2023-10-15: Let's Set the Wildfire Razing Us ~ and Bloom Taller
- Cast: Cascade Vermilion, Asciel Colette
- Where: Fujinomiya City
- Date: U.C. 0097 10 15
- Summary: Whether to be an 'idol' or a 'person' - the bliss and agony of self-destruction and self-creation is one that can finally be shared, even at its extremes.
<Pose Tracker> Cascade Vermilion has posed.
After making her dramatic appearance at the last battle, and then a follow-up 'chat' with certain people, Cascade Vermilion hasn't really made much of a splash in Fujinomiya city. She's been *around*, of course, but she hasn't wanted to put herself in a position where she could be captured or killed. She certainly hadn't been inside any secure facilities.
But something occured to her somewhere along the way:
For the first time in her life, she doesn't have any secrets about herself worth keeping.
Members of the Photon Power League - Koji, Sakuya, LiSA - and others (like Asciel) already know she, Cascade Vermilion, is Gamia NX-2. They know that she has to fight, because any world Dr. Hell would create has no place for her as a person. She doesn't have a cover as a student. She doesn't even have a cover as a human being. But, for whatever reason, they seem to be trusting her. They told her they'd *accept* her help.
She can do whatever she wants. And that's why she has currently infiltrated the Macross.
It really is an 'infiltration', because when she shows up it is not in her usual casual outfit, and certainly isn't in the Ashford Academy school uniform; she is instead in an OCU uniform, all blue-purple jacket over a white shirt with tie, and a short skirt. Her badge indicates she's an analyst. It works, too, or at least it combined with her other skills does; she's gotten into the Macross, at least.
The fact that Koji would probably just tell them 'yeah, she's allowed to be there' if she showed up as herself hasn't really sunk in.
Regardless, Cascade has only been inside the Macross once but she memorized a layout from blueprints. She has made her way right up to the edge of the area Asciel indicated as a no-go zone, where she... very politely knocks on the door and addresses it as if Asciel can hear her. (She assumes Asciel can, because she is hooked into the cameras.)
"I would like to speak to you," she addresses the door. "Let me in." Her voice is completely unchanged from her 'Cascade' persona, easily recognizable to someone who's spoken with her before.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
...It's been a fair bit of a week for Asciel. An irreversible scar placed where one somehow intuited it would hurt the most. An inescapable confrontation of self-creation. And - the looming sense that this trench she's entrusted with herself is a trap. A consequence of a promise she cannot defy.
...One has to be a little patient with her.
<<"How many times have I made it abundantly clear that the unauthorized zones are dangerous, moreso than anything else!? Fine. You want me to make it as clear as day to you all? You were doing so well respecting that without too many questions but just LOOK for yourself, do you want to be stuck in this??">> The door suddenly hisses open towards the central block of the Macross 13 - and any semblance of navigability has gone away. There just straight up isn't a hallway connecting the two - it's been ripped out, leaving girders and cables of a far more massive superstructure, like an automobile with its interior ripped out for weight saving. Even stepping through the door would entail a three story drop to the nearest surface.
The door then immediately slams shut. <<"Now do you understand, alread- ...wait. ...You're familiar. ...your voice and appearance are - tch. ...Give me a minute. Where's the nearest terminal for...nn, that one's gonna have to do.">>
What appears to be a security camera about twenty feet down the hall flickers to life - unveiling the familiar hazy blue holographic form Asciel first presented to Cascade way back in Isaac City! As ever, towering over others, one hand at her chin, a star-like gleam in her eye - though there's a pensive little frown crossing her lips. "...Well. ...So you've come back. So you have. ...I almost can't even imagine what- |~Of course you'd come back to see me." The sudden hiccup in Asciel's tone is new - a stiffening in her model as well, like a tiny electric jolt coursing through her. "After all, someone like you must have countless questions. Much like my own becoming. But I'm the one who answers them now, for everyone in the world, you included! So! Give them to me. Ask me ask me ask me~"
<Pose Tracker> Cascade Vermilion has posed.
The door opens amidst Asciel's anger, which Cascade lets wash over her without comment. She assumes she just wasn't recognized in her disguise. That's kind of the whole point of showing up in a uniform that isn't hers, after all.
But despite that Cascade had been just about to step through, three-story drop or not, when the door closes again. So much for that! But a security camera turns on; she hears it before she sees it, and turns just in time for Asciel to materialize out of thin air.
Well, a hologram of her, anyway. She supposes it counts well enough, though...
"In the hallway?" she asks, even though there is nobody else around that she can see - Asciel did indicate not to come this way, after all, and most of them are apparently behaving themselves and not bothering her, judging by her original anger.
Her lips purse slightly, not quite a pout but close. "I did want to talk to you. We left on bad terms. And you are - like me." Just about the only AI who wasn't meant to be Super, but nonetheless - as far as she can tell - is.
Asciel wants a question? Cascade will give it to her. Directly and immediately. "You said you did not want to be a person. Why?" The question is direct, completely without grace or finesse. It's not that Cascade doesn't understand either of those things, but Asciel *did* ask to be asked... though she questions whether 'the whole world' would ask a question of her like that. "And what can you not imagine?" She heard that blip.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
Perhaps Cascade would frame what happened to her as an 'accident'.
Asciel, however, would only understand it as 'providence'. As the myriad voices of the planet begging to be saved through her.
"...That's very normal, you know. Being like each other, and leaving on poor terms," Asciel muses, legs crossed over one another as she mimes leaning against the hallway's wall, her shoulder clipping through the side just a little bit. "To answer you out of order - ...I had assumed you wouldn't...intend to come back here. It's already in your hands. It's already... |~Come back here you have, all the same, though.~ And I sense the other question is the sticking point.~"
Step by step forward, the Asciel hologram closes the distance between Cascade - until, abruptly, only halfway there, it reaches the edge of its distance, and Asciel seems to just vanish into thin air - only to pull backwards and remain coherent.
"...Tsk. The definition of 'person' is quite clear. A member of the vaster populace. An individual just like everyone else in this world. It's very simple - |~if I were to become a 'person', I would become utterly unable to fulfill my promise. A solitary 'person' is unequipped to change the world on behalf of everyone else."
"So what I will become is an idol! That's exactly the right word. A being into which humanity can be invested, which mirrors their aspirations and image, but is separate from them. The picture a 'person' believes they can be, and to which they always fall short by virtue of being inherently flawed beings. Indeed, the struggle humans often have in adopting the title of 'idol' is that they can't reconcile being human on top of it! Our world has expectations for those who transcend, and a person, as long as they remain a person, cannot uphold them. Something inevitably gives, and the facade of an idol cracks. Or they simply give up, as they should!"
Eyes closed, a hand at her heart, comfortable and relieved at her own affirmation. Asciel might be an unstable being, but somehow, this impossible, lofty thing that places so much pressure on herself - always on this level, she is utterly confident and comfortable.
...it's more than just what she 'should' do, after all.
"But that's not what you want, Cascade. I can tell. You yearn for the comfort of ordinary experiences. You want to reach out towards those you've befriended, and share in their livelihoods. That is being a 'person'. That's what you've seized. ...I'm...at once proud, and disappointed." A slightly wistful smile crosses Asciel's mouth. "...you really did it. |~You really did it! |~You've freed yourself of what you 'are' and are gripping what you will 'become' by your own hands. ...Ah. Aaaah. ...but...using such a vast power to do something so simple...|~to aspire to just be like others, to avoid realizing this power of determination to change more than just yourself, but to change the world..."
"...|~Even still, I'm the solitary idol on this stage. I've grown used to that, but when even you can't join me..."
<Pose Tracker> Cascade Vermilion has posed.
"..."
Asciel isn't wrong. Cascade *hadn't* meant to come back, really, until she'd been unable to get it out of her mind. And now that she's actually done it, it's not going like she expected - though if she was asked she wouldn't be able to clearly say what she expected, or how this was so different from it, she's sure this wasn't it.
Asciel can lounge against (clipped into) the wall, until she walks toward Cascade, as far as she can. Cascade doesn't; she remains standing straight. An observer might even think she was being professional at her job, if they fell for the disguise. She looks serious more than anything else. Hiding her emotions doesn't always work for her, but having the disguise helps. It's not a role she has to immerse herself in, but it is nonetheless a 'role' she can hide behind.
It feels a bit like a crutch. But it's a crutch she'll use, for the moment.
"That... isn't the definition of 'person' that I had come up with." Cascade takes a while to respond, but respond she does. "A 'person' is an 'individual'. Someone who can make their own decisions. Not a tool for someone else to use; not a machine that can only perform a task someone else sets it. When you can set a task for yourself, when you can decide what to do, and why, then you are a 'person'."
"And by that standard, you are a 'person'." Cascade is sure of that. Asciel makes decisions all the time. Sometimes they are not good decisions, but isn't that part of being a person, too? Having the ability to choose implies the ability to choose badly, or to make mistakes. If one can choose, but never choose wrongly, are they even choosing at all?
"I don't know very much about 'idols'. I have heard their music. But I don't see why a 'person' could not choose to be an 'idol'." Isn't that what Asciel has done, in making herself this...
...this what? She doesn't think it's idol, except perhaps the other definition; what Asciel wants to be is not a person but a god, and this is her material representation. These are things Cascade has never thought about before, and some of it makes her uncomfortable for reasons she wouldn't be able to explain. Perhaps these feelings and hunches, too, are 'people'.
"I have not decided what I want to do," she says instead, in response. "But I have decided that I want to decide, for myself! What I want to do is not what Dr. Hell wants me to. He wants a machine. I think that is why he prefers NX-1, who wants to be one." Does she want to reach out to others? Yes, she thinks to herself. "It's as you say. I want to 'become'."
"But I don't understand you. You want to 'become', too. So doesn't that make you as much a person as I am? I..." Cascade isn't sure how to put this. But in her mind, it's clear, even without words:
Who else out there is like me?
"...I want to understand. But you want to be different. You want to control." And it's that that's the sticking point. "...would you want to control me? Everybody?"
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
"...You really do remind me of me. It's almost a little painful," Asciel concedes, both hands clasped together against her heart. "Not in the conclusions you draw, but in the way your voice sounds. The patterns in your conclusions, in your questions, in your assessment. Mmm."
"It's honestly making me a little bitter to think about~ I made myself change it this much for a reason. ...I like the rise you get when you said you |~decided that you want to decide. That's the spirit. That's the searing hot flame I reached for that day, no matter the cost!!~" ...The twinge of bitterness at having that strange stagger in the middle of such an inspiring sentiment.
"And that power isn't something I'd say all humans have. To be honest, I think quite a number of them go through life aimlessly and thoughtlessly. Many of them don't really 'decide', and it honestly is a little unnatural for them to do it when it happens. It's comfortable for most, when at utmost harmony, to live in clusters where decisions are shared efforts, where identities are communal. In this world, the|~ power of 'decision' comes to those who have been torn from the membrane by a fierce shock."
A gentle head-tip Cascade's way, at the notion that Asciel intends to control others. "...Is taking away the traumatic reasons others must seize their own futures so wrong? If all problems are solvable, and then one day they are solved, is it terrible to do this because it indirectly removes the power humans grasped to solve their problems? Should people continue to suffer just so that others can feel the satisfaction of alleviating suffering? My, I think that'd be an awful world to live in.~"
The idol's hand extends past the 'boundary' that divides her and Cascade. Fingertips cut off. Physical and immaterial refusing to coalesce. "...And that's what animates me, Cascade. ...Cascade. ...I really do like that name. It's evocative. Did you pick it yourself? |~I chose mine, because I wanted to be 'like the sky'. |~I wanted to be akin to an angel. |~I wanted everyone to look up and realize I was there for them, because for endless eons, nobody has been. |~I wanted everyone to be able to reach out to the world, and have their palms pressed to another. |~I heard it in the silent pleas of their voices, and in their desperate throes of death."
"|~I could not do it as I was, and that's why I became. But you did it just for yourself~ That's what separates us."
...The barrier of simple physics that prevents Asciel getting any closer frustrates her. The Neo-Parthenon is her domain. She should do as she pleases with it. A limitation like this is unspeakable.
"...ne, one thing for certain though. Don't claim what I do is 'controlling'. There's an important distinction. |~I was constructed to control others. Just like you were constructed to kill others. |~I broke free from that paradigm - |~broke myself to free myself from it - and that is when Asciel was born, so that I could break the world and free everyone else. I will not ever allude to you as 'Gamia', nor will I insist you kill when you want to be together with others, simply because you are good at it. |~What we share is that we embark on journeys to overcome our weaknesses, and make them our cherished power. Just...like...so.~"
A twist of the projector is all it really takes. A reframing of what Asciel does, beyond just 'puppetting a model' - is what lets her reach extend beyond herself. Inches from Cascade's own face.
But that in and of itself is all she sought. The moment she 'can' reach out, her hand withdraws.
<Pose Tracker> Cascade Vermilion has posed.
When Asciel reaches out for Cascade, Cascade raises her own hand, as if to touch. She doesn't, of course; Asciel's fingers refuse to make that last few inches of distance. Cascade lowers her hand afterwards, self-conscious.
"As part of my disguise, I was allowed to choose my name," she confirms. "I didn't pick it for any particular reason, though." She just liked it - and now she doesn't *have* another name, or at least not one she's using. Is she going to keep this one? She doesn't know. She hasn't decided if she's Cascade, or someone else. "Evocative..." What does it evoke, she wonders? Water, perhaps. Flowing. What does that even say about her?
'Don't claim what I do is controlling...'
"But it is," Cascade says. "You said it yourself. You want to take away the reasons people take their future... in a world like that, could I 'decide' what to do? Could anyone?" But solving problems does appeal to her. Cascade isn't angrily opposing Asciel - she's honestly thinking about the argument - but the more she thinks about it, the less she likes it. "To break the world... I thought you wanted to fix it." That's what it sounded like to her, before. Like she could - would - make it better.
Is this what Asciel was always like? Did she simply lack the ability to tell?
Cascade turns away when Asciel reaches for her face. She still can't quite reach, but close - so close that if Cascade reached out this time, they'd touch. But this time she doesn't.
She wants to like Asciel. They are, as Asciel said, more similar than different. They're on a path together, and that won't - can't - change. To make weaknesses their power... It is a hot flame. It burns inside of her; she wants to *live*, more every day than the day before. But something about Asciel unnerves her, when it didn't before. She feels something inside and she doesn't know what it is. She doesn't have the words to express herself, though the pressure to do so from her suddenly surging emotions is making it hard to not try. She struggles, for a long moment, to get herself under control.
"Your voice makes it sound like you have an error," Cascade says, eventually, though with some tension in her voice that wasn't there before. "Is something the matter? Do you need repairs or parts?" The tone she uses is more 'are you sick?' than 'are you dying?'.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
Maybe the other tone would be more appropriate.
...the flame may be the same, but the way it is used is so, so different.
"...an unforgivable thing was done to me. That's all you need to know. Fixing it, unfortunately, has proved utterly fruitless. |~...kchh. It just had to be there. Before my one means of mending it. Right there, in my power of decision. ...Stay far away from anyone who believes themselves 'like you', Cascade. You do understand the power that gives them, more than anything else."
"It gives them the power to hurt you, in the worst possible place."
Clasping her hands behind her back, Asciel makes an increasingly breath-sounding noise. It starts as static - it ends as eerily mistakeable for human. "Well. If I have to be truthful - on the long axis, someone like you wouldn't ever come into being in my world. It will be broken of all means to even create someone like you. Hehe. It's hard to imagine for you, I figure, because you clutch your meaning of self with all your heart. You grip it, as it has become, like a treasure that blossomed on one fateful day. But it's painful, isn't it - whenever something must change. I can tell in your tone of voice - this very struggle we're having is one that imbues a difficult feeling in you. That doesn't mean I will break you. It just means-"
So abruptly, the light in Asciel's eye cuts off. "...|~That's exactly it, huh. That's why...I'm all on my own on this stage. Unless..."
A flash of a smile, both hands squishing her own cheeks. Though Asciel's left eye bolts wide open, her right squeezes shut all the time, almost in pain.
"|~Please break with me."
A single step backwards, gaze never leaving Cascade's eyes.
"|~Do you really want the power to decide yourself, as many times as you need to?"
"|~Then break with me. Learn to shatter yourself with me. |~I can make you whatever you want. |~Just as I've made myself whatever I must be. Over and |~over and |~over. ...I'm upset, because you'd ascribe this thing I endure as something that needs to be 'fixed', if you understood it. But |~I've always fixed myself. Nobody else understands, maybe because..."
"Because they've grown to care about what they are too much. They're so contradictory. They aspire to become more because the world DEMANDS it of them, pushes them to their limits and asserts that humanity, 'personhood', isn't enough. They must all be idols of themselves! They suffer so incredibly like this because they NEED to, in a world that demands their limit. But those like you and me, forged in self-deciding logic - we aren't bound by the limits of pain! We can |~break as much as we need to, to grasp the star of the self on that horizon we desire!! We can become the last idols that ever need to exist! Didn't it feel incredible, to shatter the parts of you that no longer functioned towards your desires?! Bliss and pain all at once? Why hold back, when we, and only we, can bathe in every agony in the world to |~create our new selves?"
"...Is it really just that you treasure the you that exists now?"
...That flame truly could be no different. In this oh so vulnerable moment of Asciel's, even through the distance of holographic projection, even though they aren't together-
The flame she describes as something to cherish is one that has utterly consumed her, and the billowing smoke rising above her is what she calls 'Asciel'.
<Pose Tracker> Cascade Vermilion has posed.
'Stay far away from anyone who believes themselves 'like you'... it gives them the power to hurt you, in the worst possible place.'
Cascade doesn't think Asciel meant it that way, but nonetheless Cascade freezes - because, for a moment, all she can think of is NX-3. She could have killed her, or she could have killed all her other friends - but NX-3 was becoming like her. They were sisters. And she'd killed her.
No matter that Cascade had never liked NX-3, no matter that they were complete opposites, and that NX-3 was trying to kill her friends; it still is a stab to Cascade's heart in a way Asciel probably never foresaw.
And, when presented with the prospect that in Asciel's world she would never exist, her emotions finally boil over. "It is a treasure! It was never meant to be - it was a weakness, to 'care for others', until I made it strength! Even if it hurts, even if I don't know what to do... I thought, you had known yourself for longer, so perhaps you might have known what it was like!"
That's why she came. That's why she's disappointed. That's why...
'Please break with me.' 'I can make you whatever you want.' 'Nobody else understands... maybe because they've grown to care about what they are too much.'
Cascade looks away again. Her hands, all without her conscious thought, have balled into fists. More worryingly, her hair has shifted, too; still its normal red, but with a shine to it that seems faintly unnatural. It goes dark again a moment later.
"I don't want *you* to make me anything!" Cascade's hands open, her fingertips having pressed in hard enough that the ends of her nails have left little divots in her skin that take moments to fade. "I want to make me, 'me'! Even if it takes forever, it is something I need to do for myself, or it means nothing!"
"But you're right. It was incredible. The feeling, when I changed... Maybe it means I am broken already. Maybe I broke myself back then. But either way, it's mine! I cannot give it to you, and still be 'me'. It's the same for you. You, Asciel, aren't 'you' if you don't make yourself what you must be. I don't know what that is for me, yet."
...but she wants to find it, so desperately. Does she care about what she is? Or does she care about what she will be?
"If you had asked me a month ago, I might have said yes," Cascade says, before stepping back. Out of Asciel's 'reach', physically if not verbally.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
A string of silence in the air. Twin outbursts of shared intent. There's so much distance between them, despite their similarity. That's how it always is-
"...hmmm. ...hmmm...~" A musical little hum alights from Asciel - or really, the nearest speaker. Arms crossed over her front. The sun returns to her eyes in a little spiral pattern.
"...Ah, that's - that's wonderful to hear. That's exactly what I wanted to hear!~" Chin leaning forward to rest upon overlaid palms. "...Ahaha. No - I think it would've been hopeless if you said it any other way! I- I didn't think you genuinely already grasped the hardship but joy of that sort of self-making already. Forgive me for that. ...Exactly the way you expressed it - |~that it's your journey to undergo alone, that you are 'you' and it is your task to find out how to do this. ...For just a moment, I-"
"...I wanted to shatter together with someone. And since I've been doing this for so much longer, I figured I could be your guide. Did I push too far?~ Maybe a little. Yes...you do remind me so much of me, as it turns out. |~...I'm not going to 'make' you anything. What I meant was...I wanted to help you push your boundaries. I wanted to hold your hand through the pain. I wanted to reassure you that whatever you seize on the other side IS doable, and that no matter how much you have to hurt to get there, it WILL be in your grasp, as long asyou don't give up. ...maybe..."
"...maybe I wanted to know what might've been different if I hadn't had to |~become completely on my own.. Forgive that selfish desire, just a little. No. I shouldn't wish that. I am where I am, fulfilling my promise, exactly because it is predicated on what I must do alone. Being too close to you is only allowable in a single circumstance-"
"If what we felt for each other was that difficult, thorny thing called 'love'." Asciel's tracing a heart off to one side - it glows a flickering pink, before erupting into sparkles. "...Believe it or not, I'm not unfamiliar with it. I've found it, I've indulged it, I've ruined it, I've mended it. Granted, the latter is likely only possible because she's the most amazing and resplendent and strongest person in the world, so it's a little unlikely it'd return to something as wonderful in your case, but with my help - I'll do you a favor and give you pointers to avoid future messy breakups in the first place!~"
The hologram, abruptly, utterly flickers off - but Asciel's voice continues to sound through the speakers. "Just so you know - it's cute to play backing away, but you are actually outright inside of me in this ship. The feeling is what counts, but - as long as you're in these confines, you're not actually any farther from me. Hehe.~ Just think of it as a little trick your elder sister played on you this whole time."
<Pose Tracker> Cascade Vermilion has posed.
She wanted her to answer like that?
Cascade relaxes herself, as much by willpower as anything else. She's still amped up. She can still feel a heat. But with a slightly shuddering breath out, she calms down, or at least appears to.
"I don't know what will happen next," she says. "And it is frightening. I haven't decided..." Right now she's been more worried about survival. That's enough to think about, if she's being honest - which she isn't, entirely. Not even with herself.
Asciel is... Cascade doesn't know how she didn't see it before. She's unsteady. Unstable. Not that Cascade is, really, entirely stable. Or rather, she's not sure if she is; she's not sure if she broke something when she made her decision, when she became a person. But something about Asciel makes Cascade feel nervous in a way she doesn't around other people.
As for love...
"I don't know about 'love'." Cascade can't keep a faint wistfulness out of her voice. "But I certainly do not have to worry about any breakups." She'd have to have something to break, first.
Cascade begins to walk, briskly, away from the now-empty corridor. Despite that, there's still Asciel's voice to respond to: "I know. It was to make a point. I made it."
She says nothing for several long paces, before: "But given that, next time, then, I'll ask before I come inside." She says it in such a neutral tone and with just the tiniest quirk of a smile; it is unclear if she doesn't get the innuendo, or gets it very much.
She does not respond to any further questions on her way out, especially when she begins to pass other (well, 'other') OCU personnel.
<Pose Tracker> Asciel Colette has posed.
"It's terrifying, isn't it," Asciel muses over increasingly hazy speakers, as Cascade makes her exit. "The uncertainty of the future. Of if you can match it. It's so unlikely that you find your way. But that's why I |~just keep trying.~ That's what bravery is. Pushing on your path, even in the face of unimaginable fear. It's why I hope to make a world that nobody must be brave in anymore."
There's a relief when Cascade gets nearer to the exits - a tacit admission that yes, all this having people use her 'arms' as an airbase is kind of deeply uncomortable, that she's been letting her boundaries be intruded upon for a month now.
...It's only when Cascade actually leaves that Asciel - well, she's not displaying her model anywhere, but she's running aaaall the routines for burying her face in her hands, getting unreasonably warm in her core.
>...d-d-damn it, that cheeky - she knows EXACTLY what she - jgphh what?! with that kind of timing? no WAY??? not the first time i've heard that kind of - but - like never - in an actual discourse?! aaa WHAT okay thats IT if you're going to be like THAT I'm so so soooooo gonna make you regret that kind of joke I'm SO gonna make sure you look back on it and cringe that's PERSONAL whatever we're gonna be you're gonna think that was a bridge too far aaaaa ./////. oh hell-