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[indent][color=silver]As the introductions carried on down the line, Aissi found herself still paralyzed under Antares' poison gaze, and she couldn't help but meet it. It was only her peripheral vision that bore witness to the next; the blue-haired Alto, the stoic Lictor...she was choking on the scorn.

...And then he looked away.

Released of the near-physical pain that was meeting her eyes, Aissi sucked in a sharp breath as it felt like her lungs worked again, and then shifted so she could actually see the people she'd be working with as the introductions proceeded further. Zhejiang Erica...uh...Teteh...the blonde woman with [i]too many names[/i]. The white-haired Iona Smirnov, the anxious Kyra. These were the Important People that she would be spending the incoming bloodbath with.

So how appropriate that the bloodbath was rapidly approaching, as the engine noise cranked up.[/color] “Look alive! Get ready to depart! I want Pilots in their mechs and everyone else prepared to move out as soon as that hangar door opens![color=silver]” Pilots. Like Kyra, or Alto, or the man sitting next to her--

--Aissi realized that he'd not introduced himself. She'd seen his face before, knew he was a pilot. Perhaps she'd read the briefing after all? She'd seen it, she knew that. But his name escaped her. T-something. Something kind. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She wanted to say something to him. Thank him, perhaps. Ask him...ask him...

...Ask him what? 

She wasn't quite sure where that thought had been leading. What she'd ask him. What else she might do. So after staring at him for a few seconds, eventually she just settled for an awkward nod and an even more awkward "[/color][color=e00000]Thank--thank you,[/color][color=silver]" before she needed to hurry off.

Despite the dire situation, Aissi couldn't help let out a sigh of relief as she rose and, with a little shake, flared the Wingblades into a more comfortable position. Not wound quite so tightly up against her back, but rather displayed openly to either side of her body. Not the almost predatory position they'd be in as soon as combat started, but more than enough to be fully visible now as the weapons they were. Though...as she did so, she felt something odd. Like something was...[i]loosening[/i] inside of her. A contorted[/color] [color=e00000][i][b]knot[/b][/i][/color] [color=silver]coming undone that she hadn't known was there. 

Then, with a gentle [i]fwoosh[/i] from her internal engines, she glided down towards the hangar door. As she went, she looked about at those that had introduced themselves, tried to learn their faces and remember the little bit that she knew now.

The wick of blue hair that she passed by was Alto Valenti, 'Eight Ball.' He was an apprentice pilot...oh, that was right, she [i]had[/i] read the briefing, she remembered now! She'd had to ask Jacob to explain since she didn't know what 'Eight Ball' meant and it had taken him an exasperated couple of minutes to explain. He seemed confident and excited. A feeling that Aissi wished she could share; her stomach was wrapped up into a tight tangle, and as she tried not to think about her test run, or rather her [i]first[/i] test run, her head filled with a discordant anxious buzzing. She twitched a bit, and shook her head to try and clear the static, but it remained unabated. So distracted was she as she coasted without a sound that she barely even took notice of the horrific violence unfolding on the monitors. Not only was she anxious, she was hungry too. Very hungry. [i]So[/i] hungry.[/color]

[color=silver]'Lictor' was the one with the ominous sword almost as big as her own, she thought as she tried to focus past her nerves as they dug fishhooks into her exposed skin. The sword, and the somehow incongruous standard-issue rifle--which she found herself wondering at the purpose of. Constellations were there to fight the high-ranks only, right? That's what she'd been told, that they fought the Bishops and above, and the pilots took care of the chaff. What use would a gun be? He seemed quiet, though Aissi obviously didn't have the closest grasp on human nature to make any more guesses; like talking was enough effort and energy for him to keep it to a bare minimum. White Dwarf were Constellations that had stopped fighting, right? She thought she remembered that. So what had brought him back to the front lines like this?

A moment later, she arrived right by the hangar door where the rest of the Constellations were gathering, letting her momentum slow. Iona was there already, and Zhejiang too-many-names as well. Nobody needed that many names. How did she even remember them all?

Aissi slid in between the two of them, passing into their fields of vision as she slowed to a stop. With some regret, she pulled her Wingblades all the way in right next to her core again, and as the craft continued rumbling around her, she waited in unnatural gravity-defying stillness and silence. She stared at the monitors with glazed, inattentive eyes as she wrestled against herself. Against the fear and anxiety. And against something deep within the underside of her mind: a vague, faint undercurrent of...[/color][color=e00000][i][b]elation[/b][/i][/color] [color=silver]that felt so terribly alien to touch. 

And yet, so natural too. [/color][hr][sub][@Supermaxx][@Raijinslayer][/sub][/indent]