2023-08-30: Moral Lessons from a Book We Refuse to Open

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<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        The hovering tombstone that is Denver Colony, and its vigilant yet silent guard of perilous mines. Locked up with oh so many secrets...the task forces of the Three Ships Alliance and their unlikely allies have made a plan involving several strike teams, all searching for a way in.

        ...and boy is one of them an unlikely squad indeed! A Meltrandi secretary, a hard-nosed Britannian general, and an infamously frivolous terrorist. The latter (that's Asciel!) immediately raising her (metaphorical) hand to take point on the colony's ventral side, citing: "Don't you worry yourselves one bit about getting inside - breaching charges would just weigh you down. If I couldn't raze things to the ground point by point, my promise would be unfulfillable~"

        And that's why, the little Arm Slave, rather poorly equipped for space mobility, is at the front of this squad - a vivid light burning in its heart as Asciel looms close and closer, cooling hair fanning behind the Codarl's head. One finger pointed at an airlock, as if to say, "you'd better open up!", followed by the mime of a circle, tracing along a hatch-looking access valve. What that trail does, though, is build a ring of light in its wake...which jets off at nearly instant propulsion, shimmering with iridescence and slamming with the unbridled force equivalent to a beam ram into that bulkhead...!
FPT: Asciel Colette has acted with Skill and Reactor. 

<Pose Tracker> Emalya Zamana has posed.


Emalya was not expecting to be here with an idol! The hard-nosed General was more in her expectations. "Is that an important promise?" the Meltrandi wonders of razing thnigs to the ground. "It seems to me that that is not a common requirement of a musician..."

Oh well. It's fine.

The Excalibur, meanwhile, remains in fighter mode for the moment, carefully maneuvering around tanks to avoid setting anything off. If Asciel is going to have things covered on the opening front, then she'll focus on not hitting anything.

"Regardless, my contract extends to seeing all members of this expedition safely in and out and assisting to the best of my ability. This is what I shall do!"


FPT: Emalya Zamana has acted with Skill and Mobility. 

<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.

The Hyperion has come. Much has been going mad in the Earth Sphere lately, and men Captain Castellan thought her personal enemies are roaming free or facing capture faster than she can intervene. But an entire squad going silent is enough to summon the Hyperion group from its other duties.

But the whole ship won't fit in here, and so the Captain has come out herself to investigate, accompanied by a contractor, and... ......

It's fine. Amata tells her Asciel's singles are pretty good.

Sophia's Flag likewise cruises on in flight mode, the Captain reviewing her data across the various surfaces of the Flag's display. "Entering directly through a mine field," she mutters. "...not my preferred method."

Asciel promises she'll get them in, and Sophia can only watch the Arm Slave act. Some kind of arm-mounted cannon? But there wasn't a projectile, she just...waved her hands?


Prototypes. Absurd.
FPT: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has acted with Skill and Mobility. 

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        The bulkhead melts into slag from that ring expanding further and further - until a searing gap more than suitable enough to maneuver a small cargo freighter is cut clean. Asciel's tiny frame dishes down a surge of propellant enough to get her elegantly landing upon the passage further in - and the success is heralded with a cheery wink and a v-sign next to one eye.

        "Silly. The music is just part of my promise. The one I made to the world where I'd calm the storm of miracles with my own hands. Hehe. The captain here came perilously close to ending that dream some time ago, but I'm forgiving, and wise enough to know that I pushed my limits a little too far, so it's water under the bridge~"

>Probability assessed of ensuring a tragic 'accident' disposes of the Britannian captain during this operation: 0.18%. Figures. Ah well~

        Last time Asciel was here, it was oh so dark, the gravity systems functioning poorly. The way she actually sees spaces like this - as coherent systems, as 'maps' imprinted on her very touch, though - the vivid lighting and eerie emptiness for few don't bother her. If anything, at the sight of perfectly operating transit systems able to run smoothly and unhindered with nary a speck of human error, she can't help but breathe out, "My, this place is actually pretty efficient, isn't i-IIIT?!"

        The moment those turrets begin unleashing their load, Asciel's first instinct is to engage her own ECS, shimmering out of view to optical targeting sensors...likely, in the process, just making things a little harder for Emalya and Sophia.

        Those instincts help her, though. Asciel's been here before - it's a familiar landscape, and has intuitive defense protocols. Armed suppression infrastructure is all placed mostly where she would place it on herself.

        The somewhat unserious idol gains a strangely methodical edge, flickering in and out of sight as she hops about in the sky, harkens lashing out to pierce through turrets as her head's turned away towards the next one, leaping in that free and airy way only low-gravity can offer...

FPT: Asciel Colette has acted with Mobility and Reactor. 

<Pose Tracker> Emalya Zamana has posed.


Just part of her promise! Hmmm. "That seems..." Emalya considers. "Good? I am unsure." She pauses, at the matter of the Captain ending a dream. It seems there's some history here...

Emalya wonders what it was!

"It is strange," she says, "To see such automation in human colony, even after the humans have gone..." She is thoughtful at that--but suddenly the turrets begin to fire, and Emalya engages the Pinpoint Barrier System, diving to the side to avoid them in a roll that takes her close to the 'floor' of the colony.

"We must hurry!" she says. "This way, there is shelter! It is easier than attacking!"

"Captain, I will take the lead!"
FPT: Emalya Zamana has acted with Mobility and Hit Points.
FPT: Emalya Zamana spends 1 ID Charges! They will apply this coming round!

<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.

"The water is assuredly where you left it," Sophia mutters to Asciel's flighty dismissal of their grievances. 'Calm the storm of miracles?'

...perhaps that'd be worth doing, she thinks, recalling as she often does the tortures visited on her sister.

Nonethless, all she does is prepare her weapon and shift the Flag to bipedal mode as she comes to an internal space. She searches out, first with sensors, then with a glance to the world her Geass sees. "Nothing," she reports, fluttering her eyes to banish it. "Nobody here. But with the power back, we should be-"

The turrets come up. "Careful!" she barks, finishing her sentence. She shifts the Flag's engines to its hovering mode and then immediately kicks it into flight configuration. "Very well!" she calls to Emalya, because she's sure not telling a Meltran not to stand in front of a bullet if that's her pleasure.

The Flag's plasma jets flare, sending it cruising rapidly onward.
FPT: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has acted with Mobility and Reactor.
FPT: Emalya Zamana's Still Got It and Pinpoint Barrier System Abilities assist!
FPT: Asciel Colette's Attrition applies!
FPT: Sophia Mayhew Castellan's Rifle Training Ability assists!
FPT: Round Complete! 

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        How pitiable, to ruin a well-crafted system's arms like this. How resigned Asciel is to the feeling akin to breaking something else like her - though almost surely so very far from awaking - appendage by appendage. There's a joy in tormenting humans just a little, to coax their true feelings that emerge when challenged, but this? It's like inflicting torture in too familiar a way, spearing through turret after turret. Is this the only way? Wouldn't it be more merciful to send this entire cursed grave hurtling into the sun, rather than dismantle it bit by-

        Lens refocusing. Right. She's here with two others, who are more than happy to run from fonts of conflict, whereas Asciel's always favored crushing whatever could possibly pose obstacles one at a time. And they're fleeing into the dockyards while she's up here making too big a show of herself! "Ugh, always running from obvious opposition...this is why it's so difficult to work with people, when my strength's more than enough-!" -Someone's never learned the 'if you have a problem with everybody you meet, it's likely not they who are the problem' principle, clearly.

        Gratefully, Asciel does stop her showboating and settles for merely setting about twelve of the turrets ablaze, enough that it's simple for her to reel herself down to rendezvous with Sophia and Emalya, flicking her cooling hair- whiiich she hasn't noticed is actively on fire, temperature levels dangerously intense even as she tries to march her way to the front of the group. "...a...ahahah. ...well, I suppose it's true that we ought to be more careful now that we're deeper in the fray, so...maybe picking a one-sided fight with an entire colony is a tall order even for me in a limited avatar like this. I'll slow down, and do things your way for a little bit, just so you can prove your own virtues. A goddess of possibility must always remain generous~"

        Just ignore how she's staggering and halting every so often! Everything's totally fine. Only a few circuits are melting! 

<Pose Tracker> Emalya Zamana has posed.


The water is where it was left, hm? Definitely some histoy!

But Emalya is more concerned with what they can do with the power on, and what they need to do to get away from these bullets. Rubber or not, they're a problem! "We are safe," Emalya says when they make it ino the bunker, and indeed she is pleased with this. She switches to GERWALK mode for more indoor maneuverin. "We..."

Pause. "You are, Miss Idol, slightly." Pause. "Ablaze. Your generosity does not require you to warm us in a literal sense, I think..."

Well, it's probably fine. Into the hangar they go, and there are mobile suit parts around; tools, scattered. A flatbed truck with a half-completed Gundam frame. And within: Secure area.

"Psychoframe development," Emalya intones, frowning. And then--

Sirens wail. "I am engaging the system!" Emalya warns, "I can buy us only seconds!! Hurry, before the door goes down!"

Using her systems' EWAC capabilities, she glitches the upcoming system, which surely won't bother Asciel. And then she books it, jumping back to fighter mode to scrape every ounce of speed out of her Excalibur.
FPT: Emalya Zamana has acted with Reactor and Sight.
FPT: Emalya Zamana spends 1 ID Charges! They will apply this coming round!

<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.

Sophia manages to skate past with little issue thanks to Emalya's cover, and soon swings the Flag's legs back down to sweep her gaze through the field.

Her eyes flick across the screens as Asciel cheerfully showboats. Her onboard monitors suggest a different story. Emalya chides the 'idol' about it, and Sophia...

Grunts. "Choosing battles with care is the most basic of strategic lessons," she grumbles at Asciel.

Then Sophia grimaces at the sign. "Psychoframe again," she mutters with distaste. The Flag's faceplate changes signals, attempting various G-Hound optic-recognition authorization signs, but nothing happens.

...no, correction, the bulkhead starts closing. "Damnation!!" she yells. The Flag has NO HOPE of attempting to hold that door open - it is about as spindly as a Mobile Suit gets. Her weaponry, at Asciel's own suggestion, is not remotely equipped for breaching, so all she can really do is GUN IT.
FPT: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has acted with Reactor and W-Space.
FPT: Sophia Mayhew Castellan spends 1 ID Charges! They will apply this coming round! 

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        The heat does manage to disperse as the trio travel - a giant robot ponytail somehow manages to be just Asciel's style while also being practical and effective! While cooling down though, she's a liiiiittle bit low-response, and there's a very uncanny stillness and glossiness in the very adorable very un-necessary human face the Arm Slave possesses.

        "Perhaps it's just my nature as a new star overseeing the Earth. Fufu. You're a considerate one-" Asciel looks back at the reference log because she sure as heck didn't internalize the names of people she's working with- "-...Emalya, but do take care not to empathize too much with an idol like me. There's too much distance to cross before one can ever understand."

        Head craning Sophia's way over her shoulder, Asciel flashes the Flag a wide smile, eerily human-like mechanical fingers across eerily inhuman artificial skin. "Fine, fine, you've got me there. I'll admit - I'm unfamiliar with the rules of colony architecture. This is a learning experience for me too-"

        Everything goes from bad to worse to even worse so quickly! There's a subtle pinprick of pressure at that indomitable barrier of refusal Asciel holds when they get nearer to psychoframe material, a low grimace wide on her face. Then the world begins crashing down in the form of a monstrously heavy door - then Emalya's EWAC does sear at her senses just a little before she can reconfigure to tune them down! Stiff and disoriented, Asciel sees the two surge forward - right into the path of pulverizing danger. So determined to make it past with the barest of margins-

        ---the door is starting to accelerate-

>!!! nonono stop- they can't it's too late- !!!!

        The star in Asciel's heart ignites again. A searing barrier of force hurtles out radially from Asciel's center as she leaps forward - not just trying to push Emalya and Sophia further, but to just barely slow the blast door's descent to avoid crushing everyone...!

FPT: Asciel Colette spends 2 ID Charges! They will apply this coming round!
FPT: Asciel Colette has acted with Reactor and Hit Points. 

<Pose Tracker> Emalya Zamana has posed.


It is a fairly basic strategic lesson. Emalya is used to that. But, all the same, Asciel is nice about it. Too much distance to cross? "I do not believe this. To understand one another... it is the dream that humans and we share!"

They all manage it fairly quickly; they surge forward, and the door is slowed sufficiently that all three of them make it through, even though they would've had a devil of a time undoing it if they hadn't made it there.

"No damnation after all, yes?" Emalya says once they're through. "Learning experiences for everyone!"

Pause. "...But jokes aside, let us be most careful. I have... what do they say, a 'bad feeling' about this one." 

<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.

Sophia's Flag's flacepate projects an actual -_- face to Asciel's confident grin. "Mind that you don't set off the fire suppression system with that 'spirit' of yours. They aren't gentle, on the colonies."

A dream that humans and Meltran share, huh...Sophia's eye glimmers in the dim light of her cockpit, the world of bonds spiderwebbing away in her sight. Just a moment, contemplating such a meaning.

She sucks in a breath anyway. "So far so good," she agrees with Emalya. "But..."

Something about what she sees... "Yes," she agrees. "Something's amiss." Something's here.

This group did not benefit from Beltorichika's personal guidance, but never underestimate Federation intelligence. Sophia's personal intelligence officer made sure she had, at least, what she needed to remain on course. Still...her eye aches in her skull as they continue to draw through the halls. Slows...

"Something's here," she breathes. She doesn't feel the overhwelming sensation, per se. That isn't the way she's open. But...

It's like a spike through her skull as her Geass blazes wide open, the emblem burning unseen in her retina just before she yelps in pain and her hands fly from the controls to clutch at her skull - but she can't, with the helmet in the way. "HGH!" she snarls, seeing the bonds crowd around her, spectral connection that exists devoid of an anchor, reaching out to her.

The only grip they can get is her optic nerve. She screams. 

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        Skittering and grinding against the floor - Asciel feels a loud and indomitable ~<CLANG>~ right behind her, just inches away from flattening her into paste-

        The bright orange LEDs pulsing in her optics immediately cut right off, as for just a little while, Asciel's core severs its connection to the Arm Slave's port, plunging her heart into the blind darkness.

>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_r_1111_vvvv_ae8_goooh. ooooh. i've had some tight ones. i've. been close. that ranks up there. REALLY I'M DOING THAT TO LIKE HELP SOME PEOPLE I BARELY KNOW? _what???? no! CUT THAT OUT IMMEDIATELY. hhhhhh UGH! it's. THIS IS WHY IT'S impossible to reconcile with them.

>i cannot afford to miscalculate their value too highly. theirs would be a tragedy. mine would be the severing of fate, the final page turn heralding the end of this world.

>x x x x x x x x x x x ttttt. ...it's because. it's because. ...i thought it was 'impossible' to do something kind for her, and as usual, i have damned myself to overcome impossibility.

        Maybe it's worrying that Asciel spends a decent 45 seconds inert like that - before the power cuts right back on, and she's dusting herself off like nothing ever happened. "Well! That was real perilous~ Nearly overturning our collective will! Luckily mine's actually so inexhaustible that it can't just help but cause a supernova of providence at just the right time~ It's important to wake up from the idea of sharing dreams at times like these, Emalya. There is only the reality of who is capable of doing what~"

        For all her self-hyping bolstering prattling - Sophia can certainly feel it. A push from Asciel. A repulsion from being beheld. A thick coating of armor hiding her from the whispers of the world-

        One that rapidly becomes helpful.

        Sophia's piercing scream jolts Asciel, rather unthinking of the Bad Vibes in her surroundings, only seeing structure and layouts. Pivoting on one heel, she sees the Flag asserted by...by...nothing? Every scanner under the sun to try and figure out what's happened to cause such a shriek-

        "...ah. The 'miracles' that curse this species so. That's exactly what I was saying. That's exactly the problem. This is a world that throws away the dead, but not one the dead ever seem to discard themselves. Shoving humanity to the brink, then pretending they were never there."

        The pressure building against her repulsion, her massive invisibility to the ethereal - Asciel's hand plants on the Flag and Excalibur's shoulders alike. An unkind, isolating nature that the Controller has only ever known as a weapon, a space between herself and others, a fundamental nature that divides...

        ...she doesn't know how. She couldn't have known how. It may not be enough to protect them. Just this once, it is a shelter. Just this once, the lifeforms of this world that view her singular nature as a tragic curse can share in understanding why, perhaps, she takes such an obsessive pride in it.
FPT: You don't have enough charges for that. You have 0.
CHANSYS: No channel with that name or alias found.
FPT: Asciel Colette has acted with Intuition and Targeting. 

<Pose Tracker> Emalya Zamana has posed.


"Miss Idol?" Emalya wonders of Asciel as she is in silence. She does not know of Sophia's power, of the bonds in her sight, and does ot know how strong the bonds from her back towards the Frontier fleets are to such sight. But something is amiss, and...

"I do no think that your reality is--"

Emalya feels cold, suddenly. Frightfully cold. "The--the machine it is... turning off," Emalya says in some distress. "It is growing quite cold." She sees the readouts on her machine; they are all in agreement that it is failing. "I cannot--breathe, I ca--"

She pauses. The fear is real. The pain is real. THe loneliness is all too much to bear. But...

But she would not die, were she exposed to vacuum for a time. She is a Meltrandi Commander. Emalya pauses, though the fear does not abate. She realizes--

"...This is illusory," she says, frowning sharply. "Captain!" she calls, hearing her snarling, her scream. "There is indeed something here! But we must resist it!"

Asciel's had on her unit seems to cut through some of the illusion, somehow. And Emalya notices that unkind space...

"Yes," she says. "Like this. I do not understand what you are saying, Miss Idol, but it appears that you are helping nonetheless."
FPT: Emalya Zamana has acted with Intuition and Targeting. 

<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.

They can't know or guess what she sees. It's not the normal awareness, she doesn't feel what Emalya does so much as she feels as if her eye feels like it will unfurl into something she absolutely must not allow.

But the Geass won't turn off. It flares open like a dilated eye, refusing to blink or see anything less than everything. She lashes out, kicking her console just to fight the pain. "Hg...HGGG!" she gargles, agony running through her. What Asciel does, what Emalya does...it works, somewhat.

Eventually, daring to stare directly into the specters around her...she cannot reach into her own head to pry their hands off of her veins, but she bats at the threads binding them to her, the only Connection they have to this world still, and finally she's able to force her power to go silent.

She takes several long, ragged breaths.

"Ghosts," she croaks. "I'll indulge no bondless vapor of a spirit," she spits, and reaches for her controls again.

She feels like someone shoved a baseball in where her eye should go.

"....we move." 

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

        -(...how long have I known?)

        In the midst of utter vein-freezing psychic onslaught, the creeping chill Asciel protects against - the one that boldly dares to refuse the unrefusable dead - encircles everything. Pressing. Squeezing. Angrily, even.

        -(...how long have I been sure I had to be this way?)

        It can't break through. Not that easily. But what it can do is sap the warming heat of the star Asciel keeps locked up in there. The brimming and absolute certainty that cannot - should not - ever exist beyond the time.

        That, which has somehow been mated to the engine of miracles Asciel relies so heavily on. A gate to that very boundary of realization. It is a knot. An implacable, struggling tangle of hot and cold emotions. All held in check by a seal.

        ...that Power of the King can surely behold it. An entity that is <connected> to nothing. Utterly isolated. And yet - Countless threads seem to string towards it, only to be terminated mid-link.

                (It is the most unfair paradox. A miracle that abhors miracles.)

                (Their contorted adoration is equal to her disdain for them.)

        (...say, Sharon. Right before the end...did you realize just what you would've had to make of yourself if you wanted it to have come out any other way?)

        At a junction like this, it's so ironic that the barrier between Asciel and humanity is a more literal, physical one - spaces too tight for her titanic self to fit through, even if she were to eject her core. Instead, she silently follows Emalya and Sophia with a special space maneuverability harken more comparable to an incom - a chair-sized disc with sensors and thrusters attached to a wire. She's not going to turn away. She's going to insist on knowing just why this had to happen.

        ---That voice. That awful, grating voice. The despair-filled yearnings of distant humanity. The lonely voices desperate for someone to reach for that they can never, ever possibly reach. It whispers, resonating through Asciel's field of solitude. They know. They know they know. They want. They will want the impossible harder than she ever has.

        "...t...the both of you, grab onto this thing RIGHT NOW, I am reeling you back in five seconds, I can't stay here I can't I CAN'T-" Asciel is not about to compromise on that. Exactly five seconds elapse, before the incom-like attachment is reeled back in at frankly dangerous speeds, surging around the winding hallways with careful precision to ease the trajectory with jets of propellant-

>WHY RIGHT NOW OF ALL TIMES WOULD I HELP THEM?!

>i can never let them in never ever ever -why do i have to be something everything in this forsaken planet wants to pull towards?!

                >...Because I made myself that way.

        "...Emalya. ...I decided I was Asciel. That is my only shield against these desires. That is my greatest weakness against this yearning. ...At this point, if I were just 'an idol', it would be too late for me. ...call me that. Unfortunately, I've made it way, way too important to be called that."
FPT: Asciel Colette has acted with Piloting and Reactor. 

<Pose Tracker> Emalya Zamana has posed.


There is much in this world that Emalya Zamana does not know. Sophia's 'sight' is one of those things. The matter of 'ghosts'...

"Ghosts," she repeats, and she is troubled by it. "Yes. We shall go."

When they go down, Emalya checks her sidearm. She continues on foot, inclined to lead the expedition down. A disc follows them. "...Captain," she says. "Please rely on me."

Then they follow, through the double doors, through the sign. THe human testing zone, it would seem. The doors and their locks and seals, undone...

Emalya does not fear a corpse. She looks down thoughtfully towards it. And there are others. Emalya looks to them. But--

But they are not gone.

"Psychoframe," Emalya intones, ad she looks upon those crystals. Suddenly, she hears it.

She is not so psychically aware. But this she can hear. Those four someones...

"No," Emalya begins, an instinctive negation, but then she seed shte spindles and spikes. Join them, they seem to wish.

"Captain! We must go!" she calls next, and then she will take hold of that disc. Exactly five seconds. It is dangerous speeds, but Emalya trusts Asciel in this moment, and trusts in her own strength.

"Then," Emalya says, as she rushes towards her Excalibur, "I will call you Asciel, because it is what you have decided to be." She gets into the cockpit, begins the boot-up sequence with all the haste she can muster. "I..."

"I have decided to be what I am, as well. And I will not accept being made to be something else! I will not join them!"

Stutter. Stutter. Stutter--

RUSH. Emalya's Excalibur shoots out of the hangar.
FPT: Emalya Zamana spends 1 ID Charges! They will apply this coming round!
FPT: Emalya Zamana has acted with Piloting and Reactor.

<Pose Tracker> Sophia Mayhew Castellan has posed.

Indeed, among the several horrors Sophia saw while her Geass ran away with her was the nature of Asciel's heart. A heart that draws bonds near, but rejects them...such a thing is inhuman. She's seen it one other time, as the hearts reaching out to aim their spite at Yuliana Kafim could only fall into nothingness.

Indeed. Inhuman.

She breathes raggedly, trusting in the life support to handle her rough breathing. After some travel, they get to the next spot, a space to park her machine - folded up so that the descent is a jumpable few meters, once her cockpit's open.

She's got a rifle, with engravings. Customized. Her own. "I will," she replies to Emalya. That's what the mercenary is for, after all. And...there's no small comfort in another person in this cursed place.

Each step is misery, but other than the leftover throbbing from that attack, she senses little. Asciel approaches with that incom rather than 'stepping out'. Sophia is now certain the creature driving that machine can do no such thing as leave it.

She does, indeed, let Emalya lead. Her eyes tick down, silent, as the first body falls, her jaw setting in her helmet. "They were trying to flee," she observes, perhaps unhelpfully.

Her gaze scans the scene, marking each body first - and then scans up to the...thing on the far wall. "What..." she breathes.

"Psychoframe," she repeats Emalya, sounding like she's cursing the devil.

For a moment she fears her Geass has forced itself active again, but there is no pain, nor vision of the sum of all selves.

The crystals grow. "Yes," Sophia says, breathless at the sight. Is this sort of villainy what Caedra experienced--"Yes, right!"

She slings her rifle with a smooth move and grabs the harken, relying on Asciel to reel them back in. Sophia's not actually a colonist and she SLAMS into the ground once she lets go, braced for a much different kind of impact than simulated gravity creates. She bites out a curse and then leaps for her Flag's cockpit. Startup code, pilot authorization, voice check.

Unwisely, unconsciously, she opens her Geass again, and sees a core of connection spearing toward her as prismatic crystal crawls out of the hall. "Go, damn you!" she snarls at her Flag, just as the final boot completes. She grabs the throttle, then JAMS it forward. "GO!"
FPT: Sophia Mayhew Castellan spends 2 ID Charges! They will apply this coming round!
FPT: Sophia Mayhew Castellan has acted with Piloting and Intuition. 

<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.

<AUTO-PHENOMENA>: Personnel confirmed secure. Mandate: Human Protection fulfilled. Reward routines engaged.

>gh. what a pain. i can barely tell up from down. this is why i can't let anywhere like this exist. it is dangerous to humans and i have to go out of my way to stop them from being stuck in the deathtraps and ugh. UGH even though they're the most OBNOXIOUS things. they never stop wanting. they never stop dreaming. it'd be NICE if they all just decided to permanently shut u-

>Reward received.

        A sputtering sound over Emalya and Sophia's speakers right when the two of them finally finish launches. Then, that familiar oh so confident tone, struggling to activate itself. "...hahah. I can smell your sighs of relief. They're amazing~ See, it's so much better when your favored goddess of possibility takes care of everything and secures your next 'today' from the maw of terror. Huuu. Oh, but don't exert the energy thanking me though. All you've witnessed is...is...proof. Proof that even in the darkest twilight, I'll uphold my...promise..."

        --it's true. Everything Sophia assumed is true. The worst part is especially that she works so unfairly hard for that adoration she'll inevitably reject. A truly cherishable disaster.

        Gratefully, however, on the way out, Asciel extends the oh so benevolent mercy of shutting her trap - her Arm Slave form running on something of an autopilot, as she retreats behind the boundary of protection yet again. -Alone, where she belongs. Quiet, because every noise made is a means to an end. Wincing, because of what that mysterious shard in her hand represents. She wants nothing more but to toss it into the abyss - to be rid of cursed relics like that.

>...this is your way of telling me that...that you won't let me protect myself. That you believe in me, no matter what.

>Thank you.

>Shame on you, for believing for a second that you get to make that decision for me.

>...the second your curse is cleared, I am pushing this bile you've forced into my palm to the end of the universe.

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