redirect

{{Logsummary|
Title = Satyrn, S-Mart, and Superboy (Oh My)
|Summary = Whoa, someone's active on Twisted? I-I mean, Satyrn makes her grand resurgence. Luckily Superboy happens to be around to lend a hand.
|Who = [[Satyrn]], [[Superboy]]
|Date = July, 19th 2026
|Where = Location or Room Name.
|Log=

'''Twisted Street West(#5210R)'''

''The slow, metaphysical destruction of Twisted Street continues the further one travels to the west, cracks upon cracks emerging until finally the road, and the sidewalk, really do fall away; chunks of tarmac and compacted soil drifting into the aether surrounding the world. At least something is normal here - on the south side of the street lies the reassuring expanse of the parking lot for S-Mart, everyone's favorite store.''

----

Just another day on Twisted. A few NPCs wandering in and out of the S-Mart and avoiding the parts of the street that are drifting off into the aether. Then it starts. It's slow at first, like the gentle humming of a harmonic, but it's three houses away and out of tune. The humming slowly increases its volume, and the source is up in the sky, a good fifty feet. Not right above S-Mart or anything, deeper and further down the street. As the humming reaches the intensity of a five year old blasting his mouth against the harmonica as hard as he can next to your ear, a thick black line six feet wide and ten feet tall forms into existence. For those that have lived on Twisted Street a very, very long time, it's definitely the beginning of a dimensional tear, which means it's either going to be spitting something out, or sucking something in. Once it opens anyway.

Just another day on Twisted indeed. Floating about a foot off the ground in front of the S-Mart, a Cherry Fiz-Wiz in hand, is a young man wearing round, black sunglasses and a day's worth of stubble just begging to be shaved off. He won't of course. It took him far too many years to grow it. Instead he eyes a teenager over the top of his glasses and glides over to try and impress her.

"Hey, babe. Ever made out with a superhero?" It was a cheap line, and he expects the angry glare she gives him as she looks at the S shield on his chest and walks away. With a chuckle to himself he mutters under his breath, "Still got it."

Unexpectantly he winces, tilting his head to the side. "Why does it sound like Impulse trying to eat his way out of a concrete wall...?"

The humming sound stops dead in its incessant playing, instead filling the area around the Black Line with an unnatural silence. The silence echoes out like a shockwave, audio disrupting into an abrupt absence of sound, as if someone had made the world deaf rather than the listeners. This is only the space of a heart beat before the rending of reality brings audio back into what would put the grandest of sound systems to shame. A massive thrumming base, the entire area of the Twisted Street vibrates, cobblestones rattling, benches shaking. The Black Line splits open down the middle and then widens into the distinct oval of an egg. A gout of black fire spews horizontally from the opening. Satyrn herself is in the midst of the black flame, arms shielded over her face as she free falls downwards in the flame. It's unclear if she's conscious or not. A strange black creature, more fire then sustenance, rides upon her back, rending into her flesh with firey talons as it cackles madly with glee!

There's no hesitation as Twisted seems to be suddenly invaded from another dimension. His drink, falling to the ground in the wake of his sudden disappearance, and just as quickly the so-called Boy of Steel is floating in front of Satyrn, taking in her fiery entrance with a shake of his head. His red and blue jacket billowing around him. "Okay, so you've got major Boss energy going on right now, so why don't we dial it down a notch and try to settle whatever this is without having to break anything?"

That's right, he's going to try diplomacy first. And they said he'd never learn!

Satyrn, who is not unconscious but just had her eyes shielded from, you know, the black flame erupting from her. Breaks open her left eyelid as she plummets, heading for the street, or well, a part of it. She might just blast right on through at the speed she's going. She wonders what kind of hell dimension she's ended up in where the monsters look like oddly muscular hunky human teenagers and run around demanding nonsense of people. But she knows there isn't much time for her if she doesn't want to keep getting torn to shreds and burned by these black flames. So, she let's it go. "Break my impact and we'll talk it all out!" She growls, almost ferally, like someone had rammed a bottlebrush down her throat, but really it's just because she inhaled scorching black flames in order to say that. She does a 180, reaching back and scrabbling for the black creature on her back, but it digs in a fiery talon and hops over her reach, cackling wildly.

Meanwhile, the portal continues spewing black flames, widening a bit more, like someone lit an acetylene torch and left it on full blast.

Superboy blinks at the growling, but he's been around Batman. That's not intent, sometimes people just think it's cool. He hesitates long enough to see the newcomer struggling with some sort of monster - and that's enough for him to pick a side.

"So this monkey on your back is called Impact, huh?" He rushes forwards, grabbing it by the head and yanking it backwards with enough force to rip a tree out of the ground. Through his teeth he grumbles from the sudden struggle, "I don't know about breaking it, but maybe we can at least distract it...?" If it's enough to tear it free, he'll fall backwards onto one of the cars in the S-Mart parking lot dragging it down with him. Otherwise…

The black fire creature's head is grabbed. It was busy tormenting Satyrn, not paying attention to its surroundings and especially not Superboy, so its head gets grabbed and it's pulled! Of course, it did have one of its talons buried deep inside of Satyrn's back, which rips out a large chunk of skin, tissues, and muscle as it comes free. The creature gets pulled backwards, but it doesn't hesitate to switch targets, black talons of fire attempting to dig their way into Superboy! But that's not all, physical contact means the black flames that were around Satyrn disappear and reappear around him! He'll now find himself enveloped in scorching supernaturally burning black flame! This isn't your ordinary flame like you'd find on the face of the sun, this is hell dimension flame that just lives to consume and provide murder heat instead of life giving. Then again, maybe none of this will be a problem for Superboy.

Satyrn lets out a loud cry of pain which she turns into a muffled grunt instead. But as the flames flicker off of her she isn't going to complain one bit. She turns herself fully around so she's facing the sky and slows her descent, not completely though, she still smashes into the Twisted street, concaving and cracking the cobblestones underneath her, but she doesn't punch right through, and it's way less damage than she would have taken otherwise.

"CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! CRAP!" -KA-SMASH!!!

One can almost hear the word balloons as the former Metropolis Kid crashes into someone's broken down pickup truck, crushing it like a tin can. Superboy feels the flames burning him alive and screams in pain - but doesn't let go. Instead he locks his gloved hands tighter around the creature's neck, doing everything he can not to let it loose onto the innocent civilians.

While it may be trying to bite and claw at him, he does at least have the advantage of having grabbed it from behind - for all the good it does him. Shakily he pushes himself up to his feet trying to scan for the woman he'd pulled it off of. "Lady? If you've got some plan, now would be a REALLY good time."

Satyrn takes in a sharp breath as debris rains down onto her. She knows she can't rest. She managed to resonate that dimensional tear into place, but she always ends up in another hell dimension. She has no idea what this one will be like, but the fact that someone helped her instead of attacked her straight off. Well, that's the most she's seen in nine years. So, she doesn't take the time to catch her breath, or use some chi to seal the multiple wounds that are now evident across her body. She rolls onto her side and pushes herself to a knee, yelling the distance towards Superboy. "Air. Air!" She knows that's not enough information. o O ( Dry wells this is bad. ) She isn't someone who wants people to die for her own safety. Well, unless she knows the person and wants them dead.

She holds her hand upwards, palm facing Superboy and the black fire creature. Black and grey chi energy gathers around her palm and then spreads out in a warbly sheet about ten feet wide. It then shoots out from her and rapidly passes over Superboy. As it passes, the air itself is pulled into it, like someone had created a vaccuum. It only last a second, but for a moment there is zero air around him and the creature. The black flames sputter and the creature freezes in place, mid talon slash.

Luckily Superboy has been on enough team ups to catch the gist of it, especially when he sees that flash of chi building around her fingers. Without a moment's thought he chucks the beast into the air, choosing to duck as suddenly everything stops.

Well, maybe not 'stops'. He raises an eyebrow and looks up when the flames suddenly vanish, has a moment to see the beast suspended in mid-air in whatever odd moment is happening, and in the next blink he doubles over on the ground, grabbing at his neck wishing he'd taken a moment to inhale some oxygen before getting hit with whatever this is. For something that happens in the span of a few seconds it would almost be impressive. Ignoring the flailing and whimpering of course.

The black fire creature emits a cackle that sounds like a guttering fire as its tossed away and loses most of its black flame. Without the flame, the creature looks almost like a stick figure that someone stuck a facsimile of bones onto. It goes sailing up, up and away, but the moment it leaves the odd effect Satyrn created, its black flame envelopes it again. It's ascent slows as it works to get itself back on course towards a target, uncaring which as long as it can inflict pain.

Satyrn collapses forward, catching herself with her outstretched palm. She coughs out a cloud of black smoke, cursing something about wells as she inhales. Blood seeps from at least a dozen wounds across her body. But the saiyan knows there's no time to rest. Resting is for when you're safe, and she has been safe for nearly a decade. She reaches a hand up towards the creature, trying to judge its path, but its hard, it's dark, this part of Twisted isn't well lit. Still, black and grey chi begin to gather, her entire body trembling. "Can you chuck it back in?" She rasps.

Oh yeah. the portal. It's still spewing black fire, but it's started to slowly die down. The hole isn't closing, but the flames are definitely dwindling.

"Oh yeah. The portal." Master of the obvious, of course. As the beast comes back down towards him, he locks his fists together, hitting it as if with a bat towards the flame spewing maw that the duo had come out of. For good measure he rams it with his shoulder, launching himself towards it as well.

"It's been fun…" He stops just at the mouth of the portal, hoping momentum will handle the rest. "…but you've gotta leave."

With luck this is the end of it, and he's going to flick up what's left of his now heavily burned jacket, descend to the ground, and decide if he's obligated to hit on Satyrn before or after he offers to take her to the hospital.

…if this is not the end of it, he's going to look like a real jackass in a moment. Maybe that'll happen anyways? It'll probably happen anyways.

The creature's black flame engulfs Superboy for the split second each time he makes physical contact, but it's not any match for an actual strength hit, and it goes sailing through the portal into the black flames with a THWICK sound! The portal sputters more black flames as if getting fuel for itself. The creature grips onto the edge of the portal, intent on pulling itself back through!

Satyrn unleashes her built up chi, sending another warbly black grey sheet of energy up past Superboy and around the portal. The air around the portal turns to a vacuum for less than a second, but it's enough to snuff out all of the flames. The creature screams and loses its flame, and its grip, and a black shape beyond mortal abilities to ken engulfs it as it disappears into the depths of the portal.

Satyrn grunts and drops her arms at her sides as if she had no strength left. She does, but one has to take every single second of muscle rest they can get when traveling through hell dimensions. She looks up at Superboy as he lands down near her. What should she say? This is probably some kind of male succubus or something. "Thanks." She stays on guard, ready for him to attack her.

Taking a moment to actually assess the situation, Superboy gives her a confident sigh, and then promptly sighs. "Yeah, no biggie. Just another Tuesday, right?" Is it Tuesday? Does anyone have a calendar? She thanked him, that puts her a bit above the usual common thug, but can she be trusted? Either way, she looks like she needs help and that place didn't look like the best point of origin. Maybe he should play it cool for now?

"So uh, do you need help? Medical maybe? There's a clinic downtown that's probably pretty empty right now, but there's a larger hospital too if you don't mind the creepy robot staff." He glances over his shoulder at the city snaking off in the distance and frowns, where was that hospital anyways? "Alternatively, I know a place or two to grab a bite to eat. Wanna grab a burger and tell me what that nightmare was all about?"

Satyrn stares at Superboy as if he's speaking a different language. Is he...is he talking normally? Like...about a normal place? That...that makes no sense. Hell dimensions don't really have places like what he's referring too. At least not the one's she's been through. Granted, there was the one with the halogenic...she shakes that from her mind. She doesn't cry, too much saiyan pride, but her eyes do grow slightly wet despite her dehydration. "This isn't hell?" She now takes a moment to look around and sees S-Mart. The cobblestone pieces, the twisting street. Then a beep comes from her side skirt. Her hands tremble as she quickly and agilely pulls out a G-PADVII. "Can't be." She murmurs, hitting it. There's the briefest of moments where the screen flickers, but then big red "ERROR" letters show. What she's always seen since nine years ago. But, there's no doubt. She puts the accursed thing away as quickly as she pulled it out and looks up at Superboy. "This is Twisted Street? By every dry well, I end up back here? No..." She looks ready to collapse, but she doesn't ask for help. There's to much trauma running through her brain right now. "Food. Yes."

Well, it's good for her that Superboy doesn't pay much mind to personal space when he sees someone struggling. He puts an arm around the woman's shoulders, helping her stay on her feet and starts navigating them towards the Usual. "Well, the street we're on is the Twisted Street. You got that one in the first try." He uses his free arm to gesture outwards before putting his hand on her side to help keep her stable. "They call it Mabase these days."

She'll feel a sort of energy bubble extending from him as he tries to help that will make her body forget about gravity a moment without making her float. This isn't some conscious ability, just a side effect of his powers. You'll regret asking about it if you do.

Superboy continues narrating as they shuffle along. "I used to be a cop here. A member of TASK." His voice becomes gravely as he starts goofing off, "A damn good one. Then I got bit by a snake and struck by lightning-" Thankfully he stops himself and his voice returns to normal, "…wait, I already did that bit. Nevermind."

END PART ONE

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2025-01-27 - Breakfast Catchup

2026-07-17T04:26:16Z

Marr0w: Created page with "{{Logsummary| Title = Breakfast Catchup |Summary = A brief bit of breakfast chatting between Dante and Tabitha following their reunion the night before. This log sadly got..."

{{Logsummary|
Title = Breakfast Catchup
|Summary = A brief bit of breakfast chatting between Dante and Tabitha following their reunion the night before. This log sadly got lost until recently.
|Who = [[Dante]], [[Tabitha]]
|Date = January, 27th, 2025
|Where = Devil May Cry
|Log=

'''Devil May Cry(#3063RJ)'''

''From the inescapable darkness of the entrance to a fairly brightly lit room, your eyes most likely take a moment to adjust. Or not. Who the heck am I to tell you what your eyes are doing? I'm just a stupid narration. The paint scheme in here is a messy, splotchy mix of black and red. It looks as though the original paint was all black and perhaps someone decided to 'art' the place up a tad with some red highlights. It doesn't do much for the decor, to tell you the truth. A single pane of windows lie on either side of a very plain looking brown desk in the middle of the room. Yeah, nothing special about it. It's a desk. Cope. A non-descript black office chair lies just behind that desk. Nothing special about it either. There seems to be a theme here. - Off to one side is what appears to be a secretaries desk, which may or may not be manned. A single workstation with an LCD monitor and attached keyboard seems to be the only thing adorning the desk usually, although whomever is currently playing the role might very well spruce it up. - In the back of the room are a set of stairs that lead upward to another section of the building.''

''Looking really out of place, a set of metal doors have been added to the wall behind the desk. They don't seem to have any obvious way of opening. Strange...''
----

Dante feels his way along familiar walls as the morning sun breaks the gloom of dawn. Dante gives the narration an irritated look as if to remind it not to be pretentious. ... This is one of those mornings. Dante felt as though he should verify the location of his towel...but he may have used it as a spooge rag...so take that for what you will.

He meanders downstairs with a yawn, having cleaned up and dressed in his usual. He has, remarkably, shaved his rough facial hair. He looks...old. Yeah, sadly he still looks old and worn out. Although, worn out for Dante Sparda isn't awful...so he can't really complain!

Announcing himself with a nasty, old man fart (happy, Dante? Rough enough for you?) he glances around the main office. His player is unaware of where Tabs may be at, so he'll pause right here n.n

His pausing was exceedingly well timed as Tabitha pushes open the double doors, entering with two large styrofoam containers and the smell of eggs and syrup. In one hand is a drink carrier and two large cups of coffee. Seeing Dante awake, Tabitha gives him a warm smile.

"Mornin'!" She steps closer, setting the containers on the pool table so she can pass one of the coffees over. "Did'ja know it's just sugary drinks that get me drunk? I want someone ta explain how that works. Am I miss-wired or somethin' 'cause sugary foods? Nah. Those are fine."

Once her hands are free, the Nekojin grabs one of the two containers and hops up onto the edge of the pool table to sit. "I should try blendin' somethin' one day and see what that does." Without waiting for anything she opens her container revealing a large mess of French Toast practically drowning in syrup and butter. "Th' other one's yours. Don't worry, there's those weird plastic syrup containers in there. No sane person needs this much syrup."

The only thing she doesn't explain is where she suddenly gets the fork in her hand. Maybe that's just one of life's great mysteries? Oh, wait. There's a single-serve plastic cutlery set in a little baggy next to Dante's coffee. But when did she open one?

Dante returns the smile with his usual gusto. His teeth look a bit more shark like than in the past, but that's PROBABLY nothing! "Heya Tabs! Hope ya slept well. I haven't slept that well in YEARS now. Good to be home.*

He plops down to attend his food. After syruping his French toast, he promptly dumped the rest into his coffee. Ironically perhaps! "I dunno. Sorry. I'm not the heavy thinker in the family. Maybe we could ask Vergil...at least before he abruptly ends my existence." He sighs at that one, looking nostalgic. "Maybe....something something...about your... narrative? ... I dunno. I don't remember anything.. didn't ya ask me that once before?...I have no idea what the hell I'm rambling on about..."

He trails off for a moment ... A small trickle of somewhat familiar black ichor pours from his nose for JUST a moment...and then flecks away into black ashen material. He doesn't see to notice and eventually dives into his food. His appetite seems healthy enough.

After a moment, he frowns. "What the flying fucknuts is a narrative? I've gone senile. We could go talk to Johnny I suppose. He ever give ya any kind of answers? He'd probably tell me to go fuck myself." Dante chuckles a bit at that one.

Raising an eyebrow at Dante's comment, Tabitha pauses with a piece of toast dangling from it's corner in her mouth. Syrup seems to be just running off of it. "Narrahiff?" She bites the corner off, letting the rest drop into her container with a wet plop. After a brief chew and swallow, she tries again. "Narrative…?"

Her head tilts comically to the side as she ponders the phrase wondering why it seems so familiar to her - like a conversation she'd had somewhere else. Maybe in a dream?

A few moments later she shrugs and returns her focus on her food, adding "Well, I mean. NNY's NNY. He made me so… it's kinda like talkin' to myself." She pauses long enough to take another bite. "It's like, y'know how sometimes ya have that voice in yer head?" She gestures towards herself with the plastic fork. "It tells you somethin' like 'This is a bad idea, but let's do it anyways?' Now imagine that voice personified an' sitting in front of ya. It's kinda like that."

She gives another shrug at the analogy. "Plus I did kinda start off as part of 'is brain, so I've got a lot of that in 'ere too. I useta have a lot of what he imagined Sis-uh-Samantha was like, but not so much when it all broke. Most o' that became Meria." One of her other personalities that became it's own entity. This last part is said while shoveling more food into her mouth as well.

Pausing long enough to take a drink, Tabitha lets out a playful laugh. "Right. I still gotta get ya caught up on everythin' that happened after the Shatterin'." Not that she's explained the phrase, but it's a safe bet that it has to do with the event that occurred as Dante left last.

Dante noddles. Choking down the rest of his coffee he replies, "Yeah. I get the idea. Sometimes I feel like I have a bit of A fUcKiNg VoIcE iiiin m...." His eyes widen at that last statement...his voice fluctuates rapidly between 2 distinct voices...one of which seems to fade in and out of reality...from every corner of the room. He pauses....and speaks softly, trying again. "Jesus...old age takes it's toll I guess... that's a new one. Testing, testing?..."

He shakes his head with a shirt and continues. "The name Samantha sounds really familiar to me...but...I just can't fucking place where..."

He glances over at Tabs. "Sorry kiddo, I'm still recovering I guess. Yeah, you're gonna have to explain this whole Shattering thing..."

Hearing someone speak in a demonic voice isn't new to Tabitha and she barely reacts when the voice comes rolling out. The question about Samantha gets an odd look though. It's the reason she's alive after all. Before she can say something the subject changes and Dante asks about the Shattering.

"Oh, so. That's what we call it. The day you disappeared? Bishop, th' Synth that replaced Gegoshi just before all that, decided ta move th' portals on the old TASK buildin'. I remember that awful noise, like th' sky was screamin'." Her ears suddenly droop down like she's upset. After a moment of staring at her food she closes the lid and sets it aside like she couldn't stand the sight of it anymore.

With a sigh she continues. "What they say happened was th' portals ripped through Twisted Street like razor wire. It shattered everythin'." Tabitha crosses her arms, hugging herself tightly. "Th' whole world broke apart an' for a bit everythin' was darkness." She reaches out suddenly as if grabbing something in front of her and pushing it together. "Then Bishop goes'n puts this place together. Called it Mabase. It's like a bunch of broken pieces of Twisted City all smashed together floatin' in the dark. As soon as th' pieces where pushed together the skies came back, so people started buildin' stuff ta hold it together. The further out you go from th' fountain, the worse it all is."

She crosses her arms again, giving the whole mess a shrug. "The Red Light District is kinda the outer bit. It's why all th' businesses started helpin' each other out with food and stuff." Tabitha gives Dante a weak smile, "It's not all bad though. Just a little weird here an' there. We lost some people, but a lot more have shown up since then. No one's seen Setsuna since all that though. Bishop still tells everyone she's in charge, but who knows? I haven't been back to any of th' Council meetings since that happened."

Dante frowns at the name. "Setsuna...? I...know that name. She gave me a..way out. I only escaped, long ago, because she gave me..." He trails off, peering over at Tabs. "Ok. Thanks for catching me up. That's a lot of info for my pea sized brain, but I roughly get it, I think. ... Does anyone remember the last place Setsuna showed up? I'm sure she's....fine. I don't need another mission and I ain't worth a damn anymore but...although I think we're all payed up on debts, I can't help but worry. ... If I only still had that fucking (uh, shit. Was it a necklace? Pendant?)..."

Tabitha tilts her head to the side at Dante's confusion. "Setsuna?" She has all the tone to her voice of someone being asked where the ground is. "She was th' Senshi that was put in charge when they tossed Diablo out for messin' with everyone's heads. Sailor…. Pluto?"

She gives another shrug at the name. "No. She started missin' back before all that. When I came ta you because Bishop was makin' me nevous an' I kept losing track of my memory." There's an odd spark in her eyes as she says that, like she'd forgotten about all of that until she said it aloud. "…huh."

Changing the subject she leans forward and peers into Dante's face directly from her perch on the pool table. "You forgot a lot, huh?" She sits back adding matter-of-factly, "I guess that happens in Hell." Unfolding her arms, she rests them on the tabletop. "I guess I should ask what ya DO remember so I can try ta help you fill in th' gaps…"

Dante snerks at that. As Tabs moves in closer, he attempts to very lightly intercept her nose with a finger poke. "I think we're all a little forgetful these days, Tabby cat."

He does ponder the question at hand, "I remember...a WHILE back...sitting around for a while ..and speaking with Setsuna for a moment ..but I can hardly remember what about. There was someone else ..some other girl. Or...maybe there wasn't anyone..."

His eyes glass a moment at that. He shakes his head clear, a spike of blue energy whipping off of his left eye and streaking into nothingness. He seems to get control of himself and continues, "Before I ended up back in H....back in Hell? Jesus. Before I ended up in Hell, I was chasing after some...fat demon broad. She and her partner were trying to kill me, for some fucking reason or another. I can barely remember...she backstabbed her partner. Murdered her and dragged her away before this decrepit old body could react ... I chased her down for as long as I could...but she easily gave me the slip. I... I don't remember what happened this time. All of a sudden, this demonic energy that I've had to deal with my whole life...wants to kill me. It fucking HATES me ...I didn't even know it had a mind of its own. I don't remember how I got here... Just that I needed to get home. If I spoke to Johnny when I was in Hell, I don't remember it."

He offers a weak shrug, "Sorry Tabs. I'm fucked up these days. That's all I got. I barely remember the good old days. Something fucked me up long before...and I have no idea what."

Taking the final bite of her food, Tabitha leaves the fork in her mouth as if to prolong her breakfast while she ponders. Eventually her shoulders fall and the Nekojin sighs. Slowly she pulls the plastic fork out, tossing it into the now empty styrofoam container.

"Look. I dunno if it's some weird side effect o' Johnny makin' me as an imperfect mem'ry of Sammy, some leftovers of havin' my brains scrambled bein' left alone on a murder rampage, runnin' around with that creepy doll o' 'Blivion's, or just th' fact that this rock we're standin' on is still part of Twisted…" She pauses just long enough to push some stray bangs out of her face. "…but sometimes th' whole world just don't seem real. People forget stuff that just happened, other people disappear without a trace. Heck sometimes a whole block will blow up an' then just be back depending on who's lookin' at it."

She gives a brief apologetic shrug while she tries to reign in her thoughts again. "I guess what I'm tryin' ta say is, I don't think yer fucked up. You're you an' I'm me. Better to live in th' moment than try to make sense if it all."

Tabitha gives another sigh before hugging herself tightly again. "I've had a lot of time ta think since you've been gone, I guess." Her lips twist into a forced smile. "A year ago I'd have been all 'We gotta solve this mystery!' But now?" Her smile becomes a little more genuine, "I'm just glad yer back." She laughs. "Fuck th' rest of it."

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