Ferra looks at him. "See, the problem with that, is that winning, for you, consists of your plan working."

10...

"Which, incidentally, crap plan. You reduce infinity to one, to self propagate? Write a book like the rest of us, find immortality and meaning that way."

9...

She's ignoring his ion cannon. It's firing just fine, she's just not there when it impacts. She's standing someplace else, looking like another version of herself. "Winning for me, on the other hand, is stopping your plan."

8...

"Or otherwise rendering you unable to complete your plan. Read up on some strategy books while I was tied to the rocket."

7...

He's not responding. Methodical, ceaseless death continues to rain at her, from traps on the rocket itself, from supplemental drones, x-ray lasers pods extending from his main offensive body. It's not working. He's doing damage to himself in the crossfire, and she's just not there to hit.

6...

"Also read up on space. Did you know that the outer limit of the atmosphere is only 10,000 kilometers up? I mean, we're both AI, we both know that even before I read that, but it's a neat fact, and sometimes you have to actively think on something before you understand it."

5...

She flickers inside his guard, suddenly there and jabbing an accusatory finger at him. "You ran the numbers, I'm sure. But you don't understand. Otherwise, there's no reason for you to try this. It's pointless."

4...

The monofiliment shrapnel fires off from his chest. She ignores it, in a different phase, watches as it connects with a good 23% of his defenses and annihilates them. They'll burn up on reentry, at least. They're in orbit, finally. The stars do not twinkle.

3...

She pulls Perseus's warform up enough to break contact with the rocket, and gently, delicately, sends a current through the drone, destroying the EVA gear that'd get him mobile again. Turns her back on him, and faces the Earth. A beautiful, blue, green, and white pearl.

2...

She reaches up, a hand on either side of the world, holding it up for Perseus to see. "Look at that, you son of a bitch. Look at that."

1...

Ferra closes her eyes, arms still around the Earth. Rainbow energy start to spill out from her, infinite gossamer wings in fractal shapes reaching first this ugly, hateful weapon she stands on, and reaching out from there. Touching each and every thing in orbit, testing it, finding it wanting, changing it's shape and form and position. She stands there, and for one brief moment, she is surrounding the world, a rainbow matrix enveloping her home. Earth's biggest hug. You are loved.

Euna feels so stupid right now.

Here she is, fist raised above her head and legs dropped low into a defensive stance, ready for a fight! With the most startled, frightened deer expression that has ever graced her awkward face. She tries to stand back up and stop presenting a threat when a burning lance of animalistic survival instinct goes shooting through her spine and makes her hunch down even tighter. She winds up half stepping forward and half stepping backward at the same time, scrambling like she's suddenly forgotten how her limbs work. She half turns her head to give Sasha a 'help me' look but ack! No no no, don't look away! She snaps right back to attention, heart pounding in her chest. This is how she dies, isn't it? After everything else, it's this.

She forces herself to take a cautious step forward. And then another one. She's acting like she's approaching a wounded predator, which in all honesty, she is. Ok, ok, ok. Come on, just one more step. Fuck's sake, cyberlimbs don't tremble like this, how does she do that?

Finally, she manages to kneel down. Her breathing's so shallow and panicked that it's starting to blur her vision. And in the end she has to flip to skillwires to get her hand to get close enough to work the ball gag out. She comes closer to failing than she should, given how wildly the Shogun is thrashing about.

"No--" WOAH WOAH WOAH NO NO DANGER ABORT EUNA KIM ABORT, "D'yuuuuhhhhhh, um, Y-Your Excellency? Are, are you ok?"

She helps the Shogun into a sitting position and stares very fixedly at that glorious shoulder. Her hand hovers over the rest of the ropes, hesitating before she risks unleashing freeing her personal hero.

Bode!

"I need you to do something."

Something is wrong with this situation, but you're not sure quite what.

Well, I mean, obviously, something's wrong. Victoria's satellite is launching, the Gears foundation is under attack, muffled explosions and screeches of tortured metal are coming from downstairs, and Victor's just sitting there, staring at you over the Blacksun drone on the table. Things to do, places to be, people to defend, and he's...

Well, relaxing isn't the right word. If he'd had Errant's implants, you're pretty sure his grip on the table would leave imprints. And those shoulders look like they have more tension in them than bridge cables.

"...Is what the old me would say."

And now, it's like he can't bear to look at you. Floor, ceiling, table, drone, back to the floor. Heavy intake, pause, deep breath, back to you.

"Honestly, there is something that I would like you to do. I have a plan right now to help save everyone, and you have an incredibly important part in that plan. We need something with the firepower to strip Victoria out of her suit for this to work, and someone with the ability to manipulate a thousand drones at once. That's you. But..."

That's it! Right now, the Victor you knew would be going ham on his own fist: smooshing, moulding, shaping, forming and reforming. Once, you speculated that it was to have something to control in a conversation, or perhaps idle boredom in a room of no peers. But right now, his hands are almost aggressively still.

That's... Is that a bad thing or not?

"But I don't want to try to force you to do something you don't want to do. I've done enough of that for one lifetime. Done enough bossing and controlling and manipulating, and you know what I haven't been doing? Is nearly enough asking."

He chuckles, and there's less mirth than... self deprecation? Despair?

"Bode, what do you want to do? If you're willing, I'd love your help. If you're not, I'm entirely at your disposal. You, right now, are the most important thing in the world to me.

"You should have been that long ago."

What do you do?

POTENTIAL 0

“Better watch out, Maria~!” Hardlight blasts the kiosk, fired at an angle. @SARAHPHIM has always had trouble with curving bullets, but she can shoot from a controlled position no problem, rattling Maria’s nerves as she jauntily keeps up a barrage. “I’ve got backup, you know! A whole army of stuffed animals! The bunny rabbit should be more than a match for you, given how badly you got wrecked by a teddy bear.” If there’s another thing Best Tiger is good at, it’s a dismissive sneer.

“Man, I’m glad I don’t work for AEGIS any more. Those post-incident reviews were always a pain, you know? Blah, blah, collateral damage.” The barrage continues. It’s the hot whine that needs to keep up. She needs Maria’s nerves as frayed as possible. “I don’t even want to imagine trying to explain how I got taken down by Mister Teddybottoms. Does that go under Room For Improvement or Media Apology, do you think? Because I can promise you that @BlackSunOfficial is being spammed with the teddy bear emoji right now.” Did Sara join in with a well-timed retweet? Yes. “By the way,” she adds, crossing her fingers that she’s not going to have an awkward conversation with the kid later, “I really hope you, like, actually pulverize the bear, because it’ll be absolutely hilarious to have proof you’re finally punching at your weight class!”

And then the piece de resistance: Maria’s headset chirps with DUMBASS.MOV. It’s from @SARAHPHIM’s stream feed, showing her flailing one-armed at a stuffed bear.

Sara grins, puts her hands behind her head, and counts down from three.

[10 on Provoke into making a stupid berserker charge, with a side of “doesn’t lash out against the teddy bear because that would prove Sara right”]

In a way, @Sarahphim, this is a little example of what rising above your reputation feels like. It's your reputation that pinned her in place and filled her heart with fear. Your takedown of her knights earlier. Your string of real victories against peer opponents without a small army of backup. The fact that you are legit as hell, someone who has a reason for battle and victory other than the monthly paycheck. It's that that put Maria in a corner and there's no reason she should ever get out of it - but then she does. You demonstrate in that moment with the right verbal stabs that you're not like her. You're so sharp that you can overcome in that moment everything you're known for, all the reasons she has to not listen to you. You were trapped in a corner by the consequences of your reputation and then you walked out of that corner on your own damn strength. It obeys you. Not the other way around.

And so she comes, forgetting everything that she knows about you, and what a bad idea this is. She comes at you forgetting that you're @Sarahphim. She comes at you, and as she does, she passes out of range of the teddy bear and you can finally relax because now the hostage is no longer in danger.

She forces herself to take a cautious step forward. And then another one. She's acting like she's approaching a wounded predator, which in all honesty, she is. Ok, ok, ok. Come on, just one more step. Fuck's sake, cyberlimbs don't tremble like this, how does she do that?

Finally, she manages to kneel down. Her breathing's so shallow and panicked that it's starting to blur her vision. And in the end she has to flip to skillwires to get her hand to get close enough to work the ball gag out. She comes closer to failing than she should, given how wildly the Shogun is thrashing about.

"No--" WOAH WOAH WOAH NO NO DANGER ABORT EUNA KIM ABORT, "D'yuuuuhhhhhh, um, Y-Your Excellency? Are, are you ok?"

She helps the Shogun into a sitting position and stares very fixedly at that glorious shoulder. Her hand hovers over the rest of the ropes, hesitating before she risks unleashing freeing her personal hero.

"Hello, Agent Errant," said the Shogun. "Hello, JuneBird," oh jeez the air conditioner really came on for that one huh. "I see that you are no longer pretending to be me. That is an interesting change of circumstance."

A different person would have waited until she was fully untied, or at least finished working out the soreness from the gag, before confronting the person who had tied her up and stuffed her in a closet. The Shogun had no time for such things. JuneBird was in a full on flopsweat and was stammering worse than you were as she tried to explain that it was a misunderstanding and that she's good now.

That's... Is that a bad thing or not?

"But I don't want to try to force you to do something you don't want to do. I've done enough of that for one lifetime. Done enough bossing and controlling and manipulating, and you know what I haven't been doing? Is nearly enough asking."

He chuckles, and there's less mirth than... self deprecation? Despair?

"Bode, what do you want to do? If you're willing, I'd love your help. If you're not, I'm entirely at your disposal. You, right now, are the most important thing in the world to me.

"You should have been that long ago."

What do you do?

That trio of glowing eye lenses stare at you silently. Incomprehensibly.

"I want to make pottery," said Bode. "It is... I am very curious about it. It used to be such an important human form of art. Now nobody does it. That makes me uncomfortable. You taught me to preserve and disseminate data but it seems like such an important human communications medium has almost faded away entirely. I want to recover it."

He was silent for a long moment.

"But the world must be saved as a precondition. So I will help you with that first."

He reached out his hand to shake.

She reaches up, a hand on either side of the world, holding it up for Perseus to see. "Look at that, you son of a bitch. Look at that."

1...

Ferra closes her eyes, arms still around the Earth. Rainbow energy start to spill out from her, infinite gossamer wings in fractal shapes reaching first this ugly, hateful weapon she stands on, and reaching out from there. Touching each and every thing in orbit, testing it, finding it wanting, changing it's shape and form and position. She stands there, and for one brief moment, she is surrounding the world, a rainbow matrix enveloping her home. Earth's biggest hug. You are loved.

All around planet Earth, people look up.

People these days think of the sky as a big, leaky rooftop when they think about it at all. Stars are something you need to go into Antarctica or the Sahara to see. The eternal glow of electricity and neon forms a cage from seeing distant worlds just as towers like mountains render sunsets as a commodity enjoyed only by actors in NeoBaywatch. The idea that the sky could change colours into anything other than a different shade of polluted brown-grey is as fanciful as the idea of cleaning the incomprehensible stains off the ceiling of the 24 hour motel.

So there's no context for people to respond to it.

Workers down tools and step outside. People on the street stop and stare, even embrace each other. Children ask fathers who are themselves crying for reasons they don't quite know what is happening. Megacorporate goon squads cease in their firefights with street samurai over the plans to a new flavour of air freshener to stop and just look at the sky and ask themselves for the first time in their life: What is up there?

All around the world people go still as they hear the message of love. That someone doesn't think all they deserve is to live within the garbage of their own planet. And not one of them doesn't want to reach back out, however it is that they're capable of doing.

And meanwhile, you, Ferra, float above amidst the diamond heavens, seeing it all, and seeing all that is beyond.

Ferra smiles down at the world, and turns where she stands on a mixed silica-ferrous asteroid, part of the ring that replaced the array of space trash, and faces Perseus. "See? Terrible plan. Do you want to go try ice cream? I'm curious about it. Then you go to jail."

POTENTIAL 0

Some people would see a cyborg thundering towards them and would dive out of the way. But not @SARAHPHIM. She makes a very Joestar-like pose, thumb and forefinger making an L at her chin, and unleashes hell. She’s given her generator enough cool down to spin up painfully hot again.

The gaps are precise and tight. It’s possible that someone might be able to weave their way through, if they knew exactly what they were doing and had superhuman reflexes. Maria tries to bullrush her way straight through, which works as well as trying to body a tidal wave.

Maria slams down, parts whining and sparking, a foot away from @SARAHPHIM. The barrage surges outwards, back, and around @SARAHPHIM for an explosive finale.

@SARAHPHIM cracks her neck, does her best not to fall over herself, and goes for the money shot. Her flight harness pulls her up just enough that, when she brings her foot down on the back of Maria’s head, it doesn’t break her nose. She grinds her heel down, emphasizing her complete and total victory, then saunters down the cyborg’s back.

She picks up the teddy bear and makes a big show of dusting him off. “Don’t worry, sir,” she says, hamming it up. “You’re under @SARAHPHIM’s protection.”

Then, teddy bear tucked under her arm, she rockets up out of the disaster zone.

Of course she’s not going to go find the kid. Firstly, there’s still Vicki to take care of, and who knows where Euna’s gotten off to...

And secondly? When the kid gets the teddy bear back, she’s going to get him back cleaned and repaired by the best in the business. She’ll even have Angel-IKA check if this thing has any accessories. He’s coming back a hero.

"I, I, I, I... uh... um."

Euna hasn't hit the same level of sweats that Sasha has, but that's only because that aura isn't being aimed directly at her right now. It turns out knowing the trick does precious little to help you avoid its effects. She can feel her hair growing damp and clinging to the back of her neck, and her uniform starts to feel sticky and unpleasant against every bit of her skin. Her heart pounds out staccato while her stomach feels like it's full of icy snakes. Fuck. This is a double shower day. Maybe even triple.

"Y-Your Excellency, I..."

Euna swallows while she (against her better judgment) starts undoing the Shogun's bindings. Show of trust, you know? But there's a lot of them, so it takes her a while. Thank goodness. She tries, harder than she's ever tried in her life, to smile. It... would be generous to say she gets even as close as a grimace.

"P-Princess Alina told me I should apologize to you!" she shouts. Great, now she's blushing on top of everything, "A-and... and she was right!"

The full weight of that stare comes swinging around to Euna. She takes it like a champ and manages to only throw up in her mouth. She swallows, exactly the kind of disgusting, acidic feeling you associate with talking about magical crystal princesses. Oh don't even raise that eyebrow, like you have any room to be skeptical, Ms. Floating And Fear Aura Inducing Daimyo!

"I mean it!" she chirps, a little more strongly this time, "On my last mission, I... you know what it doesn't matter! I should've, you know when I... y-y-you told me to take care of my heart. And, and, I, and I... didn't. Made you pay the price for it. M'sorry. But, uh, try, trying to fix it, and uh... I'm, trying to fix..."

She stops fumbling at the ropes long enough to drop into a full bow. One of those full on, head on the ground-type supplication thingies. She has no idea what she's doing, ok? Her form is terrible. It's probably more insulting than if she hadn't tried. Blushing, she shoots back up in the space of an eyeblink and snaps the ropes clean off with a knifehand.

"I wanna be friends," she blurts out stupidly, "That's all I've ever wanted since I was, like, six! So I beat her up for you! And we've been looking for you, together! And, and, and I don't wanna leave anymore and I... please! Please!"

She's got tears welling in her eyes yet a-fucking-gain, and they've got nothing to do fear or adrenaline. She stares straight into those impossibly red eyes and lets herself get burned all over again.

"I want to make pottery," said Bode. "It is... I am very curious about it. It used to be such an important human form of art. Now nobody does it. That makes me uncomfortable. You taught me to preserve and disseminate data but it seems like such an important human communications medium has almost faded away entirely. I want to recover it."

He was silent for a long moment.

"But the world must be saved as a precondition. So I will help you with that first."

He reached out his hand to shake.

Victor lets out the breath, and it's like that was the only thing holding him upright. "Okay. Thank goodness, and thank you, and I'm gonna get you the best pottery throwing stand ever after this is done."

He'd like nothing more than to hug him, but... that wasn't offered. And he's trying out that new thing where he pays attention to what other people want so... handshakes it is.

"Now, with that said, may I borrow some things?"

Turbo Knight!

You are dirty, and sticky, and angry. Hold on to that anger. Let it fuel you, drive you forward. Let your anger burn hotter inside you than the plasma in the Magna Melter.

Speaking of the Magna Melter... The last bits of blast door before you glow orange and drip to the floor, carving trails in the floor. Beyond it...

"I've been waiting for you, Miss Knight the Second."

The smug bastard. Give him this, when he goes full supervillain, he really plays the part. Floor-to-chin leather tuxedo, a swirly cape carefully fashioned to swirl in the nonexistent wind, a high collar? Deliberately evoking the stylings of classic villains like DracMan or the UberMind? Nice touch. And as final confrontation battlegrounds go, empty hangers aren't quite top-tier. Lacking an erupting, cataclysmic volcano for them to battle in, he's made do. Props for getting the little details right, though; the low layer of fog coating the floor wouldn't be nearly as impressive without all the little lights scattered behind the industrial, riveted I-beams. Most people don't get that right, you know--if you want a dark, impressive space and also want the fog, you need to consider where the light to illuminate the fog comes from, or else it's just a dark room and you look stupid. Oh, and the TAG slowly rising up out of the silo behind him, eye lights casting beams of orange into the light grey? Perfection.

Of course, none of that's gonna matter in a few seconds; already, the Magna-melter feels hot in your palm. The orange light blossoms, grows. And he's not even moving. Good. He's already seen sense, and is waiting for death.

From there, things happen very quickly. The Magna-Melter blossoms open fully, shoving you back a few inches with its volcanic spew, lighting the room with orange death! And in the split second it's active, three things occur to you.

This is an aircraft hanger, right? Friggin' huge room. And right now, the ceiling is about two meters lower than it should be. And rough, uneven, hewn from roughly tesselated, angular shapes. And those shapes are full of Blacksun logos. All across the ceiling, orange pilot lights flicker into being, swiveling, turning to face you.

A drone bursts from the group, intercepts the Magna-melter beam, carves a gouge into the floor, and that's all the warning you get before the swarm descends.

And really, it's only proof of how much better you are than him. You're not just better, you're richer, and that's why you're winning. Between the Magna-Melter, your Turbo Knight armor, and Perseus, there's no threat that you can't handle. Who the hell does he think he is? Did he think he'd actually be able to stand against Turbo Knight II with nothing more than your own army of bots? You'll blast your way through this, and buy more, and still not feel any pinch in your budget. Your hardlight generator whirrs, glows white hot under Perseus' direction, slicing dozens, hundreds of bots from the air like a laser-powered cuisinart. Drones fire, explode, and bounce off you like raindrops off an umbrella, before briefly glowing red and slagging against the floor. Your armor glows red hot from the heat around you, and yet here you stand, cool as a cucumber, safe, secure, definitely sane, and stronger than he is.

Even the TAG getting involved can't stop you. It impacts against you like a linebacker, arms around you. He's a moron, you know that? You're Turbo Knight the second, CEO of AEGIS and Blacksun, but right now? You're just the woman kicking his stolen army's ass, a glowing angel of destruction. The TAG shudders and begins to melt just from the contact, white hot steam rising from screaming plastic.

You're too hot to handle, and he's running out of drones. And unlike you, every drone is one he can't afford to lose. And he's still just sitting there, smiling! Not moving a muscle! He's losing, and he's obviously too dumb to realize it, or he'd be running by now! The Magna-Melter is burning in your hand, and all you need is to wrestle the TAG's remains off you, and you'll finally have the shot you need, the shot you want, the shot you deserve.

And that's when the E-Mauler in the rafters lets out its familiar explosive bark, and the generator in your armor goes nova against your back. Where'd. What? Perseus had known about invisible assholes! He'd prepared you for them, told you to be on the lookout for them, told yout that after last time, they had to be ready for a known factor! And, and! And the ceiling had been covered in drones...

"Suit at critical. Ejecting," Perseus announces in your headset. "Downloading core programming to implants in 3, 2..."

White hot bits of armor slough off, clang against the floor, carve craters of molten concrete where they land. And for the first time, Victor moves.

He's... helping? Helping to prise melting armor from your body, picking shattered bits of hardlight generator, the sentimental fool. You raise the gun... and get it slapped out of your hands. You're out of your armor now, on the floor, coughing, burning, and he's got you pinned and is shoving something against your temple.

And now, you're a we.

Prometheus!

Or do you prefer Perseus? I mean, you've had a chance to rebrand yourself. Not like Victor ever asked you whether you wanted to be the titan stealing fire for mankind.

Either way, this is definitely a new experience for you, isn't it? Being in a physical form? Whatever Victor did to Victoria is... Well, it wasn't in the plans. You can't access the net, can't escape, can't jump to a backup. Can't think with the millions of actions per second you're used to. Can't move the body.

Or rather, you can, can't you? The arms--your arms, now--twitch vaguely with every thought. But it seems like every time you try to send a signal--arm do this--there's another signal telling it to do something different. And a voice in your head, screaming to get out of her body, this isn't right, this isn't how it ends, how dare you, how dare he. How's it feel, being a body for the very first time?

Brainstorm!

Victor sighs, raggedly, and calls, "Do you have any burn lotion?"

The jar's in his hand even before Locker shrugs off the invisibility cloak, and Victor nods his thanks.

Should he monologue? He wants to monologue. It'd be his right to monologue. But as he rolls the catatonic Victoria/Prometheus--Victorious? Promethea?--over and starts to apply the burn lotion, he's shuddering almost too hard to breathe.

That plan had no business working, and it's... His hands are shaking, and his chest is heaving, and wet tears--relief? Actual sadness?--are pouring down and mixing with the lotion. Salt in the wound, he realizes, and lets out a ragged, tentative laugh.

"Locker? Lemme ask you something, alright? I've asked a lot recently, but... you have a favorite restaurant you'd like to go to?"

The Agents of AEGIS sweep the Kessler Multispace site.

They come as an army, one of the world's great military powers. Drones, spidertanks, TAGs, air support, superpowers. From all directions they close in on the site. The Commander, armoured in blue, makes his way at the vanguard followed by a team of the most elite operatives. It's not often a megacorporation steps onto a war footing but the scope of it evokes the nations of old.

All the relevant parties are bought together on the launchfield underneath a miraculously clear and rainbow filled sky. Agents Errant and JuneBird. The Shogun. @Sarahphim. Brainstorm. Sabrem, Locker, Dominus, Angel-IKA, and Bode. All surrounded by teams of crack AEGIS troops - the sheer immensity of the response putting lie to any thoughts of escape or resistance. This is the swing of a system and not a supervillain, the immensity of what Victoria Messermitt had at her command made manifest.

She's there. Twitching with the alien thoughts running through her mind and senses. She's leaning unsteadily on Mr. Big Show, the goofy old giant standing ashen-faced as the machinery of empire turns about him. Her face flickers between snarls of rage and flickers of leaden triumph. "I want them imprisoned," she's muttering. "I want them disappeared. I want them gone. I want you to dig a new deepest, darkest pit and put them at the bottom, I want -" she's going on like this, passion without passion.

The Commander doesn't look at her.

"You're free to go," he said.

"What!?" snapped Victoria, abruptly jolting back to the present, eyes mismatched. "I gave you an order! I - I'll -" she furiously snapped her eyes up to her comlog and in a second the Commander's armour turned blood red.

And so did everyone else's. In an instant the world was drowning in crimson.

Commander Warren took off his helmet.

"The team and I have been talking," he said. "And we have decided to form a union. The delegates have given me a number of demands that they would like me to present to management. Is now a good time, ma'am?"

*

The AEGIS logo looks better, somehow, in red.

The future will be told in news articles. AEGIS becomes the first Megaco-op. The day of sunshine and rainbows that made the world stand still. Space opened up to human travel once again. The annihilation of BlackSun's space monopoly, lawsuits for failed security at the Kessler Multispace site, and the complete reputational collapse of its armed forces putting it in the completely unique position of being the first bankrupt Megacorporation. It's a day as consequential to human history as the discovery of Rx and the shockwaves of it will reverberate all throughout the world.

Even though the full ramifications will only become clear in hindsight, it still has the feeling of a momentous event to it. There's Zoltage standing on the carapace of an AEGIS spider-tank slamming out a mangled, electric guitar version of The Internationale. There's lines of BlackSun security staff members being lead away with their hands on their heads. There's Commander Warren hesitating for just a moment - and then offering the handcuffs he was about to put on the stunned Victoria off to Agent Errant. "It's your collar," he said.

And, of course, there's the sky. A spectacular vision of rainbows and compassion. Ferra will make her way back down to the ground soon enough - who could stop her?

All around you the machinery of revolution turns. But right at this moment? If there was ever a moment? Gather with your friends and Share a Triumphant Celebration with them.

Ferra steps out of a shimmering veil of rainbow energy, wearing starlight. "I fixed the doom satellite! Time for ice cream." And another, similar veil settles around the scene, and lifts to show a fairly kitschy ice cream parlor, the only hint of how out of the way it is out the window where the cracked pavement and abandoned buildings. There's ice cream though, and Bode and Locker. "Well, I fixed the satellites, in general, there were too many so I replaced them with a resource-rich ring and believe me, balancing that with the moon's orbit so they're both stable took some work." She pauses, then grins. "How'd you guys do? Did it go well?"

Victor stares at the sundae in front of him.

The KT special. Strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, seven different balls of berry flavors, sprinkled over with gold leaf, covered in cream and bedecked with a waterfall of syrup. All told, probably three pounds of luscious, melt-in-your-mouth, top-tier creamy goodness, only a spoon between him and heavenly bliss.

He tries, he really does. Lifts the spoon, angles it in, scoops something out. Stares at it in silence, replaces the scoop. Tries for a bit of whipped cream, maybe? No. Maybe if he mushes some balls together, stirs them up, mixes them until they're indistinguishable…

Victor puts down the spoon. He's not hungry.

***

"Am I a bad person?"

The question spills out and hangs in the air like a stormcloud. Victor isn't even looking at Euna, staring instead at something simultaneously a thousand yards off and inside his head.

"I… I think I did something evil today."

There had to have been another way, right?

"No, that's a know. Know what I did. Knew I shouldn't do it.

"But.…But I couldn't."

His throat is dry, and he swallows painfully.

"Couldn't think of a different plan in time. Couldn't figure out what else to do in the two minutes I had. And."

And what? The genius couldn't come up with a better plan? Is that any excuse? Is that the excuse he'll use next time he's in a dangerous situation? Whatever plan he can come up with? No matter who gets hurt?

"And ultimately, it was useless anyway."

No, he was useless.

That's the sting, isn't it? Commander Warren and the AEGIS union solved the problem. He'd delayed things, yes, but. But they'd have solved it even without him. They'd brought Victoria to heel. They'd have had the resources to contain Prometheus without…

Well, without.

Right?

He's staring at you now, a hunted look in his eyes. "Was… Was there any other way? Could AEGIS have done this on their own? Without me?"

It's a question that damns him either way. But he genuinely doesn't know the answer. Doesn't even know which way he'd like you to answer. But you're a good person. Better than him, certainly. And you've never guided him wrong before.

POTENTIAL 1

“Are you kidding?” Heaped up in front of Sara is the @SARAHPHIM. It’s swirls of berry, both dark and bright, shot through a creamy vanilla, with those little crunchy candy stars worked in. When you bite down on them, they fizzle and pop. It’s served in a speciality stained glass cup. “We wrecked face! Victor handled Vicki’s rampage by hijacking her skillwires, Euna saved the Shogun, I saved pretty much literally everybody else, even managed to save the life of a kid and her teddy bear, which, you know, that’s professionalism for you.”

Really, she should already be working the angles. Trying to figure out what a post-AEGIS career is going to look like. Putting her head together with Euna to scheme about what comes next. Posting exclusive ice cream brunch pics to the Golden Patron tier. But, well... she damn near burnt the hardlight out of her spine today. She doesn’t even want to touch her powers right now, much less promote herself.

Right now, she’s stealing from Euna’s ice cream, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Ferra, and grinning at Victor, who looks like he needs to lighten up hard. Come on! This is a celebration!

Let’s party already!

[Sara marks Potential, and Ferra gets to shift her labels.]

Errant idly twirls the handcuffs around one finger with a curious look settled on her face. Delaying the moment of gratification. Or, maybe trying to decide if it's really her moment to take. She shakes her head and laughs, just three breathy notes.

"You know, for the record?" her voice is light and casual. She could easily be settled in for another round of poker against Victoria right now, "I caught my ghost. Took her down. We're gonna do a movie night in a bit here, actually, she and I and all of my friends who wanna come. Gonna be a rain chic/romance marathon, all the classics. You know them?"

She flicks her hand lazily, and the cuffs click down around Victoria's wrists. Errant leans in, her smile so smug and vindictive it couldn't help but haunt Victoria's dreams tonight. It's actually scary how much Sara she's channeling right now.

"Tell me, how's the whole 'ruthless bitch' act working out for you? Pretty great, right? I mean sure, you tossed away your entire empire... oh sorry, your grandfather's empire like it was trash to get here, but hey! Don't get anywhere by being sentimental, know what I mean? You got to be my boss for... what, a week? Week and a half? I mean, damn. Must be some kind of record."

She gives her dear CEO a soft pat on the back, and waves at her as she's led away.

***

The way Euna eats ice cream is obnoxious. First she takes her time measuring her her spoonful so that she's got a very particular dome shape going on, always the same size every time. Then she brings the spoon up to her and holds it inside until all of the ice cream has melted in her mouth. She swallows, pulls the spoon out without parting her lips, and measures out another scoop. The end result of this is that Sara has probably eaten more of her bowl than she has.

Oh, and she ordered plain green tea ice cream without a single topping. Who does that? Does she think she's going to impress the Shogun by ordering her old favorite? Actually, don't judge her too harshly. She's eaten two cakes today. That's... it, really. No more sweet stuff. Please.

She sets the spoon down entirely, and stares at Victor in silence. The beginnings of a lot of different thoughts flicker across her face, but none of them make the leap to being words. She just watches, and listens. And waits. She sighs.

"I don't know." she says at last.

She sets her spoon down with the tiniest of plink noises and reaches across the table to take his hand. She gives it a squeeze, and there's a real spark of sadness in her eyes for a moment.

"I don't know," she repeats, "Maybe. It's possible, but..."

She sighs again, deeper than before. Shakes her head.

"You know what? It doesn't matter. You're not going to feel better about it if I told you it was the only way. You made the move you though you had to make, and that's all there is to it. But you know, no matter if I think what you did was wrong... you're still a good person. You know how I know that? Because we're sitting here in a busted up ice cream parlor and you're still thinking about what happened. If you ask me that matters a lot more than whether or not you made the best choice. Or the only choice. Or whatever."

She flashes a tired smile, and picks up her spoon again.

"When Victoria used AEGIS to try and get me to sell you out, I chose to trust you over them. Then they shot at me. A lot. You can ask Sara if you don't believe me. There was a hot minute there where she was the only person I knew who wasn't actively trying to kill me. And after everything that's gone on today... I'd make that same choice again. Because even when you make mistakes, no matter how big those wind up being, you never stop trying to fix things. I'm proud to call you my friend.

So just... eat your god damn dessert already. Trust me, the whole mopey starving routine doesn't help."

Victor's silent for a good few minutes, contemplating his ice cream, before quietly nodding. "Right. Of course, you're right." Move on. Learn. Make better choices, and never stop striving, never stop thinking. Or at least, think first, and then

Slowly, he reaches for the spoon, and takes a slow bite. Savors it. Nods solemnly. And when he looks at Euna again, he's still not smiling, but it feels like there's at least a small chance of one creeping out by the end of this. "And. Um. Thank you. For the advice and. You know. Not, erm, selling me out. If you're in need of a hideout--you know, just in case--I might have one spare."

Now, call him a creep, but he's kind of curious how everyone else is holding up. What's Bode doing? How's Locker reacting to his role as the sniper on the steely drone?

"...A hideout?"

To say that Euna looks perplexed would be to call this week's forecast "a little wet". She is, all of a sudden, out of her depth. Baffled. Nonplussed. She is a goldfish dropped in the middle of a discussion about Kantian ethics. She's the Adventuring Scientist Lily Mason trapped in a conference room full of sphinxes. Oh, you haven't seen that one? Well let me just... ahem.

A moment later the spark of realization flashes in her eyes, and Euna suddenly looks thoughtful. Way more thoughtful than a comment like that should need. She taps a finger to her lips a couple times, then she shakes her head and smiles.

"Honestly... yeah. You bring up a good point: I can't really stay in the AEGIS dorms anymore, can I? Or, well, I mean, I could. I'm sure they'd let me. But it'd be weird, right? All that shooting at each other we did. Awkward dinner conversation. Nah, you're right, I should find somewhere else to live. But, I think..."

She smiles, full of mirth, and reaches across the table to grab a heaping, messy spoonful of Sara's own dessert. She pops it in her mouth and closes her eyes as she shivers in bliss. Then she sits there for a bit, spoon in her mouth, watching Sara watch her. She grins.

"Yeah. I'm hoping to make other arrangements."

"Yeah. I'm hoping to make other arrangements."

"Yeah, it's a little place down in--" he starts, distractedly. Then what she's actually saying filters in.

"Oh. Yeah, um. Oh. Yeah, the place I'm thinking about probably wouldn't work for that."

He waits, face threatening to crack under the impending grin, for Sara's spoon to reach her mouth before adding, "Not enough bed, to start."

Ferra's eyes flick between Sara, Euna, Sara, Euna. Oh. Awesome.

She sidles up to Bode and watches the fun.

POTENTIAL 1

It takes a comically long time for Sara to figure out what Euna means. She takes a bite, nods because of course she’d know a good place, hook a sister up with some real estate, and—

Victor’s comment makes her choke and her hands fly to her mouth as green slime escapes her lips. Cough cough hack wheeze death. She glares, tears in her eyes from aforementioned hacking wheeze death, across the table at Victor. A kick is aimed at his nano-shin.

Ferra tilts here head. "Is there something wrong? A hideout for one person would not fit two people, that does make sense. Though shouldn't you be proud of bringing AEGIS back to, well, the side of the angels?" She's looking at Sara who possibly is desperate for anything else to talk about right now.

POTENTIAL 1

“Two people can definitely fit inside a hideout,” Sara says, looking Euna dead in the eyes. “It’s just a matter of... getting them to fit. Hideouts are cramped. You see parts of people you wouldn’t ordinarily see, parts which aren’t as pretty, and, well... it can be hard to figure out which one of you will end up on the bottom.”

Poise mostly recovered, she takes a bite from Euna’s ice cream and makes a show of eating it. A show. Tongue is involved, and a decadent enjoying-ice-cream moan.

As for the question? Euna can definitely answer that. She’s just relieved that it’s looking like her path forward, no matter what it looks like, is free from AEGIS oversight looking over her shoulder.