Balmas

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

[Accepting Shift]

It should not be possible for a boa constrictor to look guilty. They just don't have the muscles for it, you know?

Possibly it's because Shifu is currently two feet deep in the slot of the vending machine, which she is Not Allowed To Do. But it's for a good reason! She's here to get Hsien's arm out!

And Mr. Chan has that look on his face.

And she's not gonna get treats for this, is she?

A minute of careful inching backwards later, she's finally able to zoop back into the little girl she so often wears around the place.

"But Izi is leading a raid," she complains. "I could rhino-rampage through the front room and she'd just complain I'm making too much noise."

Oh no the look's getting worse.

"I’m not gonna! Rampage, I mean. Or take treats! Remember, I've been very good since you explained the snack machine!"

A snack machine! A whole box, filled to the brim with crinkly packages! Peanut butter and chocolate in the same bite?! And it's right in the open, where anyone can take what they like!

Which, you know, is how it ought to be. None of that stuffy guarding fruits that only need guarding once every three hundred years, right?

But if you, say, crawl up the inside of the machine, and use your crow beak to tear into those wrappers--and they make the perfect crinkling noise when you do, right?--and don't pay for it? Well, Chan's already selling at pretty close to cost, which is really just an argument that the producers should also be selling them for less, but it means that he can't get more! And then the box empties out, and nobody gets food, and--

"And me being a whale isn't the reason Li's looking for us, anyway!" She gestures one fat-fingered little hand at the princess dangling from the ceiling. "Shouldn't we let her down before Izi's raid finishes? She'll notice that more than she'd notice me, right?"

Breathless Dead

You know, it's kind of weird?

It's like, she's been living with the Pix for. Um. A month? Has it been that long? More? Less than?

A while, is the point. Stealing badges with the best of them, learning to distrust, learning to treasure, knowing that every one of them is waiting against the day that they have a chance to snatch the captain's badge.

All this time, and she's never seen what it was for.

They don't fight like in the books or plays. Which, you know, is probably because they're not in the plays or books--those are all focused on the Ceronians. But if they had been in the books, the books would have got them wrong.

It's like--there's no disagreement. They know what the correct action is, because they'd have taken the same one. Not being told through pheromones, but through perfect mastery.
Honestly, it feels a bit terrible that all of them can manage it when she can't.

D'you know what it's like to have a dozen people forcibly push you to the rear? She doesn't want to sleep, not even for a nap. She can keep going, she can keep fighting, what are you talking about? But not a one of them listens, and in the end, the world does not end for her resting.

Intellectually, she knows other Pix are doing the same. That the defense flows in shifts. That this is a battle of endurance, and pushing yourself to the breaking point just means you're broken.

But those are other people, and it's always so much harder to allow yourselves the kindness you'd never dream of refusing others.

The morning dawns, and they are alive. Alive, she knows, because of the Pix. Because of their perfect acumen, trained in month after month of badge snatching and locker-stuffing.

And even now, they are millions.

They can't have infinite drones, is the thing. She's pretty sure? If they had infinite drones, right, if they could just churn them out until no amount of endurance could outlast it, then they wouldn't need reserves, right? That makes sense to her sleep-addled brain.

There's gotta be an end in sight.

Unlike their mysterious savior, who is very much not. In sight, that is. And on a more technical note, since they've fought for eight hours on their own, they cannot be considered a savior.

Pretty mysterious, though. Good job on that one.

She shoots a glance at Brightberry. Still nothing?

If they could just seize the vats--break through the line of drones and do more than tear apart one biomancer shell at a time--

But she already knows that the Pix would have done that, if they could have. If that would have resulted in victory. And they wouldn't need her to do it.

All she can contribute to this fight is to keep an eye on things, and hope against hope that she doesn't miss anything important.

[Look Closely: 1,3,+2. 6. Tell me about the Wayang. What are they doing? What will they do next? I find the answers out the hard way.]

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

[1+2, 3 to reject a condition. Marking Angry and Insecure.]

*vwooorp*

"At least I can stop doing things dumbly!"

Shifu blinks, staring hard into. Into a camera? There's supposed to be a guy here in the helicopter. You know, a guy with a megaphone, somebody who can cow backwards at having a dinner-plate's worth of razor-sharp chompers shut an inch from his nose.

Chompers. She's her again! Oh, she can change! She grins--as if there's another expression possible with these teeth--and does a little scamper mid-air.

… in front of a camera.

Which is steadfastly refusing to be intimidated.

Probably the scamper was a mistake.

She stares into the glass at her reflection, admiring the way the fisheye lens amplifies her tombstone teeth. No broccoli in her teeth, right? She hasn't eaten any today, and the transformation would have burned any away, but the way people talk she's pretty sure it just shows up sometimes.

…She's supposed to be doing something. Right! Right!

"You just talk, and everything comes out dumbly! Hiding behind a camera, making your own rules, and then deciding everyone who doesn't follow the rules you made up is bad!

"At least Ra--At least she bothered to show up and help people! She actually cares, and she's had plenty of opportunities to drink all of our blood and has never done it!

"And Foxpearl is all of the good bits of Foxfire! That's why she's so small! But she's only gonna get bigger and stronger!"

She glances down, and then turns fully to stare.

Oh. Oh, um.

That's.

She's pretty sure friends don't to that to friends? A little knot churns in her chest at the sight of the startled fright around the Princess's eyes.

But the Princess looks… Almost looks more excited than frightened? There's a blush on those cheeks--like she wasn't expecting this, but it's also not unwelcome? Which makes no sense? This should be terrifying, scary? And she's not fighting--or, you know, wiggling as strongly as she normally would, but--

She stares down, stares at the camera, and decides she needs to ask some questions later on, because this is.

Um.

Anyway. Anyway. Um.

She stares at the camera, quite aware that she's been disrupted and not quite sure how to get rupted again.

"Anyway. We're actually out here helping instead of making hard decisions. So, um."

She lets the fire cover her, quite glad for it, and the osprey dives to follow Foxpearl.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Rain's falling!

Which it does in this world! But that's not the point!

Oh this is bad. Right. Right. Need to be a whale--no, no, not being a whale, need to stop being a whale, need to be a girl again. Be a dog, be her--

Be less shot at! Augh! She is a whale, she's in a pool, you're standing in a puddle of whale-pushed water right next to her, and you're shooting electric lights! Does she need to draw you a picture to show you why that's bad?!

(Please ask her to draw a picture. She's gotten pretty good at it, you know, when she's not needing to use a brush to paint.)

Anyway. It's hard for a whale to glare, did you know that? Especially orcas! They're technically a bigger dolphin, and it's impossible for a dolphin to glare! But Shifu's Just That Good!

She focuses, and gives one tailfin a massive sweep through the pool towards the electric idiot. Lessee, water generates into wood, which means that instead of bullets…

Hmm. Yeah, yeah, that should work. Instead of bullets, how about a gun that shoots flowers?

[Elemental Powers: 6,6, +3 Freak: Shifu is choosing to alter the cop's gun, and on a 10+ is choosing to make this effect work exceptionally well.]

Or, you know, not shoots, but like. Grows out of the barrel. Shoots, seeds, leaves. Surely taking a weapon from a cop can't be considered bad if she's preventing an electrical fire--or, you know, more importantly, an electrical whale?

… Note to self. Electrical Whale sounds like an excellent costume design idea. Save the day first, but see if Mr. Chan knows any tailors later.

Breathless Dead

The tank is empty, and has been for days.

Now hold on there. You might hear that and think, come on, this is Dyssia the Irrepressible, Dyssia the Can't-Be-Kept-Down.

(And why doesn't anybody ever have positive epithets for her, huh? Come on people, you can be more inventive and kind than "the Distracted." Dyssia the Passionate. Dyssia the Kind. She's got a list.)

But this is Dyssia--she's always got a little bit of energy left for a new passion project! Some unplumbed bit of energy, some fresh spark.

But she was running on fumes a week ago.

The fumes have been burnt, and the fuel tank ripped out and dismantled as unnecessary weight. Already, she can feel that she's physically scanter than she was--the body scavenging energy from fat and muscle, devouring itself in its search for anything to keep it going.

Even spite, which carried her through spitting in the face of Love himself, has hollowed her out, left her flat and barren. Is that good or bad? Probably bad. Emotions should be treasured.

But it's like--she can see the battlefield, right? Can see the drones unfolding their legs, see the steel-hard bone armor glinting across the field. It's better to hold here, in the open, where the Pix can devise strategems and hold points, but--

Battlefields are supposed to be noisy, right? You know, screams of the wounded, heroic charges, battle cries, speeches from gallant leaders? The way the drones just unfurl themselves--like dying insects in reverse--in total silence and advance like a mute thunder feels like it's against the rules. It'd be less scary if they actually did make some kind of noise--if they gibbered, and howled, and flung imprecations. It wouldn't be this unnaturally silent advance. It's like being threatened by a thousand malevolent earthquakes, but made worse by this being a deliberate act by the biomancers.

They have no mouths, and she must scream.

Point is, she's basically too tired to do much at this point. She spent her energy unwisely, without planning how to pay the bill, overspending her account, and now the time has come to pay.

Except--

It's like, she doesn't have any physical energy. That's spent. Can't find it in herself to be angry, even. Feels flat and weary and so, so tired.

But Brightberry's alive.

Brightberry's alive, and Brightberry's helping, and if they survive this, Dyssia can talk to her, and--

And it's like, a knot of energy that was wrapped around worry is unclenching? A little ball of--

Yes, call it hope. That tomorrow might happen after all. That she'll get a chance to apologize. That they might make it out of this alive. That she hasn't fucked everyone here by trying to do what she thought was right.

That--That someone else might help fix this?

She's reclaimed that little bit of energy. A candle-flame's worth, maybe. But enough to take her back behind the phalanxes, enough to bark a few orders to the score of pix surrounding her, enough to push her through the movements to project the gravrail out.

They are her phalanx, and she is their esoteric. They protect her, she protects them.

Survive. Yeah, she can do that, probably.

Breathless Dead

… Ah.

You know, somehow she feels like she should have known that her story was always gonna be a tragedy, right? What else could it be with such a flawed protagonist?

Already, she can see it in her mind. DYSSIA, picked out on the posters in an aggressive serif font, playing now at your local theater, with orchestra scored for organ and tympani.

Please, please, please get someone hot to play her.

Not Merilt. Fuck Merilt.

And she's not having THE DISTRACTED tacked on, either. You try to write that sign and she'll come back from the grave to break your wrist, see if she doesn't. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but cross her and you won't have hands left to hold them.

What kind of tragedy, though? Morality tale? One of those hubris things where the lesson is "don't fight the gods, don't fight prophecy, especially don't try to avert the prophecy?"

Because seriously, it never works. Maybe she's weird, but if some soothsayer told her that one day she'd be stabbed by someone born in june, she would not immediately jump to "murder all the kiddies born in june," right? S'like, sure, you start with one purge, but once you start murdering you have to keep murdering, and while you might get lucky and manage to nail the one bastard kiddo who's gonna stab you eventually, you've also guaranteed that half the country has a daughter or brother or parent who's been affected by your binge of purging, and suddenly there's a lot more knives aimed at your back, right? Seems like a whole lot of effort to go to when you could just make sure your will is updated, your successor well-trained, and the bucket list complete by the day of.

Would the stars of a tragedy do anything differently if they knew they were in a tragedy?

Because she could, though. You know? Here's all the Pix, raring for a fight that they probably won't survive. A glorious battle! 50,000 Pix--37500 Ceronians--in a fight to the extinction against a million--no, against multiple millions--of foes! And if anyone could survive a battle of that sort, yeah, it would be them. But it would be slow, and it would be grindy, and it would be legendary, and the perfect distraction to let her grab her servitors, grab Brightberry, and leg it to the nearest spaceport.

Dyssia, the planetary hero who led the Pix to destruction and made it home alive. Stick that in your pipe and choke on it, Merilt.

But…

It's like, she can look at that plan, and it's a good plan, and it's a smart plan, and it gets her home with the minimum of fuss, and any Pix that survive this battle--if they survive this battle, "if" is good--will not have the strength to come back to eradicate her planet.

But she keeps hearing the praise, and the adulation, and the captain claps her on the back with a full name and "brought us to war" and it's wrong.

She didn't plan this! Didn't realize there was a planet here full of battle crabs or whatever else exists in millions! This wasn't a brilliant move by a leader, or a cunning strategy to save her planet, or whatever.

They're so happy to be exterminated. Legendary battle! Warrior nerves rising! A story for the ages, of the last Pix Captain's glorious last stand!

It's not like she wants them to die, either! She looks at the crowd, and she can pick out the friends she's made, cheering just as loud as the people besides them.

They were built for this, and she has no idea how to fix it. They're excited to die. She could have saved herself some time and let the drones have their way.

Is it her job to fix this? She didn't make them like this, the humans did. She can stand tall on the moral high ground, secure in the knowledge that she doesn't have to look at what the high ground's made out of.

And she doesn't even know how to fix it!

Would they want her to fix it? They want this! Would actively punish her for robbing them of their glorious defeat if she tried! Would never be happy knowing they aren't fulfilling their purpose!

But they're going to die, other me! You have to admit that you don't want that!

No, but they do!

But that's fucked up!

Yes, we agree!

But what do we do?!

And the problem, see, the real problem with being the star of a tragedy is that they would make the same choices, even knowing who they are, knowing what will happen, knowing what kind of show they're in, because that's who they are.

If Dyssia didn't care, she wouldn't be in this mess. She wouldn't have poured herself into trying to stop their--what was the word? Some biomancer word to euphemize, to soften the hardness of fuckin' genocide into something palatable--retirement. Rehab. Something with a D. Decommissioning, that's the word.

Decommission. S'like if a weasel were given shapes on a page--slinky, dirty, probably about to go for someone's throat.

But if she didn't care, she could have gone about her day. Waited for the inevitable. Gone home. Wouldn't have snuck around, wouldn't have poured herself into a plan, wouldn't have spent so many godsforsaken days watching Yaji, wouldn't have declared war on Aphrodite for a puppet she didn't use, wouldn't have crashed the ship--which, by the way, is still kind of buffering mentally, it takes time to fit that kind of thought in your brain--

In short, if she didn't care, she could escape now. She could let them have their legendary battle. She could cut and run and never feel an ounce of guilt over letting her kidnappers die.

But if she didn't care, she wouldn't be her.

So it's her who steps to her servitors, and pleads with them that if they care about her, they will run. They've done their job, now's the time to get while the getting's good. It's her, pleading with Brightberry to forgive her.

And it's her, walking up to the Captain, and asking for some binoculars and a score of jetpack'd Pix, and offering her service and rail to perform some aerial reconnaissance.

And if the Pix must die to be happy? If she must perish in this tragedy? if the crowd has to boo and say "I would simply not do that, she's an idiot?"

Well, then at least she'll have the satisfaction of knowing she died as herself.

[Look Closely: 4,6, +2. 12.]
- Tell me about Brightberry. What are they doing? What will they do next?
- What is going on here? What do my senses tell me?
- Is something out of place or hidden? If so, what's sus?

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Good girl?

… no good girl?

Mid good-girl?! Now you look here, missy, she is the best girl and she will do anything to have you acknowledge it!

Even if, admittedly, things here are. Are, um.

No, no, see, this was her plan! She's here, she's in the way, she saw them shoot some kind of net out of one rolling massive eye, she's helping!

Even if, you know, this is, uh, you know, uh. She's fine, right? You can't hyperventilate as a whale, scientific fact, probably. Not wearing a collar, check, so so long as the police don't have a collar big enough to fit a whale this will, this will, you know, it'll wear off, and she can--

Come on already and shapeshift shapeshift change--

Right. Right.

She's here, and she's in the way, and that guard's shouting something? She doesn't want to be in this pool anymore. If she can get, you know, up on the edge, then that'd at least let her use her tail, right? Splashing isn't much, but it's more than just sitting in a convenient pool.

All she has to do is get some uppies, right up onto the edge of the pool. She's got this.

It's not that this hasn't happened, right? S'like, you gotta stretch a bit, keep practicing, be ready to go big, have a spotter ready to pull you out and talk you back into your own shape and murmur appreciatively about how big that was, you're doing so good!

But it's the first time since, you know.

You know.

She's pretty sure it wasn't this scary before.

Breathless Dead

No. Don't.

Leave her.

She just.

Why are you helping--

Brightberry. Where is Brightberry. Brightberry's okay. Brightberry has to be okay. Where's her friend?

She's fighting them--poorly, weakly, no strength left in her. Should be fighting like a demon possessed, with the fury of a madman unconcerned for her own safety. She should howl, surge, thrash.

But that's fled, leaving her to cry, to struggle, to weakly demand that they put her back, leave her, she's dangerous, you can't, she's sorry, she's sorry

she's so sorry

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Oh!

Right!

Right, the. The other things! The important other things! Important other people!

She's in the air in seconds, but not before tapping the little girl she's comforting on the shoulder and making a meaningful gesture between the two of them with one cinderbrick paw. This isn't over, got that? You're gonna need to cry later, because even if you're calm now, you're gonna have nightmares tonight, right? And she's got ears that need scritches, and you’ve got a lap that's crying out to be sat in by a fuzzy critter. You, her, later, okay?

Okay.

[Shift Accepted]

Flying is another thing heaven could use more of, you know? It's like--you feel bad, right, because you're letting down your friends, and they need you, and wow Foxpearl sounds angry, she could really use some cuddles, she should cuddle her later, that always fixes everything--and then you take a step into the air, and the worries peel away like--

Like. Um. Something that peels quickly. Paint under a breath attack? A potato in a mechanical peeler?

She's been meaning to get one of those. So much easier than peeling it by paw or hand, you know?

A-ny-way!

You can't be unhappy when you're flying. Physical impossibility, 's a scientific fact you know. You just soar up, and up, and--

Yeah, this oughtta be enough space.

The blue fire wraps her from head to toe and spreads.

And spreads.

And spreads some more as she starts to fall, fire trailing after her like a comet.

Now, if you were in a bad mood--or inclined to blame someone else for your own feelings--you might call pulling an orca out of a comet showboating. But Shifu doesn't have a boat, and she wouldn't know how to show it if she did!

It's just the joy of the shape that sends her through the somersault, that's all! Honestly! If more people could fly and then turn into a whale, everyone would be doing this! It's fun, dangit!

And at least she's just going for an orca, right? Now a sperm whale, that'd be showing off. Orcas are more fun--rounder, with a lovely two-tone pattern that lets her get both of the best colors in.

With startling abruptness--fifteen feet above the pool level, just when it seems the whale must turn into a splatter on the tile--the whale stops midair, gently moves a few feet to the side, and drops heavily between the two heroes and the people with all those nasty guns.

Shifu grins, and turns a toothy grin on Foxpearl.

C'mon, that was good. Admit it. She did good. There's a good girl in there for this.

[4,1,+3, 8 on Unleash Your Powers.]

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Did you know you don't get headpats in heaven?

Unbelievable, right? Immortality and demons and nature spirits, yes, but the simple idea of--of--oh my gosh right there don't stop--of scritching someone behind the ears because she did good, oh so good, yes she did?

Not a trace of ear scritches, bellyrubs, or headpats to be found. It's dignified this, and growl that, and stern the other one.

What do you need if there's kids frightened by a fire, huh? What good will a fanged grin the size of a dinner plate do there, huh?

Shifu is cute, a crowd favorite, and she is weaponizing it viciously. She's new, she's weird, but she's also an orange-maned dog thing the size of a pony? And adults do this weird thing when they're confused, right? Like, it cuts through the panic and terror, short circuits their brain, and the new thing is so interesting they forget they're scared?

Humans are so cool like that.

It feels so good to be able to help like this, even if she's not able to do the same thing her guardians can, you know, the thing where they can talk without moving their teeth?

Oh. Right there. Rrrrrrright theeeeere oh my gosh

She grins--not the full threat display, but enough to make the kid perk up, and gives him a sloppy lick up one side of his face. Laughter. That's her reward, right there. Headpats, scritches, and to move onto the next terrified, shniffling kid.

It feels good to be a hero.

[Shifu accepts the shift.]