Tatterdemalion

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Ten thousand arrows tipped with fire hiss through the air, suspended in the goddess's awareness, each one threatening to overwhelm her armor, to crack her open and leave her captive heart vulnerable. Another impossible challenge offered by Mu Ysha, a test of her divinity. How dare you claim this position, how dare you claim your place, being so new, so selfish, so suspect? How dare you claim this temple bride is the equal of our champions, Smokeless Jade Fires? How dare you challenge us for our prizes?

Dolly's hands curl in time with hers. Every sensation flowing through her nerves is shared with the goddess. There is determination to mirror hers, a heart beating fast and furious and yearning, yearning, the need that the goddess had cultivated and sharpened to a point. The fire that she had stoked.

The trap is inside out. All she needs to do is prove it.

Together, they fall to their knees. Together, they let fire flow through their arm, straight from Jade's roaring heart. And at the shortest range possible, they hit their target dead on.

The lake explodes as Jade vents power straight through her limb thrusters, raw concussive force that makes her glad she can barely clench her jaw. She feels the jackals peel off, like weights dropping from her torso, and as soon as Jade tugs at her leash she's already up. This plan depended on misdirection and cunning, on being able to fake their way in beneath that guard to deliver a kiss (one with a generator that is still respooling, Jade's ragged breath loud in her ears).

Whether or not Jacinta steps back from the white-frothed half-a-lake about to wash over her, she's about to be facing down three Jades at once, all three doing their best to keep Jacinta guessing which one's real and which one's the projection. The original plan was to close in as fast as possible, but now? Now it's time to improvise.

At least they already have a reputation for being incredibly fluid and hard to hit. Jade's stretched herself across three instances, so it's up to Dolly to do exactly what she says, just as obedient and responsive as Jade's jackals, long enough. They just need long enough. Jade's almost roaring now, and the generator drawing off their star heart feels like it's her heart.

[Dolly and Jade roll with Harmony to Defy Disaster and manage a 14.]

---

Ai!

That two-timing goddess just had to get her taunting in, didn't she? Offering Smith her "personal favor" for the fight, her blessing as a goddess, and even making a show of putting a bet against her? She might as well be like Dolly with that smug goddess pulling her on strings, and it's as transparent as glass that Jade thinks she's really encouraging her!

And the worst part is that it's working. There's even more fire in Angela's gut as she deploys, the burning urge to be able to walk up to Dolly after the match and rub it in Jade's face that she won, so there, what are you thinking of that, and how do you mean to make even and make up for this insult, little Dolly? How much is her ransom, hey?

"Come on," she jabs over the comms, and if there's an echo of how she challenged Solarel, well, maybe it'll be different this time with no trick. She's only fighting this battle today-- no more, no less. "Bring it on, Unseen Goose! Or did that goddess tame you?"

Breathless Dead

Ember rolls over. She sits up. Good girl! She’s hovering over Mosaic like an excitable cloud veiling the face of the moon, her earlier indignation forgotten. Her tail smacks excitedly against the swell of Mosaic’s thighs, her mismatched eyes wide and eager and intense.

”I found a ship,” she reveals.

“I was being chased, so I dived, and down there there was this ship which was so big that I thought it was an old human temple, but then I recognized it, or it reached inside my head and told me what it was, and we can’t do it alone but with you and Beri and us working together we could get it back out of the sea and rekindle the engine and we can go up there! Together! All of us! We’ll even move Dolce’s from Beri and recreate it inside, the whole thing, and we’ll have to pack plenty of crabs for him, but we’ll get him new ingredients from worlds we haven’t even dreamed of, and we’ll go and never stop going, and—“

She pauses here for excited, sloppy, enthusiastic kisses, right up until she comes up for air and gets one of Mosaic’s perfect fingers on her lips. In response, she makes an adorably quizzical noise.

“And the pack knows about this?”

“Mmmhm!”

She wilts, slightly, under Mosaic’s flat stare. But who could stay irritated with the eager knight? Especially one who’s given you a ticket out of Bitemark. A ruined ticket at the bottom of the ocean, true, and one which will need a lot of work to refurbish, but a ticket nonetheless.

“Well,” Mosaic breathes, and pulls her knight close for reward headpats. “Maybe they’ll start smelling better after I dunk them all in the sea. Thank you, Ember.” The shiver that runs through Ember is only matched by her breathless, giddy giggling.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Foxpearl!

Oh, Shifu. She definitely needs an explanation of why it is vital to preserve the Princess’s virtue, and why she needs to be kept safe from the temptation of cooperating with cops. Fortunately, you have a lecture prepared (probably) and visual aids! (And Shifu’s the one person greener to this stuff than you are, you might admit, if you were not already perfect.)

Though Shifu does have a point. You might need to move her into a closet. Or under a bed. Or in a box of some sort as you prepare an even more secret secret hideout.

---

Shifu!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to be smart. Now, smart people do two things: they learn and they come up with ideas. So all you need to do is absorb everything Foxpearl explains to you (which is very smart) and then hit her with the biggest, best idea you’ve got. Chase that thought exactly where it ends up, and then commit as hard as you can!

---

Rain!

It’s raining.

Foxpearl’s run off with the Princess. (This is probably fine.) Shifu probably left with her. And that leaves you. Enjoying the rain, hopefully, as it patters against the windows down the corridor. The twang of a stringed instrument being played in a classic style comes over the speakers of the banh mi place, one of the few places in this commercial zone still open at this hour.

But there aren’t many barriers in SGC. Of course stores close down for the night, but the commercial zones of the towers are still open for late night wanderers who might stumble across a late night shop (like said banh mi place), and so it just so happens that you’re not the first person in line here tonight.

“Oh, hey, Rain!” Bai Xiuying gives you a friendly wave, her round face breaking into a warm smile as she sees you. Doesn’t look like she’s out walking the city post-gig; she’d have her bass over her shoulder in that case. Still has the pin-festooned jacket, though.

Normally, she’d be clearing her head after a hard day of helping out Dr. Huan, same as you. But the lab’s a Scene of Civic Interest right now and Huan’s neck-deep in committee meetings that she’s doing her best to shield you from. Good for vigilantism. Bad for feeling normal.

But you’re the normal one. That’s why you’re here in a dark commercial zone and why the two magical beings have run off with the superhero’s protege.

(Off in the distance, the heavy-duty police patrol craft prepares to fly Xingtian across the city to the HOUND Detainment Center. Its red and blue lights are still visible from here.)

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Foxpearl! Shifu!

“I’m not mad,” Joshua Chan lies. “I’m just disappointed.”

Outside, green-grey rain begins to lash at the panes. Below, evacuation barges mingle with early morning shipping. In here, the burnt water smell of coffee begins to fill the apartment attached to the cafe.

“As far as hiding places go, this is… not a very good one.” He eyes the blushing Vermillion Princess, dangling from one of the ceiling plant hangers, over the frames of his glasses. “Somebody’s going to put two and two together and make Shifu out of it pretty soon.”

But, like, where else could you go? ArAN’s place? She’d lecture Foxpearl for leaving kidnapped heroines on the furniture. Wherever Rain lives? She vanished away at the end of that fight.

“Also, Izi‘s still leading her raid,” Joshua points out. The sound of her hammering the keyboard with enthusiasm floats through the door. “She definitely saw you, she’s just too busy to pay attention to the news yet. This isn’t just going to be a circulation on the Granny Network letting tower security know they need to have a talk with you three. That dipshit Li’s going to be on the news talking about how Foxfire’s clearly made a miniature version of herself and— Hsien. What. Are you doing.”

---

Rain!

Down in the dark. Not a lot of well-to-do people come all the way down here, you know? The closest most respectable people come is checking some shop in the basement levels of the towers. But elemental earth is a vital part of the city.

Somewhere up above, an idiot cop vents one of Xingtian’s power generators, and the ghosts drain down the tower, down to the earth, down into the dark. They flow around you in the dark, whispering, and if you listened carefully you might be able to make something out—

—be sure to tell that daughter of mine
—was the finale any good
—my cat’s ghost is going to fret if I’m out too long
—I just want to go back to sleep
—I was dreaming
—I’m still hungry
—tell Yama there was a mistake
—wasn’t the fire exciting

—all mumbled, sleepwalking. The restless dead. There’s a reason that all those exorcist horror movies are about “laying the dead to rest.” They’re all wispy, fragmented, and one whisper might start a fragment and another might finish it.

The tragedy of this crisis isn’t that the living might be harmed by ghosts. Spooked, maybe. Chilled, yeah. Hurt by someone who’s using all that phantasmal magical power as a power generator? That’s becoming a big risk.

But the tragedy of this crisis is that the dead are awake without the proper rituals, and that they can’t go back to sleep.

Could you sleep down here, if you had to, once the adrenaline drains? Could you sleep while listening to the half-aware whispers of the dead? Or would that have an odd effect?

Breathless Dead

Please, white moon.

You can hide them for a while, can't you?

Just them. Just the two of them. The pack can wait to try to pull her back, to smother her in praise, to train her to be a sixth of the presence that Mosaic is. The town can wait to call upon Mosaic to solve its problems with her incredible feats of strength and charm and huntressesness.

Don't let anyone else see them and the way they wrestle breathless and glowing among the flowers, how Ember squirms so that she can prove Mosaic's power, how those incredible shoulders are a canopy over the little wolf. Don't let anyone else hear the eager panting, the way that Mosaic wrings her name out of Ember's lips, the hitches of breath and the way her voice is dragged up into taut need. Don't let anyone else feel the sleek, glowing skin; don't let anyone smell the Adoration and the Lust and the Submission dusting the petals of the flowers.

You can do that for them, can't you, lovely white moon?

For Mosaic and the hunts she carries out in your name, at least. And for the little kisses Ember lifts to you when she sees you rising while she roams the hunting-grounds of Beri. And for the way that Ember wraps her firm runner's legs around Mosaic. How can you look at that and not wish to protect it, eight-faced moon?

Your work will be cut out for you. Mosaic's name carries embarrassingly, adoringly far. Now that her pack knows beyond any doubt, how can she not be eager beneath her love? How can she not cling, and melt, and reflect Mosaic's desire back to her? This, too, is alchemy, and alchemy has always been touched by moonlight.

So hear her ragged prayer, white moon. And if not for her sake, for the sake of the hero of Beri, whose mystique must be preserved.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"And what if I use that strength against her? If I trap her close and bind her tight?"

"You will still lose," intoned the owl on the branches, whose name was Rojja. "She is the infinity point from which the mountains jut. Your cords will fray; your cords will snap. Cast them into a fire and hope they do not burn! Better that than hoping to bind the Lioness, whose name is Jacinta Niares."

The goddess growled in the back of her throat. Her legs were crossed and the roots of the tree curled around them. Her eyes were closed so that they could be opened. Here, then, was her next challenge: the enemy who cannot be defeated from afar or close enough to count a glory, who cannot be defeated by a pack or by a huntress alone, who cannot be defeated with seduction or with rage. A red serpent twisted in the mud in front of her, and its belly was golden, and its belly was always empty. "Arrows will shatter against her shield. Cords will snap and break. To come in close is to be undone by her arms before she can be touched. To come with the pack is to see them destroyed. Is there no weapon dreamed by the hand of the gods that can bring her low?"

"You are afraid," said the owl on the branches, whose name was Rojja. "You are victory, you are the heart of the huntress, you are the fallen star that cleaves the earth. If you are defeated by the Lioness, whose name is Jacinta Niares, what will you be then? What can you be if you are not victorious?"

"This does not matter. I am going to be victorious."

"Why can you not twist yourself into new shapes? Is this beyond the power of a goddess? There is a lesson before you, if you open your eyes to it." The snake snapped its red and gold jaws into the shadows cast by the tree, and it ate the air. It tore air from air. Holes it chewed into holes.

Beyond, the goddess lifted her eyes. Fireflies danced together on the farthest side of the road which is blue. They swelled into curves, flashing wrists, their lights red and gold, a mouth open in laughter and invitation. The goddess sat there for a time, feeling the chill of the cloak of Night settling and sparking against the warmth of her papaya-flesh, falling into the chewed holes of those lash-fluttering eyes.

"I am the victor that Seven Quetzal has craved," the goddess proclaimed. "I must be the strength that overcomes all disaster and holds her so that she will never fall. She has chosen me instead of becoming the shared spoils of the Red Band, because I am invincible."

But that was not true. Her strength was bound about a lie: that Seven Quetzal had chosen her even in her weakness. Her strength had splintered and shaken to nothing in the Chamber of Night, where her bride was stolen away and tempted by a hot-tongued, strong-armed seductress. And her strength had not availed her when she and Whispered Promise had stormed the Fortress of Mu Ysha.

"Then you will be shattered by the Roar of the Lioness, whose name is Jacinta Niares," said the owl on the branches, whose name was Rojja. "It will shiver you into seventy-nine pieces. Seven Quetzal will be the bride of Mu Ysha, and her throne will be within a palace built upon a swamp. How can you fight a Roar? It is impossible. And yet she will not be broken by it; she will bend where you will break. You know how well her bending is; how she may be borne to the ground, and yet rise again."

The goddess considered this for a time, and then asked, "What is the way to victory?"

"The way to victory is through defeat. The way to victory is through shedding your skin. The way to victory is through love, and love only. The way to victory is to return to the beginning."

---

When she enters the idol, she stops. She nearly walks back out. She nearly starts crying again.

"Jade?" Her voice is small, and thick, and faltering, because she hasn't been here in months.

The sunlight on the wooden floor is dappled, falling over the reclining couch. There are books stacked by the nook up in the corner. To her right, the kitchen stretches down its little hall. The sound of Grass.tone crooning comes over the ceiling speakers. Outside, in the distance, the trains sing by.

And in the kitchen, Jade, washing dishes. It's a moment before she glances up, looks over her shoulder, and that's got to be deliberate but it's a weird deliberate from the goddess. She taps the water off, dries her hands off on her four-colored apron, and nervously comes into the living room, takes a seat on the sitting couch, puts her hands in her lap like Dolly does. (She's not wearing the mask. Underneath, her face is a lot like, like that one statue of Ixel Many-Faced in the capitol, the one where she accepts Adoration Moon as her bride. When she parts her lips, the fangs are noticeable.)

"Sit with me?"

Slowly, as if drifting through a dream, Dolly takes a seat next to her... her Jade. Hands in her own lap, too. The goddess looks so nervous, so... so not herself.

"...I can't beat Jacinta Niares," Jade admits in a tiny, defeated voice. "I thought this would be an effortless victory road. I thought that I was unique and that this would be the story of how I made the entire universe watch me win and then I could show all of them you and they'd understand why. I wanted to make you parade down the red carpet knowing you weren't really wearing anything, and, because, you'd be so embarrassed and excited and..."

Dala Hunters pulls her girlfriend in and holds her there, holds her close, buries her face in Jade's hair and breathes in the faint attempt at scent. And Jade lets herself be held, awkwardly, all her artifice falling apart, leaving... just Jade.

"I don't want to lose. Not to the Red Band. I don't want to lose you."

"You're not going to."

"But if I'm not strong enough to win, I'm not going to be strong enough when Valynia comes back to take you back--"

"You're not going to lose me. And you're not going to lose. You're, you're you. You're brave and you're magic and you are trying to give everyone the miracle they want. And my miracle is just that you love me."

"...I don't know what we're going to do. I meditated on it. I went to the underworld to try to find an answer. And it's just: you lose forever. The only way you win is by losing. And I don't want to run away and be the coward goddess forever and turn you into a joke, but when she wins, they'll know I'm not strong enough to protect you. As if they didn't know it already."

Dolly rubs her goddess's shoulder, and stares outside at the world her... her wife conjured up for her. Her artist. Her owner. Her adorer. And, yes, sometimes-- a lot of the time-- it's felt like they're barely getting by, only winning because Jade is clever and sexy and disarms pilots more than she defeats their mecha, and once she even got knocked out, and--

"I think I have an idea," she says, stiffening, perking up. "I... Jade, I looked over her dossier, too, and she's a titan, but even though we have a lance you always win by getting in close, right? What if we went all in on ion this match? We'd have to do a lot of last-minute fits, and we'd look unarmed, but maybe we could... I mean... if we tricked her into coming up close..."

Jade leans forward, hands cupped under her chin, elbows on her knees, like an ordinary girl. "That would knock out a lot of her systems. But we'd have to get in close in the first place. She's Hybrasilian, we can't count on the cloak working for us. She's probably watched the fight against Ada Smith, after all."

"We need to talk to her about the Angela match, by the way. We can't... take sides in that one. We just need to be there for whoever loses."

"...I do have a side, though. I want Angela Victoria Miera Antonius to win."

"But I don't want Ada Smith to feel betrayed. She's part of our flock, too. An off-to-the-side part, but she's our ally. And we haven't... proposed to Angela yet. So."

"...as my bride wishes," Jade says, slow, small, vulnerable. Flick of the eyes up towards Dolly. This is a room where she can do that. "...do you want to propose?"

Dolly flushes. Looks down at her feet. "I. I think. She's. Well. And you'd be glorified by the Terenian joining the harem, and--"

Jade puts her hand on Dolly's glove. Turns to look her bride in the eye. Does the little Jade smirk. "I think she's hot, too. And she stands up for you when I fuck up."

"...but what do we have to offer her?"

"You?"

"Not just that! I, we don't know what she really wants. Why she's here. If she just enjoyed the night together or if she wants to be like me and..." Dolly rubs her hand against her neck. There's a moment of wordless conversation with their eyes and smiles, and then she's wearing her collar and the tip of her tail is wiggling happily. "...I don't know if many people do want this like I do. Maybe Ksharta?"

"Ksharta needs time to figure out what she needs. I'd be happy if she picked this, though. It's... mrrrr~"

"To be trusted like that?"

"Mmhm."

"...trust. I don't think we can trick them into trusting us. I thought about it. You know, if I let Jacinta know before the match that I'd override your control so that she could capture us both, as long as she didn't shoot up the idol, but she'd ask Valynia, wouldn't she? And Valynia would wonder why I didn't ask her. And..." Her ears droop. "I don't want to talk to her. Or. I do want to talk to her. But it'd be a bad idea. Either I'd get mad at her for not apologizing to you, or she'd talk her way into my head rather than the other way around, and neither way gets us access to Jacinta. So. We shouldn't. I shouldn't."

"Thank you," Jade murmurs.

"So we still lose."

"If I had to pick between losing to Whispered Promise and Jacinta Niares," Jade says, like the words are being dragged out of her by a hook, "I would lose to Whispered Promise. She will not steal you. Just my glory. And I can live without my glory." In the same way that somebody can live without a lot of things, Dolly thinks, and it makes her heart plummet. "But I can't lose to Jacinta. But I'm going to."

This would be so much easier if she hadn't had a fight with Valynia. If she could fill her guilty daydreams with thoughts of being pulled out of the idol to bow at Jacinta's feet. Of Jade becoming a pirate goddess, of becoming the objectified mascot of the Red Band all wrapped up in red scarves, of being painted on the side of fighter cockpits, of Jade and Valynia becoming sisters in arms united by their breathlessly flustered slave-bride, if this could somehow be a good end for everybody. But neither Jade or Valynia would accept second place, and if there's anyone she could trust with those dreams, could trust to actually make it a game and return her at the end safe and sound, it would be... well, Angela.

"We can't mine the battlefield beforehand," she says, instead. "We can't prep camouflage. We can't overwhelm her with jackals. We can't--"

"Jackals," Jade interrupts. "Three-part trap. It'd be complex-- incredibly complex-- but... we could fool her with holograms. My holograms. Of the idol. One to draw her in with a prize, one to ambush her, and that gives our cloak an opening. Around the jackals, emitted by them. Let her fight shadows and then we're there to blow her systems out. More tricks, because I can't win a straight fight, but..."

She reaches out. Takes her wife's hand. Squeezes.

"But a win is a win," Dolly says, and pulls her wife closer. "And--"

And that's when Jade shuts her bride up with a kiss.

Breathless Dead

Ember takes the hands that could break a mountain, undo an army, unravel a fish, and unfold a flower. She takes the hands of the holy monster, the hero of Beri, her lover, and she squeezes those fingers in her grasp, runs her thumbs across their elegant backs, for a moment stands enthralled and adoring. The look in her eyes is domestication. The yearning in the eyes of the first hound who curled up by a fire on someone's feet.

That's the only way she can quiet the tension in her limbs, the driving insistence of pack loyalty, the traitor's worm gnawing at her heart. The only thing stronger than a pack is an owner, crowned in lunatic glory, seafoam in the shape of a demigod, bringing her to heel. But the game has to be played first. The holiness of the huntress must be proved for the spine and the skull and the teeth, which are even older than the nerves and the pits and the tail.

"Then prove it," she says, she asks, she begs, and darts into Mosaic's guard, into her arms, and

nips

just enough to, for a moment, mar the perfection of her neck.

Then she's down, between Mosaic's legs, against the caress of her tail, springing back up behind her, wagging, grinning, daring the chase, yearning the chase, being run to ground, being caught, silencing the need of the pack long enough to prove that she's right, that the little Ember has been claimed by a daughter of heaven, that she has been tamed, that she will sit on command, that she will beg on command, that she will surrender her glory and her chance for praise into the hands of her love to make her shine all the brighter.

Watch her run, Mosaic! She's leaving a trail of Desire for you, all sweet lavender blooming on the hillside, as she pants and pushes herself as hard as she can. She's the runner, after all. Watch her limbs, how she makes the strain look like a crown of glory, how she grins as the world blurs and shrinks to the next moment, the next footfall, the joy of the chase. Please, Mosaic, come and catch her, be just that little bit better, strain to claim her, show her you want her!

What girl hasn't ever wanted to be wanted, after all? That's the difference between being the darling of the pack and being yours.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

SGC Crew!

The cops are down to one guy who has a working gun, and he's pissed at the fact that he doesn't have any special antighost tech to hand and that the Vermillion Princess and Foxpearl are all up in his face. "BACK ALL THE WAY UP," he yells, before the Princess yanks the Sash around his gun and tosses it aside. "...fuck this," he growls. "I'm not bringing in four of you single-handedly."

"Unless they surrender." That comes from the helicopter, and it'd be in all caps if it wasn't in such a smug, punchable soft man making hard choices voice. Even blared over the helicopter's speakers, you can't make a voice like that all caps. Somebody got Director Li himself on the phone. "Vermillion Princess, I'm afraid you're running with what we call a bad crowd. I'd like all of you to voluntarily surrender yourselves to HOUND and then we can discuss reasonable consequences. I'm sure Empress will agree that we need to discuss such a lapse in judgment.

"After all, you're out here with a ghost vigilante. Someone like that might be responsible for the crisis, and even if they aren't, they should be cooperating with our city's top scientists in order to understand and combat the horde of ravenous, hungry, starving ghosts just yearning to drink all of our blood! For all you know, they're doing that the minute you turn your back!

[Rain! +Freak, -Mundane!]

"And you've dragged some sort of... whale? Into this? That isn't really our jurisdiction. But it belongs in a zoo, not in the middle of a business floor! Look at it, it's dumbly gasping for air!

[Shifu! +Freak, -Superior!]

"And if that wasn't bad enough, I can't believe you'd willingly join forces with one of your mentor's worst enemies! You're being played by this, this foxgirl, and you are clearly lacking any sort of responsible authority figure who can tell you that you can't expect anything from them! In fact, you should be arresting her and handing her into our custody! Hand her over, and we'll be sure to take that into account when we are considering charges for disrupting the peace, acting against government officials in the middle of an emergency crisis, bringing the name of our city's Hero into disrepute, and conspiracy with individuals wanted in conjunction with the state of emergency crisis."

[Foxpearl! +Freak, -Savior!]

The Vermillion Princess turns, silhouetted in the spotlight, and looks at the three of you. She's not going to turn any of you in. That's not how she rolls (right?). But she looks like the sudden whiplash from helping save civilians to being Yelled At By An Authority is crushing her precious little heart like a grape. It would be really embarrassing for her if she started crying like a kid in front of Wannabe Policeman Li, but he's needled her right where it hurts: the fear of disappointing Empress and making her look bad for vouching for the Princess.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Rain!

”Oh My God it’s a ghost,” the cop yells as you pull him off balance, sending another net careening off into a sign advertising tasteful cremation services. And, given how that gun works, you’ve neutralized it as a threat for as long as you’ve got him focused on you and not reloading!

The problem is that he staggers backwards so violently that the two of you tumble back through the broken window, and there’s a moment of awful vertigo—

And then you slam against the side of Providence Skyscraper, and the wind’s once more been pushed out of your lungs, and someone’s shining a flashlight in your face.

“WE HAVE A GHOST ON SITE,” a second cop yells, holding onto his comrade’s boot as he aims his rifle at you with his other hand. “COMMAND, REQUESTING— what the fuck, what do you mean it’s not an issue, it’s dragged Po off the fucking building you bastard son of a cocksucking hen, I need something, don’t we have shit for this? You tell the Director to get some anti-ghost gizmo on site or I swear it’s your fucking ass I’ll serve seared and glazed!”

Presumably, he hasn’t tried to shoot you less out of concern for his comrade but because he thinks it won’t work.

Mark another Condition, this is a real rough night, huh?

---

Shifu!

Rain tumbles out of the ceiling like a lightning bolt, grabs one of the “policemen” with all four of her limbs, and the two of them topple back through the broken window. One of the other ones sees what’s going on and dives, saving both of them, bracing himself precariously at the edge of the window.

“STAND DOWN,” yells the third, who actually sounds like a very angry woman through the aggressive reverb of her helmet. “STOP RESISTING!”

She jerks her gun up at the ceiling and pulls the trigger, filling the room with awful thundering noise and making lights explode pop pop pop pop pop.

But that aside, how do you feel watching Rain tumble off a roof?

---

Foxpearl!

“It’s that jerk Li,” the Princess answers, because the cops are too busy yelling and shooting and being menaces to public property. “He probably wants to come up with some reason to arrest us so we stop making his goons look bad! And— RAIN!!!”

Out pop the heelies. The sash swirls around her like a writhing serpent as she skates boldly into the face of danger, and there’s a space for you behind her, if you run.

Or you can keep hiding behind the giant orange orca! Someone needs to look after the downed supervillain, probably. You’ll totally look cool doing it and Princess almost certainly won’t think you’re a coward!

Huntresses of Hybrasil

How would Dolly do this?

She'd... know the right thing to say. She always does. They're her spear and net, and maybe that's why she likes to be disarmed. To not have to be responsible for using all of them. To put her trust in a goddess who doesn't deserve her, just because of the weight of all those words. But she never acts like they're a burden, except when she's leaning in and begging for her goddess to shut her up.

But that's not the kind of reassurance Ksharta Talonna needs.

What would Dolly say? You're a good cook? She can't even eat the smoke. You're pretty? Seduction would make Ksharta Talonna freeze and then bolt. How dare you doubt my judgment? She's already sniffling, Jade, do you want to actually truly make her cry?

If you want a victory, we can go steal one! Pick someone here, we'll be pirates tonight! No, she'd have to want that, and the heart of Ksharta Talonna doesn't want that. What does it want?

"Give me your hand," the goddess demands. She holds her own out impatiently, and when Ksharta Talonna reaches out, she takes that little cook-knight's hand in two of her own. "Ksharta Talonna," she says, "I am not a goddess of knowing things. I could hunt your dreams out of you, but that would be..." She flashes her fangs. "Difficult on you. And I take care of the little cats who give themselves to me."

It is important to say out loud. It is important to be. She will not deserve Dolly if she cannot make this true.

"I cannot make you happy forever," she continues. "Not even our Grandmothers can do that. But I am sorry that... that my blessing has not made you happy for now." Is it true? Yes. It is. "That I have not brought you victory in battle, because I defeated you and carved that defeat into the world. That I have not shown you a way that you can be a great knight and a great cook, because I have been lost myself. That I have not declared war on your hunting lodge for the sake of possessing you, or offered you a place among my priestesses. I have failed you in many ways, Ksharta Talonna, and even I do not know how to make you happy, or which of these things would make you feel that I am worthy of worship."

She squeezes. She tries to make it a Dolly squeeze. The kind that makes people feel connected, even without a glove.

"But there is a place in the house of the goddess for you. If you wish to hunt your courage until you catch it, I will make you our knight, and a place by Dolly's side. If you want to see if cooking makes you happy, then I will make you our cook, and no dish will be outside our reach. And if you want a mortal lover, I will help you catch one. They will pale in comparison to me, but..."

She sniffs, and tries to look magnanimous and not like someone who has recently begged her high priestess not to leave her for a more fleshy paramour. "But they will always be there to touch, and you will be able to smell their desire, and I suppose it is intimidating to be one of my concubines, not knowing if I am going to bring you dizzying rewards or terrible punishments." She is so understanding. So generous. So composed. And...

And she hasn't made Ksharta Talonna happy.

"Whatever you choose to hunt," she concludes, "you will be safe and protected by me, as long as you choose. I am Smokeless Jade Fires; I am undefeated in battle and the hunt." Never defeated. Not even once. Whispered Promise and the Red Band can sneer all they want. She always wins. "I doomed you to defeat, and for that I owe you my blessings. I will be your jackal as you flush out joy."

[Emotional Support hit an 11, if Ksharta Talonna chooses to accept Jade's attempts to help her.]

---

Dolly flicks an ear in... irritation.

"Valynia," she says, and she's indignant, not quite like she was when first kidnapped but still with more fire than she's shown all night. "How can you... you can't insult her and then ask me to... and... you pirate!" Her body language is muddled, her tail's tip is flicking, she's finding it hard to look Valynia in the eye, she's plainly flustered, but she's clenching her fists and a word away from stomping her foot like a kitten.

It's not easy for protagonists, is it? Not in her favorite stories. And now she's in one, thanks to her goddess, and all the things which look clear from the outside are all muddled and difficult and she's weak, she's so easy to sweep off her feet, but you can't say that about Jade! Right after she leaves! Right after she fell to her knees, desperate for her, and the relief when she saw her goddess again after being kidnapped, but...

But she wants Valynia and Jade to fight over her. Just not in a way that hurts either of them. And that only works in stories, doesn't it, Dolly? And here Valynia is, dangling the perfect compromise in front of her, so why is she so angry, just like when Valynia first grabbed hold of her, dangerous and sensual and... and so greedy!

I. Want. You.

But Valynia isn't the one who fell to her knees and begged for her. For only her. Valynia didn't offer to give up anything for Dolly's sake, didn't offer to reform her ways, to beg Jade's blessing, to bring her treasures and gifts and offer her the universe.

I'll take the goddess you come with if I must...

How dare anyone talk about Jade that way?

Even a stupid sexy pirate dangling dizzying indulgence in front of her?

"...the others like Jade more than they like me," she admits. "She's the one who attracts attention. She's the rival that Angela wants, and she's the power that Ksharta craves. But they like me, too. In their own ways. But you don't like Jade at all. Valynia, how can I be with someone who doesn't like both of us? Her strength and whatever both of you see in me. Our desire to be what others need. She brought me here, she showed me the stars, she lets me dance, she wants me just as much as you do, and all you see when you look at us is me. And if I say yes..."

If I say yes, you'll want me longer and longer, and you'll start wondering why you have to share me.

Also, you are strong, and embarrassed, and greedy, and you don't like it when people say no to you, do you?

Dolly's heart tightens. For the first time tonight, she actually feels a little frightened. That's the flipside of being attracted to dangerous girls, isn't it? The danger. And Jade feels dangerous but she's really not, but being alone with Valynia right after turning her down is... is just asking for her to reveal that she's got a path cleared to her mecha and Dolly's coming with her whether she likes it or not.

Or maybe she'll just be sad. And Dolly will feel terrible, and kick herself for assuming the worst, and wish she'd been able to be cleverer, better at words, or the kind of warrior that she is when Jade's guiding her hands, or even just smart enough to realize what Jade was bottling up.

Either way, Dolly tries to look fierce. Like a high priestess. Like someone whose girlfriend was just insulted. Like someone who should not be trifled with, Valynia Bander. What sort of huntress are you?