Scene #9122: Me When I Fucking Get You (2)

Owner	Pose
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Enter the core https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWSphawicMY In the depths of the Land of Spires and Frogs, one can find the lair of the denizen: The Lair of Echidna, Mother of Monsters. As part of the bargain Arthur made with her, he gave her a new home, and now, her home is a hive for ancient magic. Getting there involves taking a gate at the top of a massive house-spire, then navigation of water conduits, ancient channels of bio-crystaline tower-structure, and descending old dungeons. The translucent network tangles in the depth of the planet's ocean, creaking and groaning under water pressure. The statues of frogs that dot this environment grow denser. The massive chamber of Echidna, where these tubes that once conducted monsters all converge, now stands empty. Waterfalls rush in, and drain away, around what rests there now: Something like a fractal starmetal orrery holding ball-lightning orbiting other ball-lightning, infinitely accumulating vast amounts of energy through the old channels of the Spires. Bolts rush in with the waterfall, adding to the number, over and over. > Arthur: What's the plan? "Told ya, we can siphon a lil' off this fuckin' thing." Arthur says, walking over some of the crystal that juts out to the core. This was once where one would walk to speak to Echidna. Now it's where they'll work. "We'll code in what Xion was talking about." He makes a little circle-drawing motion, tracing green energy through the air. "The Magic Circle. Half as psychological as it is magic, really, but whatever, the Psycho-Magical Circle don't got a fuckin' ring to it. Me, though, I don't think sh--" Stop. "Don't think they're gonna step up to games that don't involve some violence-type stuff, Xi-rah. Got schemes for what kind of pocket-universe we're cookin'? Hey," He points at Petra. "Got some sick insight on 'em? What's equal footing they're not just gonna ollies out on?"
Petra Soroka	Petra has to wonder what wild shit Arthur's been up to over the course of his life, while trekking around LOSAF. She knew he was some space video game god or however the fuck that works, but the ratio of which one seems most relevant skews a lot when she's wandering through networks of ancient magic tunnels, and not getting her ass beat by him and Nika in Mario Kart. But she kind of did get flattened last time she was here, and all the hostility in the world can't keep her from getting a little quieter today. She trudges along with the Eggpack and Cinder, jeans tucked into waterproof boots to keep herself from getting too soaked on the way over. Seeing the amount of energy that Arthur intensd to use on Ash is, again, a different experience to just hearing about it. Petra squints and, exposed to one thing in the moment and not currently exposed to the other, has the brief flicker of worry that this sort of thing might actually be able to kill Ash. Hopefully, though, Arthur's got enough of a handle on things to avoid that, and then this other plan.... "Me, though, I don't think sh--" Petra opens her mouth, then closes it. "Yeah. No way they'd do anything that doesn't involve fighting some." Petra crosses her arms, vaguely dejected. "Specific insights... um, I think the origin of force expanding outwards is always that it's, like, a reaction to force compacting inwards, because the battle lines are just, like, tracing the outline of the person themselves." Petra blinks. "No, that didn't make sense. But if I had to compare their thing to how mine used to work... I think their rejection of stuff is still, like, pointed, even though it applies to literally everything we do. Because it's just pointed to reject every possible kind of perception or thing you could do to them, because that's all contained within the paradigms of things they're familiar with the world doing." "So, uh... a world that's got no baseline for how it treats you, or a world with some totally wild hypothetical alternate way. I guess."
Xion	Xion had dissociated from the Land when the Great Prophecy had reared its ugly head and the Mage of Space had engaged in a screaming match with salamanders. The physical fight that went along besides, the choking insistence of feelings and blades that itched at idle, had soured her worse than burritos and sodas could solve. So she left, for a time, and then, when Arthur summoned up help again, returned. Despite time passing, she was still dressed the same, still loosely rocking open black coat, grey t-shirt with sundown orange-purple image, black shorts, and distant expression worn simply. Appearing from a two-dimensional hole that closes as quick as its open, she walks about after arrival with her hands jammed tightly into shorts pockets. 'The Magic Circle' Arthur traces with finger, and Xion fishes hands out of both pockets, pulling what begin as medallions and end as objects in her hand. The artifact she holds in her right hand is a key of black iron, faintly infiltrated with chips and cracks and pits as a rough-worked and hammered thing. Where there is structural fingering, the cracks are filled almost imperceptibly with gold. It is an old thing, from years ago, and forever ago, and it 'represents' Lilian in a way that all of Xion's medallions and objects represent the parts or whole of who she draws them from. "The only equal footing Ash even asked for. A world made about Ash, and Lilian. This key," The noirette waggles the Lilian-artifact. "Unlocks the door to 'the other'. I thought I needed it for myself, but," She smiles faintly. "I have my own, if I need it. So I can use this, for that." Lifting left hand, lit by lightning, Xion presents the other object - the clear-glass prism-medallion that Ash had declined to fill in any details of and so Xion had gained an outline of 'nothing' as defined by the giver. But even, still, it was 'from them'. "It will probably be violence." Xion agrees, faint, eyes tracking away for a moment as she offers both glass-prism and iron key to Mage. "I don't expect Ash to just give up if we can bring them to a space where we can touch them. I expect it just to be the first step. But until our hands can reach them, I doubt our words will." What kind of world? Xion, empty-handed after offering, steps back and crosses her arms. Her hands tuck into the crook of her arms as her thoughtfulness intensifies. "Can we imagine a world where all of us and Ash exist, together? I can bring out my Antegent key, too, if that would help focus. Maybe a world like the one they're 'trying to go to'?" Xion frowns and shakes her head with an amusedly-frustrated chuff of bang-blowing annoyance. "Sorry, Arthur, I'm a hearts kind of thinker, not a space kind of thinker. Relations, not coordinates."
Angela	"Interesting," Angela says. "It shares a name with Echidna. I presume coincidence." She is in her Eggpack state and Cinder (with a washed Fourth Match Flame) is loyally taking a position behind Petra. She's tense after what happened last time, Angela looks more tired than anything despite being a tireless machine. Funny how that works out. Angela doesn't have any special insight she hasn't already shared and even then, she can't imagine having anything to add that Petra wouldn't be more of an expert of. But she is keeping her eyes open, half expecting an ambush. "...Again, I feel the name being labeled as a mouthful is overstated. Psycho-Magical sounds like it has plenty of ''ring'' to it for me." But she doesn't seem inclined to insist beyond that. She silently watches Xion as she arrives and sticks to that plan.
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Make a world about Ash and Lilian > Arthur: Make a world that has no baseline for them "I'm gonna be super real with you right now: I think part of the reason I don't understand, like the yearning and agonized hearts of people getting cast out of society is because I can't fuckin' figure out what some of these truths mean when I can't, like... reconcile that shit." Arthur rambles, raising his hands up and making mechanical gestures as he guides the vast orrery-style arrangement to split off one part of its orbits. "Like, that just sounds contradictory, 'cause my brain is dumb as fuck," He snaps his fingers and brings the mini-orrery down to the space between the gang. "Or 'cause I'm a Space guy and it's not some geometry shit." "I'm going with a puzzle-box you fight your way out of instead of into. Layered container-sphere that an average dude can't fuck with. A Bloom can probably untangle my shit. Also, it's videogame as fuck, so, I can actually think about it. Restart on fail, spend the metacurrency, try again." He briefly catches himself, and winces, looking at Angela-pack. "Maybe, uh, keep gentle on the gameplay..." Loop? Cycle? Repeating process? "...failure-state design." Nice save, dude. Traces of green energy loop circularly around the structure of it, though the spellcircles look a little plain. "Can you get that Lilian thing up in there? What the hell's a door to the other? I'll need some doors and flow-reg, though. And if any of you can close up the system so it's easier to fight out than phase out, that'll own." Arthur baps the back of one hand into the palm of the other a few times, letting out a long sigh. "Tough to populate. Need a lotta challenges, puzzly kind and fighty kind, stuff average-joe or even a decent Elite's not gonna pound their way through. And plenty of options to get talking. Gate it up with whatever bozos we get on-hand for bossing." Briefly, a spark of actual intelligence manages to avoid being deliberately smothered in the cradle. "We don't got a shopkeep on-hand, gonna need Lilian to handle powering her up. Thank god I hear she's been running sims 'bout this kinda shit lately."
Xion	"Okay." Xion admits, rubbing hand to face. "That's... probably fair. Maybe I'm answering the questions in the wrong order and jumping around too much." The noirette is not fully equipped to handle these translations, even if she could understand the Mage's concerns. "The only thing that was emotionally real to Ash was Lilian. None of the rest of us mattered, and nothing I could do, or you could do, reached them. The only way Lilian could touch Ash was to... do what she did, stand on the head of a coin held between your magic space fingers and straddle across the sides to really swing at Ash." Xion recounts, then snaps her fingers. "You're completely right about a puzzle box, though. Something hard to leave, because we have the only bait that will work already: Lilian herself. I'm sure Ash will dive into whatever we make. As for the game..." Xion squints, a far-off grimace as she remembers the video game CEOs of her life. "... Arthur, really, it's not my strength. There's probably a geometric answer before there's an answer that will work from me. Nothing I did made a dent in them, because they were just not listening at all to me. And so I'm trying to shout my way louder, like," A faint, unhappy smile flickers at the corner of the Nobody's mouth. "You were, the other way. I believed you were trying to do something amazing and warm, and..." Xion rubs her face, nodding at the request to move her artifacts into position. "Well, you weren't really planning anything different than I was, like I said. Is it wrong, Petra, to expect a fight? Or, really, is it what we need to do?" Moving into position with objects with a few quick hops, Xion's mood draws to quieter tones. "I like Para-Magical, but that's because I am, so Psycho-Magical is totally fine. Is this the kind of thing you're used to? Building chambers? Maybe you'd know what's needed?"
Petra Soroka	"Like, that just sounds contradictory, 'cause my brain is dumb as fuck," "That's true," Petra agrees, nodding along with both Xion's explanation and Arthur's noncomprehending. "I'm pretty sure those are basically the same thing, anyways. I think, like, considering the whole destroying the world thing, it's pretty easy to imagine how a world that's made for them's also one that doesn't, like, preemptively impose anything on them." Petra chews on the inside of her lip and sinks into thought, looping the conversations and battles with Ash over and over in her head. Weeks out, it's hard to separate how much of her impact on Ash was futile or just insufficient, or if her imagination fills in gaps to make herself seem more important so that she can say 'like Lilian'. Intellectually, she knows it's the right thing to do, and even knows that it'll be more effective on Ash than not, but all the scheming just makes her want to be more direct to Ash instead. "I don't know if they're so... 'closed off' that nothing else counted as real besides Lilian. I mean... like, I had an emotional effect on them. I still think 'disbelieving' parts of the world is more like, impacting it with equal and opposite force, rather than just being an uninteractive wall, you know? It's all fighting." "And... like, we have to remember that next time they're going to be with all the fucking NAZCA creeps too. After getting in trouble for fucking with the operation before. So...." So, video game stuff. Petra crosses her arms. "Yeah, honestly, that sort of visibly constructed environment-- I think that's good. I think, like, intentional artifice is helpful?"
Angela	''Cause my brain is dumb as fuck.'' "You are clearly not 'dumb as fuck'." Angela says. "I am not one to protest the occassional self deprectation but I would ask you to tone it down a few levels, if that is quite alright with you. If you say you are an idiot repeatedly I will start to feel like an idiot for associating with you, which I'd rather not since you seem to be quite invested in assisting Lilian, which--to me--is a wise course of action." She doesn't seem to mind t he rest of the coarse language but the Agents and SEphirah are a colorful bunch. She's probably accustomed to this sort of thing. She makes a confused expression about needing a shopkeep but is kind of dreading asking and resulting in another Salamanderidiculous situation. She returns her gaze towards Xion. "...You seem like you are doing better, but not by much. Is there anything I can do to assist?" She's relieved a moment later. "YEs, Para-Magical and Psycho-Magical are acceptable. You are 'an understander' as some of the Agents say." Cinder is kinda spacing because most of this is going above her head (she's a bit of a dumbash) but she focuses on Petra since she's usually good at making the strange understandable. "Mm... Maybe I can help with the NAZCA jerks then. Ash seems like well beyond me, but handling goons? I can fight goons."
Petra Soroka	"Ash seems like well beyond me, but handling goons? I can fight goons." Petra presses her lips together and shakes her head, shoulders tense. "Um. Well. 'Goons' is, maybe, like, sending the wrong message. If we assume that Red Team's going to show up this time too, then, uh, imagine the mechs from last time, but four times as many of them." "Uh-- I did mention that Ash said they finished all the extra mechs, too, right? I forget if I did."
Angela	Cinder frowns. "Okay maybe I can't handle the goons. I could use a lot of help with the goons." "I'll certainly be providing more significant assistance than one Agent." Angela assures her.
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Encourage Xion a little It's not unproductive guilt. Xion has a better chance of reaching out to Ash than Arthur does. "'Plan' is such a fucked term for what I'm doing. I'm, like," Arthur starts, then pauses for a long time, making a vague helpless motion that unintentionally stretches his big magical circles. "Equipping. I guess. I'm making the artifacts, not the fuckin', I dunno, the fuckin' prophecies. God, I hate when I can't just smash my face into shit." > Arthur: Address the defense contractor elephant in the room "The Learning With Colors and Letters brigade can get fucked, if you ask me." Arthur grumbles. "I've got a feel for their geometric suppression and shit, and I'm loading this bad boy," He jerks a thumb at the big orrery. "With the kind of shit that'll blow their brains. And if I catch them in the blast of the beam, it's game fucking over, but," He winds up scratching his cheek. "I don't... Man. I'm gonna be real. I don't think they're gonna go all-out to save Ash if we get them into emotional puzzle jail. Gut-feel says they're gonna keep some distance. If I land 'em in the core, though, it's gonna fuck the system a bit, but give Ash more stakes, keep 'em from just phasing shit out." He twists his face sourly. "Think I know what we're gonna have to do. Gonna need Lilian to complete this. Only way to solve it is to have Lilian give this pocket-dimension a freeze, let us take our turn with just Ash. We're not gonna be able to deal with the big guys while we do this. Might help with the loop." > Arthur: Assure Angela that you're pretty dumb! "Girl, you don't headbutt as many dudes as I did without getting a bit dumb." He jabs a thumb proudly at himself. "It's important I do shit without too much smart-guy tactics. If I get too smart about shit, I'll..." His grin falters a little. "Well, just gonna say, got a good reason to hope this works out. If Ash winds up on our side, they've got, kind of, a solution to a problem I've been workin' on while it works on me." As for Cinder? "Ash is kinda beyond all of us, but... If Xion's right about this Magic Circle being the way forward, losing's fine. It's a matter of getting to them while we're losing."
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: I said encourage Xion!! "You're wanting to do big-ass song-and-dance to get at their spirit, really say something to 'em deep. That's warm as fuck, girl. Me, I was just giving up." He's still a little unclear about what the original plan was, but... "You're right about the bait, though. Let them know the way to Lilian's through this, and they'll go through it. That's smart as hell, though that puts us in a shit situation if they get out with Lilian. I need her for the beam, if we hit plan B."
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Account for extra mechs "We're for sure needing the damn time-shit Lilian's got. No way around it. We cannot be holding off two dozen giant-ass geometry-fuckers now that they've solved all our power-riddles." Arthur is exhausted. "You gotta give Lilian your fuckin' phone or something, Petra."
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Address the self-depreciation "Anyway, don't worry about my damn... brain stuff." He makes these vague, open-handed, dismissing gestures. "I got shit going on. Dumb is on-purpose and if you see something smart, no you didn't, okay? Just... c'mon. I got stuff." It sounds so dramatic when he says it. "There's stuff." He doesn't know how to explain! Or he does, and just isn't good with trust.
Petra Soroka	"Yeah, well, we know NAZCA hates their guts, and Ash fucking hates them too. No way they'd risk themselves for Ash, because Ash being flattened the fuck out is only a little worse for them than Ash cooperating. Especially if they'd have to stick themselves in a world where they've got to engage with the terms of it, instead of doing their smug tacticool bullshit and hi-fiving about how easy all of us are to kill." Petra groans. "And I don't need to give Lilian my phone! Okay-- if they would actually talk to each other through it, that'd be, you know, way better than any of the shit I can manage, but the problem is that they wouldn't. I've got the highest resilience to getting told to kill myself over and over! Fucking deal with it! I got closer than you ever will!" "But," she frowns, "I really haven't been able to do enough, I think. Which really pisses me the fuck off. So I'll... try my own thing too, or something." "Anyway, don't worry about my damn... brain stuff." Rather than responding to Arthur directly, Petra tilts her head down to her shoulder, talking low to the Eggpack like she's murmuring to Angela as an aside on stage. "Ange, uh, you know I'm kind of dumb as fuck too, though. He's kind of got a point about it being okay on purpose."
Xion	Finding the proper spot to slot the Ash prism at the center of the magic circle being drawn, and lifting key of black iron to hang above the centerpoint her hand releases and the key remains hanging vertical. Spinning slowly while hanging, buoyed on a cushion of what might be magnetic force, the key stays while Xion departs, moseying back with normal steps and taking her time to round back. There's no hurry to where, what, she's expecting to do. "I'm a little thin on fresh ideas to kick in the chests of a whole army of robots, so if they know all my usual tricks I'd have a hard time if I wasn't totally concerned with Lilian and Ash. I'd much rather have the whole gang just to go at the robot suits fresh - I bet we could win that, even if it was a slog, but doing that and Ash is too much." Kicking out foot to scuff heel against temple-ground, Xion tucks her hands into her open coat pockets, elbows tucked back as the noirette mostly looks at the ground while she paces. "Of course, having Lilian help's just necessary. We need her to actually be there, or else we're just dragging Ash aside and trying to beat them a clever way... or something." Stopping mid-step, Xion looks up at Angela, on Cinder's back, and smiles apologetically at the eggpacking dumbash. "Better compared to what? The Everhood? That place was like drowning the whole time, of course I'm doing a little better." Xion admits, and cycles a blink slowly with a shift away of her gaze towards the Mage. "They might not go all-out to save Ash, but they might go all-out to kill us. So we have something they want, and they have what they think is an upper hand. Maybe we can win it all. Maybe we can do something that reaches." Shrugging in a way that brings out the pockets of her jacket with her hands, Xion exhales into a deflation. "If we make a perfect box that lets us go 'nuh uh, you don't win, because we can't lose', I still don't know the first thing to say to Ash. Not really. Normally I can feel it out, or figure it out, or hear it, or it's just a," Sympathy, of all things, pointed Arthur's way, and Cinder's too in sweep. "Thing I can hit, something to dispatch with an edge. That I understand. That I'm good at. The puzzle box isn't just for Ash. The turn we need to take isn't just to 'fix them'."
Angela	''Girl, you don't headbutt--'' "My name is Angela." Angela interrupts. ''If Xion's right about this Magic Circle being he way forward, losing's fine.'' "Oh that is SUCH a relief," Cinder smiles goofily. "I can lose, easy, I can lose even without looking like I'm trying to lose, mostly by trying no to lose--but I'd still lose, so. Sounds easy. That part at least." ''Ange, uh, you know I'm kind of dumb as fuck too, though.'' "I do not know that." Angela says, stiffly. "...But I will not press the matter if it is that ... imporant?...to you." She apparently has a differen view about whether Petra qualifies as dumb or not. "Perhaps I lack in understanding." Angela does agree, however, "I trust Petra in communicating with Ash, broadly." Angela says. "If Ash had any kind of affinity with ''us''. They'd be talking with us." She looks back to Xion. She frowns because she wasn't really speaking as to the Everhood, but she isn't sure clarifying will be any helpful, especially since Xion's tryinhg to...reassure her, it feels like? "Then... I am glad to hear that, Xion." She is an AI that doesn't have to be overly honest. It is a little strange to think what might happen if they succeed. What would that really mean? It's been EXPLAINED but she hasn't really thought about what that means for Lilian, exactly, because it feels so...big? So big. "I can usually hit stuff," Cinder adds helpfully.
Arthur Lowell	> Arthur: Encourage Petra, for once "Hey, long as it doesn't fuck things worse, more hands is more help. Want to siphon off some of this energy too, power up a scheme of your own? I got joules like Verne for real." A canned record-scratch can be heard and a bitcrushed announcer's voice declares, "AWFUL!" "You're definitely better at, like, understanding them. I get these abstract kinda things, I tune into Aspect stuff a little, but my ass is not able to add them on Pesterchum and chat them up." He admits, sheepishly shrugging and conceding that point. > Arthur: Clear something up with Xion "I'm gonna need Lilian to pull back at least near the end, though." He points up -- which is to say, out of the core chamber. How does gravity work here, exactly? "Need her at the controls of this. First off, her Bloom wavelength or whatever, only she can put that into this, and it won't tune right without her." He raises another finger."Second, the beam only works at full power if you play the piano system, and she's way better than me at piano." > Arthur: Adjust your sick flow "Anges, I'm just trying not to drop a 'bro' inappropriate-style. I'm haunted as fuck." He explains. As for losing, "All about putting your fingerprint into Ash's win, if we take this route. Way this is structured -- I mean, any way you structure it, Ash is getting out -- but this way, it's a structural guarantee they'll do it eventually. So we're just trying to make sure they don't get out without connecting with Lilian, maybe one of us." > ==> "Anyway, let's get to biz. Gonna need concentric chambered structures, I'll handle a system of re-randomization if you got a containment-chamber design Ange. Need recovery for our dudes post-run, need to alchemize some decent artifacts and items, set up some pseudo-alchemy in there for giving 'em cross-run progression, get arena-crafting up so whoever we got can face them boss-style... Xion, got that medallion? Gotta bring some Lilian influence up in this, lock it down and give Lilian access remote-style." Arthur says, starting to trace the lines and call in the others for help."Yo Petra, help me get this wired up for the right level of real engaging antagonism. Can't have people yelling too much or too little, gotta get it just right..." Work continues. And the orrery of the core continues to gather power. It's doubled while they discussed work, and it'll double twice more before they're done. The exponential increase rises, and rises, for hours, days...
Petra Soroka	"I got joules like Verne for real." "--Huh?" This mental puzzle immediately attracts all of Petra's focus like one of those enrichment feeders where a rat has to slide wooden blocks around to get to the food. Except in this case, the food is understanding an incomprehensibly bad post. Jewels?? The core is kind of shiny? What the fuck is Verne? What does that have to do with anything? Is that a guy's name? Is it-- "-- You bitch. What the fuck does that even mean?" Petra groans, task complete in her head and only rewarding her with more despair. She is considerably mollified by being reassured that she's better at understanding Ash, more than she'd like to show. Not just in terms of feeling superior or even for feeling useful, but Petra has a jarring amount of investment in Ash beyond... really anyone people have seen her interact with, besides Lilian herself. "I, uh, don't think I need a beam, or whatever. I just have some guesses where they hang out usually." "And don't call Angela that. Just becauase I have a nickname for her doesn't mean you get to use it."
Angela	''Anges, I'm just trying not to drop a 'bro' inappropriate-style.'' Angela remembers the salamanders, but her thoughts shortcircuit a little at the idea of Arthur struggling to call her ''bro''. Once she recovers she acquiesces, "I see, you have convinced me. You are 'dumb as fuck'. My apologies for my earlier careless words." She frowns though, a little longer than she'd like. Why is he struggling to not call her bro? What does that mean?? She was definitely not designed in a way where there should be any confusion. "Jules...Verne? The novelist?" Angela asks. "...Ah, I've been reading outsider material. Miss Buttercup Utonium obtained a library card for me." She's ''almost'' sheepish about that.
Xion	'> Arthur: Deploy Rated-'AWFUL!' Wordplay' Xion, despite her kind of flattened attitude, actually pops a bubble or three of laughter-chuff chuckles. "Joules, huh? It's too bad we don't need hot licks or book tricks straight on or this'd be easy. But, if we could sweep or swipe away every problem in front of us, we'd forget how to do anything else." She observes, having not had the particular opportunity to get a good look at the energetic surroundings previously and now not exactly in the mood quite yet to load another incredible wonder into her skull. The place, and the quest, was a press and she wouldn't be fully free of it until it worked or failed and they needed to try... More Vernes per second than she'd like? Awful. "What might just need to happen is for us to facilitate Ash and Lilian talking for a while in a place where they can do that. But, if the worst happens, and we need to go to plan B, then, we'll figure it out. No puzzle box can hold me, anyway." Stepping out, as if to leave but stopping far, far short, Xion pulls one arm out, sleeved arm draped with a jangling bracelet of charms and chains that she picks through the forest of, selecting one from the tangle of interwoven connections and drawing free of the bunch with left hand. Starlight, silver-bladed and empty-starred, softly 'shwink!'s into Xion's grip, and not the Kingdom Key as she had favored now for some time. Reversing grip on the goofy greebleblade, Xion plants the tip of the Keyblade in the temple floor where cap and top of tooth stick-balance and bite very slightly there. The keychain off the pommel jangles down to hang, swaying its empty star down into the blue-framed hilt. Removing hand and leaving blade, Xion shifts to lean against the now-stuck sword with a deep bend, sprawling over the quite-stable blade. "I'll leave this here, and if everything goes to absolute heck, I can grab Lilian and snap back to Starlight. Even completely lost--" Xion's arms patpat to the top of her planted personal Keyblade. "So I can back up your plan B, and we can work on this puzzle box of a plan A, and once Lilian's ready, uh..." Xion looks to Petra. "Well, maybe we take some pointers on how to interact with Ash from you, don't we? Making them a whole para-universe to meet them halfway and we don't try that much? Stupid, right?" She scoffs, and exhales, and dips her head. "I'd so much rather have this happen like it sometimes does, where it breaks like clouds and they go 'oh, oh wow' and you just get to win after that. The thing I'm looking least forward to is a perpetual slugging match where I can't ever do anything back. It's not a slugging match at that, but, we're not ever really boxing, either..."