2022-10-21: Sigyn's daughter inherited a cup to catch the poison
- Log: Sigyn's daughter inherited a cup to catch the poison
- Cast: Yuliana Dispersal, Rena Lancaster, Eight York, Anita Rosetta
- Where: Project Sigyn Space Station - Side 3
- Date: 2022-10-21
- Summary: Yuliana hurts Rena -- again. Eight is confronted with the dangers of her shelter, and Anita must define herself outside the role Yuliana sets for her. The pain Yuliana inflicts is senseless, but for once, she tells Rena just why she's being hurt: simply because she hates them all.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
From somewhere, a transmission...
==================== | hello, renalle | | do you know | | what she wanted? | | come and see :) | ====================
The message, scrubbed clean of identifying markers, finds itself on the Ra Mari's computers -- injected, there, on the back of an innocuous Federation message. When it reveals itself on one of the ship's consoles, as a simple pop-up message, dismissing it -- the only option is 'Okay' -- unveils a set of coordinates...
... deep in Side 3.
There's no further digital damage.
...---...
Aboard Rondo One, Lieutenant Parminder Chaudhri stretches, backwards, arms extending uuup over his chair. "I'd say you owe me for this one, Captain," he asides over local communications, far too carefree, "but honestly? It's getting pretty interesting."
Through the comm link, Yuliana can be heard laughing. "Pay me by keeping my secrets, Letda," she insists, with the understanding that bringing interesting things to Parminder indebts him. "This whole affair could get remarkably inconvenient if things go wrong. You have the data?"
"Yeah, yeah," Parminder waves a hand, and swings forward, to tap at his own console. "Usual blackmail setup, right?"
"Got it in one," Yuliana's voice comes over the link, and so does the sound of something being secured.
Parminder taps something in. "Y'know, if Wen were here, she'd tell you you're getting way too crazy about this personal vendetta. The hell did this woman do to you again?"
"Bite me," there's no video link, but Yuliana's eyeroll is audible. "That whole ship has been sticking in my throat for far too long. If we don't break them, they'll break us -- and unlike Lettu, I expect you to understand that, Letda."
"Chyeah, I understand something, all right," Parminder grins, half-muttering, to himself.
Yuliana's voice barks over the comms: "What was that?!"
"Juuust laughing at your expense, Captain," he replies, still quite casual. He can get away with it; they've worked together for years, which makes him one of the closest things to a confidant Yuliana has, given her predictable number of friends.
"I'll fucking kill you," Yuliana snaps. (She never has.)
Parminder smirks, scrolling through something on his console. "You'll have a damn spot of trouble getting home if you murder your ride, Captain."
"Oh my GOD, shut up, I hate you," Yuliana grumbles, through the sound of something metal scraping across the communication line. She can't actually strangle him with the chain of command, right now -- she's on enforced stress leave, so she has no formal power over him. He's doing her a favour.
"Nah, you don't," Parminder replies. "Anyway, I'm detecting an approach, so I'm going dark."
There's more sounds of metal, from Yuliana's line. "Thanks for the heads-up, Letda."
He closes the line and ratchets down the power, leaning back in his chair, hands folded behind his head. "Man," he remarks, to himself, gaze lidding, "someone should really tell her that 'counselling' didn't do shit for her stability. I guess they just don't make reeducation like they used to..." Or, he thinks and does not say, she never went through it to begin with.
"I think that's a bad idea, sir," one of the grunts who helps keep the Salamis Kai in the air replies.
"Eh," Parminder shrugs, "never said I was gonna do it."
...---...
That signal leads to a space station. It is old and wearied and worn, long-abandoned and creaking beneath the weight of itself. It has not sheltered life for a long, long time.
The lights are on.
Docking with the station, checks will reveal oxygenation, sufficient gravity, and pressurisation; it is not hostile to life. There is an unassuming Jegan which has landed here, empty, hollow, bereft of beating heart. The pilot, then, must be inside -- and, deliberately, several hatches have been left open. A path has been made, for them.
A path has been made, deep into Project Sigyn's research station.
And do they know where they go?
The communication system, through the ship, works just the same as all the other systems. A little scratchy. A little distorted. Entirely functional. Entirely capable of transmitting the voice of Captain Yuliana Dispersal, down halls with guiderails to help them through the lower gravity.
"'I want to make my own decisions..."
"... be my own person..."
"... and do what I can to make the world better.'"
There's a sound of paper, bending, as if she's reading something out. (She isn't, yet.)
"I'd chastise you for lying, Renalle, but I'm sure the first person you were lying to was yourself. I'd say your mother would be so upset, but..." There is laughter, through the loudspeakers. "It would be terrible form for me to lie to you so soon after calling out yours, wouldn't it?"
The prescribed path will lead them to the heart of the station; to the place where the broadcast is coming from.
"Hurry, hurry! I've a gift for you, sweetheart!"
And there, at the heart of the space station's operations, all the computers shining and awake and bearing signs of recent commands --
Yuliana slouches over a seat, microphone held loosely between her fingers. Her other hand grasps a thick paper file, held securely in her lap. The bangs over the left side of her face have all been clipped away, to reveal the old scar running down her eye -- but she's not bearing any evidence of injuries, any more. Medical may be brutal, but it is an effective institution. She smiles, too, too wide, and remarks, over the communication system: "Welcome, welcome..."
Clatter, the old equipment falls to the console with a horrible whining SCREECH, as Yuliana stands and takes a step forward, gesturing with her file. "... to your castigation revelation," she says, without amplification, looking straight to Rena. The words clutter over each other, hurried, one after another.
"Now, before you get too excited..." Her gaze falls on them all here, as her free hand brushes her drab green spacesuit, coming to rest at her heart. "... you should know that if anything tragic happens to me, an awful lot of interesting things are set up to be published. Oh, I do love the dead man's switch," she laughs, and unlike some showings, it isn't kind.
"So let's have a polite conversation, mm?" Her tone is, surface-level, polite, in the barest technicality one can muster. One doesn't have to look into her heart -- the black hole it always is, and forbidding approach to her with that horrific aura -- to hear the contempt, just below the surface. It was always there. She spent more time hiding it, most of the time. She looks to Eight, and she smiles. "How nice of you to bring all the sorry players. I'm so glad you get to hear this for yourself, York."
"It's too bad," she adds, to Anita, as if with sympathy, "you have to see it all this way, but I'm sure you'll agree it's for the best." There's not nearly so much loathing in her eyes, to look at her; it may not be the comfort Yuliana wants it to be. "Oh," she adds, with a generous allowance, to the cyborg, "and please do assure your Doctor I forgive him his distractions! Yes, very soon..." Her gaze lids; there's something possessive, to her smile, to her trailing words, which promises nothing good.
"Anyway," she remarks, brightly -- labile, volatile, she switches so easily between emotional states, or emotional presentations. It's impossible to know, for sure, where the lies end and the truth begins. There is nothing to her. "Rena, dear! Why don't you tell us all about your mother? Go on," she encourages her, smiling. "You have less advantages than you might believe, here -- so it's better if we talk, don't you think?"
She spreads her free hand, grandly, inviting Rena to take the stage.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena Lancaster wasn't sure what to make of a threatening message, embedded into one of the numerous messages from the Federation. She certainly couldn't ignore it, even if her blood ran cold. But a Newtype could not read intent from text; they could not sense the heart behind it. She could only wonder, worry, and go to meet it.
She didn't go alone.
She doubts that she could have gone alone. Eight and Anita saw the message, too; word had gotten out about the message, and Rena certainly could have gone to those coordinates alone... and certainly would have had others follow.
The space station means nothing to her. She doesn't recognize it. She flies through the space station, in her blue and silver normal suit. The helmet is still on, out of an abundance of caution; a sidearm is holstered at her side, as she flies. But as she moves through it, she gets her answer. Captain Yuliana Dispersal sent the message -- and worse, she quotes things that Rena said to her back.
Her eyes widen -- then narrow, when she hears Yuliana speak of her mother.
So Rena hurries, wordlessly; the thrusters on the normal suit's propulsion pack pick up, sending her along the path, and to the heart of the station. The many monitors and screens reflect across her helmet, lighting her up; she looks at Yuliana for a moment, before she tenses. Her back goes rigid for a moment.
"What is this about?" she asks. Her voice hardens. "What are you..." She hesitates, for a moment. "What do you know about my mother?"
She certainly isn't explaining.
Eight can feel her anxiety; she doesn't want to answer that question. It comes off her like a thick wave of molasses, like it might catch everything in it. Anita might get an idea, too, though; Rena's posture looks like a coil wound much too tight.
<Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.
Naturally, Captain York ordered a complete audit of the Ra Mari's computers after they got that message. It's possible that her workers, in the thankless task, managed to find a few bugs from the Federation's higher-ups in there. Maybe. But the message was disturbing enough. Obviously, Eight would be accompanying Rena if she chose to go.
-=-=-
Eight steps through the corridors of the space station, listening to that voice. Lying...
Hurry, hurry...
Eight, too, is still in a normal suit with helmet. She has a sidearm, but also a hand baton at her other hip. And there...
Rena is rigid. Eight is livid. She sees Yuliana, and still this far from Yuliana, Rena in turn can feel the boiling anger raging off of her, the protective fury that suffuses her form. ...It's visible in her face, too. She loks... mad.
"Fine," Eight says, as Yuliana mentions that she has a dead man's switch. "Polite. We can do polite."
She wants to make threats; she wants to hurt her, for making Rena feel like this. But those old instincts are something she's pressed down, learned to control.
"Whatever you have to say," Eight says, "It won't change how I feel about her. She's a trusted member of the crew. And you're not getting near the Doctor."
Bus he's already near Rena...
"Stop with the games."
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
A threatening message had appeared on the Ra Mari's computer. Of course, even if Rena did try to pursue it on her own, Anita would have been right there behind her. It's good at she took her and Eight along with her.
The coordinates lead them to an abandoned space station. Even Anita feels a slight, creepy chill crawl along her back at the sight of it. Presently, she's equipped with her suit and EX-Gear - sea-green with blue trim. Unlike the others she isn't visibly armed, but the powered exo-skeleton is equipment enough at times.
She flies along with the others, wings folded in slightly for the narrow hallways. Derelict though it may be, the communications still work - and someone is taking advantage of this, broadcasting messages. Behind her helmet, a frown crosses Anita's face.
"That voice... wait, is that her?" Anita asks. She's not as familiar with Yuliana's voice as the others might be... but she's heard more than enough of it. And this is confirmed when they reach the heart of it and find her there, waiting with a file in her lap.
Anita's stance is casual, slouched - that much comes across even through her armor. What is harder to detect is the way she watches the scene carefully, taking everything in.
"...Rena." Anita says quietly, noting her friend's tense stance, before looking back toward Yuliana. She brings up the dead man's switch so she can see, just briefly, that she isn't armed before folding her arms in front of her.
"...You look good, Captain. Lot better than I thought you would, after that trashing you got." Anita observes, her tone polite. One might even see a smile, if they peer through the helmet deep enough. She says it's it's too bad that she has to see it all this way, that she'll agree it's for the best. Anita's smile strains, just a bit, for just a moment.
"...That so." She comments. "You sure have gone to a lot of trouble..."
She comments on their Doctor, too, and that gets a small frown out of her.
"...Yeah, I'll let 'im know." She says. Though that 'assurance' might be more of a warning, at this point.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Games? Goodness, no," Yuliana assures Eight, grinning all like a knife, as she flicks through her notes. "I got some marvellous advice to accept myself the other day, and I thought, well! What's better than accepting yourself -- but making someone else accept themselves?" Some of those words, in roughly that order, was something Rena said when Yuliana was injured. But...
"Why, it's hardly any trouble at all for such a generous soul as this," Yuliana smiles, to Anita. She's lying, of course. Ever since she recovered, she's been on the warpath -- she's gone to quite a LOT of trouble. Someone pointed a gun at her! Harrowing! "But it's so kind of you to notice I'm doing well," she praises her, too easily. "Medical has some truly remarkable facilities. I daresay I'm at full fighting shape now!" And surely that's a reassurance, and not a threat.
"Quite a lot, by now," she directs her attention back to Rena, smiling. "But let me ask you -- which one, Renalle? Tall Caster? Ophelia Moore? Ingrid York? Barbara O'Malley? Lemon La Carastana?" One of those names, she draws out deliberately; the rest, she reads off entirely at random. Shock crosses her face, as she looks up from the file. "Oh! Oh, my mistake, you mean Rhella Kan Zeitun! How silly of me!"
She laughs, but it isn't a very nice sound.
"Oh, Rena. You're kidding yourself... if you think 1/25th of your genetic donors amounts to your 'mother'." Her head rocks back, her smile too, too wide. "Rhella was just the scientist most invested in your progress. No, you were birthed by Project Sigyn... ah, there are so many things humanity has created. And so I suppose we'll call your father the Flanagan Institute," so like the Institute for Continuing Study which Yuliana limped back to, before, "and the woman you call your mother was one of their dogs, darling."
Her gaze lids, as her lip curls. "So often, in so many places, progress is a weapon. But you, Renalle... you just weren't good enough. Misfortune left your Project in disarray," so like the Renascence Orchid Project, all gone to ground, "but you, at least, were worth preserving. Kept alive, despite the failure of your Project! Ah, you and I --" -- but her teeth clamp together, and she smiles, more thin-lipped, as her gaze comes to rest briefly on Eight. "I've heard your dear Rhella found a marvellous experimental career afterwards, of course -- but why wouldn't she? She'd practiced so thoroughly on you." She gestures, open-palmed, to Rena; unlike them, she doesn't have a gun on display. (Whether this means she's unarmed is an open question.)
Yuliana laughs. Her laughter is not kind, or soft, or musical; it rakes the air like a torture implement, and she knows how to handle it so, so well.
"... even failures, in science, may eventually lead to success. Rejoice, Rena, that your obsolescence still led to such triumph!"
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena tenses more as Yuliana verbally spars with Eight and Anita. She wishes, for a second, that she came alone; then she realizes that's a foolish impulse. They never would have agreed. If they hadn't stopped her, they would have followed. She looks back at Yuliana, then, and her eyes narrow. She doesn't understand, at first -- there's no reaction, no flicker of recognition at the first five names.
The next one, though, that makes her draw a breath. "She--" She knew, of course, that her mother was a scientist at the Flanagan Institute. She had done that; then she became one of Glemy Toto's creatures.
"That's a lie," she snaps, heatedly.
She can't tell, though. Sometimes she feels the truth or dishonesty of something from someone's emotions, as a Newtype. She cannot feel that here, not with Yuliana. Rena's breath catches in her throat. "I'm not--that's not the case. Mother did... did terrible things, but she never--"
She swallows, feeling sick. "Zeon didn't have the sorts of facilities to do that kind of genetic tampering," she says lamely. "Why are you doing this?"
<Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.
"It's her."
Eight notices Anita's observation. She appreciates it, in the moment. But there's not much to 'appreciate' in the next few. Not with Yuliana talking of 'advice'.
"..."
Full fighting shape... Eight is tempted to chance it anyway. But no. She has to tell that voice quiet. And then...
York? ...Project? Eight blinks, but her careful self-control means she doesn't turn to look questioningly at Rena. Not until Rena says it's a lie. Then, Eight looks at her. She wonders. "..."
And then she steps directly between Rena and Yuliana, putting her fist in her other palm. "All right then, Captain. Have you 'accepted' that you're a spiteful harridan who the world would be better off without, then?"
"What's your angle here? Why are you trying to convince her of this? And--"
A marvelous experimental career. Eight smiles, but it's not a pleasant expression. "You think I don't know what I am? Don't make me laugh. I'm proof that someone can be more than what she was made."
A glance, to Anita. "...Sorry. I meant to tell you."
...But she doesn't have anything reassuring for Rena. Because...
Because it would explain a lot. So instead--
"What's your angle, Captain? Really?"
She can't shield her from that. But she can show... Right? She can show that...
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
"How kind of you, then!" Anita replies. She's not convinced, of course - they wouldn't have even known about this place if she hadn't provided them with the coordinates, how did she manage to find it? "Well, I'm glad to hear about your swift recovery."
But Yuliana has a lot to say, so Anita goes quiet and listens. Her attention is divided between Yuliana and Rena - and as it continues her stance adjusts, just slightly. She unfolds her arms, stands up just a bit straighter.
...It's a lot to take in, and she doesn't know what to think about it. She wants to say it's a lie... but it's pretty elaborate to be just a lie.
Not that she thinks Yuliana is incapable of that, when she's gone this far already.
But Eight apologizes to her, and Anita shakes her head.
"...It's alright." She replies. ...Was that what she was going to tell her, before...? She would've liked to have heard it from her... but she's not angry at Eight for having that chance taken away from her, or Rena, for that matter.
Anita takes a step forward, closer to Rena for support. She raises a hand to grip her shoulder gently, just briefly before releasing it.
They both have asked 'why', and what her angle is - the same question is on Anita's mind, too. But right now, she doesn't really have any words.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Oh, it would have been DELIGHTFUL if Rena had come alone. Absolutely, completely delightful!
But Yuliana is happy with this result, too. A shame about Anita, but she's long since been tainted.
"Am I really lying?" Yuliana asks, head cocking to one side -- and tragically, she has no bangs to hang about her face, any more, in the gesture. She taps a hand against her paper file. "The data's all here, dearling. You really should thank me for collecting it neatly together for you -- I had to go on something of a whirlwind tour to find all this! You had some very clever people covering your tracks, didn't you..? Fortunately for you," she smiles, all too innocent in that eyeblink, "I'm very good."
'Special operations', as it happens, is really just a sanitised way of saying 'black operations' a lot of the time. "By the way," she comments, far too lightly. "If you want to handle this altercation through official channels, I will, of course, be more than happy to share my findings officially. Will they be more cross at my indiscretion, or your existence, I wonder?" Her tone is too, too light, as she smiles to Rena.
She laughs, then, turning to Eight. "Oh? You don't know how right you are!" Yuliana spreads her hands out, grandly, file hanging from her fingers. Somehow, she doesn't drop a page, despite her encompassing movements. "This world will certainly be better off, when it is without."
Without... what?
No, without.
"Ah, Captain," Yuliana croons, looking to Eight's position, between Rena and herself. "You are so, so brave. And how nice, that you've exceeded your design! How strange that they're hiding behind you, from me." She does not remark on their similarities; she is not so far gone as to fall for the same trap twice.
Her gaze shifts, behind her, to focus on Anita. "And so you all cluster together... but surely you must know that you will always be second-class, Ensign," she winces, sympathetically. "It's awful, isn't it? That your physical comfort cannot come close to the communion these creatures share between them? You'll never know the closeness they know... though I'm sure they've all sorts of pretty lies to appease you." She lifts a hand, fingers curling inwards, an inviting gesture. "I can help you, Anita. Oh, I am magnanimous to help you even if you spurn me, all blinded by their tricks! Just be patient. Yes..." She croons, gaze lidding, too assured in herself.
She raises that hand, to her mouth, fingers veiling her lips as she chuckles to Eight. "Hmm, really? Really, really? You want to know the truth, do you? You think yourself worthy of knowing how I really feel, just because you cannot tear it from my beating heart?"
The smile falls from her face. All a sudden she is angry; she is cold.
"I hate you."
The words fall like a guillotine.
"I hate every last one of you. Oh, not for your genetic design -- I frankly couldn't care less that your physical form has been optimised, within the rules humanity has set for itself," she brushes Rena off, behind Eight, with a flippant gesture. Her chin tilts up, even though she can't rightly look down at someone as tall as Eight, given she's five inches below her. "But for that violation intrinsic to you... the 'connection' you use to hold yourselves above normal people! You sensitive souls, you Newtypes, you wretched byproducts of venturing too far and too fast to a place inhospitable --" and does she hear it, the mirror, the reflection she casts? "-- your suffering only begins to pay reparations for what you have done, what you flout to me every day, but it is worthy in and of itself!"
It wasn't a favour for Rena. It was never a favour for Rena.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
Rena's shoulder is all tension and tightness, when Anita puts her hand on it. She stays tense, wound up, and she doesn't quite come down. She stares at the back of Eight's head, grateful that she puts herself between her and Yuliana. Except, of course, that Eight can't shield her from what Yuliana reveals. Rena can't say that she is so confident of what she is, the way Eight did.
But that's because she is realizing she never knew what she was.
She puts some of the pieces together. Even her objection falls flat. Ingrid York -- Eight's adoptive mother and the woman that Rena assumed was her aunt -- had several contacts with PLANT scientists. One of them visited, when Rena was thirteen, and had come along for a doctor's appointment. Maybe Zeon didn't have the genetic sequencing facilities, then, but PLANT certainly did. She feels herself getting cold.
"I-I'm not obsolete," she says, quietly. She always wanted to be useful to people; her mother (or is she?) had always encouraged her to make herself useful. But the project was a dead end. "I'm not."
She looks at the file, and she considers snatching for it. One doesn't need to be a Newtype to see that: her eyes follow it like a wolf tracking their prey. Then, she looks at Eight, and then at Anita, and she looks down. "Don't talk to them like that! Don't talk to either of them like that! If you hate me, whatever, but... but leave them out of that. And don't think you know how we relate to each other--"
Then, she looks back at Yuliana. "I-I didn't flout anything. I just tried to listen to you, even when I didn't like you. I tried to help! I--"
Her hand balls into a fist. "I hate you."
<Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.
Anita says it's fine, but Eight finds she would be angry about the chance being taken from her... if she weren't so busy being angry for Rena. But anger is a secondary emotion; the truth is she's afraid, not for herself, but for what this truth might do to someone she loves.
No, there was no way she was letting Rena come here alone.
"Tch," Eight says of official channels, and perhaps that is reaction enough. She considered it, of course--one of many options that have come to mind in her mind, optimized for problem-solving and the elimination of enemy combatants. "The commander," Bright Noa, "doesn't care about any of that," Eight says, as much for Rena's benefit as anything--but there's little heart in it, because she knows full well he's not the one who'd be breathing down their necks over all this. The trouble it could cause for Rena... And, distantly, for her too.
Without...? Eight lifs an eyebrow.
Strange...? "I don't see what's strange about a Captain protecting her people. Maybe you do?"
Second-class... Eight's expression flattens. "You don't know shit about our bonds with Anita," Eight declares. There's no hesitation in it; her faith in that bond is rock-solid. They just attested it. This won't be enough.
"Yeah. I want to know."
She hates them. Of course she does. "'Obsolete'. Like people are just test subjects to be thrown away when they're not useful. Zeon may have thought that way, but I don't... Captain."
But her mother--her mother would've known? Would've been familiar with it? Does that mean--
Eight's hand curls into a fist.
Don't talk to them like that?
"..." Rena hates her. Rena, who tries to shard to help. Who...
Maybe that's what angers Eight the most. To get Rena to feel this way, of all people.
"..." Eight looks to Yuliana, her jaw set. She steps forward, and then another step, and another, until she's inside that field like cold water over her, where her aura winks out to Rena's senses. She extends her hand.
"Then give me the file," Eight says. "We'll judge your findings for ourselves."
She has so, so, so much more to say. But first... She noticed Rena considering the file. First, there is that. She will do this.
She stands, and waits.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
Yeah, there it is. This really was an elaborate scheme. And all to... what, get back at Rena for something? She frowns, when Yuliana's gaze turns toward her - and especially when she calls her by name.
"Call me 'Ensign Rosetta', thanks." Anita replies, her tone flat - it's pretty damning, from someone who rankles so much at formality.
...She'd be lying if she said that weren't times she didn't feel a little jealous of them, the connection they share that she can't... but she'd never let it get this far, never let it hurt them. She isn't going to give her that ammo.
"...Sorry if I'm not entirely convinced that you're doing this purely out of the kindness of your heart, Captain, when it sounds like you're getting way too much joy out of this." Anita replies. "Do you listen to yourself? ...Nah, guess you probably don't, or else you woulda choked on your own poison years ago."
She shakes her head.
"Second-class... I've heard that kind of thing a lot, but never from them, you know? Me, I'm just as much metal and machinery as I am flesh and blood, and they've never cared about that. Can't say the same for everyone else. It's like she says - you don't know anything about us. So, try again." She says. "On second thought, don't."
She goes quiet, as Yuliana rants about how much she hates Rena and Eight, and people like them. Anita frowns. Hate, huh... That she's driven Rena of all people to hate is too much, too far.
"...You don't need to listen to her anymore, Rena. She isn't worth this." Anita says, with a shake of her head.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"And do you think your commander can save you from the Federation?" Yuliana poses the question to Eight, gesturing with long fingers, perfectly suited to the piano or her throat. "How much of Zeon's trash will they tolerate, really? Particularly given the remarkable popularity of the NIA..." The National Industrial Alliance -- which has far too many ties to Blue Cosmos, and far too much governing power.
She snorts, a laugh which lodges in her throat, in her teeth all filling her stretched lips. It's an ugly expression. "You forget too easily, eight," a number, not a name, "that it is the fate of all test subjects to be terminated when their use runs out." Yuliana never forgets.
Disregarding the other Captain, she looks to Anita. "Oh? As you wish, Ensign," she allows, too permissive. She smiles, to her, a shade gentler. "No, no. The venom running through myself is not for me, you understand. Though I can certainly consume a particular type of poison... hmm, I wonder what it is about cyborgs which brings me to these metaphors?" She shrugs, with a light sigh. "Well, perhaps it oughtn't surprise me you're looking for any scrap of belonging. It's all right, Ensign. I won't fault you for that."
Her smile is not so reassuring, as she adds: "You'd like it, if I learned nothing more about you and yours, wouldn't you?" With a veiled gaze, Yuliana shakes her head. "But you have no power over me."
She turns her attention on Rena, again. "What do you call a Project which doesn't go anywhere, darling? With no direct successors? A Project which does not achieve its aims, which does not create the ultimate weapon it set out to create? A Project which turns out something like you --" Yuliana laughs, too sharp, too stark, shifting attitudes again. "Hahaha! Would you prefer to be called a failure, Renalle?! A mistake?! A flaw in the ever-grinding wheels of science turning?! No, no. You achieved everything you could be expected to achieve, sweetheart," Yuliana smiles, to her, still so volatile. "It's just that what you were designed for didn't measure up."
She tilts her head, to look past Eight, to Rena. "Leave them out of it?" She wonders. "You're terribly arrogant, thinking you're the sole recipient of my feelings. Tell me, does being so headstrong and wilful really suit someone like you? Be a good girl, and quiet down. I'm speaking to you." She pauses, and adds, too lightly: "Oh, but I'm being much more indelicate than Rhella was, aren't I? You must forgive me. I simply don't care to use you!"
And there is anger, in her eyes. "Because you weren't helping, you wretched woman. To imply I've a choice to obey my directions -- that you think you can be your own person, that you are accepted by the world, that you have a self you can accept so easily -- you're HORRIBLE!" For the first time her voice rises beyond the swaying variation of her normal tone, as she gestures, sharply. She -- sounds hurt, certainly. She...
... did all this, to Rena, just because of that..?
"Good," she scowls, straightening up. "You should hate me. There's nothing I loathe more than a Newtype trying to reach me. Feeling for me... disgusting."
And she directs her glare to Eight, stepping forward. Yuliana's helmet is down, given the oxygen in the station -- so there's nothing, between that green-eyed monster and the one who escaped. So MUCH nothing, between them, and Eight can surely feel it as she approaches, the precipitous drop before oblivion.
"Hmm?" She asks, to Eight's demands for the file, raising her brow. "Suddenly, I don't care to be so cooperative," she sniffs, with a glare aside to Anita. "Claiming I have no worth -- why, I'm hurt!" That's not, exactly, what Anita said, though it has some of the words in something like the same order.
Yuliana breaks out into a grin, too sharp and too savage. "Do you think you can take it?" She taunts her, draws out the worst parts of her, inviting escalation after escalation.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"Th-they're not the only thing that matters in the Federation," Rena manages to counter, but it's weakly said. She knows Eight has limitations; she knows Bright Noa has them, too. And, worse, that makes her the liability; the thing that puts her friends' lives at risk.
All for something... obsolete.
"Don't talk about them like that!" she snaps. "Either of them!" She can still get angry. She looks at Eight, seeing her step forward -- demanding the papers. Her eyes shift back to Yuliana. Maybe Anita's reassurance would help, but the things Yuliana says cut to the core of her.
Because her mother always wanted her to be useful. She always nudged her to make sure she made people happy. Even when it ate at her; even when she recoiled at what Neo-Zeon did. She translated that, again and again, throughout her life: live to serve, live to help, live to make others' lives better. She thought it was something good about her.
But it was all part of something that didn't have any use, anymore.
Rena's shoulders slump and she looks down. Her fingers curl into a fist, then slacken at her sides. Eight can feel it: her thoughts going into a spiral along those very lines. Anita is spared that, but she can see her friend staring emptily at the ground.
"J...just shut up," Rena says, her voice small. "Please."
<Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.
"Hmph. I don't answer to the NIA," Eight says, but it's bolder than she feels. Wasn't she already thinking of how she might have to leave, one way or another? ...Will she get to choose how, if thsi comes out? Will Bright Noa's shield be enough for them?
"Fuck your fate," Eight answers immediately.
There's Anita's spirit. ...As 'chill' as she is, as calm as sh always is, she still is her. And sh reacts the way she would. But she rewards Eight's faith in her. There is that, at least. Eight would look at her, but she has an objecive to pursue--an enemy in her sights. She cannot relax.
"Anita's our friend. We care about her, and she cares about us. That's something you just can't understand, it seems like."
A Project. A failure. Eight has dealt with these feelings; she doesn't wish it on Rena. But she has to keep her cool, she has to guide them through it. "You don't get to talk to her that way," Eight says of 'be a good girl'. It is quiet, at first. But she hears REna's small, sml voice. Rena...
And Yuliana doesn't care to be cooperative. She is an enemy. and she has hwat they need. An it's something like the words...
'Do you think you can take it?'
The switch flips. Eight York sees Yuliana for a moment for what she is. "...Yeah," she says. "I think I can."
She is an enemy. And enemies must be--
Eight lunges with all her tall-girl, military officer strength. She swings a right hook straight for Yuliana's face, and closes the distance fast, her other hand becoming a blow towards her midsection.
Eight has all the ferocity of the instincts forced into her, the power and force of a Cyber-Newtype. ...But so does Yuliana. Eight has youth and vigor, and raw rage. ...Yuliana has age and treachery, and a deeper hate than perhaps Eight can muster.
But does Yuliana care to make it a fight?
What Eight doesn't notice is the scream torn from her throat as she attacks, like nothing her friends have heard since she was a little girl.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
"So you're aware of it, at least." Anita comments. Though she frowns at her next comment about poison, rolling her shoulders in a hint of annoyance. She can't really deny it, though. She shakes her head. "...You make it sound like I'm desperate. Are you just, designed to take everything you hear and twist it until it fits your preconceived notion of reality?"
She hesitates for a moment.
"...I'd like it if you stepped out that door and never bothered us again, but I'll take what I can get right now." She replies, with a shake of her head.
Yuliana's words to Rena become sharper, more directed - and Anita can see the effect it has on her, the way she slumps and the fight seems to leave her... It hurts to see her that way.
"Rena..." Anita murmurs... and then, Eight screams, lunging at Yuliana.
"Eight!?" Anita gasps, taken by surprise. She's... never heard a sound like that come out of her, so visceral. Anita is torn, for a moment - her first instinct is to immediately follow suit, but she doesn't like the idea of leaving Rena's side when she's like this, either.
So instead, Anita settles for stepping in front of Rena protectively to act as her shield. And if the fight turns south, she'll be at Eight's side immediately to give her a hand.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana tilts her head, to Anita. "Am I?" She wonders, as if it never occured to her. "Hmm... maybe I am! Since I feel so terribly for getting you wrapped up in Newtype crimes, I'll tell you a secret about that, Ensign," she smiles, raising a finger to her lips. "... my reality will overwhelm this world." Her voice drops, as she says it, plunging straight to icy waters.
But her main focus, as ever, is that woman she keeps wounding. First physically -- and now this, without stopping, without ending. That they do not know Yuliana has hurt her before doesn't mean Yuliana can't cherish the fact. "Them, them, them," Yuliana echoes, to Rena, and she is so SENSELESSLY cruel. "Shall I speak of you, then? That's fine with you, I'm sure. Hmm... I wonder if you'd be as fine with me speaking on the others?" She pauses, and then, she explains: "Despite how self-centred you are, dear, you weren't the only child Project Sigyn birthed. I wonder why you were worth saving?" She laughs, and brushes it off, with a gesture. "Perhaps you weren't. People are given things they don't deserve all the time!"
She looks to Eight, and replies: "I will talk to whomever I please, however I please. This is my right. Do not be misled by our ranks -- I am greater than you." Her eyes narrow, and she insists: "You will not understand."
Silence beats an empty tone.
"Yet."
And Yuliana's voice shifts from ominous to soothing, too easily, too quickly. "Oh, Rena. Why would I shut up when I'm hurting you so, so much...?"
She must surely know, goading them so far, so hard, what will happen. And when Eight lunges, Yuliana's grin grows wider, and she pushes herself forward instead of away.
A war fought on two fronts, goes the wisdom of her nation, is a war already lost. Yuliana doesn't bother defending her face; all she does is turn her face, to the blow. No -- it's Eight's other fist she acts on, as one hand grasps at her wrist and presses her thumb painfully into her carpal tunnel before she can meet flesh. Her other fist closes in -- aimed directly up into Eight's celiac plexus, that collection of nerves which does so much for the abdomen. She means to do more than simply knock the wind from her; she is not aiming AROUND the plexus, but right to its centre. The diaphragmatic spasms she's seeking to inflict alone should end the fight as it begins. It is as dangerous a blow as striking someone in the skull, tit for tat.
And the other woman may recognise, in the language of violence, something strange --
Eight isn't the only one here with the power and force of a Cyber-Newtype.
The file, necessarily, falls to the ground beside them; some blood splatters on it, as Yuliana breathes. She takes a step back -- she thinks it is backwards, but her brain is so rattled in her skull she can't rightly be sure, for a moment. She blinks, and shakes her head, forcefully, to clear it; she feels something in her mouth, and tongues it, with a grimace.
Yuliana spits; something hits the ground, with a sharp tak. Blood drips from her maw, and when her lips curl backwards, there's a distinct gap between her hungry teeth. "Ah," she mumbles, dazed, looking down to the ground. "That's... my blood." Her blood, dripping down from her lips, from her chin, to the forgotten metal floor.
Slowly, her neck arcs -- until all at once she throws her head back, a laugh bubbling from her throat. "Haha...hahahaha....hahAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAGHL--hk," louder she laughs, and less evenly, hinges all loose until she's stopped by the way she chokes on the blood in her mouth as it drains down her throat. Yuliana lurches forward, rasping out a breath, a hand to her knee.
"Haaaah... all right!" She's still grinning, still too, too ENTHUSED. "You've earned this much! I won't wait for you to thank me for packaging all your dirty little secrets up so neatly," she addresses Rena, despite the way Anita closes around her, despite Eight's assault. "Though it's so nice of me to give you a copy of everything, don't you think?"
A copy.
Implying that all the details in that file -- the file about all Rena's most personal, most painful, most perilous secrets -- are held somewhere else, held in Yuliana's hands.
It isn't nice of her to let Rena know just how much she knows. It isn't nice, at all.
"I'm sure you'll want to see the whole station, and just what they thought of people like you," Yuliana is still talking to Rena, and it's not just Rena she's trying to hurt, being so direct. "So since the dear Ensign cares so much about it, I'll go ahead and see myself out. Consider it a fulfillment of... half your request," she adds, to Anita, and her grin is bloody as the wolves' maws.
(She'll be bothering them again.)
"I wouldn't try to stop me," she warns them, lightly, as she steps around the group. "Or follow me, at that. I can make life very, very difficult for you, darlings."
Yuliana wriggles her fingers, and her voice is far too cheerful, behind the pain in her mouth. "Ta-ta~!"
... at least she's leaving.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
The conversations in the room are almost heard through a layer of water, as far as Rena is concerned. A little part of her registers that what Yuliana told Anita must be important, somehow, but it's hard for her to really consider it. Her mind keeps churning everything she heard over and over. "I don't--"
She doesn't manage to finish the protest. Her eyes widen as she explains.
There were others like her. But she lived, and they didn't. (Or, if they did, they have not been found. Rena isn't feeling apt at manufacturing such hope right now.) She keeps staring at the floor. "I-I didn't ask to... to be the lucky one."
She always had survivor's guilt. It's easy to fall back into it.
Rena looks up at the scream. She hasn't heard something like that from Eight before. In all the time she has known her -- and seen many things from her, including some of her worst moments, she hasn't seen her turn violent that way. She past Anita, and at the Ra Mari's Captain. Her eyes widen as she witnesses how those punches go. It's a vicious, unfair thought that comes to mind.
Anita can hear her say it, having stepped up close to protect her. "It's... it's my fault," she says. "I shouldn't have--"
Shouldn't have what, exactly?
She cries out, though, when Yuliana does such a brutal counterattack at Eight. "O-Octo!" she cries out, and she stumbles forward -- but ends up stumbling into Anita, as she isn't very well coordinated. She stumbles backward, eyes on the floor and the blood, and then at Yuliana. She hears her unhinged laughter, and her eyes fall down to folder. She sees the splatter of blood on it and swallows.
Rena stares at it as Yuliana withdraws. She can't muster some final remark; not even a farewell. Finally, Rena makes herself look at Anita and Eight. Then she looks away, her arms wrapping around herself. "...I-I'm sorry."
<Pose Tracker> Eight York has posed.
If Eight had anticipated the strike, she might've been able to turn it. But she can't read Yuliana's intent. And while she did not imagine Yuliana helpless, she didn't count on her cold thinking in the moment, or in her willingness to sacrifice the first blow.
Eight draws blood. But she grabs at Eight, and that blow more than knocks the wind out of her. Even the padding of her spacesuit doesn't make that strike any less disabling, and Eight hits the ground, coughing. "Gh--"
The pain is enough to get her mind working again. Anita is surely already rushing towards her, but Eight holds up a hand to forestall her, forcing herself back up to look at Yuliana.
But it hurts still. Stars go through her vision, her hand shaking as she does. Eight... has her weaknesses, still.
She wheezes, as Yuliana speaks up. "Bastard," she spits out, looking up, despite her difficulties. She has the will to force herself through it, even if that will can't make her body respond to her wishes as well as she'd like.
She's leaving. But Eight hears that call. 'People like you.' And there, in the moment, he notes it.
But that'll do, for her farewell. She coughs again, and doubles over again. "No," she tells Rena anyway. "...It's not..."
She couldn't hear that whispered confession, but she says it anyway, or tries, 'it's not your fault'.
"I..." She slips, and falls, sprawled down on the floor.
<Pose Tracker> Anita Rosetta has posed.
Of all the responses she could have gotten, what Anita gets is the last thing she expected. 'Her reality will overwhelm this world'. The icy tone in which it is spoken sends a chill down her back, and she grits her teeth, immediately put on guard. She doesn't know what it means, but it's a terrifying thing to say. And her insistence that's she's greater...
Her train of thought is broken off by Rena's words, quiet though they may be.
"...Hey, this isn't your fault, okay? None of this is your fault. She's the problem here." Anita says, but her attention soon returns back to Eight and Yuliana.
She sees it before it happens, but far too late to do anything about it.
"Eight!" Anita calls out. She hurries toward them, fists clenched, but Eight stops her herself with a raised hand. She flinches at Yuliana's horrible laughter, as she notices her own spilt blood. Anita grits her teeth as Yuliana decides she'll leave. She so much wants to say something, in response... but anything she could say would feel empty, given how she'd felled them all so cleanly with words and a single strike.
Of course, she makes no attempt to follow or stop Yuliana - her focus is instead on Eight, hurrying over to her side to catch her and let her down gently, rather than letting her fall.
"Eight, can you hear me?" She asks. She's thankful she decided to bring the EX-Gear for this. She might need the extra strength if she ends up needing to carry Eight back to the ship. She looks back toward Rena, then. "Rena..."
...What can she even say about this...?
"...Let's... let's get back to the Ra Mari for now. We should probably go see Doctor Bidan." Anita says. They can look further in later... but right now, they need to take care of themselves first and foremost.
<Pose Tracker> Rena Lancaster has posed.
"O-Octo..."
They both tell Rena that it isn't her fault, but it's something she can't process. If she hadn't been here, this wouldn't have happened. If she hadn't led the way to Londo Bell, neither of them would be hurt. Was it her idea to do any of this? Or was it just because Rena wanted to please people? She stares down at the fallen form of her girlfriend for a moment.
Then, she shakes her head, and bites her lip. Part of her wants to run away -- but she can't bring herself too. She looks up, instead, and makes herself step forward. It's shaky, as she helps take one of Eight's arms from Anita.
But her brown eyes are emptier, as she looks at her friend. She looks dimmer than she did before. She feels dimmer than she did before.
If she was a creation -- a project that ran its course -- and she was conditioned to do what others wanted, then was anything she did hers? Who was she, really?
She asked, but she didn't find any answers. "Let's... let's get her out of here," Rena says, her voice small and distant. "I'm worried about her."