Scene #8281: First Time At Confession

Owner	Pose
Powerpuff Girls	It may not be often - or it may be quite regular - that Father Waters Berislav is called upon to tend to the 'spiritual' needs of his fellows. He had offered it, to the watch. Then he received a request, personally, from a number that he didn't recognize with an Earth multiversal equivalant area code. It, curtly, requested his confessional service, or, in the alternative 'whatever you can give someone a priest didn't dunk in water' At the empty coastal village, in the not-quite-a-lighthouse, there's stowaways of gear and provisions, radios and medical supplies. A machine shop is usefully abandoned with all the tools still present. Luxury, for those without. A figure sits against the side of the lighthouse facing towards the water. They wait in a pair of dark jeans, white socks, and sneakers, with a forest green hoodie under a puffy black windbreaker. Their hands, gloveless, reveal olive skin and unpainted, close-trimmed nails. The request had only been from a 'BC', and their Watch account was new to the network.
Father Berislav	Berislav: oh don't worry abt it. there's debate as to whether even the apostles were baptized! lol. see u soon. : ) 'BC' is greeted by the whine of finely tuned servos and the stomp of metal on earth, quite easily heard when there's scarcely a soul around for miles. Gleaming silver crests the horizon, rays of sun bouncing from a flat hammer of a head. The sea breeze rustles a red canvas cloak, upon which has been stitched in gold: ISAIAH 3:14 The mech's red sensor-eyes, one-over-the-other, glow dim against the afternoon sun. It is shoulder to shoulder with the smaller buildings on the approach, built for a blend of agility, strength and resilience if its balanced frame is any indication. Having started at a run, it slows to a jog and then a walk. The cockpit isn't immediately obvious until, a few yards away from the lighthouse, it opens. Black 'ribs' fold open, sunlight filtering into an otherwise dimly-lit cockpit, where there sits a priest with a simple black cassock and a Roman collar. "Hello! You must be BC. Give me a moment to put Isaiah away, and we'll head inside." Berislav dismounts from the cockpit and nimbly runs down the leg of the machine. One hand raised, palm facing his charge for this afternoon, the priest beams as his skin seems to glow from within. The mech disappears, swallowed by a curtain of orange light. Father Berislav approaches. A Bible is tucked under his left arm, and his right hand is extended in greeting. "I'm Father Waters Berislav. A pleasure to meet you!" He nods towards the lighthouse. "Shall we?"
Powerpuff Girls	'BC', at the base of the lighthouse, barely reacts to an oncoming mecha robot. On long-range visual the hooded dark-haired -- woman? -- turns to look disinterestedly towards the robot, then down at a smartphone in her hand, propped up on a knee, and then back up to the oncoming robot, and then back to the phone. She picks up her phone and takes a call while 3:14 hits the city proper, turning away and phoning out. When Berislav approaches, bible in hand, 'BC' is done with her phone call. One knee scrunched up, and right wrist atop the denimed rise of her knee. Her hand holds her thin smartphone, off-brand and in a reinforced dark green case with rubber corners. Close enough to offer a hand down, it's a lot more obvious that it's a black haired young woman with two medium golden hoop earrings on beneath her hoodie, glinting under her short raven bangs. "Buttercup." The young woman answers, tucking her phone into puffy black jacket pocket and raising her hand to take Berislav's in hers. Her grip is calculated-firm, and she goes for a thumb-wound haul-up -- save for the odd fact that she needs no help at all, rising nigh-weightlessly up. That's all the shaking he gets, as Buttercup disengages her hand and jams it into her pocket again, to saunter into the lighthouse proper. "So... You're a robot priest? That's kind of cool. I know a guy that does robots. Never has time to help himself, but sometimes he'll send something useful along." Buttercup turns, and her hunched shoulders slacken in the light from outside, and the dark and unpowered lighthouse within the tooth. "Is there... something we have to do? Like I said, I've never."
Father Berislav	"I'm many things, to many people, Buttercup," smiles the priest. He has a round face which time hasn't yet robbed of its boyish features, giving him the look more of an older brother than someone you'd call 'Father.' He's probably only a few years older than her, if she were given to guessing. Inside, Buttercup asks if there's something she needs to do. "You've done the first part already, believe it or not. Sure," he continues, gesturing vaguely as shadows and sunlight play upon his passage through the abandoned lighthouse. "Usually the 'penitent,'--that's you--would say something formal, like, 'Bless me, for I have sinned,'" he continues, before coming to a stop in the shade of a fully-finished room. "But, for me, asking in the first place is enough." He pulls up a seat--a chair in a machine shop that never saw its full, intended use--and invites her to do the same. "The Lord be in your heart and upon your lips, that you may truly and humbly confess your sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." He genuflects, making a four-point gesture across his body, then nods towards her. "What's on your mind, Buttercup?"
Powerpuff Girls	"Yeah, that makes two of us." Buttercup grunts, to Waters' first few words, disengaging immediately after. Buttercup's emerald green eyes dip to the Lighthouse's dark ground as she kicks her sneakers around the dust-covered interior. Her feet scatter items, prior groups having the same general respect for common rooms that most people have: diligence if they made a problem, but wear and tear takes a special kind of neurotic sort to get addressed. Use, and need, expend resources that the dedicated once in a while replenish, and the chairs drift farther and farther out of alignment. Father Berislav goes for a machine shop chair, and Buttercup finds a plastic-covered brown couch to fall down onto with a hand-in-jacket-pocket elbow drop, sending the air -- and a thick cloud of dust -- into the air. Buttercup immediately starts coughing, sending up more dust, waving her hand lightly in front of her face as she annoys herself and makes things worse vigorously. Only a moment of this later, Buttercup clenches her teeth and closes her fist, forcing her eyes squeezed shut, and the dust settles. Holding even her breath, she just sits there, slowly leaking a breath out nasally. 'What's on your mind, Buttercup?' "I've met the devil HIMself, and he's bad. Obviously. But I've never met the big G." Buttercup answers, after the dust has mostly settled, blinking open her eyes and settling back on the crinkly plastic couch. "Have you?" Two heartbeats pass. Buttercup's jaw sets. "That's not really what's on my mind. I'm just curious."
Father Berislav	Berislav winces in sympathy over Buttercup's dust-plight, glancing at an abandoned water cooler before thinking better of it. What would that even taste like, after all this time? "Oh, he's an actual guy out there?" The priest sighs. "Yes, I suppose with all the worlds, there would've been a few where that's the case. I suppose it makes sense that he'd be 'bad.' Although--really, metaphorical or real, Satan is 'the accuser.' That's what the name means, even." He continues, leaning forward, fingers interlaced, hands resting between his knees: "The person who argues against you, who brings up your transgressions. And, in a metaphorical sense, he represents temptation and evil. I'm guessing you're asking me if I've stood before God in the literal sense," he says with a smirk. "If, one day out in the Multiverse, I saw him as Moses might have, in the form of a burning bush, or perhaps brought before him by a heavenly host." Amusement flicks in his eyes, before he closes them and shakes his head. "Nothing so overt," he says with a chuckle. "There is an apocryphal part of the Greek scriptures--meaning, in modern terms, a book most churches don't consider 'canon.' It's called the Gospel of Thomas, and it's a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus." He pauses, then recites: "'I am the All. Cleave a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up a stone, and You will find Me there." Berislav smiles softly at her. "That's what I think. I think He's all around us, and I think the Book of Acts supports that too. That 'Holy Spirit' I mentioned, a moment ago--if Satan is the accuser, then the Holy Spirit is your advocate on Earth. He gives you the conviction to know what's wrong when you see it, to fight for good where you can."
Powerpuff Girls	"HIM? Yeah. Red, eyeshadow, claw hands, tough and spiteful. Tall boots." Buttercup answers, of an 'Actual guy'. "He's... everything bad, and even using his name strikes fear and terror. Which is why I was hoping there was, you know..." Buttercup slouches, her voice dropping to a rough groan. An idle left hand moves up to her hood to peel it down with a slow motion, freeing her hair with a quick shake and dropping the hand to her neck to rub and knead. Her right closes into a fist in her lap, bouncing against the inside of her thigh. "Accuser." She repeats back. Emerald eyes come up, looking at the kind-faced priest. "He's" HIM "my..." A wince. "... stupid... friend's dad." Complex, complex, valleys on her face. "Does it even count? It's got to. He's been messing with us since we were in Kindergarten. Why would HIM care if big G wouldn't?" Maybe it is what's on her mind, in a way. Buttercup's eyes focus on Berislav in a different way, squinting slightly in the dim light. She looks at him in a distinctly different way, like he's a trick eye puzzle and she's trying to solve him with just her stare, and then her complex emotion hangs. "They let you be a priest, didn't they? Or is that not how this works?" Buttercup's hands come aside her, right hand up and left down, to shrug broadly and spread out across the back of the couch. Her jacketed woman's legs shift from wide sitting to a left-ankle-over-right-thigh half cross, sock against jeans. "You tell me."
Father Berislav	>Which is why I was hoping there was, you know... "An 'actual guy' on the other end, right," says Berislav understandingly. He nods, smiling warmly enough that there can be little doubt--he, at least, believes there is one, even if the priest hasn't met him in person. "Well," he says with a glib little smirk, "I don't know how other denominations do it, but it was fairly involved. Consultation with the Vestry, the bishop, the Diocesan Commission, seminary school, Ember Day letters, an exam, a while as a deacon..." He chuckles, having held up a hand, then two, and rattled each off with his fingers. "But, I know what you meant," he says. "Big G is three persons, one divine godhead. God the Father, who created everything, and holds it all in love; God the Son, who reconciles us with our Father and will return at the end of days, and the aforementioned Holy Spirit. It's primarily God the Father and the Holy Spirit which interact with the world on a daily basis." "This... HIM may have been after you for a long time, but 'Big G' has been with you during that time, too. Your 'friend,' for instance," he smiles, leaning back in his seat, allowing her to do all the studying she wants. "Clearly they're someone you care about, who cares about you. And you believe, rightly, that the sins of the father don't pass to the child--or else you wouldn't have used that word, would you? The grace of the Holy Spirit, or, to use a secular term, your conscience, is what protects us from the accuser, I think. There may have been times in your life where you fell to temptation, but I don't think you'd be here talking to me if those moments were all that you are." "Christ walked the earth, as you and I do, once," he says. "And he will again, at the end of days. But he left us gifts for our time here, so that we know him even still." Berislav lists with his fingers again, this time not jokingly: "Generosity, love, temperance, courage, and faith. I don't mean abstract faith in God, either--even the Bible says that those who lead virtuous lives without ever knowing God will inherit His kingdom. I mean... faith in the goodness of people around you, in the victory of that goodness over the temptations of the accuser."
Powerpuff Girls	Berislav is convincing, inasmuch as he sounds like be believes it. Buttercup's shrug doesn't hold itself for long, hands falling balled up and idle in her lap eventually while she sits and listens. Snorting, once, at the lead-in about vestry and jacketry, Buttercup tries to figure out what the priest is telling her. Most of what he says, though, doesn't un-knot the twist in her brow. Eventually, Buttercup's pocket rings quietly. The green-eyed young woman's eyes squint, and a lap-fist drifts towards her pocket. The phone gets to a third soft ring before she gets it out, checks the caller, and immediately slides it back into her jacket, annoyed. She zips up the pocket, after a moment's thought. It rings three more times before going silent, and isn't immediately called back. Buttercup brings her left knee up, to hug it with loose arms and hanging wrists. "I know what went into me." Buttercup agrees. "Each ingredient. Hard not to." The emerald-eyed woman smirks. "I'm not the one that sees the good in other people, or hears the good. I have to feel it to be good, and you know what I knew, when I was in kindergarten?" From behind her knee, the black-haired girl leans aside, around her knee from her slouch on the couch. "I knew that there was bad people out in the world. And I knew, could hear how I had to stop them. Crime and stuff. And... And people were happy." "But I wasn't that happy. I was just bored, and wanted things to punch." Puffing a sarcastic breath out, Buttercup lets her foot slide off the plastic and flops her hands to the side of the wrapped, dusty couch. "But I already got a dad. Guess I should accept it won't make sense, huh?" Sarcastic, veering dark.
Father Berislav	Berislav doesn't comment on the phone, past a raised-brow kind of 'do you need a minute' look. She lets it ring, so he keeps listening. "Believe it or not," says the priest, "You and I are alike, that way. Stopping bad people, I mean. We do it because we have to, or the people around us won't be happy. Not because doing it inherently makes us happy. There are those that can be happy just doing the stopping, but it's not us." The chair creaks beneath him as he shifts, one leg propped up on the other. "I've dedicated myself to stopping bad people who legitimize what they're doing," he continues. "Who think that murder isn't murder, theft isn't theft, if it's done with the tools of society. When it comes to bad people, you have to 'feel' it, and I have to 'know' it. Both are different from 'seeing' and 'hearing.' And there are some people out there, even good ones, who find that very intimidating about me." It's his turn to shrug. "I don't consider it a fault," he says. "And you shouldn't consider needing to 'feel' it a fault, either. In general, 'a strength you don't have' is never a fault.'" "Tell me something else, though--well, two somethings," he adds with a little chuckle. "What does make you happy? And if you had a genie in a bottle--what would it take, for everything to make sense, to you?"
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup returns the 'do you need time?' look with a flat, definitely Normal look back from the slouching young woman. She is dealing with the phone call Normally. She's not going to take it. "Alike? You and I?" Buttercup sits forward as Waters shifts, intent and interested, engaged in a different way. "I could see you had something in you, but I couldn't figure it out. More metal than medical would need. You're all cranked up. Someone make you that way, or did you make yourself that way?" Buttercup asks, with a flash of her bright emerald greens in the dim not-a-lighthouse lighting. Her rough voice rises, expectant. "I didn't know they let you." She remains interested, holds there, sat-forward, watching-inspecting-dissecting, until the good Father Berislav asks his second question. Caution slams shut around her expression, pushing off her knees to stand up. "A few things. My sisters can. Our dad. A really exhausting day, one where I can't decide where I want to eat forever or sleep forever at the end, emptied out of everything I want to do." She pauses, trying to stay hesitant, but has to admit: "Spicy food. A comedy if it's decent." Her hesitating smile returns to frowning distrust as she points an accusatory finger. "But that genie stuff, it's not funny man. I really don't need some wish-based... whatever it'd be. I don't care if you're an evil leprechaun or a... robot... communist..." She squints, the directness of her voice elsewhere, uncertainty lingering. She focuses back on her feelings - distrust, anger, frustration. Her phone starts ringing again, different - a buzzer tone, like an alarm. Buttercup wavers, but stares down Berislav. She genuinely, honestly expects some Genie-Based Thing to springtrap her.
Father Berislav	>Someone make you that way, or did you make yourself that way? "I made myself this way," he says. "There are a lot of things the church doesn't care for--if cybernetic augmentation is among them, then it's surely the least of what I've done. Frankly, Buttercup, I wouldn't be surprised if I were anathema by this point." He glances towards a curtained window, drawn open, sighs with contentment and smiles. "But it doesn't matter to me. Why do you think I'm holding confessional in a Watchtower, and not a church?" >A few things. Berislav's full attention is back on Buttercup, as she lists off things that make her happy. There is genuine warmth and approval in his entertainment of her answers, his head nodding along as she lists each. A musical laugh escapes him, head thrown back, silvery locks bouncing with his mirth, when she makes mention of a literal Genie's Lamp. "I suppose I'm at least one of those things, in any case. But Christ was communist, too, so I'm hardly in poor company," he jokes, wiping at the corner of his eye as his laughter fades. "I'm not a granter of wishes," he clarifies. "It's just a question I like to ask people who come to me for guidance. Think of guns, for a moment," he says, pantomiming a finger-pistol. "Two girls go to the range. They each have the same pistol, the same targets, the same ammo and the same eyesight. One of them exhales, uses her sights, takes her time, and makes sure her posture is good. The other one shoots like an extra in an action movie," he says with a smirk. "Her grip and her posture are wrong, she's not controlling her breathing, and she feathers the trigger like she's mad at it. When the targets come in, that second girl's is going to look like a Christmas tree. Maybe she had fun, and it's fine if she did! We all like fun. But, if her goal was accuracy or precision, she's not going to get it, shooting like that." "Thus," says Berislav, "The genie question. It's a way for you to look down your sights, and say, 'if everything that could get in my way actually couldn't get in my way, what would I be doing?' That's all," he says with an amused little wrinkle of his nose. "The point isn't to catch you in some... absurd, monkey's paw 'gotcha' moment, so much as it is to get you to mentally do away with all the little what-ifs and onlys and buts." He pauses, looking over regarding the alarm, then: "For what it's worth, I think those things you mentioned a moment ago would make me happy, too. They're good things, I think."
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup's natural fight or flight response is tilted wholly one way, and as she shifted more and more towards expressing it actively, as the calculations settled one way, reliably, she bristled. Her hands closed, finger by finger, into fists. The anger - frustration - distrust in her cools and is inspected, turned over. Buttercup snorts as she looks at Berislav, staring him down appraisingly, sizing him up. Listening to his intention, as he speaks. The Father continues, at least, to make his preaching sound good as he talks. Buttercup considers her answer to his posed question carefully. "I don't know why you're holding confessional here. I don't know how it works, or who I'm supposed to ask, or what - who - " Her words trip her up, and she growls at her own stumbling, fists tightening fingers into her palms pressingly. "-rrrh. I don't get it, and that's my problem. I've been at this, and I'm going to keep being at this, until I run out of juice or I run out of things to do, and..." Buttercup tries to release her tension, hangs in exasperation, and then starts pacing back and forth in front of the couch, physically agitated. "That's just the thing. They are good things. I'm a good thing. But this doesn't feel good! It doesn't make sense! I don't make sense! My sisters, it makes sense to them, and to me, it's like... It's like..." Buttercup stops, half-turned away from Berislav. The alarm in her pocket - she'd just been talking over it, cuts out and she doesn't notice. The silence hangs, and her shoulders hang, and Buttercup exhales with a hanged head. "If I had a genie and could wish for anything I wouldn't have anything to wish for. That feels like my problem. I can't wish for bad things to stop happening to people, because if it did, then there wouldn't be any monsters to fight. And... And I'm the fighter, so that's what I'm supposed to do. There's nothing else to test me because it's all hurting people and breaking things. And I'm great at it. And it's just about the only thing I'm great at."
Father Berislav	Berislav nods along, the whole of his attention given to Buttercup even when she paces. Especially when she paces. "The only thing?" He raises his brows in mild surprise, then tilts his head, as if examining her from a different angle might confer more insight. "Mm..." It's the noise of a scholar, offering a dissenting opinion. "I don't know about that, Buttercup. That 'just about' you slipped in is the operative phrase, isn't it? I've only just met you, but it's vanishingly rare that someone is only good at one thing. Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the Redeemer, a very wise teacher--but he was also a carpenter. Ms. Grier and Ms. Tachibana, within the Watch--both very skilled at fighting, but also a chef and a singer, respectively." "It's never too late to find more things to challenge you," he says, hands rested in his lap, the picture of serenity in contrast to her frustration. "It could be working with your hands, or with your mind, or even your soul. I came into mech piloting and martial arts as a complete outsider," he adds, with an impish smile: "It may surprise you to know those things aren't part of the courses in seminary school." "It's perfectly alright if fighting remains one of those things that challenges you, even if you find others. And it's just as fine, if, after it's all said and done, that's what you like best." "Certainly," he opines, drumming a finger on his thigh, "There are plenty of us in the Watch who fight for fun, or as a way of expressing themselves. Ms. Tachibana, Ms. Xion, that nice robot boy--what was his name?" He pauses, tapping a finger to his chin. "Chase, that's right," he concludes, snapping a finger and looking quite pleased with himself. "I'm sure even the Concord and the Paladins have their share, too--so it's not like you can only have that challenge when there's a monster or supervillain on the loose."
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup struggles with this. She's heard it before. She's heard it but she doesn't want to hear it. She hears it, but it makes her wrong, so she bucks and kicks against the reins of emotion. Her breathing, ragged, adds extra breath and crack to her rough voice. "Yeah. But I'm not like the other girls." Dire, Buttercup clenches her left hand again and then makes a strong 'keh' as she takes a second to listen to herself. "Man... okay, not like that." Broken from her motions anyway by the hard stop and having to pick up where she left off, Buttercup paces while sweeping back her hands and releasing the tension in a stretch, returning to passive, moving reflexively back to clench, and easing it off again. "Yeah, I know. I've got... stuff. I've got Buttercup stuff, and it's the other things I'm good at, but the bar is high, okay?" Forlorn, she repeats it, hanging on that point. "The bar is really, really high. It's not just about fighting for fun, I've been doing that since kindergarten too, it's... It's not 'good' for me to let out, and I know it. I can hear it. I can see it. I let loose like I want to, and I know how it goes. So I don't." Buttercup almost cracks a smile. She she loves this about herself. She hates this about herself. It's who she is. "But I want to. I really really want to--" There's a particular laser-kind of sound, the kind in cheap plastic toys. 'Peww!', that gets close to the frequency and spirit of zippy sound that a particular sort of powered being gets up to. Stretch it out and it's a tearing, bassy boom, but it's never given the time to stretch that far -- like an elastic, it crashes towards the ears kinetically, a sound that announces itself with a zap. SKKKR! SKKKR! Two zaps occur outside the lighthouse door, colorful like lightningbolts touching down outside, and then the door bursts open. A long-haired medium skinned girl, almost the same size as Buttercup, but with light brown hair past her hips and ruby red eyes, stands at the center of the doorframe wearing a wine red top, red-plaid trousers with a draw tie, black socks, red shoes, and a red ribbon tying back her hair. Behind her and to the left of the doorframe from inside, is a fair skinned blond girl, hair tied into two pigtails, wearing a slightly baggy blue shirt with white horizontal stripes with a wide neck that one-sidedly shows a black shoulder strap, and a pair of royal blue sweats with white draws and white flower patterns stitched onto the leg, with tan sandals on her feet. The brunette moves from active, concerned transgressing palm to silent shock, but doesn't gape. Instead, she blinks, swallows, and shifts her eyes from Berislav to Buttercup. "You didn't answer your phone." The blonde is staring at 3:14 and giggling. "Ooh! He's got a mecha, he's definitely Buttercup's type." "Pppppplease!" Buttercup complains, both hands slapping her cheeks and peeling down her face at the implication. Both other girls trade looks and seem to come to an immediate conclusion. "Congrats on cheating, I didn't think you had it in you." The brunette grins. "I am not! This is religious! He's a priest!" Buttercup protests louder. "Well this is much nicer than the junkyard with Ace, he's so pretty!" "I'm being spiritual!" Buttercup fumes. "I definitely didn't think you had it in you, then." "Hey what the heck's that supposed to mean?!" Buttercup accuses, incited and stamping.
Father Berislav	Berislav indulges a good natured chuckle, hand-over-mouth, at 'not like other girls.' 'Stuff.' Not a specific word, and yet, in this context, highly communicative of what she's going through. Berislav nods, still listening--when the sound of the 'pew' takes him from it. His eyes flick towards Buttercup, his body like a spring. His foot positions itself subtly, behind the leg of the chair, left hand hovering over his waist, fingers poised to take grip seemingly of empty air-- The smile returns to his face, his foot working itself back into a sensible spot as he stands. "You must be Buttercup's sisters. I'm Father Waters Berislav! A pleasure," he says, stepping forward, offering a hand for each girl to shake. "I'm flattered at the implication and the compliment," he says with a grin. "I'll try not to let either go to my head." It must have been difficult for Buttercup to reveal what she did, express what she had--and with her sisters here, she likely can't. So... "She's right, though--and speaking of which..." The priest genuflects again, taking hold of a small silver crucifix around his neck. "Our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered himself to be sacrificed for us to the Father, and who conferred power on his Church to forgive sins, absolve you through my ministry by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and restore you in the perfect peace of the Church. Amen." Breathe in, breathe out. "The Lord has put away all your sins," he says, placing a hand on Buttercup's shoulder--his silver eyes seem to say 'We can talk again soon,' as he then adds, "Abide in peace, and pray for me, a sinner." Removing his hand from her shoulder and clasping them both together, "Would you three care for some tea?"
Powerpuff Girls	'You must be Buttercup's sisters.' "Yep!" Comes the quick, peppy blonde. "Yes." Is the measured brunette's answer. "Unfortunately." Buttercup protests lightly as the brunette steps inside to appraise the room. The blonde is all about the mecha for a moment more, then dips inside, following the brunette after a moment's dazed gazing. Brunette-in-red approaches Father Waters while he genuflects and gets closer to Buttercup. Buttercup, despite the earlier shying, immediately acts Very Cool And Normal about things. Brunette stops mid-step, and looks critically at Buttercup. Buttercup shakes her head, stress leaking into her voice. "No, I'm fine, really." She urges, with several motions that look like codes. Blossom, suspicious, nods and backs off the last half-step. "I asked the priest if he'd seen big G, okay? That's not weird." The blonde, vibing, grins. "Did he?" "No. Anyway, this is-" Buttercup begins, extending a hand to the brunette. "Blossom." She introduces herself. Behind her, the blonde lays both hands on her chest. "And I'm Bubbles." Buttercup sighs. "And together, we're the Powerpuff Girls." Blossom smirks, shifting her weight onto her hip and crossing her arms. "Maybe you've heard of us?" 'Would you three care for some tea?' "No." "No." "Of course!" Blossom and Buttercup both sigh deeply. Bubbles is undeterred in her smile.
Father Berislav	"I have, yes," says the priest. "My Earth didn't unify until a good while after you got your start, but it's hard for a world like that not to be enamored with superheroes." His tone suggests he, too, was, and probably still holds some admiration. "I'll just be a moment with the tea," he says, heading over to a workbench and clearing some space. As his palm slides over the bench, it tears a hole in space. A burning orange ribbon spits out a teapot, packaged leaves, a portable hotplate and a few bottles of water. Water in kettle, kettle on hotplate. "Big G hasn't appeared in the 'heavenly host and fanfare' way since the events in the Hebrew scripture," says the priest conversationally. "Or the Greek scripture," he cheekily adds, "Depending on which aspect of Him you mean. For those of us in the modern age, we get the Holy Spirit. The least discussed of the Trinity, I've found. A shame, because I find him the most interesting, the most esoteric..." The kettle whistles, and Berislav turns off the hotplate, lifting up the lid of the tea kettle and droping the packet in. Jasmine tea. "And the most relevant, in an immediate sense, to life in the world." As the tea steeps off the burner, "I do hope I'm not keeping you three from anything," he says. "But I never imagined as a young man I'd meet you in person!" He smiles, waving a palm over the workbench, the same trick as before, this time producing cups that match the kettle. Simple things, the kind you'd take with you on a camping trip moreso than something to keep at the house. "I'm afraid I don't have any sugar," he laments.
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup, most conscious of all of the shift in tone, paces back to the couch. The motion of her steps becomes undefinite, the tips of her sneakers drifting across the ground more than they transition through applying force. By the time she rotates back towards the couch, her fall is feather-light, coming to a barely-weighted rest in the plastic exhale of the cover. She sits, insides of her knees against the edge of the couch and hands gripped around the cushion besides her legs. Her shoulders cant forward, thumbs curl inward, a different vibe entirely from earlier. She no longer has the worry in her, the prowling emotional gait of someone trying to feel out if a new person was friend or threat with rough hands. Blossom and Bubbles, with their arrival, banish any threat-anxieties. There are simply other, different, impossible to talk about things now. Buttercup waits for tea, what is left for her, waiting and talking. Blossom, remaining standing, snaps her ruby eyes from Buttercup at the couch to Berislav at the teakettle. "It's hard for any world with super-heroes to not have an opinion about them." Bubbles, deeply interested in the watchtower, looks up from picking at the wall with her fingernail and rubbing the grit between her fingers with a deep interest. When Blossom speaks of opinions, Bubbles laughs. "And the people of Townsville love us." "They don't really have a choice. It's just easier for them, because they can't do anything to us." Buttercup grouses from the couch. Blossom doesn't immediately respond, but Bubbles does, blowing off her fingers to walk -- march, really, but she puts on her subtle steps -- to the couch to turn, whisk her long pigtails over Buttercup's head, and announce: "I'm going to sit down now, Buttercup." Buttercup scooches over a half-measure with resignation. Bubbles drops besides her grinning, fair hands landing on royal blue knees. "That's better. Thanks!" Blossom remains on Berislav while he makes tea. "There's a few trinities that are relevant to life 'in the world', sure." The brunette smiles a little slyly. "But we don't have a host or anything. No, you're not keeping Buttercup-" Blossom finally shoots the sulking emerald Puff a look, then returns to the priest. "-from anything. We just couldn't find her and couldn't call her phone, so we used her phone's locator. We're a little..." Blossom shrugs, hand lifting to brush her perfect bangs back a few hairs into line. "... sensitive, about potential hostage scenarios and the like. I'm sure you understand." Buttercup hangs her head. "I didn't want to bring it up. Look, I walked here, okay? And then you two just zap in here! Now he knows it's really bad." Buttercup's hands lift to her neck, gold hoops hanging besides her cheeks. "He seems to have known already." Blossom half-inquires. "Really bad how?" Bubbles asks, zeroing in. "Nothing." Bubbles says, unconvincingly.
Father Berislav	Berislav grins at Blossom, over his work, pouring four cups of jasmine tea. "Oh, yes, I understand," he says, stepping aside and scooping the cups up, one at a time, to offer to each of the girls. "It doesn't have to be 'really bad,'" he says, sipping his own. "Sometimes things can just be," he admits, leaning against the wall. "And they can be confusing, or difficult, or tiring, too. 'Really bad...' I can't put my finger on it, but I don't care for it, somehow. Maybe it strikes me as too... evangelist, that notion that people can have things like 'low points.'" With a smile, he adds, "I know a lot of things, Blossom, and how to do a lot of things. Most of it was taught to me by other people, or the world around me, and that certainly includes being a good listener." Had he known already? No--but people say a lot more than just what their words would imply. "Buttercup," he begins, "Would you like to fight, at some point? There are several worlds I can think of with large, uninhabited spaces, devoid of any particularly complex ecosystems. One or two abandoned ecumenopolis worlds, too. I don't really do it for enjoyment, but practice is always useful. Naturally," he conversationally adds, after a sip of tea, "I'd be happy to do so in or out of Isaiah, with or without my pistols."
Powerpuff Girls	Blossom smiles thinly back, pleasant and pristine. As the tea is poured out, she picks up her cups of the four and walks it over to her sisters, fingers steepled over the steaming rim of the 'standard' cup. "I'm glad. I thought people from the Watch would understand, but it's nice to hear it out loud." She replies, standing. She takes a long moment while the other girls are served, drawing in a deep breath of the steam finding it, clandestinely: to be normal, packaged Jasmine tea. Buttercup and Bubbles take their tea quietly, Bubbles taking one, pbutting it to Buttercup's lap, and then receiving a second. Buttercup, fully disengaged, simmers quietly and stares at nothing, aware in sense but not visually. Bubbles cheerily takes a sip of the fresh tea without checking it, remaining on the couch without making a big deal about it. Blossom continues. "Low points happen to people. Contrast exists, things that don't get along, parts that just have to fit. You've learned a lot of things from a lot of different people?" Blossom asks, taking a measured sip of the tea after. "You didn't learn them from one person. Not even Big G is one thing, even if Big G's one person." Bubbles sits with that, making a soft 'hmmmmmmmmmmmm' that continues through the end of Blossom's sentence and into the start of hers. "I think you're agreeing." Blossom blinks. Buttercup snorts, direly used to this pattern. "Really! 'Really' bad, well, we know it. There's a kind of bad that you just see and know you've got to fix. Something that isn't 'just how it is', but bad. The kind of bad that's real... to us." Buttercup takes a gulp of tea, the heat at least awakening as it warms up her cheeks with a blush of heat before she swallows. "Don't say it like that. Even if it's right, don't say it like that." She grouses, getting up. Bubbles, besides her, looks up curiously. Buttercup hands her sapphire sister her emptied-in-a-gulp teacup. "'Real to us'. Like some things aren't. Even if we feel it, it's--" Buttercup continues, her rough voice clearing out as she talks from the dragging, crunchy emotions of before. "--we're just different. Look, thanks for showing up, but I've got to beat this guy's robot butt now." Buttercup flicks up her emerald eyes to stare at the offeringly martial priest. There's a lift to her that wasn't there before -- probably entirely because of the proposition. "Now's good, right?" Blossom sighs. "Yes, now's fine. Since you're not in danger previously, what better idea than to get in danger now?" "Glad you get it." Buttercup shoots back. Bubbles triumphantly raises her phone. "Ooh, are you going to try out that Multiversal gym? The punch palace?" Buttercup smirks. "Now we are. Right, 'Father'?"
Father Berislav	>I think you're agreeing. The corners of Berislav's mouth twitch upwards, a warm, serene kind of expression, eyes briefly closed in a way that makes it rather sunny. He doesn't so much nod as he does incline his head slowly in agreement. >I've got to beat this guy's robot butt now. "My cyborg butt," Berislav corrects Buttercup with a smirk. The kind that says he enjoys being pedantic, when there's a punchline to be had. "But yes! The Shrine," Berislav notes musically, gently tapping his temple with a finger. "What better place for a friendly bout than the punch palace itself?" He beams at Bubbles. "Yes, that would be lovely. Now is quite good."
Father Berislav	The Shrine itself is grandiose. Much moreso than the half-finished lighthouse Berislav had used to host Buttercup's confessional, and grandiose in the kind of way that the priest surely has Opinions on. They are withheld. Into the dome-shaped monument to Concord achievement he goes, and further, to the heart of the complex. He taps out a series of instructions on the console, explaining as he does. "It's my first time using the Shrine," he admits, "But I think it would be nice for us to have our fight in a place that only exists here, now." He lifts one hand from the controls to tap an index on his finger. "And for good reason." First, a backdrop. A night sky full of stars. A desert of white sand--bone white. Then the details. A palatial estate, in a non-Earth style. Its white, red-trimmed walls stand the test against desert heat, yet also stand higher, encircle wider space than there ought to be need of. Ostentatious gilded pillars flank an entryway, from which spills a winding stone path that cuts through a lush oasis, teeming with unfamiliar plants. Towering cisterns and water purifiers are proudly erected in that oasis, as is a gleaming silver statue of a portly man in fine clothes, arms outstretched in a gesture of giving--an insult, a projection of power, here in this monument to Taking. Guardhouses and servant accomodations occupy opposite sides of the property, their make just slightly less ostentatious, as if to remind one of station. Farmland occupies another corner, a princely amount considering all of this was for one man. Outside the walls and guard towers, the desert stretches for miles, with one speck on the horizon. The final detail is a carpet of grass in opposition to the local ecosystem, given life by copious amounts of precious water. "There we are," he says. "It's vile, isn't it? Evil, the difference between what one man can plunder and what others go without, and all of it called 'merit.'" Berislav unfastens his collar, unbuttons his cassock and throws it all off, into a briefly present subspace tear. What's left before Buttercup is exactly what she saw, looking with her super-vision. A man in peak physical condition, with the wiry, yet densely packed physique of a martial artist. Scars from cybersurgeries and old wounds alike form an intermittent patchwork across his exactingly maintained body, as he performs a series of preliminary stretches that outline in stark detail his pectorals, abs, delts, and the pakced-in muscles of his arms. "I think I'll start on foot, and we'll go from there," he says. "Are you ready?" The moment she says yes, he's off like a bullet, running along the metal wall built to keep grass, water, wealth, inside. Mid-sprint, his right hand dips into a subspace tear, retrieving a heavy revolver. In less than a second from the draw, the gun roars three times. Bullets the size of human fingers fly, not straight towards Buttercup. One impacts grass before her, sending up a spray of dirt and blades, a feint prefacing the other two. The second bullet bounces off the wall, cutting hard across her right side as its trajectory changes from the impact. The third is straight ahead, aimed at her midsection. Berislav springs from the wall, revolver tossed into the left hand and twirled. Finger off the trigger. Airtime lasts another second or two. The priest uses it to rain down a one-two, furiously spinning roundhouse overhead, his feet then attempting to use her as purchase to spring off and forward.
Powerpuff Girls	Now. "Cool." Buttercup decides. Bubbles had helped, but Buttercup feels like she picked this one. The only way it'd go right, really. "Punch palace time. Been looking forward to going." THE SHRINE, a palace to combat within the Grand Dorado, is walked by Berislav and the trio of the Powerpuff Girls, each walking the walk their own way. Blossom, alert and vigilant, documenting the path and amenities with critical sweeps of her ruby eyes. Her gait takes the long left of Buttercup, a step behind. Bubbles, across from Blossom, has a hop to her steps - a bounce that she follows naturally, gravity accomidating her. Just a little bit floaty, she forgets half of each step, hands steepled in front of her as she excitedly grins. Even still, she's closer than Blossom, in-step with Buttercup. Buttercup marches like a punk gang leader on the strut down the lane to whup the Cybercatholics at Fifth and Mission, though her lips trend up as her chin bobs. She takes big steps, her elbows spread from pocket-planted hands, and she tries to keep her eyes on Berislav, leading the whole way. When they arrive at the console, Buttercup steps up next to Father Waters, looking over his shoulder from the left. To Buttercup's left, Blossom hover-leans her head in to look, and frm Berislav's right, Bubbles' left pigtail hangs past her peeking sapphires. Both, while 'still', have a delicate hover-bob as they fly to either side. "You have to use a computer?" Buttercup asks, of Berislav's good reason, and then the world changes - with backdrop, desert, and middleground, palace. Foreground, speaking, is the defrocked Waters in bare desert preaching. Buttercup shrugs off her jacket, sliding her arm out of the left side first and then discarding it into Bubbles' waiting arms. "Phone's in the right pocket." She advises, and Bubbles quietly bob-nods. "Yep. Gonna win?" She wonders, while Buttercup crosses her arms across her front and reaches down for the bottom of her hoodie, pulling it up and over and off of her in one smooth motion, discarding the inside-out hoodie into Bubbles' arms as well. "Of course I am." She smirks, a tight black short-sleeved t-shirt her remaining top covering. Blossom rolls her eyes, floating back with Bubbles to air-sit at an observational distance. Buttercup finally answers Berislav's actual questions, gesturing out a hand to the desert. "Looks like any random guy's stupid desert mansion on Highway One. What do you want me to do about it, complain to the city government?" Buttercup asks, rough and honest. A different kind of genie question. "People get different. I got different. I got different on purpose. You gonna work your way from Santa Cruz to San Jose and burn it all? The place I'm from's in that line, and we get our share of unnatural disasters. We got made to stop them. So what're you asking me to do?" Fight, of course. But this is Buttercup. "Let's go."
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup ceases to look cool immediately as she's penned in by the good Father's ricochet fire, the first miss training her to think he's zeroing his aim at range -- and not desentizing her to perphery angles. Struck in the side, the round shatters into hot metal flinders as burns a hole in her shirt, the midsection shot slamming her like a full-out punch delivered at a sprint from range. Buttercup had been having problems getting a good read off of Berislav the whole time, so him springing into this particular genre of violence is particularly effective against her. She takes a step back and plants her feet there, gasping and bug-eyed for a moment, searching for the priest in the air, and finding the leading edge of his foot. Crossing her arms under the falling spin-kick, Buttercup soaks the blows deeply, breathing sharply as Berislav transitions to his spring-off. "No, come here and say it to my face!" Chasing in his recovery moments, Buttercup begins disobeying air leverage immediately as her hands turn from crossed blocks to reaching and fingers-out to drag against Berislav's momentum and throw him behind her, against the ground and smashed into the building against the ground. She overpulls, of course, so either way, he's flying somewhere. "I've heard a lot of people tell us what to do! We all have! So what's your big plan, Father man?!"
Father Berislav	Berislav is hurled. He twists in midair, facing the golden statue for a split second--long enough to twirl the revolver and squeeze out another three shots. One lifts the golden head from its shoulders, sending it spinning. The other two bounce from the nose and the chin, tracing harrowing trajectories around the priest himself as they ricochet backwards to rocket towards Buttercup in another one-two. >What's your big plan, Father man? "Holy war," he says calmly. To her face, just before his palm impacts the grass and his fingers dig furrows into the turf. The cylinder swings open and empty casings are flung towards her with unnatural strength, a 'shove' to buy himself the second necessary for the lateral flip which has him standing again. "Against those who have waged war on dignity, on grace," he says, sprinting closer to close the distance as his hand dips into subspace. "On love, on expression," he says, upon her, hands checking hers in a rapid flurry of misdirection, legs vying for position, "On equity." He takes an opportunity he thinks he has--a left knee to the ribcage, stance change, right snap kick. "This war they call peace. This evil, they call good. And good people die in squalor, wondering why their best wasn't good enough. Wondering how things would have gone, had they only cheated more, lied more, been more willing to make prey of their neighbors." He steps inside of her stance, leverages with his body in an attempt to force a stumble, following through with a flurry of rabbit punches aimed at center mass, just as the decapitated head of the statue falls into the stone walkway in the distance. "So I will fight on the other side of that war, until the enemy surrenders or until there are none left to wage their wicked, sinful assault."
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup's olive arms don't lower, fingers curled on hands that only loosely approximate any kind of fighting stance. She doesn't fight that way. Emerald eyes stay on Berislav as he slides, focused, intent. She asked him to tell it to her face. The hooking handcannon bullet-blows that zip around Berislav's recovering twirl forcing another 50/50 that Buttercup takes, a palm painfully spasming as she catches a round before it impacts her face and the second hooking in to directly drill her chest. Wind blown out of her, Buttercup doubles over and falls forward, listless for a moment as she looks more sick than hurt from the stomach-blow. Chin-dipped, she tries to follow Berislav out of the tops of her eyes, kneeing off the ground into a grounded stance and immediately geting invaded on. Her hands move to block every other blow, severely pushed by the wiry priest's artful CQC but unyieldingly not staying hit right for long. She stumbles - he has weight on her, and a bit of reach, and she's listening more than she is attacking. Berislav works her core like a bag, and her arms come up instead. Wide emerald eyes and a rough voice challenge the holy warfighter. "Are you done? Because I think I get it." Twisting her upper body into it, forcing with her knee, Buttercup air-stops for rotation force and spins her right elbow across Berislav's soft, pretty face at a catastrophic force, forcing her closed right fist with her open palm. The arc of her swing is so blisteringly fast that friction ignites the air in her arm's path in a flame that casts orange-yellow between them in a burst of embers and sparks, and the Powerpuff in a greened light from a kind of glow about her. "The equity of a scorched crater is the kind that feels worst to be left with!!" Buttercup shouts. "It's not good or right or kind either! Peace? Don't even say it!" Her voice peals like thunder and rolls out with a kinetic force that tears the mansion yard about her into deep furrows. The head goes soaring up, sailing into the manor-hall's second story window and crashing through the gaudy bay doors. In the grit-raising booming of her ire, Buttercup becomes a sudden, loud green blur - KEWWW! - repositioning to Berislav's rear with her hands already grabbing again. Buttercup grabs to hook a leg into his and drive them both to the ground -- into the beautiful and already partially mulched egregious green lawn. "I'm not interested in your holy war." Buttercup seethes roughly.
Father Berislav	Buttercup's elbow crashes into Berislav's pretty face. She can hear the grunt of pain from him, but there is no less determination in his silver eyes for the blow--he rolls with the impact, turning sideways as the air ignites. His counterattack is alarmingly fast, missing only for the speed at which she repositions. His legs form a clinch around her as they go to ground, one hand instinctively up by his chin, arm positioned to prevent a hold as he hits the ground. >I'm not interested in your holy war. "I only leave craters where tumors stood." Slipping one hand free of the grapple, "I am exacting." His elbow crashes into her temple. "Methodical. I only destroy what won't come to the light--and I make sure that chance is given, openly and honestly." He's slippery. This style of his is clearly focused on cutting across enemy attacks, flying as close to the sun as one can get and hoping his heat is hotter. Before they've been on the ground for long, he's already wriggled out of her grasp. "You knew from an early age the world had many bad people in it." From a crawl-away, momentum is fastidiously conserved and converted, into a roll, then a handspring, then a leap. "The good outnumber the bad, and they will never, ever have anything to fear from me. Far from it--" The left hand reaches into subspace, another revolver. "For as much as I destroy, I build." Three more pulls of the trigger--but these are the 'no-mixup mixup.' Straight ahead, rather than deceptive trajectory. And unlike the previous bullets, which were simply 'big,' these are high-explosive, on their way to her at a rate better suited to an automatic than a wheelgun. His feet touch solid ground again. "Networks of support and aid that sustain themselves without my help." His left arm swings out as if he were making a cross-punch with the revolver. The fourth bullet curves, flying in a rapid arc to impact her from the side. "Communities with foundations of love and care. Alternatives to stumbling in darkness, hoping for 'the next big break.'" Last time, he ran into close quarters after such a volley. He doesn't this time. A subspace tear opens with a wave of his right palm, big enough to spit out Isaiah. Eyes locked on her, he makes a ludicrous backwards moonsault, expertly placed so that the mech's opening ribs swallow him with minimal repositioning. Through the loudspeakers, he finishes the thought: "An existence out from under the thumb of the wicked gardeners of sin." The silver, gleaming weapon of war reaches behind its shoulder and procures a war pick. Aside from its size, it's an unassuming weapon of dull metal, all the more so for the wraps applied to its haft, loose ends dangling. Long enough for a two handed grip, short enough that one works just as well. The mech holds it out, pointing. "Come."
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup doesn't get time to enjoy any of it. In microcosm, a story of her life. Forcing her hand down against Berislav in the hold, Buttercup has a flare of pique, anger, violence she doesn't want to restrain -- and Berislav techs through with knee and slippery shoot, and so Buttercup's palm smashes into the dirt with a whump of force and rattles the ground. Distantly, a rumble rattles and creaks, a faultline fracture simulating forcefully into the earth below. The McManor-house, across, experiences a shear-point spidercrack as the ground resettles, breaking more windows and leaning part of the structure. Before it, Berislav dives, firing at Buttercup three times dead on. Risen, Buttercup takes her position. Stubbornly, she runs the same play she had each time before, focusing on the man, and the bullets deflect loudly off her battered forearms, not scoring a clean and drilling hit the third time around. Berislav rises, a metal angel of closing steel viscera around the cyber-priest. The black-topped powerpuff lifts her left thumb to her nose, clearing her sinuses with puffs of air while the mecha brandishes a large silver pick in her direction, dwarfing her by several steps. The Powerpuff remains ground-planted, looking up, emerald eyes flat and narrow. "If you're building as much as you destroy, that still equals zero. Even I can do that math -- and it sucks." Berislav ups his scale and demands Buttercup follow in, and for a moment it looks like the Puff will match and spring right in. A nimbus of emerald dots bubbles palpable and visible quasi-radioactive burning expressions around her closed fists and the too-whites and too-greens of her eyes. Instead of a spring forward, she zips into a tight, perfect pivot that immediately blurs into a green-black cyclone. Picking up crackling, storming viridian energy the tornado deepens and darkens. Terrain, beneath, is sucked into its growing, rising center, until the violent glow of Buttercup parts from the black wind, dropping to a three-quarters standing hover in the air, panting. The tornado, energetically released from Buttercup's control, catastrophizes a tear right towards Berislav's posed mecha.
Father Berislav	"No, it doesn't," Berislav flatly replies through the loudspeaker. "Not when what's built has greater value than what was destroyed. Negatitve-one plus two is positive-one." The gleaming silver giant is lifted from its feet. It moves in midair nearly as gracefully as the priest does on foot, twisting during its involuntary flight to put its vitals away from the point of impact--the gaudy mansion. Between what Buttercup has already laid upon it, and the mass of the mech, the structure all but disintegrates, a cloud of dust and detritus spewing upwards around the point of impact. Rising from rubble that sloughs from its shoulders, the mech opens fire with a salvo of shoulder-mounted guided missiles. "That's math I'd do gladly." "This manor--the original one--was built on the backs of the poor. And the poor are not poor for no reason." Assuming the manor were intact, the mech's head would rise above it, just barely. Isaiah's vertical eyes gleam red through the dustcloud as it charges forward, strafing around the cyclone and tossing the war pick into its other hand. "The man who lived here was inured by his life of luxury at the expense of others." An underhand swing smashes the decapitated statue to bits, flinging shrapnel at Buttercup. But there is a sound like thunder a split second after the impact. A secondary aftershock from the weapon's impact follows. A wide cone of force, visible only by the crumpling of turf beneath it. "I came to that world a peaceful man, thinking that systems built by people like him can be defeated only with love and perseverance." Click-click-click-click. Another salvo is loaded, another swarm sent after Buttercup in her hovering position. "But those systems have teeth. Why send an assassin after a worker you dislike, when you can work them to death?" The mech springs upwards in a truly impressive vertical, attempting to hem in her escape with an overhead from the blunt end of the war pick. "Punish and litigate away every means of resistance they might offer?" Its feet hit the ground again. "I did everything right, Buttercup. According to the church, and according to the loathsome ideology of negative peace. To a point, at least. I admit I lost my temper, trying to reason with him. It was all the excuse he needed to have his bodyguards attack me. He 'felt threatened,' as it were. It wasn't me that tore this place down. It was the people around me. Armed revolt. And they were right."
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup floats, expecting... Something. If it is words or violence, she receives both. The cloud of missiles finds 'a' target, converging on the panting Powerpuff in a shroud of shrapnel and explosions, ordinance meant to vaporize tanks and explode past armor. A single girl, even floating, even glowing, swiftly cannot be seen. Guidance, in the dark storm of metal and haze, tracks her - hot, as she must be - listing down a bit. The silver pick swings out, careening hard against her ball of radiation and heat on thermal sensors, impacts her, and hard stops in the air, reverberating in a vibratory 'KLONG' when it dully thuds on the veiled Puff. The impact, which begins to move her, again doesn't actually transition her in the air -- which makes burying her in rocks and then going high fairly easy. It is a catastrophe only penned in by causal magic, brought to the fore by the after-swing's scenery-crumpling crush. The extra missiles still have tracking and guidance on something in the firestorm crater, but the saturation effect washes out even that by the end of the motion. Blossom and Bubbles, who had been air-sitting at a respectable distance off, have changed location, both more fully standing-ready a few dozen meters away from ground zero, still silently bobbing a little in the air. Neither says anything, but they're not watching Berislav's mech. Buttercup doesn't shout or swing her way out, instead squeezing her way out of a boulder-hole that just requires the motion of a few medium sized pieces of loose terrain and a shouldered slab of earth off her shoulder. Looking up -- buried for a moment, and now no longer flying, Buttercup stares at Berislav, and then sourly works out a pop in her jaw that remains rubbingly sore after. Her voice drops, but advanced mecha audio sensors pick her up. "It sounds like doing everything 'right' sucked for you. I'm gonna pass. Thanks."
Father Berislav	"It sucks for most people," comes the reply from the loudspeaker, before the mech's frame burns uniform orange and it disappears. Berislav freefalls the distance, hitting ruined turf with a thud and sticking the landing. A sheen of sweat covers him, and there's a darkening bruise from where Buttercup's elbow impacted his jaw. He quietly heads over to the console, terminating the simulation. The lavish estate on the planet Golgotha fades away, leaving the baseline, unmodified sparring room at the heart of the Shrine. "And a lot of the time," he adds, turning to face them again with a frown, "It's designed to suck. The 'rules' are very often written by people who are very comfortable where they're at, and very loathe to examine why that is." Approaching the girls, his smile is more sad, apologetic, than warm. "So they're made excruciatingly difficult to follow, while at the same time venerated as rational, reasonable, just behavior. But there's no reward for someone who, somehow, manages to follow them. That person isn't suddenly seen as worth listening to. Just the opposite, in fact," he frowns. "The person who runs the respectability obstacle course with record time is the one who gets ignored and trod upon. This is by design. I'm glad you'll pass--because it's an enormous waste of time. But enough of that." "How do you feel?" he asks, hands folded before him.
Powerpuff Girls	The distance compresses, as holography and reworking causality shimmers and fades. Buttercup starts casually sitting backwards and stops, bobbing up in the air rather than go all the way down to the grey tiled ground of the central sparring room. The char comes off her shirt and derezzes into causal data, but the bulletholes in her top don't. Buttercup pulls taut her ruined shirt and tisks, letting it snap back against her dust-smeared midriff. Some of the 'dirt' is carbon scoring from missiles, which doesn't peel off with time's rewinding. Blossom and Bubbles drop to the ground nearby, floating to a stop and taking the last half-step on the ground in their own ways. Blossom remains arm-crossed, a disinterested, disaffected mask. Her ruby eyes are hard and dull, but she intentionally focuses on the crater until it is gone, and then the empty middle-distance space of the Shrine and the control panel. There's things that hang in her, near to her will to speak them, but instead she taps her right index finger against her bicep and carries on being calculatedly disengaged. Bubbles, holding Buttercup's effects, has folded them into a neat pile and settled them over her left arm, and tucked her right into the blanket for warmth, a smile passively on her face. "You're a... dark Power Ranger, right? From the season with the robots." She inquires, honest and clear. "What?!" Spits Buttercup, utterly uncertain what Bubbles is on. "Oh, because he jumped backwards into his robot, did the canned missile footage, did a weapon attack, and then more canned missiles?" Blossom asks, snapping her fingers like she's at trivia. "Exactly!" "I can't believe you." Buttercup grumbles, but isn't staringly-sour after. Berislav is looked up-towards, from Buttercup's air-backlean. Her dull emeralds flick down to his hands, and then up. "Bad?" Buttercup's voice creaks, rough. She clears her throat with a cough, a bit of missile exhaust still in her lungs. "That's not what I said I'd pass on. . ." A breath, and a subvocalized 'whatever', later, she works through a sore shrug. "Bubbles is right though, the mecha was cool. Throw that many missiles at someone... and I wouldn't blame them if they took it personally."
Father Berislav	"Maybe," says Berislav to Bubbles. "I do like canned missile footage and weapon attacks. But, narratively," he says, "I think dark Rangers are better at fighting to express themselves." "And in that regard," says Berislav to Buttercup, bowing his head, "I'm sorry I couldn't give you a more satisfying fight, even if you enjoyed Isaiah." He's smiling, when he lifts his head. "You really ought to see if Ms. Tachibana would like to fight, though. From what I hear, she's among the best at that kind of fighting."
Powerpuff Girls	Buttercup gives Berislav a look, long on the eyes, watching cheeks, mouth, for a certain kind of motion. Whether she finds it isn't clear - but she searches for a particular way of taking things. Her words are tight. "Satisfying wasn't what you were going for. Why're you apologizing?" Disbelief. "After that?" Buttercup hasn't taken this well at all. Bubbles opens her mouth to add something, resettles her arms under the coats and hoodies she's holding, and closes her mouth. Blossom makes a point of checking the time on her phone, thumbscrolling through messages. Unthreatened, and not checking Buttercup's light fuming in the moment. "I'm good on advice actually-?" "Tachibana. Thanks!" "We should get going, or at least I should. If we're not back in the next thirty minutes I'm going to be cutting into sleeping time before my 8am." "You have an 8AM on a Saturday?" "It's Friday?" "Ohhhhh my gosh, don't start, just go see Brick like a normal girl." Buttercup groans-to-snapping. "I-!!" "Ahahaha!" Bubbles bursts into open, bent-down laughter.
Father Berislav	"Mm... it's complicated, I think. We can talk about it some other time." It's hard to keep his frown in the presence of Bubbles' laughter. He reaches through space for a towel and dries himself off. Once he's satisfied that putting the cassock back on won't be gross and awful, he does the subspace trick again and retrieves it from that field of burning orange. There's relatively little fanfare on his departure. No dramatic acrobatics, no summoning Isaiah to stomp out in style. He leaves on foot, waving to the trio.
Powerpuff Girls	"Some other time." Blossom confirms. Bubbles waves, with Berislav aiming to leave first, as Blossom lingers near Buttercup's sour sitting. With the priest gone, the girls close ranks. "Wowwwwww!" Bubbles gasps, hands to mouth. "Don't." "You got flattened." "The heck did I just say? Did I imagine it? I said don't!" "Dee-mol-ished." Bubbles sighs, warm-forlorn, pat-patting Buttercup's shoulder. Buttercup sharply wiggles free. "Shut it. I didn't do any of my good moves and he summoned a mecha that was wa too full of missiles." ... The girls fall to silence for a longer stretch. "So the tornado isn't a good move?" Buttercup makes a rough teakettle growl, and Blossom breaks into laughter. The sisters figure out how to leave after Buttercup finishes trying to strangle Blossom, breaking her chain of being sourer and sourer about the original problem she had started flipping.