Scene #8844: But Actually - Do You Want To Fight?

Owner	Pose
Xion	Xion had been shown the way through Lobotomy Corporation before. Arrival at the warpgate, down through the elevator, be explained to about the odd danger, staircase staircase staircase, and then the spilling of halogen gold lightsconces into the overwhelming shadowed dark of Binah's particular level. A depth. A pit where Light was mined. Xion appears in an irising open and close of shadow on shadow, like a page was turned in darkness and Xion was the figure on the next page. Dressed in black coat, black leggings, black boots, it is just the bottom of her chin and the blue of her eyes shiningly visible in the emptiness. So she calls out her voice. "Binah? I'm... sure you're there, but, I meant something different than what I think you got, um..." A longer, bearing-finding pause commences, before the noirette restarts. "Sorry, I'm just barging in. Did you want to. . . fight? Clash? I thought you did, just to test your edge, and it's okay if you don't want to go all out, but... do you? That's..." Another pause, then, quieter into the dark. "That's what I meant."
Angela	Xion couldn't be kept out even if they tried but Xion--while not really known by Lobotomy Corp too well--is considered a friend by Angela and so she isn't particularly inclined to keep her out whenever she wants to come by. Even if it's to see someone she has no idea why Xion would want to meet. Binah is there, staring into the well. No, that eye is half lidded, like it is struggling to keep open. The corpse in a box does not move when Xion speaks out to it. It does not move visibly to her arrival. It sits there, like a dead body trying to stay dead and not quite managing it. "Xion... It is you again..." Despite everything, Binah can't quite mask her surprise. "What did you mean if not the Meltdown...?" Binah doesn't stop with the question, continuing on as she stares into a well that purports to drive those who stare inside to go insane. "The only thing that could excite me were the dying and the crumbling." Binah says. "Only the sound of their last breath, and the expressions they made as they clung to life could satisfy me. I am a mutant well suited for this age, here, in this place, in this time. No, perhaps a personality would have gotten in the way of the adaptation." The corpse doesn't turn back to look at Xion. "A normal person would be upset at that, wouldn't they? Having their emptiness pointed out by a keen eye? Not that I cannot feel pain--physical, emotional, torturous." Binah turns finally to face Xion. The smell is worse than normal, as if the casting off of a personality's facade has dispelled the glamour. "Would a fight put you out, Xion? You sounded as if it was the dullest idea that could exist for you. Has such movements been so dull?"
Xion	Xion couldn't be kept out, but, also, was the sort of person to use the front door anyway. She understood it was nicer, was mindful of the feelings, didn't want to impose. She had no special like or dislike of Angela's corporation, and a kind of special like of Angela. A lock that asked to be gently and tenderly keyed, mindfully opened, was one that someone expressed as an enormous key might be most interested in of all! But also... The corpselike nature of the presence, essence of Binah, doesn't put off Xion any more than the dullness of her voice on the radio - and she is far more accepting of a woman who was trimmed down to certain parts of herself than most. Taking a few steps forward, the black-on-black-on-noirette girl closes her eyes and lifts her gloved hands in a wide shrug. sleeves revealing the barest bit of wrist on her left hand, a keychain with an empty gold star charm wrapped about the right. "Well, I asked you if you wanted a fight. Not something serious, a death-match, a life or death test, just... a fight?" Eyes opening, Xion's shrugging right hand turns and reaches forward instead, grip closing around a stellar-bright sparking point of light that flares into presence with a metallic 'shwink!', up and down a length of bright silver and a grip of gold-brass and black. From the pommel, the keychain has travelled to hang from the metal cap, and from the blade, a tooth of an empty shooting star at the top. A key that fits a stellar lock. "It's why I'm asking you honestly, Head of Extraction, Binah. Do you want a fight... just for the fun of it? Let's play to... Let's play to first serious inconvenience. That'll be a good bar, right? So we don't go too crazy. But... I could tell, talking to you, talking about Lilian, talking about us -- you want to 'test your edge', right? That Meltdown you're talking about, that's when you completely lose your patience, right? Well... Maybe I want to 'test my edge' too. So-- Do you want to?" Keyblade in hand and swung to a ready stance, Xion draws up her hood with her left hand and smirks. "You've got plenty of personality. It's just useful for you to say you don't. I'm pretty sure. So how about..." Springing forward, it's not so easy to track Xion's movements for a brief moment as she hangs and a dozen flickering portals appear in a cone skipping towards Binah at the Well, before Xion snaps a step farther forward, snapping a dozen steps in sequence forward in a followable burst of snapping frames that resolves into an opening thrust towards the revealed 'corpse' of Binah. A mad glance, empty and serious and ''happy'' and usual all at once, burns beneath the cowl hood of the Nobody's coat. "Sorry. I don't know what you mean, Binah." Her star-toothed sword twists from thrust to sweep, to hook and throw-or-catch the Head and lock battle-limbs as earlier premised and promised. "Are you normal? Am I? Or are we only normal blade to blade?"
Angela	Binah doesn't answer immediately. But eventually she does say, "Ah." at Xion's explanation, which isn't really an answer at all. And then that key is drawn out. As someone with the power of locking and unlocking herself, Binah thinks... Of her team. Arbiters worked alone and they rarely got along with one another but there was still a sense of comradery between them. They all had their own Singularities, of course, but. Before she answers the question about wanting a fight, Xion continues by saying she has plenty of personality. Binah--clearly--wasn't expecting Xion to just drop on by herself and is taking her time considering the question. "Now why would the Dame Commander say something about me that is untrue? ...Or do you feel that you have none of your own and thus must challenge my own assert--" Xion swings her keyblade out. Binah, gestures with a hand and a lock just...materializes before Xion. It is attempting to pin Xion down, stop her from moving--the lock itself is fundamentally ethereal and yet effective in shutting down the offense of warriors much more experienced than Xion, any that Binah could come in contact with really. But most of them don't have a giant key. Xion thrusts her blade and the Lock evaporates, buying Binah a moment to step back only for Xion to catch her in the sweep and send her sprawling onto her back. inah's eye droops and... No, she stays awake. It takes a push. A bit of personal investment but Binah does it, rolling into a crouch. The SEphirah shell crackss and deforms, growing in stature, thinning in other places--taking a more humanoid form as Binah assumes a state more suitable for battle. A faceless helmet materializes around her head, golden runic lines materializing around her head, her cape, her body forged of metal but emulating musculature and bone as it takes form. "No. There is no need for any testing words, then, Xion. Instead, we can play as children do in the dark--" Locks form into place around the cameras, shutting down the light from being able to reach the lenses. "--Away from prying eyes, together in the darkness." Binah doesn't use a key. She she gestures with a hand, sending a slew of black lines with glowing golden outlines towards Xion. Like many keyblade wielders, Binah has no objection to utilizing the services of Fairies (Tech). Those wounds, on their own, do not close readily like something has opened the door to what's inside Xion's body and is preventing it from shutting the door, wounds that will only get worse with each strike of Binah's fairies. "The Fairies can unlock doors, but they can also unlock memories, open wounds..." Binah says. "Why do you come visit an old witch at the bottom of a hole whose only role is to lift waters out of a well that nver dries? Is it pity for a hag such as myself?"
Xion	The 'dull' accusation was accurate, in a sense and way. Xion had been bored by the talking, bored by the back and forth, bored by the remote and dry friction of little clashes among voices and words. She wanted to do more than that - she wanted to draw clear of her resting place and be felt and seen and swung. A Lock is set against Xion and for a tender moment Starlight's edge contacts the surface and rings, metal to metal, and aches, like to like and opposite, and for all of her sudden intensities and thrusting, turning-aside force a tenderness. "Binah..." A hooded smirk, and a gentle keyclicking turn-of-the-wrist releases the obstacle's guard and pushes the hooded Nobody through to the awakening of a higher self as the dark sets in and 'play' begins. "I did want a turn. A moment just for us. I don't need it to be lit-" It cannot be, locks upon the cameras and dark upon the page, a ripple of bright-black cloth and silhouette-in-motion expression. "-to enjoy myself. Do I?" Rolling through the empty black until her feet find purchase, Xion races through cascading blackgold lines, though as the walking, raking, tracing attacks scatter past and towards her, her quick attempts at evasion are made complicated by the particular countermatch of Fairy Tech -- she is not barely-unstruck but instead grazingly unlocked, and being caught once tumbles out her confident charge into a blade deflecting few moments of forced blocking, catching a trio of the lines in the 'hoop' of Starlight's tooth and spinning them around in a corkscrewing charge as her sword comes round to couch low in guard. "You aren't built to leave, you're forced to stay. If I want to get to know you -- I have to be here, don't I?" Readied, at a word, Xion two-hand thrustingly points her capture-charged Fairy Counter back at Binah, the crackling gold of the attack highlighting the weeping piercings of gold already leaking black on her coatspan. "I've already thought of what I'm going to ask you to do when I win!" Confidently either way, her beam of gold-wreathed-in-black energy flashes through the black arena with a beam shot of brilliance that Xion advances swiftly behind, sweeping Starlight into a quick combo of slashes to physically, tangibly lock 'weapons' with the Sephirah. "Have you?" Xion asks, interested, in their play-date-in-the-dark stakes while her blade works.
Angela	Binah had simply misplaced where Xion had looked with dull eyes. That becomes clear by looking into Xion's own smirk. Binah has worn such smiles. She has seen others carry such smiles moments before their overconfidence gave way to terror and the rapid realization that enough power can turn any ambition to ash. Why was it different with Lobotomy Corp? They had Gebura, of course, but Colors broke rules all the time. Why was Gebura so different? What gave her that little push at the end? Was it simply because she had the Courage to Protect? She is not mad at Ayin, or L Corp. Arbiters have fallen in battle before and she knows she had her own predilection to speaking when she should have been slaying to blame. She'd give half credit of the win to Gebura but half of the loss was her own fault. No, what bothered her was the idea that they even thought they had a plan to triumph over the Head in the first place. No, The City. Eve nif the Head impossibly fell, the City would not change. The Head only exists to regulate that which is already present so that an event like the War of the City never occurs again. Or at least, that's what people tend to suspect, isn't it? Those that still believe in the promise of City Walls. ''Idon't need it to be lit to enjoy myself. Do I?'' "I suppose not." Binah says. Despite her own power of locking, it doesn't seem to be keybased. "I am content to stay within the Eye. Will you be the one to make me turn my gaze to the future rather than locked firmly on the past?" "Or perhaps when we are enjoying ourselves we need not concern ourselves with such base inquiries." Her eyes cannot be seen, but there is a sense that she's looking at those three Fairies. Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. Even Binah would suffer when caught by her own power and she flashes her hand forward, sending a wave of darkness towards those fairy lights. Flora and Fauna are devoured by the darkness but the last light stays strong, punching through it and colliding against Binah's left arm--the very one she gestured with to unleash that darkness. The armor cracks upon impact and gradually decays where Xion returned the blow. "People do not wish to get to know me. They simply wish to already know me." "I had a great deal of time to consider what 'myself' was in the dark. You wish for me to show you when I see nothing but a creature made to survive in this world. ''This one''." ''I've already thought of what I'm going to ask you to do when I win!'' "Oh ho?" Binah asks. "I wonder what that could be. You might as well tell me now since you won't be able to ask after." ''Have you?'' "I have." Binah extends out her hand once more. "Pillar." A black and golden aura forms a circular pattern before Binah before a thick golden and black blast explodes out of the circle and rapidly throws itself towards Xion--if it collides she'll no doubt end up being pushed farther away from Binah--but that light isn't just an energy blast--it too is composed of tightly interwoven fairies forming a larger structure. "It can shift through memories, but that would be crass of me... without perimssion, wouldn't it?"
Xion	Cast-forward winged invocations of fairies clash with the Sephirah's 'true' form for bright spark-dwindling moments before two are consumed and one light remains -- And Xion is through the last to sweep Starlight about in a twinkling arc of clashbonking and starcasting impacts of pale color and twinkling effects. "You want things, though. You want to fight me! I knew you did, from basically the second we started talking." Striking against cracking armor until black-gold aura blasts outward, Xion stands strong in a glitter-cast pond of black. "And it's not about pity... it's about something else. So how about this, Binah:" Black boot planted, her weight shifts forward. Set couched to shoulder, Starlight is gripped for a moment less like a sword and more like a baseball bat, relishingly rolled about with fingergrips about double-wide haft. Head coming just out of hood with manic glee, Xion smashes down against the explosive shockwave with her shooting star sword, blade of the heart against building wave of fairy magic. . . . The moment hangs, creaking, as Xion's smirk is tested, twisting to a grimace. Surging and revealing fairy-force tests the plastic-film barrier of held back gravity all centered on the lynchpin of the gravity of an empty star, and for that eternity of a single moment, Xion looks up at the inhuman corpse-casket Binah, and her grimace softens to a more level smile. "Nah. If you want to know with no responsibility for answering, ask me if you win." Xion decides, and reaches up her right gloved hand while left holds the perpetually-clashing weapon. "Come back, fairy light!" The swooped-out inverted light of the 'Merrybell' fairy boomerangs back as a cascade of gold into Xion's palm, spreading along the blooming cellophane barrier against the fairy construct, the wings of her own borrowed Light to sweep an arc across her 'fairy weapon'. Then her second hand comes off of Starlight, frozen in cascading gold, and the black-booted noirette hops onto the held hilt and across the frozen length, leaping off to cross her arms and crash through the frozen wave like sugarglass. With Starlight buried in the building Pillar, Xion pushes through to further attempt contact. As her arms sweep out, casting clear the wave of locked fairies with a crackle-blast of swept out electricity, Xion's hands are filled with thin yellow-gold and black iron knives, small dagger-keys she borrowed from a particularly fierce sister of hers and personalized. "And why won't I be able to ask after?" Slinging the gold-crackling keys in fanned arcs after Binah, Xion carries on her physical chase, and drops for Binah's right side with a twin-fannged falling finisher with a pair of reverse-gripped knives held in her hands. "Would you rather your core not be touched??" Xion asks back, mid-strash.
Angela	''You want things, though. You want to fight me! I knew you did, from basically the second we started talking.'' "Mm. That is true. It was not even simply," Binah says. "When we started talking today." Binah, unlike Gebura, could not claim to be rusty as far as skills go--her powers have degraded from her peak--in a sense, defeating Binah now would not be the same as defeating Binah in her prime--does it really make sense for her to pit this as a challenge to see if one can stand against The Head? Or is there a little more to it? Angela is an AI that can lie but many people can lie within this facility and most of them do--even if it's only to themselves. The armor IS Binah in her current state. That Fairy Tech digging away at her arm is starting to corrode into the musculature. Fairy Tech lingers until the path is open whic his a scary thing to talk about when considering Wounds. Xion frees herself from her hood but Binah lost her face when they dug out her deformed neural matter, scoured it for hot tips and then shoved that which remained into a robotic frame. She walks backwards--only a few steps--some part of Binah cares about the reputation of Arbiters even though she is not on anymore, really, and because they left her behind to wallow here--no doubt only interested in recovering her remains for study and disassembly. "Fair," Binah says. "Enough." Binah sees a smile... That nobody ever shows a creature such as her. She has only caught such smiles directed at otheres far from her vision. Does this suggest that even she has something to gain out of a Meltdown? No, she won't lose her mind. She and Gebura are of a similar mind in this. They won't sacrifice their pride. Even if--it is too much. Unexpectedly Xion calls BACK Merrybell from her arm with a metallic rending of Binah's limb. ''And why won't I be able to ask after?'' "Oh it is the sort of thing you say when you're the witch in the basement. A bit of a threatening line to go with the spooky persona." Binah says. "We are just playing after all." Unexpectedly, Xion punches through the defensive shockwave which is not quite the same as punching through an offensive shockwave--but is still quite impressive in Binah's eyes. ''Would you rather your core not be touched?'' Binah swings both hands forward, sending a slew of golden chains lashing up and around the Starlight--utilizing numbers of restraints rather than one big one to buy her time to hop back on one foot and get some distance. "My... Core? Even if such a thing existed..." "Would I necessarily recognize it? Even an Arbiter in the grand scheme of things is just another nobody. There is no enemy to kill to save The City, The City has its own will that sustains itself." She then slams her foot down. A telekinetic eruption bursts out from Binah's position,a faint indentation in the Extraction Floor punches down into the steel, flinging Xion back before she can reach Binah again--the telekinetic shockwave followed up by that golden black aura again as a truly vicious one-two combination. "...Still Degraded I see..." Binah murmurs. "If you find my core, will I be able to see yours? I can always make the effort for a--"
Xion	The walk of knives are struck with bright flashes of electricity from above, fulgr flares that leave glowing patches of slowly-fading brightness. Marking points in space like knives dropped into a map table that was danced upon, the unhooded Xion flips the grip on the knife in her right hand and points with the tip, rocking back, shrugging gently in the middle of their little high speed chase, just to grin, just to shrug. "You say a lot of spooky lines, Miss Binah, Head of Extraction. But the cracks are forming." On the City, on the suggested-dark 'floor' of Extraction, on Binah's armor. Xion just has to keep going. Even if it gets hard. A wedge, and, "I know people like you!" Xion calls, dropping through loose air past where Binah retreats back as she chases. Binah seems unwilling to turn and retreat, standing even in the tattered pride of her cloak. As an Arbiter - or at least wearing the armor of one. Cracked, and tested, but not lost. Reflected back, in expectance, indulgently playful but still not satisfied with keep-away. "People who were hollowed out, who lost everything. Who were incredible, and now are still a lot. And you know what?" 'Merrybell', the third fairy, remains aglow in Starlight, waved away inconveniently and frozen midswing, and Xion, clenching hands around her slenderer secondary weapons' narrow grips. "That was the start of the journey of filling that up. They said it was for revenge, but you can't live on revenge - you can only die on it." The noirette drops her shoulders and rolls around the first seeking chains. "I'm sorry to say but: you have to make something else." A gold flash of black-lined lightning forks from where Xion strikes knives to chains, but she has to get around them! "And I'm happy to say that you can fill it with things!" Diving away once from the wave of chains, the noir Nobody doesn't get far enough to get through unbound, struggling against the compounding waves of locking with a quick struggle before momentarily giving up. Hers is the power of Unlocking, so locks and chains are just temporary switches, but Xion is seperated from Starlight in the built wave of chains and seals. Binah even seperated them. She could get away - simply cease to exist here and be someplace else. She could recall her key-sword will-weapon, and make a retreat... But neither of those win. They lose slower. Rather than reach outward, and try to take more from Binah to throw back at her, Xion reaches inward and pulls. She wants this -- she doesn't want to lose. She cant. She thought of her question!! A pink-magenta light unlike the metal-bright reflections of Starlight shines from within the chains, which bisect and then quarter and peel off of Xion like dry coccoon. Or - what is inside the chains. Masked in a broad cross-trident with a high barb-point, armor-white and beetlegloss black and zipper silver and rose gold, 'Xion' is momentarily radiant and invincible-seeming, wrapped in armor of equal self-shape. A strange declarative, with each hand in a gold-clawed gauntlet, rings from the palpable heart-shape in the twinned magenta-and-steel blades crossblades - more than Starlight declares its name, these blades declare hers. No eyes look from behind the mask, a dark hood behind. Binah steps and Xion crosses her swords and takes the hit on, leaning into the blast, a bubble-dome of purple gravity with Xion as a cherry radiant core at the center, and then it...
Xion	...cracks... And a wave of Fairy Tech follows up to sweep over and 'open' the momentarily unrestrained and revealed heart-and-core of Xion worn as armor. It is devastating, a smothering of the fairylight more than the fates of Flora and Fauna, blackwashing and gold-dipping the armor until the cracks, and shatters, and-- --Xion jumps anyway, crumbling and leaving flakes in cherryblossom pink scattering in her wake. From behind her shifting, falling mask, her voice is doubly clear. "Binah! I'm telling you to to stop giving up on getting anything you want, now! I'm sorry - but I don't think I was playing!" Blades-of-her-own-Name in hand, Xion reaches out, hooking with her heart-hilted crosses, to land on the Sephirah, to plunge her swords deep enough to rip the metaphor like the sailcloth of an illusion... And find the place where a heart should be, and touch there, before the whole of her armor crumbles and degrades away.
Angela	Binah chuckles, "I am the one that those wish revenge on. No villain made me but the world if even that." Her heels click and clack across Extraction's floor. Even Parker isn't strictly on this floor right now, it's just the two of them and what they carry along with them. Click Clack. Her fingers flex out of her hands. She still has a body that requires some oxygen. There's still some neural matter in there that needs to bed. She is not a true AI. The chains lash out at Xion and the Noirbody has to stay ahead of them--for most, they'd pin someone down and tie them up and end the fight on its own but even for Xion it could cause a moment of hesitation, enough for th 'play' to become something serious. Xion told Binah she did not have to fight with everything--and she won't. It is not the time for that. The energy drains from Binah. The Sephirah form she's within simply cannot carry the full strnegth of an Arbiter behind it--it cannot even carry its degraded strength for long. Against her will, Binah's body starts to sink into a crouch. Consciousness starts to fade against her will. It is shorter than you'd hope, quicker than you'd expect--but it is a moment that a Xion who does not want to lose can take advantage of. And Xion finds ,d88b.d88b, 88888888888 `Y8888888Y' `Y888Y' `Y' ''Have you ever known anyone that important to you, Binah?'' ''Maybe someone is getting there. ''As much as it can for me.'' Xion strikes Binah with Xion and the corpse is sent crashing along the ground, bouncing across the floor twice before sliding to rest against a pillar. The armor remains. The helmet cracks, revealing that singular Sephirah eye. "Any more than this," Binah admits. "And it will no longer be play." Surrounding Xion, chains strain and reach out to her but not quite reaching. With measured effort, Binah banishes those tools away. "Consider this a win. What does the victor desire ere this form demands I close my eye once more?" That Arbiter body is slowly but surely degrading back into its Sephirah state, the extra mass bleeding away as she returns into a Boxbot state. Without it being part of a Meltdown, she literaly cannot fight any harder than this but Binah is not one to protest that she had a handicap in a battle that was never meant to become more than an edge. "Even this... would have been more than most could handle...so I... recognize your strength..."
Xion	The name of the weapons without keychains, the weapons in Xion's hands that crumble like held pillars of flowerpetals, is [Missing Ache], though it is subtext to the actual woman holding them. Held by chains that grasp as pleading hands and guided to rest by simple words admitted honestly in the dark, Xion's aggression ebbs out of her. The tips of her fading swords fall, and then her hands open to release the length. The rest of the swords and her armor fades away, and Xion wavers a little woozily, reaching a hand into the pillars and chains where Starlight had become buried, a silver light limned in Merrybell gold chasing back to the Noirbody's right palm on dragonfly wings. "It..." Xion smiles as she sighs, and drops her head, and leans back on her feet and stretshes out her back with a fist to the base of her spine. "Wasn't play for me at the end. But... Thanks, Binah. For folding, rather than making me bleed more for deciding I care. I did notice." Lifting her chin, she recites her question. "Since I won -- Binah: Why do you resort to harming yourself, when asking me questions? Why do you beg me to expect less of you? I don't expect anything of you. I want to know. From you. Who's Binah? She seems so interesting. Will you tell me," Looping arms back to hold them behind her head, Xion dips and finishes stretching out the last bit, still dribbling from fairywork through her coat. "Now that you've admitted my 'strength'?" 'Now that you've been satisfied, witch at the center of the eye?'
Angela	Binah lays on the floor there, staring at the upside down tombs above her. Of course, since the tower itself is upside down, that means they ought to be right side up but Binah isn't thinking about that right now. Is this what it means to be deflected? She sighs, knowing that there will still have to be a Meltdown later. Rules by dead men--but not that she is angry. "Take it as respect for your singularity," Binah. Xion is dangerously perceptive. She'd have made a good arbiter. Binah is glad she isn't one. At what point, Binah wonders, did she start to view the Head with the same sort of contempt as the people of this facility? They never bothered to try to convince her of their goals because she would have laughed in their faces. It was wise of them to know she'd never bend for them. "Hah... Your wish was not so different from mine." She She pushes her corpse-in-a-box body up so that it's seated rather than lying flat on the ground. "My name," She begins. "Was Garion. I was simply another one of the Head's Enforcers. I cannot--will not--speak of their secrets. In some ways I cannot." It doesn't help that this information has never shown up in the Projet Moon universe, and it probably never will! But Binah just also never talks about it and that sure isn't going to change here. But she is willing to talk about herself. "Working for A Corp--it is a gig most people think they would relish but few people could actually stomach. We were essentially assassins. We are infused with singularities--including those from other Wings, for the Head is responsible for all patents of such technologies--and we are sent out to destroy Wings that violate the City's rules--or rebel against The Head." Binah closes her singular eye. "Of course, such work for me ... Well, call it violence if you'd like but it came easily to me. These arrogant people would always collapse and beg for their lives when we were in the midst of destroying them--I say we, though we generally worked with the Beholders and Claws rather than one another, but we were a kind of sisterhood nonetheless. The best of the best, that is the sort of pride we'd have--but absolute loyalty to an absolute authority such as the Head--you can imagine the kinds of people who would thrive working under such a situation. I am not particularly different from the others though I may be more experienced than them because unlike them... I have the experience of losing...thanks to Kali... Gebura. The Red Mist. Her Meltdown is coming despite her attempts to stifle it and acting like she is above it." She opens that eye again. "Ahhhh.... This is worse than losing. Finding companionship with an Outsider... I've really fallen and what is worse..." "...I don't particularly mind it. She turns to Xion. "Since I lost, feel free not to answer but...who are you, Xion, what have you done? Why do you stand apart from them even as you look out for them?"
Xion	Xion stands, staring down at Binah's boxbot body, monocular and sprawled out, and openhandedly releases the tension through her fingers, little harmless arcs of electricity still leaping down and sparking at her fingers. A few extra bolts of thunder up her sleeves, unused, a few final tricks still twitchingly-ready and needing to be bled off. "Binah," Xion sighs, and collapses down to a knees-in squat, and then eventually settling down herself and sweeping open the broken zipper of her tattered black coat open to let it hang more comfortably open (rather than its prior state of aggressively Fairy Opened). A few knives spill into her lap, and she absentmindedly sets them aside onto the floor of Extraction, attention on the settled-up boxbot with the honeycomb gold. "You fought really well. For fun in the dark. For holding back - for being held back. You might not know it, but..." The noirette's smirk turns catlike, just a little smug, assured of this truth, a pleasant thing. "... I'm one of the most accomplished duelists in the Multiverse. I've fought for my friends, and for the world, and for the bonds I made. I've fought against monsters, nature, worlds and gods. And I can't particularly remember any stinging defeats - not one," The smirk abates. "That was stinging, at least. I've lost, here and there, but mostly I've tested my edge against all comers and all I've found and come out well. It was 'scary' - an awful kind of cold, all aversion and away - and incredible - tingling, fluttering - and as time went on it just became fun. Real fun. And..." Xion exhales a breath and nods. "I almost lost. More than that -- I almost lost when I wanted to win, and had to force it, and. . . you still had a little left in you. I pushed to 'end it in one stroke' and, didn't, so..." Xion's gloved hands clap together, and her head bows, and her eyes close. "You did really good. Nice fight! I got... excited, and then, I realized I had been playing too much. But I'm glad our questions are the same." Her eyes come up, and the faint smile returns, without the duelist's pride. "It's okay if you can't or won't talk about things. And - do you mind your old name, prefer your current one? I don't mind what it is as long as you're comfortable. I only have one name, and no titles, though I had a title before, and a different self I was." Sprawling out more, leaning back on gloved palms, Xion tilts her head back to look up. "I've only existed as me for... Less than a decade. Before that 'I' was... probably a few hundred people, really. People from all over, people who fell through the cracks or who were lost in all number of ways. Dreamers, sleepers, people who found a town around a clocktower. I... remember a clocktower, and a town that went forever." Wiggling her feet at her heels, left and right as she recalls, it's a storytime of a person she's tried her hardest to like, once she understood what that meant. "My family - the Organization - found what was me at the time, shaped like Starlight, and brought 'us' --" Xion, Starlight, the she-that-was-before, "--back to the Organization's base. There, a kind person named Roxas visited us, and talked to us, and reminded us that we were a people, a person, before. And could be, again."
Xion	Lifting her right hand to extend the keychainized empty star charmed chain bracelet on her wrist out, the indication is towards the item once more. "It was shaped like a Key-Blade. But I wasn't shaped like anything. And so I was just... everything, to everyone. This blank with a magic sword that could save people, and turn aside tornadoes, and want nothing for herself. I was that for..." She hangs. "... years." Xion sighs eventually. Her hand falls, brushing across her face, gloved fingers turning aside bangs of black and hiding her face behind a mask of dark-gloved digits. "I was X," Pronounced 'Key', "-the Hero of Everyone's Hearts. And I was brilliant. And I was good at it. And I wasn't defeated once. But eventually, something happened." "I changed." Xion admits, blue eyes finding gold monocular. "Because I became more than ache and emptiness. That hero, X, they kept getting a little more, every day, every fight, every time they struggled. They learned when they could bet it all and win. They learned when they had to bet it all, even if they might lose - and eventually, they learned why." "Bit by bit, X gained her own heart, and they discovered a problem. They couldn't be 'the Hero of Everyone's Hearts', if they were their own hero. And between everyone else and themselves, they chose to try and center themself first. To save their heart. So... now I'm figuring out what that looks like, still. But I know if I keep going, eventually I'll figure it out. So, Binah..." Xion draws her feet in to sit crosslegged, transitioning both hands to her knees, Starlight keychain wrapped around her wrist and spilling charm over on black thigh. "I'm a 'Nobody', but an evolved type. A being created from the loss of a 'Heart', and remaining anyway on sheer force of Will. Because of my story, I've gained a heart for 'Xion', and... I still stand apart of the people that need less, and expect more. Or, think they'll keep getting chunks of Xion for free, that they can make it better after with words because I'll just forgive them. It's... It's hard being yourself, but, it can be worth it." Leaning forward, towards Binah, Xion offers a knowing little look. "And, Binah, I was thinking of looking out for you. Because, people like me who were farther along at the time reached out their hands despite their existing burdens and pulled me along to. So, I think, it's like a duty. A soft sort of 'rule' or 'law'. A 'supposed to'. An 'if you can', but, you really should."
Angela	Binah listens to the story of just how badass Xion is and she doesn't seem inclined to argue. Binah wiped out armies, Xion nearly took everything from her before she surrendered. Even if Binah won, she'd have to respect Xion's strength. And now she has to consider the Dame Commander's own before she intended to. She had high hopes for her upcoming battle with Gebura, but one thing is clear. This does not translate to belief in the L Corp dream, though. Lilian can drag them through to the end but she can't imagine she'll be inclined to carry what lies beyond...Or would she? Does she mind her old name? "I won't mind if you say it." Binah says. "Let's say it's a special name for those that are close to me or will try to kill me one day." She is referring to her sisters in arms there. She listens to the story, not interrupting. She doesn't even gasp or widen her eye. The idea of one person being made out of hundreds... Well Binah is a composite of sorts. But it fits the Abnormalities better. Ah, she had warned Gebura that Abnormalities are to be exploited and here is someone forged from multiple strands of thought into a new being that is complaining about it. Well, it is hardly 1:1. The eye settles on wiggling feet. "I can see why I was drawn to you." Binah says. "Our lives are very different but there is something of a.... vibe." Xion thinks of a duty too. Binah eventually finds words. "A sort of chain of memories pulling us along, is it?" Binah closes the eye. "A sort of solidarity. I must say it is difficult to imagine you as a Nobody or a Hero of All Hearts, so if it is the same to you I will stick with Xion, the fierce woman who can back up her smirks but will still pull a witch along in spite of still being on a journey herself." She leans forward crossing those metallic limbs under her. "What price may I pay for more Xion?"
Xion	"Do you know?" Xion begins, settled back and comfortable in the dark, if sore for her exertions and the last second snap of her want. Her words imply a question, but it's rhetorical - how could she know? "That way of fighting, of a cloak and mask about you, is so nostalgic to me. The shape, the way it happened, fairies and keys, pillars of faded light..." Poufing out of inventory a strangely branded 'Snackers' bar in similar dark brown packaging and colorful bold lettering promising chocolate, caramel, and cookie but all-importantly a king sized hit of sugar, Xion brings the bar into both hands to carefully bananapeel the candywrapper around her fist, flayed in the absentminded way of a girl who eats ice cream pops, banana, and candy bars all in the same way - cartoonish bites after methodical peeling. Doing a third of the bar in a single bite, Xion chews animatedly, flushing with a joyful color to her cheeks as pure processed sugars hit her and she feels 'good' on purpose. Even if she was achey and hurting, candy bars could solve just about any bad feeling for a while. Until her mouth got sore from all the caramel and the sugar turned the other way. Swallowing and holding peeled candybar loosely in her palm, Xion's happy grin spreads. "It's definitely a vibe." And so they remain, a vibe, for a while, until Binah finds words. "It is a journey." Xion answers, not even sugar cutting the somber beat of her voice. "And whatever you call a heart-plucked Body and Will, and whatever it does with that emptiness, it's often witches like you-" And not Xion, but, people she knows, so she does not cut at her point for love. "-and where I'm from, it's just the state of being born again, and ready to catch whatever you'd like within the vessel... or not. I think, personally, building something yourself's the way. One bit of starlight at a time. ... ... ..." She giggles. "The lower-case one. Sorry. Sometimes it's hard." Looking up, her blue eyes settle on Binah. "Would you pay a price for it?" A longer pause. "I don't think it should cost something directly. Do you? Can't we both get things? I can have without taking ... can't you?"
Angela	''That way of fighting, a cloak and mask about you, is so nostalgic to me.'' "I'm sorry." Binah says, half joking and half apologizing for real. Of course, Binah can't really fit a hood around her head right now because she doesn't strictly have a head exactly. Even someone like Binah can dislike being in a headless body with one eye and no skin and that constantly smells like rotting even to her own olfactory inputs... Looking like some kind of halfwit who bought cheap cybernetic augments but she's had this one for so long, any ire has long since cooled and ... she isn't someone in a position to blame others for what they do to survive. Even she'd be dead for now if not for the very people who put her in this position. That eye watches Xion devour candy. The eye is designed to look dull and bored and how Binah feels about things don't really factor into it. This is a form that even the greatest killer of the city loses her identity within even if there isn't a large glowing heart ripped out of her body. And so Xion speaking of Nobodys and Heartless--these aren't concepts that bounce off Binah despite her having, in fact, no idea what either of those two terms actually represent. But she knows the vibe of what they represent. And that's enough. ''I think, personally, building something yourself's the way. One bit of starlight at a time.'' "--" Binah starts to say something but Xion clarifies after. ''Would you play a price for it?'' "Surely, more Xion would be very valuable." Binah says--she can speak words like this in lieu of more sadism. "Paying for her would certainly be a worthy exchange. If you aren't the 'Hero of Everyone's Hearts' then there is price, isn't there? Even if it is paid in respect or love rather than ahn." ''I don't think it should cost anything directly. Do you? Can't we both get things? I can have without taking ... can't you?'' Even in the City, the idea of a 'gift' is not exactly an alien concept, though, Binah closes her eye in thought. When she opens them again, she finds herself looking into this big blue eyes and she takes ... a moment. Eventually-- "I can certainly give it a try." Binah says. "I am not used to it, but I have no reason to hold strictly to the ideals of the City now that I am outside of it. And I have one very good reason to give it a try."
Xion	Sitting up, Xion brings her legs in, her candybar snacking as easily dismissed from hand in exit-pouf of black smoke on black surrounds that the snack disappears in a curl of the fingers. She'll get to it later. She has something else to do -- something important. "It's okay, Binah. You don't have to apologize to me for starting out again. It's a. . . good nostalgia." She nods, noir bangs bobbing. "It's remembering a bare truth." Xion explains, bringing her hand closed to her chest, over her core. She searches for a memory, a moment, a feeling, eyes rolling and lolling into the gutter of her vision, and then, she gazes down at her closed fist. Through skin, the suggestion of light escapes - pale, at first, moonlight across a pool. Then her fingers uncurl, and there's a slim keychain length of shifting little links. At the head - a hook for attachment. At the end. . . Arranged like a star, a vertical slit of an eye is flanked with butterfly or dragonfly wings, or an impression of cast-light from a source or aperture. Though the inside of the eye and star of wings is empty, as it sways in her hand there's the suggestion of something there - a clear glass, a crystal catching light. Not empty - just... clear. "Here." The Hero of Someone's Heart In Specific jitters forward in space, transitioning from shifting forward in her crosslegged sit away from Binah's settled form, to right in front of her mechanical body. "This one can be for you. You can keep it, or trade it away." Close to the dull eye, Xion retains her smile. Fingers, gentle, rest ready to clip it where Binah likes. "Since it's valuable." Knuckle-brushing against the mechanical frame of Binah's vessel, Xion's smiles tugs up a bit more as she speaks. "Garion. I'll remember, since it sounds valuable and special. And I hope you can fill in that Tinker-bell, with more just the City, but the light of places beyond counting. A fairy new to you, isn't it?" "It's nice outside the city..." Xion snaps again, this time turned away, a pace or two past, considering something - considering the 'elevator'. Not that she needs it, but what it represents she is proximal to. Her head turns back to steal one last glance at Binah over her left shoulder. As she does, her right hand twirls another keychain around her fingers, a rich but unreflective gold on this charm as she spins it quickly. "Please do, Binah. It's not gold and jewels that pays me, pays for me. Not strength of arm or force of nature. It's. . . trying. For yourself, but, also, for me. If you try for me, I'll do my best to show up again." Her head turns forward. Towards 'the Exit', towards 'gone'. "Deal?" Xion asks... But it might not matter the answer, in the end.