ZombiesAnHyenas

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Shield Town, Black Iron Workshop, Main Lobby

---

Right. Well! This… Umbri! That was a nice name. Umbri. Umbri… Umbral? Umber! Umbridge? Umbel! Like on a flower! Wait. Focus! Focus.
Umbri, was clearly determined here, which was a nice enough thing to see! Jemma just wasn’t quite sure how committed she would be after being told the details of the ‘procedure’. Hrm.

Oh well. The shapeshifter nodded once and gave a relatively controlled smile. “Right! I’m gonna explain this as… Me, I can. I’m going to turn three of these things here,” She raised a trio of her tentacles, waving each in a row before continuing,
“Into one large, uh, maw. I’m gonna wrap it around your arm, shoulder, and part of your clavicle. From there, it’s going to form a symbiotic link between your circulatory system and mine. I’ll have to bite into you with a fang. … This, of course, likely won’t feel super great. Nor will the…” She trailed off again.

How to describe them… WAS there a way to describe them? She wasn’t versed on animal biology… Oh!
Show! Don’t tell, duh!
Jemma moved back from Umbri, following through on the changes to her trio of tendrils as explained. From the three limbs, she formed a mouth in the shape of a crocodile… weasel… thing. Maybe it would’ve been cute! If… it also wasn’t about the size of Umbri’s torso. She opened the mouth, revealing the relatively small and unimposing fangs within. From one such fang, veins of ink spiraled out and into the air, like the branches of a tree. Or a lightning bolt. Or blood vessels.

“I dunno what to specifically call these yet, but I do know that they are capable of, uh, subsuming any amount of organic matter. And I can choose what does, and does NOT, get subsumed. Then, with the same organs, I can copy, replicate, and modify to my will! Which means I could not only become the snake, buuuut I could just replicate and synthesize an anti-venom!” Chirped the shapeshifting woman, giving Umbri her best version of a ‘reassuring smile’.
Oh! Right. The original point of showing these.
“That all being said… They won’t feel super great moving under your skin and through your meat stuffs. So… You may wanna either sit down and hold on to something, or, I can ‘brew’ you up a cocktail of numbing venoms. And muscle relaxants. Nothin’ lethal! Or capable of stopping your heart, or anythin’! Just… good for not bein’ in pain!”

Jesus, that was a ramble and a half. At least it kinda looked like Umbri was listening! Right. Finish it off.
“Now, I understand that this might sound incredibly unsanitary, but as stated, the… Ink-Vessels? Eh, name pending— Anyways! My ink can subsume basically anythin’ and everythin’ organic! This includes bacteria and viruses, and parasites! Honestly if you’d like I could give you a once over to your entire system, make sure you— Er! Sorry. Focusing. Hoo.”

Jemma nodded then, finally slowing her rapid fire summation to a stop. That was all she could think of! And that was after not having been a Fixer or an Engineer! For three years! She stiiiiill had it! … Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry. Focus!!! Shit!
The shapeshifter shifted in place, again. Her eyes slid to the limbless [NULL-DEMON-MEAN-RUDE-helphimtoo?] nearby. “I know you’re still gonna be upset by this, but as you’re the only person here who I think has her best interests at heart… And also the only person she’s yelled at in this room, which I think is a good thing? I’m letting you know that if I hurt her beyond reason you can absolutely take it out of my hide. I [promise.]”

The word ‘promise’ held a weight to it. One that she wouldn’t and couldn’t dare to explain. Jemma just hoped that he would understand she meant it with the whole of her being. So much so, that unbeknownst to her, the noises churning inside her quieted.
Drowned under the forceful ‘Promise.’ that took the place of the noises instead.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Shield Town, Black Iron Workshop, Main Lobby

---

One more time, anger! Let’s see if you change when your button is pushed again!
Jemma flinched at the words coming from the torso with stumps. She wanted to address his, honestly, reasonable concerns about her mental state and the concrete-ness of her words… But he was being disrespectful, on a table, where people were treating him. For his stump limbs.
Yelling.
And flailing.
And he just called it a Thing. Just said it should be Contained.

Its’ voice rang like thunder in the small space, ink boiling away at the throat as it rose to its’ full height. Pupils exploded to consume its irises, turning the gaze from nearly human to distinctly shark-ish.
“I WILL NOT BE CONTAINED! You will NOT CONTAIN ME! NO ONE WILL CONTAIN ME AGAIN! NEVER.”
The voice, cacophonously loud, was distorted. The buzz of cicadas, torn by the howl of a coyote and the bellowing of a cow. It loomed, now. The body rising to put it’s skull at a solid eight feet off the ground.

“I. Am. No. Thing! I am Jemma! I am Dove. You will respect my existence, street-samurai. You encountered me at my closest to worst. Don’t you dare judge me on that alone.” The body growled. The voice was cold, devoid of affectation or inflection. And its stare was one that might have belonged to a crocodile. Reptilian and cold, with a basal fury that left all the blood in the body boiling.

J-3 loomed a bit more, ink seething under the skin as it desperately tried to reign the anger in. “I have not forgotten you either. Memories still burn, y’know? Now. I’m going to focus on the WOMAN who clearly needs help, like YOU. So please. Shut the fuck up.”

No! Be nice.
Calm exploded throughout the body, abrupt as a thunderclap in the desert. There was no reason to get at him! The lady already did that! Shit. Emotions were dumb, why did it eat them again? … Well, not just it, but-
Focus!

Jemma’s shark-black eyes turned away from Temujin, slowly. Instead, they focused on [FEAR-RESOLUTION-CAUTION-dontfuckthisforme-hopehopehope]. Black pools slowly filled with gold-green-grey. Pupils shrank, revealed colored irises.
She sighed, and let all the anger fade, let the bristling fur lay flat, the bared teeth hide behind closed lips, and lowered the protectively raised tentacles, tipped with newly made serrated claws. Woof. Okay. Focus…

Her eyes narrowed on the stinger offered to her, [ASTRAL EYES] noting… Well. It was coated in that potent miasma of something meant to cause harm. Venomous, and highly toxic at that. The ‘apathy’ part of her understood the barest details of what she was looking at, but to understand more? To become it? That would require… More.
Wait.
Oh! That’s what was causing this poor lady’s face to— Oh. Jemma abruptly understood, frowning deep and thoughtful as she took the stinger carefully.

“Right. I could, technically, become this… thing. But, this isn’t quite enough of a … Let’s call it a biological blueprint, yeah? For me to work off of,” She murmured, trailing off thoughtfully before she continued. “I… do have a way of counteracting that lack of ‘blueprint’. But, uh, it’ll be severely uncomfortable for you, and everyone else in the room. And will probably make ’street-sam’ over there super upset.”

Her voice was thick with exasperation and indignation. Jemma’s eyes flicked over to Temujin, staring him dead in the face, before she stuck a startlingly human tongue out at him. Then she was turning back to… Huh. Actually, there was never a bad time… “What’s your name by the way? Oh! And if you agree, I’ll tell you more and make sure you’re fully informed, yeah? Fuckin always hated it when docs’ don’t tell you the whole thing. Y’know?”

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Shield Town, Black Iron Workshop, Main Lobby

---

It wasn’t so much that the sudden reveal of a… Whoa. That sure was a skimpily clad lady alright. And hey! There’s that—
Fury burst into existence at the sight of Temujin. All of her- admittedly short- focus snapped away from the incredibly horribly terrifically awful conversation she was in, and instead on the travesty of, “What the FUCK happened to you?! Who did this?! What the hell? And no one’s helped you yet? Jesus! Guys c’mon!”

Jemma snapped, anger boiling in the back of her skull as the more… apathetic, part of her person reared up. It smothered the emotions, allowing her to focus just a bit better. The woman next to the demon who cleaved her?! Looked just as horrible as he did. But that was beyond the point. He clearly needed help, and they stopped helping him… to… gawk at her? She could’ve waited!

Her head whipped back around to glare at Koba and Graham, temporarily ignoring Alex for a second. “Y’don’t leave a fuckin fixin’ MID SURGERY! That’s SO BAD FOR LITERALLY ANYONE!”
Woof. Okay! Okay. Reign that in. Alex is glitching out with his color lights, which is unusual. Split attention… split…
Oh. Oh she knows! Easy! And crutch-girl McNoShame just asked her to shapeshift no less! Ignoring that she seems convinced that Jemma WANTS to eat people. Rude! She doesn’t! Ever again. Please god.

Jemma flashed her a smile, all sharp teeth and ‘okay, but you asked for it.’ As ink swelled over her entire body. Flesh and blood and bone vanished under a tidal wave of pitch, as new body leaned away from the first. Muscle and bone slapped against the floor of the workshop angrily, as ten writhing appendages sprouted from Jemma’s thighs. Her knees and below had vanished, instead giving way to a collection of furred, vaguely spiny, tentacles. Each was about three meters in length, and about sixty six centimeters at the ‘thigh’ in thickness. They tapered to chitinous points, and the ink still swirled.

Her upper half changed as well, as the jumpsuit slipped to the ground, soaked in the pitch. Her arms went from two, to four, and tapered into chitinous protected tips, not unlike her new ‘legs’. The torso was mostly unchanged, save for the keratin plates that now served as armor. Her hair lengthened, filling with bio-luminescent light, and her eyes multiplied to a total of six. Two where one would expect them, another two on her clavicle, and a final pair in the palms of her new arms. Her freckled face, something she’d never had before, went from ‘freckles’ to ‘heat sensitive pits’. And from the top and sides of her head sprouted a quartet crown of branching antlers.

She turned to Alex, then, focusing hard as she overlaid her voice with as much [MANA] as she dared use in the presence of all these faces. “Hey! Hey. I dunno what’s going on in your head, but you gotta chill, o’RGB man of adoration. I’m here. I’m fine. Stop pacing like a tiger. You’re pushing… It’s pushing at my ‘gotta face it or run’ button, okay? Just take some deep breaths sweetheart.” Jemma barked, smoothing her tone out to familial gentleness towards the end.
She turned, looking away from him as she slithered closer to both Temujin and his unfortunate… Room… Guest? On crutches? What the fuck was going on with her face and neck? Hm. Not good! Maybe some sort of rejection? Wait. Focus! Focus.

Ink pulsed once more, centering around her head as some internal changes rippled forth. Focusing on multiple things was easier, and her astral eyes finally turned away from where her mundane eyes were looking. Of a sort. She could see all of them, in the room, and their imprints on the [MANASCAPE].
The woman was afraid, of a sort. More like… coldly determined and probably definitely delirious!
Interesting!

“So I dunno how much of that you heard, but I’m gonna assume mostly all of it. Please don’t repeat it to anyone? … Also, I showed you mine! Whatcha want from it?” Jemma said, clinical at first, and then rapidly devolving into ‘hyper murder puppy-octopus-monster’. Her face split into a small smile, revealing teeth like needles, from which dripped an amber tinted saliva. Venom, not meant to kill— Not unless she had to— but to incapacitate and immobilize. Some neurological paralytics, some physiological muscle relaxants… Yeah, yeah that’d be fine! Ignore the feeling of Koba and Graham staring at her like a crazy woman! It’s fiiiiine it’s fine it’s fine!
Push the panic-FURY-WolfBorneProtectionPolicy-confusion down. Focus!

Focus. Two things were happening, and both were important, huh? Shit.
Focus.
Oh, and clarify.

“Also! I didn’t want to eat anyone, ever, thank you VERY much! I ain’t gonna eat you, and I ain’t gonna eat anyone EVER AGAIN! Never happening!” She chirped, shouting at some points. Anger rolled along the edges of her skin, before fading into a bout of intense self-consciousness.
The emotional whiplash left Jemma’s mind spinning for a moment. She was still struggling with this new… extreme bouts of emotional dysregulation. Shit.
She had to get a better handle on that.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Shield Town, Black Iron Workshop, Main Lobby

---

“What happened?”
Oh. Well! That was a question and a half million, wasn’t it! Jemma tried not to feel the panic bubbling under her skin, tried not to display the horrid apathy coming to an abrupt halt. Like all of her was shocked and parsing the question.
‘What happened?’ He asked, simple as the sunrise. Simple as a heart beat!
Jemma sighed and shook her head, dredging up memories that felt both far away, and nearby. Foggy and defined.

“Right. What happened? Okay… okay. Uh… Hm. Well I was snatched up outta the graves by this lady who could set concrete on fire. I … Remember having all the oxygen in the area snuffed up and out by fire, which, y’know, makes breathing super hard. I think at some point I woke up,” She trailed off, thinking for a moment.
“Nah, yeah. I woke up at some point, bare as I was born, with this… I dunno, stone coffin? Around me. It was covered in like, Arabic mixed with Chinese mixed with fuckin Gaelic? I dunno. I couldn’t read it.”

Which, that was a lie. She could. Jemma understood every single letter of script written on that coffin. Understood her entire life- past, present, and bits of future- had been scored into the stone around her. The recollection still filled her with fear.

“There was this… I dunno, ink? I thought it was ferrofluid at first, cuz it kept spiking up at weird points— Anyways! This liquid was in the thing with me. It would light up every now at then, at little points, which is how I could see. At some point, I think I heard a door open?”
She took a breath. And continued, words becoming rushed as Jemma forced the rest of the story to fly from her lips.
“Then my skin was falling off, and so was my muscles, and my bones were melting and I couldn’t ‘die’ per se. I know I blacked out at some point but that may have just been because, and no don’t interrupt me!” She snapped at Graham, who’s mouth slammed shut. She continued, “That may have been because my brain finally melted away too. Did y’all know souls are apparently a real thing? Because I do. I do now. I could feel a part of me that is more and less get fuckin vaporized. Then I was… Awake but not. Again. There was this tank, right? Like a fish tank. But huge, holding me, but I wasn’t me. I was in this… Half awake state, trying to pull my thoughts back together.
Time got real weird for me. Still is! And it never used to be. I can’t focus! As easily, and I can… See… stuff, now.”

She sucked in a breath, pausing for a moment… Before sighing. She told them about three years spent in a state of fugue and utter terror. About experiments run by people in lab coats, about being observed by a thing that both was and wasn’t a person with ball-bearing-joints. Like a living doll.
Told them about the way her new eyes worked. The way her ‘body’ she cackled at the way Koba flinched at her calling it a ‘meat suit’ would just change at random. Ink boiling over her skin and changing everything about her.
Jemma told them about the woman of [SUN AND FIRE]. How she would be the one called when Jemma broke free at any point. Or misbehaved, depending on how bad she was being.
Told them the tale of her breaking free, months ago, starved for fuel. Told them about how she had eaten people and things. How some glowed brighter than others. How some tasted better than others.
How some had been powered, somewhat. How some had been Espers.

She recounted meeting Alex again, for the first time in years. Explained that her mind was so scattered and tattered that he only appeared as a meal so filling. Explained how she remembered being shook around and wrestled with. Explained how she had been hunting a woman who sounded eerily familiar to Yue.

Ink began swirling over her skin as she talked, turning her fingers into boney claws over twice as long. Her face shifted, her mouth and nose disappearing as eight additional eyes filled her face instead. Arranged in a ring around one larger ocular organ. All filled with varying amounts of pupils.
Her voice continued as ink whirled over her, returning her appearance to normal as she resolutely avoided Alex’ gaze.
“… and I met a blonde Templar yesterday, along with Rat. We were traveling buddies for a bit. I guess I liked her easily enough? I didn’t immediately wanna eat her. Or Rat. So. Yay? Anyways. I stumbled on your old house, and it was enough to freak me out. Had a whole mental breakdown as… Everything just… Slammed back into focus. I think people sent me to The Den? I woke up there, at least. Oh! And I don’t really ‘sleep’ anymore. So. That’s cool!” She chirped, finally ending her long ramble.
And feeling the pulse of panic racing through the entirety of her being.
What would they say now? Fuck. This was awful. Who decided communication needed to be a thing. Why couldn’t humans just never talk, that’d be great!
Oh. Koba just looked at her, guess she was talking out loud, hah!
FUCK.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Shield Town, Black Iron Workshop

---

Alex was talking to her, and though his words were heard, they weren’t really fully grasped. The hug was a pleasant enough thing, sending skittering spirals of ‘oh this is nice’ throughout her body.
The apathetic screaming that was trying to drown everything else? Significantly less pleasant.

All the same, Jemma smiled up at him. “Okay first? Rude! I’ve always been this tall! You’re the one who turned into the eight foot colossus from ‘Not Greek but not NOT Greek!’ Thank you very much.” She barked without heat, cackling soon after.
The levity vanished for a moment, as her face became a startlingly blank mask.
“I promise I’m not goin’ anywhere. The cult didn’t do this to me. … But uh, can we PLEASE go inside so I can change? Y’know what, I’ll just, y’know, go. Be right back!”

She shuffled in place, forcing herself to look only at Alex to avoid making eye contact with anyone else. Cold intelligence noted that his emotional state would make for all but the best meals, if you ate mana and emotions.
Anyways! Ignoring that.
Jemma coughed before only slightly awkwardly sliding around Alex to dart inside the workshop proper. Her admittedly shaky memory didn’t fail her, thankfully, as she sprinted for the employee bathrooms.

The moment the door was closed behind her, ink roared over her body. Wings, chitin, bone and claw all disappeared under the tide of pitch. She heaved a sigh before shaking her head. For a moment, her gaze caught the mirror… And then swiftly looked away.
Her hair had points of blue-green luminescence throughout, and her face was dotted with freckles.
She didn’t have freckles, not normally. And she couldn’t normally feel the magnetic field of the world around her like a tickle on her skin.
Fuck. Focus.
Jemma dressed rapidly, flinching only slightly at the way the uniform anchored her. Another breath was taken, a sigh left her lips, and determination steeled in her spine.

It only took her a minute or two before she was poking her head back out the doors of the building. Her eyes locked on Alex again as she waved. “Right… Hey! If you’re not one of the two enormous men I for sure know and worked with, or any of the people who worked here, can I ask for y’all to…” she trailed off, before snapping her fingers. “Right! Can I ask for some privacy with them? I promise I’ll probably explain my shit later! To everyone, maybe. Just, not right now! Thanks!”
And with that, Jemma zipped back inside. Anxiety and apathy both warred under her skin. A small instinct in the back of her mind cried for her to run. But, no.

This was happening now, she guessed.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Shield Town, Black Iron Workshop

---

“Yeah, why d’you have wings, Jemma?”
Oh. Hwoof. The words were like sledgehammers against rotted foundations. The question was a .45 to the back of the skull. It was all so very… Not… Good.
Why did she have wings? Well it was simple! She was abducted out of The Graves by a woman who turned literal concrete to ash and slag! And then she was kept in a dark room, locked inside a stone coffin with these weird symbols and shit scribbled all over it, glowing in the dark.
Her name, her entire life story, pulled from her lips with hooks and barbs… Stuff she didn’t even know she remembered. Rendered against stone, alongside another’s. Forced into-

Anyways! That wasn’t important. They wouldn’t get it, not really. Nothing wrong with that either! How would you even explain that you were probably permanently fused with a literal alien intelligence that processed emotions by eating them? And the people feeling the emotions? Oh and also there’s a whole secret portion to the world that would literally blow their minds if they weren’t ready? Oh and also, also, also, she was fueled by the consumption of things made out of meat and got more from things that had higher levels of ‘intelligence’, and could change her shape at will! And her memory was fading and restructuring all the time! And—
Focus! Whoo! Okay.
“Haha wow that is… WAY more complicated of a question to answer than I wanna admit! Uhhhh…” Jemma trailed off, face scrunching up as she struggled to think of how best to explain.

“Uhhh, okay so, maybe, I can explain that when I’m not, y’know, in this thoroughfare naked as the day I was a baby born? That sound alright, y’all?” She questioned, moving as she spoke. Her eyes were downcast, focused on the uniform (familiarity!!!) in her hands. So she was fully unprepared for meeting Alex’s eyes.

Oh shit. Fuck. Uh-oh. Dammit! No! Why?!
Panic pulsed in her veins, and she stumbled for a half step. Her [ASTRAL EYES] could see him. Burning like a bonfire in the middle of the arctic. Like a cerulean star in the dead of night. He looked clean, and the fact that he was glowing certainly added to the abrupt [KNOWING] that he was running better than before. He was… Bright! Shining with emotion! And so very like the beacon of silver and crimson from before. Tantalizing.
No [HAZE] clogging his veins. No [HAZE] blocking out the fact that he would fuel her for forever. A perfect nuclear engine. Just consume it. It would be fine. It’ll be fine.

Nope! Nope nope nope. Time to go! Inside? Wait, was he running at her? Oh god he was moving. Why did she make eye contact? Get back!
Ink roiled in her chest, hidden by her wings, and for a moment she was terrified of herself. Apathy and indifference exploded through her mind for a moment, as a pathway was drawn through her thoughts.

Cleave the two standing before the flesh-body. Cause panic, raise emotions. Betrayal was a good enough quick burn fuel. Venom to the eyes, mouths, and noses of those closer, spines coated in it, launched from the spinal cord and shoulders. Drop twenty in less than an hour. The [BEACON] could be suffocated, it already knew the [BEACON]’s skin couldn’t be—
No. No. Focus.
Apathy rushed away, the path dashed as Jemma yelped aloud. Her eyes flicked from face to face to face as she desperately tried to plot an escape route. Her face kept its smile though, betraying none of her panic.
“Yeah! Good cool ‘kay, jus’ gonna go inside and get changed, yeah? Okay! Coolbye!” she chirped, trying desperately to subtly get others to move out of her way please!

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Shield Town, Black Iron Workshop

---

Jemma had flown for a while, again. Her shape shrunken down from the emotional high of anger and indignation that expressed itself as a vaguely draconic ... Thing.
Instead, she was herself once more- humanoid with a few extra bits. Her back is populated with a quartet of dark brown and gray feathered wings. Two were used to provide some sort of modesty, even if that wasn't necessarily... Necessary. There were plates of chitin and bone acting as both armor and 'censors'. Because, y'know, people got weird about that, as the whisper of Wolf's voice in the back of her mind mentioned.

Wait. Focus. She was getting distracted as she flew. Jemma focused for a moment, letting her face fall blank as her thoughts rapidly spun back to the memories at the lake. That sensation of a gigantic titan of the deep, watching and moving and observing, but only just barely so. The feeling of serene enormity and immense inconsequence. The unsettling understanding of [that which is more than].
But that was then. This was now, IS, now. The understanding of how better to... charge? Change? Warp? Wield. Summon! Manipulate and control! The circles she could envision and build and fuel and-
FOCUS.

What to do now... Right. Go home, that's the plan. Going home. Go talk to the old boss at Black Iron Workshop, get that last paycheck, say the whole 'hey yeah, hi, I'm not dead!', repeat with Alex... Hm. Well. Maybe not, she did try to literally eat him upon meeting him again, for the first time, in years. Maybe she wasn't ready for that just yet. She'd figure it out later, it'd be fine.
First, the workshop.

---

The workshop, that was as busy as Jemma had ever seen it. Wow. WHY!?

Someone took one look at her walking up the way, stopped, and gasped. To which Jemma simply waved; and then froze as the poor woman paled, flushed, screamed in delight, and then fainted in short order.
Which was… certainly a thing! And made even more of a thing by a young man— Seb! He managed to live through his botched surgery! His eyes looked good!— turning about and shouting.
Which caused others to take up their shouting, between regulars or friends of family regulars or friends of friends… People were excited! Shouting and shrieking and laughing.
Oh. Wow! A welcome home! She was missed! That was a first. … Right? The memories were foggy, of this home place. Of these people, so excited to see her.
It felt somewhat wrong, but oh so right all the same.

Ignore the feeling of creeping apathy in the background, noting how some of those with little to no chrome were like small beacons of [manalight]. Fuel, so close… so… No.
Focus.
Focus on the call of ‘Dove’s home!’

And smile at that, push the feeling of skin crawling apathy away, and wave! Ignore the feeling of ink swirling under the surface! Ignore it!
“I’m home! Hey! Hi! Wow! Y’all are… way too kind! Hi! Hello!” Jemma laughed, smiling broadly and only barely restraining the urge to pull her wings tighter around her body. Ink threatened to pulse at her fingers and toes.
Focus.

Someone rushed up, and her astral eyes tracked every bit of [INTENT] that flowed through the excited figure. Mostly harmless, with twinges of [CONCERN-CURIOSITY-RELIEF]. They babbled at her, thrusting a deeply familiar pair of pants, under shirt, over shirt into her hands. Jemma laughed at this, staring in shock. Not quite her old uniform for the workshop, when she was just apprenticing, but… Familiar! Familiarity! This was good! Ignore the building shell shock of being recognized so widely! It’s fine!

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Felix merely shrugged at Dawn's admission. The whole physical touch thing was a problem at first, but considering that she at least told him ahead of time, he wasn't all that bothered! The fact that she did so ahead of time was surprising but, altogether unoffensive.
Communication! Yay!

Focus. His eyes darted to hers, flicking to the unfortunate detritus of his... Arrival. Before again returning to her. "Not how it works, huh... Less a precognitive and more of an intuition based clairvoyant! That's super neat! Y'know, the amount of research done into esper expressions is so minimal that it honestly kinda kills me. Like, you! You're incredibly versatile so far as I've seen, and apparently pretty strong to affect my emotional states! Which..."
Felix trailed off, staring into the middle distance as his volume slowly but surely dropped into a mutter-storm. The words 'potential for inspiration' rattled out at a mildly louder volume at some point, but he was otherwise inaudible.

Abruptly, he snapped his attention back onto her, wholly. "Well! Anyways, don't feel bad about it! I appreciate you telling me ahead of time y'know? Communication! It usually solves most problems, hah! I don't really mind, since, I'm aware of it now and, again, you told me. So, no worries," He reassured. Felix took another sip from his 'mixed drink' as he thought for a long moment, before tilting his head and staring at Dawn's manicured nails.

"Actually, that reminds me! Are you, I dunno, wholly skipping work today? Cuz if you are, I need to head back to the tower, eat again, and readjust my chrome! Annnnd I figure that'd be a good time for you to try and see if you could give my limbs tattoos, yeah? Hell, I'd even let you decide on what I'd be wearing!" Exclaimed the tinker. "Plus, I really wanna talk to you about literally anythin'. You're a super sweet conversationalist! And, also, I like watchin' you get fussy about Mister Asshat. It's funny!"

He stood then, wincing as the hard-light haptic feed-back once again screamed soreness and fatigue at him. His hips and shoulders were aching beyond belief by now. Oops. Should've just kept walking, be like a shark and all, right?
Oh.
Pay for her stuff, that'd be a good way to make up for the whole... Mess! Right? Eh. Yeah, and cover the tip! Was there a tip to be covered? Oh, wait, focus! Foooocus!

---

The Undercity, Lake Denton

---

Jemma had flown for a while by now, with thoughts flowing like rain-water down a sleepy suburban street. The anger had entirely fled by now, and a strange calmness had settled over her like a weighted blanket. Happiness at the freedom of her situation was distant and muted, as if coming to her from a tunnel far and away. One of her twinned heads was watching the ground below, noting the differing hunter crews that were mid butcher and carve. There was a truly large body, it appeared to be a giant crustacean of some sort, being pulled apart by a team of twelve in exo-suits. Huh.
Good eating, for whoever got the majority of that share.

She ignored that gasps of those who were more situationally aware than their peers, only barely noticing as they lifted hands and pointed at her. Even if they wanted to engage her, the fact that she only kept flying was enough to dissuade any aggression.
Don't poke a flying beast that's leaving you alone, right? Right.

Jemma flew, and flew, eventually settling into a rhythm as the sparkling refraction of Lake Denton made itself known. A quiet place, far and away from anyone and anything else. Her astral eyes picked up a few creatures, darting away from her considerable bulk, but ultimately? There was nothing else but her, and the quiet lapping of water upon a shoreline.
Safety assured, she leaned down, both heads peering into the water in silence. A singular wing-tip came forth, stirring the water and sending ripples of [MANA] down and out. Ripples returned in kind, clarifying her [VISION].

There were plenty of fish, or at least, fish-like beasts in the depths of the lake. Those that skimmed the surface were fast and small, silvery flesh flashing like blades before vanishing further out. A catfish flashed in the depths, sifting through silt and murk with a multitude of prehensile whiskers. [LIGHTNING-minor-SPARK] leapt from whisker to prey item, as the bottom feeder shocked its prey into stillness to be consumed.
And so she sat for a time, simply watching... And watching... And ever so slowly, falling into a trance.
The sounds of the lake filled her, from hearing to thought to spirit. The hush-shush of waves lulling a sort of true serenity forth.

The body slowly settled, [WATER-MANA-ASPECT] drawing up and into the core of Jemma's being, and fueling a waking dream.
A temporary memory of being submerged in unbelievable depths. Pressure and cold, crushing down and freezing out from all sides. Comfort in the abyss. An utter lack of noise, with whorls of [FORCE-MANA] and [WATER-MANA] sprawling for miles upon miles upon miles. In those miles, so far away that the inky black became even more pitch, a body stirred. A leviathan, a behemoth, an utterly gigantic thing. It moved, in that lightless space, stirring titanic currents with each shifting motion.
She felt like she was staring up into the stars, insignificant enough to derive true safety in a way. A peace found only in the presence of that which was truly larger than she'd ever comprehend.

Then, like a tide, the titan turned. It moved so slow, so methodically, that eons could have passed in the time it took for the thing to change its trajectory. Water rushed forth, pressing all that she could have ever been into the now rapidly eroding silt at her feet. Light, like a city, blazed to life across a body that she would never hope to see the end of. A wordless sound rippled forth, approaching like a tsunami from which there was no escape.
It had just barely crested over her, suffusing her with a minuscule moment of understanding, before abruptly...

The waking-dream faded, popped like a bubble.

And Jemma blinked at the feeling of a wolf-sized cat-fish trying to aggressively swallow her wingtip.
Huh.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Castle On the Clouds

---

To say that Felix was surprised by suddenly arriving in what was, objectively, far too fine dining for him to be welcome, would be... An understatement.
As would be the violent burst of vertigo and nausea. He caught about five words from Dawn before he was turning and desperately searching for a trash can. Upon not seeing one, Dawn was treated to the sight of someone stumbling as far away from her as possible, before upchucking. Basically everything that could have possibly been left in his stomach was rapidly not in his stomach.

It took a minute or two, before Felix gasped for air and groaned. "Oh god. Oh sweet merciless tit chafing god, fuck that. Holy shit. Never again." His voice was hoarse, and Sovereign was flashing all sorts of alerts across his HUD. It was probably for the best that some of his internals were cyberware, because damn. A heart rate sitting at around the 378 BPM mark was... Terrifying! Wow. Yikes.
That wasn't to mention the elevated levels of most of his stress hormones. Yikes!
His hearing slowly faded back in, with Dawn looking at him with a raised eyebrow. Oops.
'A little bird told me you'd be trying something dumb,' came her... Amused? He was gonna go with amused. Her amused voice slowly filtered back in. He waved a glowing hand nonchalantly, snorting once before gagging and dry heaving. "Yeah loo- Hurh- Look. I'm... Like... Eighteen percent stupid by volume. Anyways! Good morning! Ssssorry? At least you're not sitting around with major jackass?" He murmured, rolling his shoulders slowly and with... Some amount of shame!
He slowly made his way over, wincing at the burst of soreness that erupted along his spine and his lungs. Sovereign helpfully notified him that his cyberware was 'overtaxed', to put it lightly. He wouldn't be good to do that again. Not until he got back to work. Which... Was a good idea! Yup! Just not right now. Talking now.

Felix sat careful and slow, wincing again as he hummed noncommittally. He reached for the ice water, utterly nonchalant as he drank half the glass in one go, and then proceeded to mix some of the water into the pomegranate juice.
And then down half the juice in one go, mix the rest of the water in, and sip on that while they talked. He would NOT be taking criticism at the time. As evidenced by the eye contact he held the whole while he went about his 'ritual' as it were.
Which, if you asked him, was amusing because Dawn always seemed to get nervous about him staring her dead on. She was 'the goddess of light' or something like that, so he figured she'd have way more capability to handle a little staring but, well, what could you do.
FOCUS!

"So did your little bird also tell you that I was gonna finally succeed on a long term project today? 'Cause, not gonna lie here, that would've been a real good way to make up the morning beyond also seein' a new friend."

---

The Den, Shield Town, The Under City

Jemma crowed with glee, giving Jade another lick for good luck, before swiping up the proffered device from Wolf. Her form rapidly shifted, ink whirling like a ... Whirlpool. Gone was the bear-snake-thing. In its place was Jemma as she had looked the day before, save that the wings of feather had been replaced by wings of stretched leather and muscle. Her hands and feet were tipped with claws, and though she looked the same, her musculature was startlingly robust. She moved with measured grace and speed, tinged with chaos. "Oh! Yeah please still don't, I wanna surprise them all myself! I'm alive! Y'know? ... I should probably swing by and pick up my last paycheck from Black Iron... Hm! Thanks! Bye! Loveyoulotsmwahmwahmwah-" She chirped by way of goodbye, cackling brightly as Wolf's cyberarm pushed her face away.

Out the doorway and past Vi, slipped the shapeshifting gremlin, footsteps eerily quiet given that she was nearly running in her excitement. A quiet 'Oh thank god, she's leaving...' came from an open doorway. To which she chirped a complicated mix of hisses, birdsong, and whatever noise a mountain lion being shredded by a elk with a chainsaw would make. Leah, presumably, simply screamed her frustration back.
To which, again, Jemma only laughed.
Then she was moving through the airlock, smiling to herself and to those who were coming in and out. She gave some a wave, cackling at their confused expressions, before she was out and in the open air.
Jemma took a long, long breath in, savoring the smell of gun-metal, gun-powder, and steel.
Home. Or at least, part of home.

Ink swelled in her eyes, whorling away as the dimly lit area bloomed into practical daylight. Tapetum lucidum, bitch! She cackled madly, staring up at the de-powered sunlamp that hung overhead. There was a moment, staring at that long unused piece of human ingenuity, where a memory pulsed violently in the back of her head.
Murky gray clouds around a harbor, haloing the sun like pillows around a fortune teller's crystal ball. A sensation of deep satisfaction, a hunt completed and cherished. The urge to return home to a terrifying Mother-
The memory skipped. And Jemma blinked twice. "Huh... So... You were scared of that thing too." She whispered to herself, before grinning again and abruptly sprinting forth. People yelped and dived out of her way, one woman swinging reflexively with what appeared to be an arm-integrated machete. The muscles in her legs flexed, stronger than a tiger, before she leapt into the air.

She spread her wings and flew, cackling the whole while. Air whistled in her ears as Shield Town immediately came into view. Her eyes were sensitive enough to make out plenty of details, and considering the ... Less than half a mile she had to travel? Hah.
But going home could wait, she wanted to properly enjoy being free for the first time in three years. Three years... Wow. Time sure was a cloudy soup of non-permanent material!
As her wings powered her over to Shield Town, her astral eyes slowly opened, absorbing the flow and shift of [MANA] around her.
"Three years! Three years. Huh. We were away from our homes for three years. THREE! That's one thousand, ninety five days! Huh. Huh!" Jemma whispered to herself, staring at the settlement now below her. Thoughts rattled around her skull, smooth and mellow like butter at first, before rapidly spiraling. "Three. Fucking. Years! THREE! FUCKING! YEARS! People thought I was DEAD! What the FUCK! AUGH! I can't fucking BELIEVE this BULLSHIT!"

Her voice rose with her emotions, spiraling further and further as ink boiled over her skin. Anger seethed underneath, like worms with teeth, chewing through a corpse on the highway in the summer sun. "I HAD A LIFE! I HAD A HOME! I HAD FRIENDS, AND FAMILY!" Screamed the body, as the rational mind began sinking... Before she yanked back, pulling herself out of the comforting fog that another half of her tried to offer. Instead, the fury only built.
Wrathful, Jemma dissolved into wordless screaming. Shrieking. Roaring. Wailing. Inky tears rolled from her eyes, the pitch fluid otherwise finally coalescing into a new physical shape.

A quardrapedal build, with two long necks, a bull-like body, a pair of bat-like wings and a massive crocodile-esque tail. The tail whipped about, tipped with a wickedly hooked trio of bone-sickles. The wings were massive, easily twice the size of the muscled body, and just as muscular. The legs were more like jointed trunks of bone and muscle. Four, zygodactl digits, tipped with dagger-like claws, slashed at the air. The necks were topped with a pair of draconic heads, which each owned four eyes, arranged in a diamond on the skull. The maws were filled with teeth like needle thin shards of glass, and venom dripped from them all.
She screamed all the while, as two distorted voices cried in unison.

Eventually the anger petered out, and she slowly brought herself to calmness. Shield Town was far below, glaring up at her in indifference as, blithely, the massive sun-lamps above hummed. Her breathing was ragged, giant gasps for air, as [MANA] was pumped into the form. Not fast enough to offset the amount used, but still. A stop-gap.
She didn't want to have to eat again any time soon. Hunting for something [MANA]-rich in this are would mean... People.
Half of her responded apathetically to this, while the other half screamed in horror. Never again. Hopefully. By God please, hopefully.

The shape turned, flying off and away from Shield Town for a moment. Not once did she consider the ruckus she had made, nor the attention it might have grabbed. Instead, She just... Flew. For a while. Thinking.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Jemma was… intrigued by this whole situation. Her singing had stopped around the same time as Jade’s, mostly due to the surprise of someone immediately translating a song she thought was interesting.
The sensation of Leah trying to wrestle her out of the room was forgotten by a sudden burst of ‘hug it’.

So the bear shape darted forward, ignoring the words being whispered by almost everyone, and gently rammed its armored skull against Jade’s chest.
Shards of bone and strands of fur began flying around the room, disintegrating rapidly once removed from the still living body. The bear bellowed lowly, rumbling a comforting purr not too unlike a rather large engine.
Ink pulsed, and a snake-like neck and head sprouted from the hind-legs of the bear, turning to focus on Wolf and … Violet? Was that the name? Yeah it was.

An echo of Wolf’s voice in her thoughts repeated the name for Jemma. The snake head turned, tilting somewhat as it focused on Vi… There was a burst of soft chuckling, before a voice echoed forth,
“You should get someone to replace or look at your joint braces. Oh! Or, or, you could probably find somethin’ in section 7 of the graves. ‘S the last place I saw some higher tech scrap!” Jemma chirped, ignoring the social norms of… not… commenting on someone’s cyberware without prompting.

The bear leaned up, swiping a bloodless, mostly bone, tongue…? Over Jade’s cheek. “I can imagine! Does she often get ‘take out’?” Questioned the whispering bear-snake thing.
The question was answered for her when ‘Vi’ had started to bid her goodbyes. ‘I could call—‘ being cut off by a firm ‘No’? Made sense. Often, then, most likely, maybe, probably.
Silver one… Silver Templar? The Blonde Ally? … No! It had to be the other one, made out of crimson and [STRESS-FEAR-STRENGTH]. It couldn’t be the one of [BLADE-null-FOCUS]. That would be… difficult! Jemma liked that one! In-so-much as the foggy memories allowed her to like it. … Oh!
“Speaking of which! Hey! Wolf! Hey! Hey hey hey hey—”

The woman cut her off with a glare, to which both heads of Jemma’s current shape began laughing and smiling about. “So can I, like… Leave? Or whatever? You didn’t necessarily make it super clear so…?” She trailed off, shrugging and bobbing the snake head about.

---

Meanwhile, far and above the conversation hidden from the sun, a man slams his forehead into the workstation he sits at. A frustrated scream rips from his mouth, before he sits back up.

---

Felix was having… a morning. That’s how he would describe it. He had clearly stayed up well past his ‘bedtime’ as Ion occasionally put it. Dark bags sat under his eyes, and he had kept the luminosity of his hard-light limbs at a ‘distant candle in a storm’ low.
In the corner of his HUD, was an image that Ion had sent him. The time stamp had it at 6:38 AM.
It was him, or at least, a heavily doctored image of him.
He didn’t even own a tank top like that! … He thought. Maybe. Who knows. He rarely slept at his apartment anymore, so, eh.

The biggest issue was having his face fully associated with his ‘hero’ identity. Felix hadn’t even gone out on a field mission, yet. Still had two days to go to be cleared for active duty. Above board. Legally. If Eva’s not looking. And if it definitely doesn’t involve ARES in any way, shape, or form. Yup.
Back on topic.

While the image kept his genuine look, it frustrated him that it was edited in such a way to make him seem so, well, suspicious? Mischievous? Gremlin-esque? Troublemaking? A definite Loki-archetype.
Oh well, too late, and going through multiple different reverse image searches proved that it was a solely localized image, so, yay.
A rapid, incredibly irate, message was sent and read, and responded to. With a smiley emoji.
Fucking…

Felix heaved a sigh and stood, snatching up the still prototype A.R.I. Module from its workstation stand. A burst of information scattered itself over his HUD, artifacted and distorted. Another failed start-up sequence. The tinker growled, setting it back down again and picking up his micro-tools. He was getting frustrated with the damn thing, and Sovereign wasn’t really able to help. Something about ‘organic processing being hard to extrapolate in conjunction with inorganic processing.’
“In simple terms?” He had questioned, only to be met with, ‘Computer does a fast think better than a human does a pattern-recognition think.’
Jackass.

Anyways!
Felix focused on the suspended module, eyebrows furrowing as he adjusted the moorings for the motherboards AGAIN. Figured that soldering them would’ve worked right? No! Fuckin’ microtech. Half of a half of a millimeter off? Guess what suddenly can’t run power as it’s supposed to! Whatever.
He was in minute three, when a sudden idea sparked behind his eyes.

Sai had said his speciality seemed to be prosthetics, and to angle his inventions as if they were all prosthetics…
What… if…
Felix’ face exploded into a grin, as he rapidly began disassembling and then reassembling the ARI module. In the span of ten minutes at most, a pair of what Yue would call: ‘The best damn headphones,’ replaced the wrap-around-headband chassis.

Felix’ grin only widened when, with a bit of prompting on Sovereigns’ part, the boot up sequence started.

[ POWER ON…
SYNCHRONIZATION START…
SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE.
ALLOCATING…
ALLOCATION COMPLETE.
<silence notifications>
NOTIFICATIONS SILENCED.
<display ‘boot sequence’ progress>
PROGRESS: 88% COMPLETE.
PROGRESS: 92% COMPLETE.
PROGRESS: 99% COMPLETE.
PROGRESS: 91% COMPLETE.
<display_>
BOOT SEQUENCE COMPLETE.
welcome to A.R.I. Augmented Reality Interface.
fly with the dawn. ]

Yessss.
He was totally going to test this out. … Buuuuut having a witness for his success would be nicer than just Sovereign.
Hm.
Which building did Dawn say she worked in, again? Eh. He’d just send her a text to warn her ahead of time… And maybe trace the receiving device to wherever it’s physical location within the tower was.
And maybe input those coordinates into ARI.
And maaaaybe… Just… Close his eyes… And…
Go.