2022-12-07: Harbinger

• Cast: Rita Bernal, Full Frontal
• Where: ???
• Date: U.C. 0096 12 07
• Summary: The Phenex, in her quest to gather the heroes of the living, decides to take a chance on a fellow Ghost. Sunlight meets cold iron.

---

<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.

Light floods in behind an ornate desk. Warm and bright, it glints off the gold inlay in the walls and the desk itself. This room is an office, or it's supposed to be. More than anything, really, it's a stage. All this wealth and excesses poured into one room for the good of a nation. Or is it for the good of a man? The sole player upon this stage, as the curtains rise...

"Captain!"

The voice of a second player. A soldier driving himself to exacting perfection, all for the blind, delirious love of one man. His teal-green uniform is tailored and crisp, boots shined, nails trimmed and clean. White hair is the only thing allowed to move freely, and even that is an imitation of the star of this performance.

Angelo Sauper stands at attention just inside Full Frontal's office. In his hands is a crystal-glass vase. Sunlight glints off it, throwing bits of rainbow on the floor and walls surrounding him. Within the vase are tall, cheerful flowers. Many blooms extend from one stem, like tiny pompoms.

He waits to be noticed.

<Pose Tracker> Full Frontal has posed.

Sleep. An odd necessity, that. The closest most humans ever come to death in their daily lives, an unfeeling abyss that unfetters the soul from the body. For Full Frontal, it was mechanical, an obligation to his mortal frame. Despite being enhanced and rebuilt, in the end the Ghost of Char is still human and still is bound by biological laws. Opening his eyes slowly, Full Frontal is unperturbed by the scenery around him. No plush cabin with real leather setting, wall-spanning screens, and manila folders of classified vid-docs. No subordinates or the pilot.

Instead, sunlight streams in through windows, faux beams of light generated by Side 3's false sun, that fall on him and his desk back in Sleeves HQ. He always had hated this office, but alas, such was the duty of one expected to lead: to embrace regalia and use its influence to further their people's. A flash of white catches his attention, as dutiful Angelo awaits for his attention. A good subordinate, but too slavishly bound by his devotion to be anything more. Full Frontal sighed slightly as he locked gazes with Angelo.

All tools have their uses.

"Angelo. What news do you bring?" Full Frontal's gazed at the vase, his eyes narrowing. This was a rather unusual offering...and an unusual method of showing initiative. A vase, with a flower? That was usually the custodian's duty...and a flower from a region long dead, blasted, wasted away into a desolate husk of its former wilderness. Full Frontal affixed his mask onto his face. There would be need of it soon.

<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.

Angelo can't help a slight smile from appearing on his face as Full Frontal acknowledges him. "I have today's report on the Laplace Hunt. The Unicorn hasn't moved from it's position on the Federation vessel." He begins to approach the Captain's desk as he speaks, pulling a folder out from under his arm. With great care, he places it before Full Frontal, adjusting its position so it is aboslutely straight.

"And this is a rare gift. An Earth flower from a destroyed region." Angelo places the vase in the corner of the desk, but one of his hands comes up to touch the bloom, almost as though he can't help himself. "A gift from your people, sir."

...why did Full Frontal put his mask back on? He should be perfectly at ease, here in his personal office with his most loyal aide. Angelo's eyes flick up from the flower to try and read the other man's concealed emotion. Vibrant purple irises surround a thin ring of brilliant green around his pupils.

"How are you feeling today, Captain?"

<Pose Tracker> Full Frontal has posed.

Full Frontal accepts the folder casually, while still carefully making note of Angelo. He was unusually chipper...usually he'd be bemoaning the lack of enthusiasm from the rank and file, or reassuring the Ghost of Char that his methods were correct, and others were fools for not being able to see as he could. The supreme commander of the Sleeves tilted his head slightly in curiosity at Angelo's remark. My people?? Usually he called them parasites.

Frowning, Full Frontal stood up and faced the windows looking out into Side 3, into Deikun City. At a cursory glance, all seemed normal. Hawkers on the streets shouting their wares and dishes to passerby, the faint explosions of reenactment gunfire crackling on the outskirts of the city, and the haze of industry wafting up from the lower levels. Yet...it was almost too much so. The people moved as if they were puppets, down the same angles of streets, the same motions here and there. Their mouths moved, but their words were hollow. These were not the people he was crafted into a vessel for, no, these were mere facsimiles.

Without turning around, Full Frontal called out. "It's been quite some time since I was subject to such whimsical...illusions, shall we call them? While I must commend you on your reproductions, your acting, my dear, is catastrophically poor. Your Angelo hasn't whined once today, nor has he fallen over himself trying to convince me of the staggering incompetence of my rank and file."

A coldness began to seep from Full Frontal's body, a creeping chill that slowed movement and feeling. A mere taste of the entropy of the end...and it was aimed right at "Angelo."

<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.

Angelo doesn't move as Full Frontal tilts his head, but the emotions coming off the other man definitely reach him. He holds still, watching the Captain move to the window. As Frontal's back is turned, Angelo raises one of his fingers slightly, allowing the illusions outside the window to become just a bit more animated. It's difficult to maintain so many moving pieces at once, even for someone like him.

Full Frontal speaks again. Angelo's finger quickly falls back into place, once again playing the part of the perfect subordinate.

Uh oh.

"C--captain, what are you saying?" Angelo asks, hurt and confusion a bit too clear in his voice. "I -- don't know what you mean by--"

This isn't working. Full Frontal's freezing energy reaches out toward the man behind him, who gasps, eyes widening with alarm. It hurts, whatever that energy is -- it hurts! Angelo backs up quickly, and as he does... Irridescent light trails at the edges of his form, passing over it completely in the course of a heartbeat. As it fades, the being behind Full Frontal is no longer his trusted aide.

It's a young woman, only a few years older than Angelo himself. Blonde hair falls to her waist in loose waves, brushing against a simple white dress. Miracle-green eyes are wide with fright and surprise. Her hands come up to her mouth in surprise, covering it as she works to form an ever-present smile.

Energy presses back against Full Frontal's frozen despair. Devotion and hope, radiant and warm as the sun, radiating out from the blonde endlessly. It is clearly damaged by the force of entropy, but there seems to be no end to it -- she will certainly not tire of this contest first.

"Wow! You found out so fast!" A bright laugh, as though this young woman wasn't putting off enough Newtype Resonance to awaken a battalion. "Sorry to have tried to fool you. I just wanted to see what kind of person you really are, away from everything people have tried to mold you into."

Should Full Frontal turn, he'll see the young woman reaching out with one fair hand, smiling prettily. "My name is Rita Bernal. I've been waiting to meet you, Thorean."

A name not often spoken. Though her eyes are sweet and friendly, the invocation of that name alongside the sheer strength contained within this young woman's form is a clear message.

<Pose Tracker> Full Frontal has posed.

Full Frontal turns and watches the illusion melt away from "Angelo"...or rather, Rita. No longer is a facsimile of his lieutenant there, unnaturally smiling and filled with positivity, but a woman a few years older. Full Frontal tilts his head at her greeting, despite her counterstroke being laced with radiant warmth and heat. Even so, such feelings fail to reach him. The Ghost of Char has seen the end of all things, the last flicker of light fading from this predestined universe, the inevitability that awaits. Opposites clash in a thin boundary line between them, half of the gilded office on Full Frontal's side fading into monochrome tones, sapped of vibrance and life, while the other positively radiates color and life.

The leader of the Sleeves does not react to the name she uses. Thorean. Thorean Dillon. Perhaps, in another life, there would be some reaction, but here, there was naught. Only a vessel.

Only another ghost.

"I know of you, child...or should that be Miracle Child? Regardless, I do not appreciate your encroachment on my sleeping hours. What is it you've come for? Surely you're not just here merely to wave a dead man's name in my face, so eager and hopeful for a reaction." Full Frontal gives a controlled chuckle of mock amusement, as outstretched arms present themselves to the Phenex's entrapped shade. "You're but a ghost, my dear, not so different from myself in that regard. Whose grudges have you inherited? What duty drives you forward in that cold, psychoframe shell? All this false warmth and light...I do believe you're overcompensating for the vacuum-sealed corpse dust in your cockpit."

His eyes gleam under the mask, twinkling blood red gems that betray nothing, yet inspire uncertainty and doubt in most witnesses. "Do tell, what might we find if we pry you open? A weapon, perhaps to rival the Unicorn? Or perhaps a tool to entrap the other Miracle Children." Dropping his arms, Full Frontal reaches out one outstretched hand, balling it into a fist around Rita's head. "No, you desire something out of this meeting. I can't possibly be the first you've ensnared like this, nor do I believe I'm the last. You want my strength, my influence, or something else I am only able to provide."

Stepping forwards toward the boundary line separating their two domains, cold hissing against warmth, light attempting to illuminate the dusk, Full Frontal pulled up a chair.

"Let us bargain, you and I, as only the dead can."

<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.

Her usual methods aren't going to work here... Rita's smile doesn't fade, but her shoulders move up and down, pantomiming a sigh. Full Frontal doesn't drop his attack, and Rita does not drop her own. Amidst the radiance on her half of the room, the floor cracks. Young plants grow up and through the cracks, effervescent-green and fragile.

"Really? You don't even care about hearing your old name anymore?" Sunshine is in her voice, no matter how sharp her gaze is. "Not even a flinch? You've accepted this role with all your heart, even though it's hollowed you out?" The hand extended to Full Frontal raises to gesture to the obscene riches on display in the room. "You've got power, now. You could become whoever you want to."

Just like I have, Rita doesn't say.

He knows so much about her. It's not impossible. They were with the Titans for so long, and the Miracle Children were loudly proclaimed on every news source. But it's still... Difficult. Not what she expected. Rita doesn't like things not going to her expectations, really. It makes her feel anxious, increasing the weight of the future on her shoulders.

Whose grudges? What duty?

"I didn't leave any dust." Rita says, airily, smile as sweet as spun sugar.

Full Frontal plays his own best cards, just as Rita did. Bringing up her sister, bringing up her friends, even reaching out to crush her -- if he could. The Ghost of Char is far too intelligent to actually try to contend with her here, where she's at her strongest.

And there's a reason she's following his transport at such a distance.

As he approaches, Rita watches. A hint of wariness enters those wide, green eyes -- but he simply takes a chair. With a wave of her hand, Rita creates one of her own, an exact match to the throne Full Frontal chooses. She sits in it daintily, legs crossed at the ankle, hands folded on her lap.

"Are you sure, Thorean?" A head tilted to the side, and then back. "We could have fun. You've never really done anything fun, have you? I could take you anywhere you like, and we could play. You could put every one of your burdens down."

Rita raises one of those prettily folded hands, waving it through the air. One of those vibrant yellow flowers from the desk glows blue, then gracefully floats to Rita, landing perfectly between her fingers. She brings it to her face, taking in its scent. Azure light takes the flower once more, and it soars through the air, hovering right at the border between the strength of two ghosts. An offer.

"We don't have to fight and bargain. We can just be friends! Haven't you ever wanted a friend?" Rita leans forward, hands on the edge of her chair, hair cascading down her shoulders. "You're not dead. You're alive. You only carry a splinter of a soul within you. A soul that doesn't belong to you, and a soul you never should've had to bear. I can quiet him, while you're here. You can exist simply as Thorean. Doesn't that sound nice?" Miracle-green eyes are so wide. So beautiful. Could a woman so lovely and pure truly be here offering anything but a taste of loving freedom?

<Pose Tracker> Full Frontal has posed.

Full Frontal observed and listened to Rita's honey-sweet reasoning, her planned movements, how daintily and innocently she presented herself and her coy, meekly bashful words. Almost like a fairy from a children's storybook, if you let yourself be carried along by her whims and words. To Full Frontal, she was a witch, a celestial siren, a Circe of the stars luring her guests to bewitchment and entanglement. He watched as she continued to spin her glamour, like a fae of the Seelie Court spouting mischief and illusions as easily as a human breathes or sees.

His eyes watched her conjure up a chair and sit, his opposite in this great game of clashing wills. Full Frontal was no full. He knew his limits. He knew that she could crush his transport at any time, or eventually overpower him if they came to raw blows in this dreamscape. Yet even so, even with the die cast, it had not come to a stop yet. The victor was yet to be declared, the answers yet to be written and recorded. However, Rita had made one fatal mistake. A thin smile formed on the Ghost of Char's face.

"You seem quite confident in your attempts to sway me to your side. Let us engage then, in your attempts to sway some flicker of the man who you say I once was. Do you really think you'd entrap me like some lost child being lead into Tir na nog? That a spark would flash, and I would be happily frolicking alongside you as if this room was Magh Meall, supping on your honeyed words and delicate urgings like we were feasting in Ildathach?" The smile turned to a smirk as Full Frontal and the shade of Char united in their retort, frost coating more of his domain, the fading light from the windows casting shadows and dark around Rita at all sides.

Standing up, placing a hand on his mask over his eyes, Full Frontal laughed, a frigid, biting sound. "You assume some part of me still rebels over the duty I've been entrusted with, the legacy of blood, rebellion, and despair that has been passed down to me. Therein lies your mistake, fool girl. I have seen beyond time. I have witnessed that all we achieve and all we ever will be is for naught, for every second takes us closer to the precipice." Removing his hand, his painted smile returned, as if he was addressing the Miracle Child from a statesman's podium. "I feel nothing from your glamour, sorceress." Taking the flower in his hands, Full Frontal crushes it in his fist. As his hand opens up, there is naught but a hole void, a miniature black hole, swirling and crackling as it hungrily draws in what remains of the light.

"Instead, I will refute you. You want my strength. And yet...there's a much easier ghost to seduce, isn't there? One far more unstable than I, one you could easily twirl and force to dance like a puppet on strings. All you would have to do is whisper promises and possibilities of exceeding his brother, of exceeding our template. And yet...you passed him and went straight for me." The Ghost of Char paused to let his words sink in, patiently watching for Rita's manicured faade to crumble and fade, just as her body surely has by now. "Now, why is that? Why would you make things harder for yourself? The answer is simply thus: you want me as your ally. You want me to stay out of the way, to censure Zoltan Akkanen, to make him easier for you to smite. He is anathema to you, for some reason...alas, his personality is poison to a great many, so I assure you that you aren't alone." Strolling right to the very edge of the border, Full Frontal cups a hand under Rita's chin and smiles dangerously into her gaze.

"Leave from this place, siog. All that awaits you is cold iron and silver, a mausoleum to seal your spells forevermore."

<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.

Well, it was worth a try, wasn't it? Everyone deserves a chance.

Full Frontal invokes... some ancient language. Rita looks at him, puzzled, as he speaks in concepts she doesn't understand. Despite not really knowing the specifics he invokes, the feelings rolling off the man give her a perfectly clear picture. The longer he speaks, the greater the shadows grow. Little sprouts begin to wilt.

Rita frowns.

A part of her is conditioned to listen when commanders like this speak. Decades of obedience and submission aren't easily thrown off. And if there was ever a commander to listen to... Full Frontal was created for this. Though she now frowns, her eyes stay wide and friendly, taking in every word from the Ghost of Char. Did he really see beyond time? Somehow, even further than she has? It would explain that horrible freezing energy. Rita straightens in her chair.

He crushes her flower. That was a gift. Sparks of annoyance are scattered into her heart, threatening to ignite into true anger -- such a foreign emotion. Rita can't remember ever really experiencing it.

Zoltan. Full Frontal invokes Zoltan, and Rita's eyebrows slowly tilt down and in. Sparks catch in her heart. Dainty fingers tap-tap-tap against the edge of her illusory chair. Rita's back straightens. He's seen far too much. This man is too intelligent.

---

The Phenex tilts its head. Armored wings spread, floating alongside the soaring Gundam...

---

Full Frontal comes close. He touches her. It hurts. Rita's anger flares into existence.

Touching a Newtype so powerful is always an experience for both parties. Rita's hand reaches out, grabbing Full Frontal's wrist, holding him fast. The connection cannot be broken. She begins to glow, brighter and brighter still, outshining the sun. The office cracks and shatters, falling apart from around the dueling Newtypes like so much glass. Full Frontal will feel a pull on his very soul--

And when the light dims, will find himself floating in a realm of color and light.

The girl before him has changed into a creature of pure gold, shining from within, still grasping his wrist. Hot, fierce anger burns, haloing her form in scarlet.

Did you think I was some kind of illusion-weaver? Is that what you thought of me? A fairytale, here to sway you from your winter path to come dance in the sun? For someone who looks so desperately into the past, you haven't learned anything.

A rush of emotion. Radiant energy swirls up and around Full Frontal's spiritual form, bearing devotion to a truly overwhelming degree. As even a hint of warmth destroys frost, so does Rita hope to banish the ice around this man's soul, to force him to come to terms with the pulse of this resonant plane.

I'm not here to ask a favor. You will aid me, or you will be left behind. Your vision, your sacrifice, it won't mean anything.

Incandescence builds and then erupts beneath Full Frontal's feet, encasing him in connection and emotion. Kinship. Love. Arms fold around Full Frontal, embracing him -- as a brother, as a friend, as a lover -- all in a moment, all at once. Every possibility that rests in the light. Feelings perhaps unknown to Full Frontal, channeled into him with little restraint. Rita floats before him, a conduit to this plane, translating its perfection into a mental language that won't destroy the Ghost before her.

<Pose Tracker> Full Frontal has posed.

His eyes grow wide as his touch ignites Rita, and the office crumbles around them, as fragile as a honeyed pastry being crushed in a child's grasp. As the light grows brighter and brighter, the Ghost of Char refuses to look away, clutching entropy's cloak close to him. As the incandescent vision fades, the girl has become a vague approximation of her chosen vessel's namesake, angelic and angry, like an angel of vengeance sent down like in one of those dated religious texts of old Earth. Yet instead of being fearful or awed, he laughs. A sharp, cold peal of sound that disrupts her attempts to enclose him in falsified closeness and bonds.

"Aid you or be left behind? You assume that my core is the same as my predecessor, a man so blinded by his own ambitions and twisted justice that he could never tell how close to sun he was flying on waxen wings!" The shade grapples back on Rita, exuding entropic energies and tendrils of dark that disrupt the heat and warmth in this plane beyond reality. Gashes open up, shattered windows in space-time that carry with them the sights he's seen, the visions he's been shown, that screaming and hurtling through the encroaching, corrupting road of inevitability that even this golden-hued showcase of willpower and emotion will mean nothing.

Reaching up to Rita's haloed head, Full Frontal puts both of his hands on the sides of her head, forcing her to look into his gaze. His eyes crackle with twisted, orange light, an unhealthy corruption of the gold surrounding them, infused with nihilistic despair. "You may be the stronger of us in this world, perhaps. How much of that will still be the case after this? Come, Phenex. Can you repeat your miracle a second time? Let me show you what awaits for us, what I have seen!"

Orange lightning crackles around them as they begin to fall, being pulled into one of the wounds in reality. Quantum light in myriad colors gives way to blackened rays, and even as the entity in his grasp struggles mightily, Full Frontal refuses to let go, his eyes locked with hers, as they hurtle past the formation of stars and planets, civilizations of worlds beyond growing from humble hunter gatherers to their high-tech extinctions in mere seconds. Light grows ever more distant and fades away, a mocking laugh emanating from the shade's mouth as he ushers the goddess freed from flesh into a realm where she and he both had no power, only the ability to accept or deny the final truth about to be given to them as envoys of the beginning and the end.

As the final void hurtles towards them, Full Frontal utters a single line from betwixt smirking lips.

"Can you still be reborn in gilded flame after seeing what's next, caged bird?"

<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.

Full Frontal laughs. Rita shakes her head, still alight with anger. This man -- how can he be so blind?

It's not the light of the sun that will cause your fall. You're so determined to walk his path? You'll find the same destination.

Rita cries out psychically as Full Frontal grabs her, the bitter-cold tendrils cracking her golden armor. Her distress ripples out across the resonant plane, disturbing the swirling color and light, making room for the splinters of entropy to appear. Rita tries to push Full Frontal away, distracted from using her psychic strength, simply battering him with her thin arms.

His eyes are terrible. Rita can't look away -- especially as a corruption she knows to fear begins to shine from within Full Frontal. As they fall from Rita's paradisical home, her golden spirit cracks, then shatters. Left in her simple white dress, Rita's form blinks up at her fellow Ghost.

Falling -- falling.

So much suffering and pain. On a grander scale than even her visions revealed, a scale she could never prevent. Tears shimmer in Rita's eyes, made of glimmering starlight. A sole source of light, they trail behind the pair as they fall. Rita shakes her head, overwhelmed.

She should be prepared for this. She should be able to handle it -- but this wasn't what she foresaw. A gasp. Whatever's ahead -- it's worse than everything they've seen so far. Rita knows, in her core, she won't be able to bear it. Desperately, she reaches up toward the radiance so far from them now.

"Thorean," she gasps, eyes still locked with his. "This life isn't all there is. Even if the worlds end in ice and pain, our souls will go on. We'll be reborn, again and again." It's a mantra, more for her own benefit than his. "Humanity will evolve. Our souls will take their true shape. We'll ascend beyond this place."

Azure light gleams like a distant star. Darting between each tear Rita left behind, a golden bird flies. She grows larger as she gets closer. Her feathers are spread wide, crest upon her forehead snapped open, eyes gleaming with radiant gold.

A hand, still lit with the echo of warmth, touches Full Frontal's cheek. She caresses it, eyes mournful. "It's different for Newtypes." The mantra is completed.

The Phenex reaches down. Rita's eyes close, and she lets go of her humanoid shape. Fading into golden light, she ascends between his fingers, no longer able to be touched or held. Reunited with her other half, the Phenex reaches down still. The gesture wasn't for Rita -- it was for him.

One last effort. One last chance for promised salvation.

<Pose Tracker> Full Frontal has posed.

Full Frontal watches, amused, as Rita slips through his grasp as they approach the doorway to the end, the void swiftly approaching them. "That name is dead, fool child. Chant all you wish about rebirth and evolution. In the end, it matters naught. Humanity is one of many to have sprung forth. Like all the others, we will become an anthem of corpses, less than dust at the end of all things." The Ghost of Char's eyes blazed with sickly orange energy as he spoke, enveloping himself in its dusky amber glow. The silhouette of a massive entity began to appear in flashes behind him. A titan of steel and ceramic, many-armed and bearing down with its cyclopean gaze.

A harbinger of things to come.

"Thorean Dillon. Perhaps you should go look at what his name means. He was merely another man. I have no relation to him, just as he has no bearing on me. I am a vessel filled with the dreams, hopes, and despair of the Spacenoids." A mantra of his own, perhaps, but one that was engraved into his very essence, as the torchbearer of his final embers, the standard bearer for Char's final legacy.

Full Frontal looks up, unmoved by Rita's final pleas and declaration. If this is her path, then this one is mine. With all things, balance. With every new beginning, a final end. With every new chapter spun and woven from life's ink, another chapter must close, with finality dotting and crossing letters, the book closing shut and put away in the universe's endless archives. All destined to remain dark and locked away after their penning, even as the void of entropy gnaws and gnashes its way closer by the second.

Clearing his throat assuredly, an odd action for a being now more energy than man in this place, Full Frontal declared, "Even as you insist that another tale must begin, I digress. If you are to be the steward of humanity's evolution, then I am destined to be their final witness, their undertaker as they are lowered into their tomb at the end of time and space. Life itself marred by those raging against the end, hoping to find meaning and possibilities when they are forced towards the precipice. By doing so they create needless conflict, craven and blooded, all in an attempt to soothe their inability to accept inevitability." The Ghost of Char pauses as gazes towards Rita. Perhaps not so long ago, he may have indeed wondered what her offer would lead to. Yet in this place, in this moment, his duty was clear. "You say it is different for Newtypes and in there we are in agreement. We are shepherds who can see the true end and comprehend it. It is our duty to lead mankind together towards our final chapter, instead of trying to circumvent what has already been penned." His eyes flare up with quantum sparks.

"Go now, little bird. Fly freely and through the cosmic skies. Only after you have seen what I have will you finally understand, and finally join me."

<Pose Tracker> Rita Bernal has posed.

The Phenex waits, hovering as Full Frontal descends. She waits as he attacks her beliefs, as he glows with the light of Dawn, but when that immense silhouette appears behind him, she startles. Fear, panic, radiates from the armored mech, rippling space with its strength. Her hand immediately pulls away. Azure power builds.

No.

She turns, and ascends. Through the corpses of lost worlds and the death of possibility, the Phenex flees, back to her realm of irridescent color. Full Frontal's voice chases her, echoing through the darkness. With no way to close her eyes or block her hearing, she's forced to listen.

Starlight rains down around the falling vessel. A single phrase, repeated again and again. Three words, again and again. Not a mantra, but a declaration. Defiance against the darkness.

They won't reach him. He won't hear until it's too late. Perhaps, in that moment, he'll remember a golden hand touching his face. Green eyes, offering an alternate path. There will be no guide back to that realm of connection and understanding.

A bird soars up, through the shattered window into the light. As her tailfeathers pass the boundary, it closes and vanishes, as though it never existed. Feathers settle. A crest closes. The Gundam lowers its head...

---

And raises it again, in the waking world. Before her, in the distance, is the transport bearing the sleeping body of the Ghost. Her wings are still spread.

No.

This is not her purpose. She is to have no part in the fight of her sisters. Her wings close, and abruptly, she darts toward another direction. The Phenex vanishes in a glimmer of gold-and-blue. There is much to be prepared. The heroes of the living... They must be brought together.

Whatever it takes.

<Pose Tracker> Full Frontal has posed.

Full Frontal watches as the bird flees, desperately soaring up and away from his answers, his truths, his finality. As the portal between realms closes, he is finally left alone. Alone, at the end of all things. Alone, at humanity's final answer. Alone, at the abyssal void that was more his home than his body of flesh and emotion. Alone. Alonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealonealone-

Eyes snap forward into focus as he wakes. An odd dream, one might say, if they were merely human. No, this was a meeting. Her reactions had told the Ghost of Char everything he needed to know. His first priority, of course, was hunting down the boy and the princess. The Ghost of Char pursed his lips in idle thought, even as the rest of his body threw off the idle shackles of drowsiness and sleep.

Zoltan Akkanen.

Full Frontal frowned as he rose and poured a tasteless, colorless energy drink from a rations container. Sipping thoughtfully, his mind was augmented by the rush of caffeine and sugars. For whatever reason, the Phenex was targeting his brother. If their meeting was anything to go by, the girl was seducing as many as she could into her fold...and she had failed in trying to weave her glamour on him. Most likely, he was now also a target. He sipped again. A bird of tarnished brass fooling itself into becoming a golden angel was of little concern to him. Progress on the unit was apace, and from the reports, it would appear there would be enough resources to make a second unit out of spare parts as well. If Zoltan hadn't already seized them for his own, perhaps a gift and friendly warning was in order.

Looking out the window into the star-woven blanket of space, Full Frontal mused on the thought. Perhaps it was the right decision. Then again, if Zoltan so dearly wished to prove himself, perhaps it might be better for his fragile state to believe he'd accomplished something under his own will, rather than being given the tools to do so. After all...

What can a bird do against a twin-tailed comet?