Chevaleresse

Hiroki opened her mouth, then quickly shut it once more at the criticism of Blink. She wanted to defend the goddess, but it was hard to speak out against Lord. She didn't know enough about the situation, anyway; there was clearly more history here than she knew of. She should probably have just been fine with being acknowledged as being worthy to sit at the table, but something about that felt hollow. After all, it wasn't her being there - it was Blink being absent. She tried to refocus her thoughts as she walked in small, hurried steps over to Blink's chair, somewhat awkwardly shuffling herself into it. The girl glanced about furtively between the gods present, trying not to let the pressure get to her. Not that there was much of a point to this; it was like stepping into the arena without her mech, trying to speak without her "disguise." She closed her eyes and reminded herself of how she got here again. Furthermore, why she had to do this. It wasn't just her own pride at stake. One more deep breath and she spoke once more. "I met, um, Arcturus after I left Aries's hall. Um, he challenged me and I, um, said I had to go." It was still unsettling to think about. "I know we talked, um, more, but that's all, um, I remember."

Arturia looked at Lilith with confusion for a moment. Milk? It took a moment for the conversation they'd had before everything had happened earlier to filter back into her head, at which point the pale-skinned girl turned an impressive shade of scarlet; the second time Lilith had caused that sort of sunrise that day. And she had just called Arturia "mommy," too. "We'll, uh, talk about that in a bit." By Nayru's left nipple, this day was going every single variety of poorly. "Let's, just, step out into the hall for a sec," she managed, somehow sounding more strangled now than when she had actually had the wind knocked out of her earlier.

Heidrun was immediately set on edge by the man's appearance, though she did her best to cover her response. Maybe not the exact type she was accustomed to - Midgar was rather short on senators - but the general type was something she'd seen before. The ones with the money that bankrolled the scientists. The carefully curated presence, the faux friendliness, they were all too familiar. She would have vastly preferred rough unfriendliness to this. "Ah, yes, I believe so. Though, um, I probably shouldn't speak for the group." It occurred to her that she didn't know who, exactly, she should be deferring to, or if there was a leader at all.

"I can answer that." A familiar voice, to Immanuel anyway, sounded from nearby. It carried the hint of the owner's age, but the sort of age that mostly made one feel confident that the owner knew all of the ways to kick one's ass, rather than being slowed down by it. "I'm afraid I don't know our friend well, but I'll be rectifying that situation soon. I take it that errands went well?" The woman settled into a seat, placing the cup of tea she already seemed to have on the table. "Although I question your choice of venue for relaxation. Typically you'd want to be a bit more. . . private, though I doubt we have any other acquaintances here."

There were a great many things Hiroki didn't expect upon opening the door. A sudden silence, maybe. A hostile question; why was she there? Those she had been prepared to deal with. Sort of. Prepared in the way that one might be "prepared" for a bear attack, but at the very least she had run through what she might attempt to do. She glanced back over her shoulder in the direction Blink went. Blink was her. . . friend, or something. Patron? Not really that, no, but part of her felt she should follow the goddess. Thinking about that was a brief but ultimately unhelpful distraction from the situation before her. Something she needed to at least deal with. She was not prepared (returning to that previous line of thought) to walk in on the gods bickering like children. She was even less prepared to break their silence when she had come here on her own. The girl's mouth opened, and no sound came out. She felt small. She was small. Hiroki closed her mouth. She was also the top competitor in the tournament. She had stood before the strongest one in this room and. . . had been crushed mercilessly. She was an upstart. Don't remind yourself of that. If the tournament had gone to plan, she could be sitting among them instead of intruding. Hiroki closed her eyes for a moment; she was the Hellfire Knight. Before anything else, she was that, and the Hellfire Knight had the right to speak. Hiroki opened her mouth again. "Uhhm-hm." Her eyes opened as she cleared her throat. "I. . . Um, you need to know, um, something. Arcturus, he was in, um, Wrath. He challenged me." She didn't feel confident enough to weigh in on what she had heard, not yet. She agreed with Seeker, even if she believed they should focus on Cardinal; after all, if Cardinal ceased to be a factor, Ares wouldn't be an issue. Or, well, wouldn't be a reality-rending one. Hiroki tried to focus on thoughts of strategy and not thoughts of how her head had been tampered with.

Arturia breathed a sigh of relief when Lilith's lunge turned out to be another hug. "I'm just glad you're okay," she said, returning the gesture and patting Lilith on the back lightly. It occurred to her that this was an unhealthy dynamic, for her at least. Being gripped with fear every other time she got close to Lilith, but trying this hard to keep her safe anyway. . . Lilith accidentally calling her "mommy" started to make a terrible kind of sense. She was in it now, though, and she wasn't about to back out now. Besides, if it did go the way she was thinking of, she'd at least have done something useful with her life. She let Lilith cry it out while continuing to pat her until the girl decided to break it off on her own. Arturia grabbed a tissue and handed it over to Lilith so she could dry her face, should she so choose. "Alright. Uh, if you don't know them, this is Kaede, and this is Alva, they're my roommates. I took you back to my dorm after, er, everything, but I think we should go find Miss Katherine and talk some stuff out with her. Sound alright?"

"Of course we're going to win, I'm the strongest half-fae in the land!"

Hiroki fixed Adam with a scowl, feeling a heat rise up that nearly overrode her nerves for a moment. "I guess I should have known you wouldn't be up to it." She might be a coward herself, but at least she'd never resorted to outright torturing her opponents into forfeit. The girl looked back down at the table for a moment. She couldn't really say much if she didn't go herself, could she? And she wasn't exactly keen on subjecting herself to yet another embarrassment, yet another inadequacy in front of the gods. The silver-haired girl sighed, running one hand back through her hair in a gesture that looked far more relaxed than it actually was; her fingernails dug into the back of her head when they reached it. Still. . . Hiroki looked up. Swag, or Sain, or whatever she should have been calling him at the moment, had endorsed her at least. And Blink seemed to, for some reason, actually like her, sort of. She'd fought hard to get this far, fought and won the right to stand next to the gods. She let out an uncharacteristically noisy sigh. "Fine. I'll, um, do it." Before giving herself a chance to change her mind, she pushed herself up off of the table, standing and making a beeline for the door. Her steps were short and quick - more than usual anyway - as she tried to force herself to just not stop moving, feeling like there was someone sitting on her chest as she moved towards the dining hall containing the gods.

"I mean, just because I don't NORMALLY give out death threats doesn't mean it's okay for me to decide I should do so to random people because I think they might be connected to my agenda." She huffed, then seemingly started to relax slightly. "And, uh, Alva? I don't think I give a fuck if you swear, for the record." Arturia began an attempt to flop onto her bed once more, and once more was met with the fact it was occupied. She shook her head at herself; with that girl gone, it was time to deal with this. She glanced between her two roommates. "Just. . . Without getting into too much detail, if stuff starts to get real weird, please leave as soon as possible." She leaned down and reached out towards Lilith, gently poking her in the shoulder. "Lilith, you need to wake up, we have to talk to Miss Katherine."

BGM The first person Marisa sets her currently-glowing eyes upon is Hikari. Weaving through the remaining danmaku from the mage's pulse rifle fire, she slams her broom into Hikari for [24+17=41] damage. Next, though it's hard to tell given her general menacing shadowiness, Marisa seems to focus on Walmond. She darts in a circular path, sending a barrage of colorful yet oddly menacing-looking shapes at him, only for Lambda to intercept the burst of starfire for him, taking [33] damage as both the portion meant for Walmond and the part already homing on on her strike at once. Isobel rushes over to Walmond and presses a flower into her hands; after a brief dazed moment she shovels the thing into her face and the painkillers kick in, allowing her to recover [24>Full] HP. Empi, after cussing out Marisa yet again (who seemed more amused than anything else at the fairy's irritation), gives Masako some relaxation tips. More importantly, this helps her magic settle in and remove the curse placed upon her, allowing the tengu to once again chatter freely. Masako takes this opportunity to chatter more, doing a startlingly good impression of Marisa's own corrupted voice while summoning illusory danmaku patterns about the witch. [Marisa Confused!] The black-and-white danmaku slinger being distracted gives her a chance to study Marisa freely, revealing some pertinent information. Marisa's experience, skill, and sheer speed allow her to dodge a single attack per turn at her discretion, determined when Marisa feels like it. Obviously, she's under the influence of some sort of foreign entity; it seems to be related somehow to the artifact that she holds, some sort of solid darkness with a terrible energy to it. Masako's investigative experience tells her that it's not something native to this world; chances are, Marisa could have handled it easily if it were. Masako's illusions quickly take an effect, as Marisa swings her broom wildly at the "incoming" fire, the force and confused space nearly forcing it to connect with herself - however, she manages to recover at the last moment and not sweep herself out of the sky. Rory taunts Marisa; she twitches just enough for him to know that she was at least annoyed by what he said. . . that, or it was just some weird corruption thing. Regardless, she seems to be distracted for the moment. Hikari, after she manages to stabilize in midair, casts another wave of warding magic over Rory in preparation for the punishment the faunus was liable to recieve in the near future. Walmond quickly sets about repairing her team's wounds; a burst of soothing energy soaks into Empi, Masako, Isobel, and Ritsu, letting them recover to full HP. Lambda, having intercepted a powerful strike once already, focuses on keeping herself out of harm's way until she can be restored and continue her duty. Marisa blasts yet another field of starry danmaku out into the forest, but her frenetic evasion actually sends her into the path of her own attack; she takes [26] damage, and the remaining stars fly past her and into Ritsu's barrier for [12] damage. Ritsu calibrates her magical core according to the threat presented, taking the obvious route of allowing herself to absorb the black mage's light-based magic safe behind her barrier. Initiative Status

"I see." Elias did his best to avoid gasping in pain at the jolt; he considered himself to have a fairly high pain tolerance, but the damage had been quite severe. It seemed his initial guess had been more or less correct; he effectively had a passenger inside his head, that could read some of his thoughts and feel what he felt. That was going to be. . . interesting, to say the least. "I must say I'm not sure how comfortable with this I am. Not that I'm complaining, but everyone has their secrets, and having someone behind my eyes watching every private moment is. . . uncomfortable to think about." He stopped speaking for a moment, and instead focused for a moment, trying to communicate telepathically as Augustus had indicated was possible. <"People are meant to have their secrets, you know. Especially someone in my profession.">

G27 dance Lenore after Shin moves

Heidrun glanced between Alexandria and Solomon, then nodded. "That, um, might be a good idea. Surely he already knows that you're involved, but maybe not reminding him is a good idea." She sighed slightly. The healer was in way over her head already, and she was well aware of it. "I'd like to think I'm good at first impressions," she started, nodding in Liliya's direction, "but I'm not sure I've been doing so well lately. Still, I'll do my best! I'm sure it won't go too poorly as long as we act reasonably." She seemed to be mostly trying to convince herself of that. "Reasonable" didn't sound like it was this group's strong suit.

Lucine shrugged. "I dunno. We don't really have a bunch of mage fingers or teeth or whatever like that one guy used." She made a face; evidently she wasn't exactly fond of using those sorts of materials, either. After a moment, though, her disgusted expression lit up with an idea. "Oooh, I know! What if we made it a break-action, and the action bit people!" It wasn't long afterwards that the trio started working on the gun. Law, however, didn't seem particularly keen on the methods of the other two, apparently perceiving them as crude. At the end, though, an absolute beast of a Mystic Code came out of the process. Lucine stared at the result of their crafting with an expression just short of wonder. Finally, her very own personalized Mystic Code; one that wouldn't verbally abuse her, anyway. "Wow, guys, this is amazing!"

"Oh. Yeah, I'm fine." A bit emotionally shaken up still, but fine. "Law just did something that startled me is all. Have you ever had fire shoot out of your ears?" She shrugged before promptly returning to her subject of interest: namely, the shotgun in front of her. "We could add some reinforcement to the barrel and stuff in case I hit anything with it. A scope on a shotgun is kinda silly, though." She gave the weapon a pondering look, before glancing between it and Freya. "Ooh, I bet we could do something neat with necromancy! I could turn it into a Mystic Code and do cool necromancer stuff if you wanted to help, Freya. I heard of a necromancer who did all kinds of gross cool stuff with guns once."

Lucine blinked. "Wait, that's it?" She was a bit disappointed in a few ways, but at least attempted to not let this show on her face. "We're not gonna take it apart and do custom work on it or machine new pieces or anything like that?" She had actually been looking forward to the process of modification. That, and she was hoping for a bigger boom or something; poison was kinda lame.

Lucine took a few moments to breathe, giving Law a very wide-eyed look. "Is the fire normal? Usually healing doesn't make you shoot fire out of your ears." She was slowly calming down, assisted somewhat by Law's lack of panic, but that didn't mean she was going to relax immediately. Helpfully, the precursor provided a distraction in the form of some sort of "special assembly station." which seemed to arouse at least some interest. "And, um, yeah, I guess I can watch." An idea struck her. "Oooh, you had those big guns earlier, right? Do you think we could make some stuff for this shotgun?"

Lucine sat nervously as Law worked, resisting the urge to ask if it was supposed to take this long until she felt anything. After several moments of largely nothing, and several more of her feeling slightly queasy, her silence was broken by a loud, high-pitched squeal as the fire shot out of her ears. She froze as the urge to flee short-circuited (as a result of the object of fright being something coming from herself,) simply screaming in place until the jets ended. "W-What was that!?" she asked, thoroughly spooked, assuming Law hadn't managed to make himself scarce after the jets initially appeared.

"Wow." Kusuke took a deep breath as he took in what Satomi said. Arminius's soul magic, the exact thing that had initially caused sparks to fly between them. Something he barely tolerated as it was. The only reassuring part of the whole story was, ironically, something that had come out of a discussion with the dryad. "It probably was. But I think you'll be okay. Do you remember Tania from the last world we visited?" He was doing his best to stay calm. For now. "She said something about carrying the rules of our homes with us. My Drive still works because, for me, the rules are the same as where I'm from. According to that slimy fuck, lost parts of your soul grow back. So you'll be fine." He didn't bring up the obvious possibility of the man lying. It was about 50/50, those odds. It was the obvious thing to claim, really. "My unholy, foul magic that deeply violates the core of your being is okay because you can heal from it." Kusuke reached over and pulled Satomi into another hug, less tight this time - it felt like the right thing to do. "You'll be alright. We'll find a way to deal with this." --- Lucine nodded. She was vaguely familiar with the idea, even if it was one that didn't strictly apply to her. The closest thing to a "parent" she had was Justeaze von Einzbern, her and the various models of homunculus that existed in the Yggdmillenia's pool of knowledge. "That makes sense." The homunculus took a deep breath, then nodded again, crimson eyes squeezing shut for a moment as if to mentally prepare herself for the process. Nothing Law had said indicated that it would be anything to worry about, but she was still worried. Her father had told her to especially never allow anyone but him or Uncle Hildebrand to perform any sort of magical treatments on her. . . but then, he had also never told her that there existed a function that would destroy any trace of her ever existing buried in her blood. "I think I'm ready."

Lucine didn't seem entirely comforted by the explanation that, were it possible, she would most likely die horribly as mutations ravaged her body rather than turning into a weasel person, but seemed reassured enough that the green stuff would not, in fact, mutate anything. She picked up on Law's tone, frowning, but decided that since he was being helpful, it was probably best for her to not call him out on it. "I didn't think you were planning on turning me into a, um, Precursor, I was just worried that it might happen by accident." She did her best not to sound accusatory; she didn't really mean to be, Lucine was just trying to explain herself. "I understand. Although, umm, if it cures diseases and stuff, are you sure it'll actually get rid of that stuff?" Her mood visibly went lower once again as she completed the thought. "Since they're supposed to be there. . ."

Lucine shrugged, but it was the sort of shrug one made when they were at a total loss, shoulders scrunched together and hands up at her side. "I don't know," she said somewhat petulantly. "I don't want anyone to mess around with my body, but I don't want to be like this any more." She sighed again, trying to pull herself together. "I guess, yeah, I want you to help, but, umm. . ." She glanced to either side for a moment. "I don't really want to be a rat person either. No offense." Even without that particular prospect, she didn't seem particularly keen on the idea regardless of her asking for it. It was still someone changing her, it was just someone else. "I just don't wanna die."

Lucine remained quiet once more, this time not even attempting any sort of comment as Law spoke. She hadn't imagined the little weasel person had experienced something like that. Lucine shuddered at the thought. Having your entire body twisted and transformed into something else. . . gee, that sounded familiar. "I didn't know." That much was obvious, of course, but she was reevaluating her thoughts on Law once more. It seemed like they shared a lot more than she had initially thought. "And, um. . . I don't think I wanted to know." She opened her mouth, closed it, sniffled, wiped at her face. "I thought I could be just like the other girls. I wanna be like them. My dad, he. . . I thought. . ." Another sniffle. Lucine attempted to start again, and this time failed to get past opening her mouth. The girl took another breath, ragged this time. "I just don't want to have to think about this any more."

Lucine opened her mouth to reply, but Law's continuing speech and her own lack of energy to get offended with prevented her from doing much more than closing it again after a moment. She watched him move holograms about, merging and changing them, showing her various worlds. It seemed that his people were a lot more advanced than her world was; travel to other planets wasn't exactly a feasible thing, yet, though depending on who you asked it was happening anywhere from within the decade to in a century. She wasn't sure what to make of his emphasis on "people," either. He clearly thought artificial life was a bad idea, but it also seemed like he thought artificial people were still, well, people? Still. . . "I'm, um, sorry, I guess, I don't know what I'm supposed to do." It made sense, if he didn't want to help her. After all, she was just someone else's mistake. She was quiet for a moment, trying to work up the courage to say. . . well, anything. The homunculus wasn't sure if she should ask for help or just slink away before he decided that something like her should just be disposed of. Finally, after some deliberation, she decided to prompt him to finish the story, at least. Law was clearly thinking about the elf people (or whatever they were.) "What happened with them?"

She shuffled awkwardly into full view, whatever threat posed by the weapon she held being neutered by her nervous approach. "I, um, I wanted to say sorry for running away and trying to accuse you of wanting to turn me into a cup and stuff." Lucine mostly just stared at the ground beneath Law's feet as she spoke, looking to be some combination of sad and embarrassed. "I was just scared. I didn't want to be mean to you." She took a deep breath, glancing back at Tim for what little reassurance that provided, then looked towards Law again. Her voice faltered, growing quieter as she spoke. "I, um, the reason you found that weird stuff in my blood was because, um, I was made that way. . ."