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Petra Soroka     The expanding backblast of the eversion cannon's psychic cavitation field doesn't leave the Beauty of Ash unscathed either. Like Lilian, or even moreso, Petra was vulnerable the first time this weapon fired-- but this isn't really the same weapon, without the steel and gunpowder augmenting it, or the 'soldier' using it. Hostile but well-intentioned, like Petra herself, the explosion ignites confabulation like pyrophoric gas, scouring down to whatever inalienable core might or might not be exposed as dark matter within the vacuum, sublimating 'identity' out of sheer neural impulses to see what's left behind.

    So the impact snapshots of broken glass pulled out of the Beauty of Ash's surface waver, and the mech shudders and fractures down its length. There's no permanent damage done to it, or anyone, but a mech carved out of 'zero pressure' being subjected to catastrophic subtraction, makes a silhouette of negative identity, and the dominant pressure of the black hole rushes in to fill it. The outline of the shockwave from the Beauty of Ash's cannon is only visible in the lightless tinge that ripples through the mech, and at the end of its endurance, it shatters and folds into itself to disappear and drop Petra back on the ground-- on all fours.

    She scrambles to her feet on the infintesimally-thin layer of perfect glittering pearlescence painted over the black granite. Each breath is gasped for with an open mouth, like the lingering low-pressure field has the same effect on her as high altitude. The shiver of familiarity down her spine at Exigent Serenity's greeting isn't exactly negative, but she doesn't conceal the genuine worry on her face when glancing over to Cinder either.

    Petra carefully crouches down and runs her fingers along the surface of the glass laminate below her. A thousand reflections of a hand-- identifiable as Qetra's from the beaded bracelets-- briefly mirror the move in every gleaming facet of the floor, and the one directly matching her own passes the reflection of Fourth Match Flame over to her. Flaming sword in hand, she straightens back up and takes a few wary steps closer to Cinder in the phase transition lull.

    "Um... hi, Exis. Or, what's your stage name...?"

    It's clear by her tone that what she's really asking is 'Do you have a stage name, or are you just Exigent Serenity? Petra has a hard time imagining Exigent Serenity taking on any persona besides Exigent Serenity-- but she *did* put on a school uniform that time during Walpurgisnacht, so she's willing to commit to bits at least. Of all people besides Lilian, Petra is most familiar with how scary Exigent Serenity can be, and while that's not strictly a negative for her-- she's not the only one here.
Lilian Rook     'It all happens in an instant; the words are all instantaneous. It's over before even the staff can process that anything has happened. Dangling Sarracenia by the wrist like a plush animal, §Exigent Serenity§ spreads §her§ arms, mimes breathing in the hellish vacuum of the Eversion Cannon as if it were sweet fresh air, and then re-opens §her§ eyes to upturned slits to look at you.

    §<<Then I'll gladly <answer/elucidate/give it to you raw>.>>§

    The black hole can't last any longer. The localized eversion puctures the carefully laid metaphysical rules allowing it to exist as it does. Where the scenario would now normally allow reality to leak through and reestablish physical law over Lilian's imaginary vista, the single extra figure standing innocently on the horizon is now a fatal wound to both.

    The singularity shudders with wracking waves. Its size fluctuates in erratic, pulsing death spasms. The subsonic roar of the cosmos rises in pitch to become a gut wrenching scream in your ears, drowning out everything else until you're deafened to all but your own breathing; as as an astronaut tumbling helplessly away into space.

    Cocking §her§ head playfully to one side, §she§ cups a hand to §her§ ear at the chorus of screams, closes §her§ eyes and smiles.

    The false celestial body collapses. You feel it in your soft tissues more than you see or hear it, but even the felt impact blurs together into the chaos of the last second and a half. If it were suddenly made real, the result would annihilate you and everything else for hundreds of miles. The subdued, implosive thump, and the nothing that follows after, tells you that from the dividing line between real and fictional, you've only been dragged deep under the surface of the latter.

    The night sky is coloured blood red. The tower you were just fighting on is very far away again. What looms in the distance, in place of the castle on the mountainside, is a titanic double spiral that erupts from the earth and fractalizes into a million branches unfathomably far into the sky. The stars hang in its points, and cast you in the shade. You and the rest of Glascail, where you find yourself standing; alone in the dead silent streets.

    Vantablack flora choke out the green, and strange the sides of picturesque village buildings. The dirt beneath your feet is mixed with flourescent bone-white moondust, which barely makes noise when §she§ unceremoniously drops Sarracenia. The pearlescent glass somehow transposed onto the town square in place of the old podium, stains an uncanny hue beneath §her§ feet, like blood released into water. §She§ emits a happy little hum at the grotesque sound of splintering bones and dripping marrow that it makes when §she§ walks on it.
Lilian Rook     'Um... hi, Exis. Or, what's your stage name...?'

    §<<Ha~? <Who/Nobody> cares about 'that'? You and <I/Us> are <backstage> for <now/here>, so there's no need to <stand on formality/knowledge of original sin>~!>>§

    §Exigent Serenity§ leans forward in void silhouette, one arm behind §her§ back, waving coyly with the other hand in a way that looks exactly like Lilian, and which she would never, ever do.

    §<<Hi everyone! I'm <Lilian Too>~ You all looked so <needy/destitute/oppressed> that I just couldn't endure it any <longer/further>! And then <Petra Soroka/Unchosen of Space> gave <I/Her/Us> the pefect <mistake>! Everyone, say <grace/thank you> to 'Petra', for bringing <You People> the 'supervillain' you all <moth to flame>~>>§
Yuuki Kuran 'I suspect many of us in the Concord who identify as 'villains' wouldn't feel a bit awkward taking a hero's role but...'

"I think..." Yuuki begins, rolling a buffalo bloody pepcorn piece atop her index and middle nails and between the fingers while thinking. Stimming to keep up her pep while shifting looks from the impacts on the arena to the Angelapad near her, Yuuki offers down her goop-dripped pepcorn to the junk food hungry bat, now on its fourth piece of savory ringside treats.

"That our partnership has as many that would watch with great interest, as help, as play 'hero'. We play all the sides, so we always win, of course, but... Sometimes the right people are in the wrong places - that awkwardness, that mismatch."

'Striking visuals' is the least of what goes on onstage, Yuuki's eyes flashing bright red and wide at the distortion around the impacts, peering more sharply into the moments of taking hits. It's awesome, in the way a thunderstorm can draw every sense under its power, but she's safely in the stands.

In the way of watching fireworks at new years, Yuuki looks over to Angela again, happy to share and learn she might get a story read out to her later. "That sounds like fun, though whether or not I have time is a matter of ordering, isn't it? I think I might make time for it, since it's so impressive."

'I wonder if such mastery gets a touch lonesome.'

"Well," Yuuki pauses in deep thought, glancing back to the 'fireworks' of causally gentled bloodsport. "I'm only guessing, Angela. I don't think I've gotten *all* of the levels, but, the Concord was founded not to grow in power, but because at our core neither of us wanted to be alone."

§I'll be <borrowing> 'this'~§

It's polite enough Yuuki thinks nothing of it, placed in her mind and skipping 'hearing' it for 'knowing' it, and the Director goes so far as to sit aside when Angela is plucked from the stands. 'Oh, please' is mumbled past in polite half-speech.

Yuuki doesn't get up, even if Aidan leaps to intercept, having been particularly invited to 'watch and see' what would happen during Lilian Rook's Supervillain recital.

Now, with 'Lilian Too' astage in the inversion of the town, the Director breathlessly anticipates the thrilling conclusion. It is thanks to the Concord Kamen Riders (and her reminder that they were participating, with Oma Zi-O somewhere else in attendance watching) that Yuuki is serene at the actual chance of any Concord members dying on-stage. It wasn't... *that* sort of recital, was it?
Ivy Carrow     In Ivy's room, back in Castle Carrow, on the shelf underneath the Strawberry Princess playbrick--Still unopened in its box--was all sorts of Lilian Rook merchandise. There was a poster on her wall, Night Mist brandished. But for all Ivy had consumed of the public image of Dame Commander Lilian Rook, none of it had prepared her to expect her obverse-made-flesh.

    The possiblity that this, too, was part of the play-acting was registered--discarded. Queen Liliana would have never called out to Petra like that; only Dame Commander Lilian Rook. Meeting Exigient Serenity's gaze, if gaze indeed there was to meet, Ivy couldn't help but the hungry Nothing kept locked in her own castle, in the high places, between worlds.

    The atmosphere did little to dissuade it--the perfect little township twisted into a surreal, moonstruck nightmare, stars like leaves of a celestial tree against bloodstained sky.

    ...Beautiful...

    She did not put down her sword. If anything, her grip tightened on it. Her body tense, like a wound up spring, ready to jump into action. But all her grim readiness for aciton didn't seem to bleed into her voice, nor her eyes, which danced. Her breath was hushed, almost reverent, less a demand and more an invitation. "...What ARE you...?"
Kale Hearthward > The singularity shudders with wracking waves...

Kale tries to ride it out. He doesn't really have a lot of other options.

Eyes closed. Hands covering ears. Having animalistic senses isn't always a boon. Even with everything he can block out being blocked out, his conscious mind still gets a feed about which way is up and north - things that are not necessarily useful here, especially if 'up' and 'north' are prone to rapidly and disorientatingly changing.

> §<<Hi everyone! I'm <Lilian Too>~ You all looked so <needy/destitute/oppressed> that I just couldn't endure it any <longer/further>!

"Oh-"

Kale sets down. "Hi, uh, Exigent Serenity."

He's encountered Exigent Serenity once that he can remember, during the Lampport incident. And he's sure Lilian's explained her, but the details are slipping his mind a bit.

> "...What ARE you...?"

"... Trouble," says Kale. "Someone who got jealous of Queen Liliana Lycoris of the Hungering Star having all of the fun."

"... We're the 'fun', if that wasn't clear from context," he adds.
Angela "Oh um, thanks Petra." Cinder says, not quite realizing that this might have made the situation considerably more dangerous, at least not at first. She perks up a little at the metaphor of 'like a moth to flame', smiling briefly--before the smile collapses as she realizes that she's the moth.

"Um Petra...what's the plan? Are we just...gonna chat?"

Angela, before she's CAPTURED BY THE VILLAIN (nobody say it's basically stealing the phone).

Sometimes the right people are in the wrong places. That feels like a targeted assault on her, if a well-meaning one, so she flinches. But she does admit, on the latter point. "I suspect the point of not sharing it was to not reveal the backstory to the participants but I am happy to if the Dame Commander does not mind. From one appreciator of lore to another."

''The Concord was founded not to grow in power, but because at our core neither of us wanted to be alone.''

Angela doesn't want to be alone either though she hasn't exactly found alone as of late. Isolated, perhaps. She is not especially needy for a great deal of companionship, a small number of people she can trust is her ideal and, unfortunately, not everybody in the Concord is of that number. She wonders if that is why Ayin caved and ultimately joined the Concord himself. Perhaps on some level he also didn't wish to be alone--but didn't have the strength or, more accurately, the lack of drugs in his sytem obliterating his mind.

"Yuuki--" Angela begins, ready to confess to The Director that she is about to betray her old comrades in search of a new life only for...

''I'll be borrowing this.''

Angela, despite processing this 100 times faster, is slow to open her mouth again now that it's clamped shut. "Ah, Director--"

YOINK.

"...Understood. Well, I wished to talk with Exigent Serenity myself anyway."

She scootches forward in her chair and shoves the popcorn bag into the trashbin.

"You have spoken with Carmen, haven't you? About me? What were your thoughts on her? And how may my video-pad be of assistance to you?"
Odette Raskins "If you can't kneel any longer then I'll simply remake you as someone who can."
"Then... I'll kneel of my own choice, not because you won't give me one!" Odette manages to shout out in between getting showered with broken glass and plastic bits that force her to cover her face with her arm, although that does little to change how easily she's battered around. Even all that medical gear and Trideag weaponry does little to make her heavy enough to really stop the black holes from pulling her around, jolting her head out of that brief haze.

"That's why I'm with-" Wait. That's outside the simulation. "-th... Those that can help me change into someone that can be decisive, just like them!" She looks right at The Queen as she says that, trying to look defiant towards Queen Liliana the character despite the lingering undercurrent of awe at the person playing the part.

That look disappears quickly, though, once she realizes that dialogue isn't free, and it's already too late to get out of the way of that gripping maneuver. She chokes out a squeaking exhale when she starts getting crushed with pain and panic flares through her mind, and she even starts squirming like a worm like that'll help her get out of it.

Thankfully, she's let go thanks to the save from Princess, but she's nowhere near mobile enough after that to smacked around more by Woz's redirected projectiles. She can tank it to a degree with yet more pain and healing injectors, but the pained hacking and coughing is an easy sign that she's not doing too great even with that.

"Wait Petra don't--!"

That, though, gets her to sit up and really pay attention. That's not the tone Odette expects from The Queen in this simulation, and the fact that it's coming from Petra's unfamiliar and beautiful machine firing a weapon that the EMT can't even look at without feeling something terribly off behind her eyes even feels like a properly dramatic moment. Surely, it can only mean that there must be some kind of planned background bit coming up at the last moment to really make this finale climactic!

And then she hears Lilian speaking in a way that doesn't feel right. Her voice sounds different from Lilians, like it's not even coming from Lilian herself, but from inside her own head. Not learning her lesson from barely even getting a placebo effect earlier, Odette starts inching towards the Beauty of Ash, still relying on Petra's offered cover while gawking at Lilian as she flickers and speaks in ways that feel eerier than anything Odette's ever experienced before.

There's no denying that she's dumbstruck by everything about Exigent Serenity, and she even looks somewhat confused about what she says to the group. "M-meet you? You're the... Oh. So you're..." Odette swallows anxiously as her hands tighten around the strap of her bag, slowly sliding one down to the Trideag sidearm like she assumes she's supposed to for the true final battle.
Odette Raskins "Um... hi, Exis. Or, what's your stage name...?"

Hearing that, meanwhile, pulls some of the tension out of Odette's stance, and she inches over a little more to try and stage-whisper to Petra. "Th... I think this is still part of the... Bit. Isn't that why she changed forms?" She asks, swallowing lightly before yelping in genuine fear as the singularity starts to pulse and emit terrible noises that have her covering her ears instinctively as though that might shut anything out.

It doesn't, and the complete lack of noise that follows brings that primal fear back into Odette's mind. She's experienced tumbling helplessly around in space a fair few times, but it never gets any easier just to be reminded of it. Only the sight of the blood red sky and hearing Exigent Serenity speaking again pull her out of that.

"#-1 FUNCTION (C) NOT FOUND<<Hi everyone! I'm <Lilian Too>~ . . . Everyone, say <grace/thank you> to 'Petra', for bringing <You People> the 'supervillain' you all <moth to flame>~>>#-1 FUNCTION (C) NOT FOUND"

Wait. This isn't Liliana any more. This is Lilian Two? No, Odette can hear... Feel the Too, even, and the confusion returns even as the gut-wrenching pain still lingers from earlier. "H... Hello. I'm Odette. I... Is this an intermission, then? Or a..." She looks from side to side, trying to get a read on her companions in this campaign to try and figure out what, precisely, is happening. There's a little relief at Ivy sharing her confusion, and Kale already seems to recognize her along with Petra and possibly Cinder.

"Th.. Thank you, Petra" It can never be said that Odette isn't polite and good at following orders, especially when she's so utterly confused.
Powerpuff Girls Blossom wasn't really happy with following Princess' battle strategy, but she was the one who kept being drilled back down when she moved. Liliana was taking particular shots at the first to break from the pack, and Blossom would have put the black hole bender on hammering the most upright nail as a matter of course. If not her, then Princess. Probably, Princess more. Even a Powerpuff or a powered-enough person who still pushed against gravity noticed several extra thousand gravities - and it had pushed their nails down something fiercely, until they made pair breakthrough.

Princess is a belligerent battering ram brat who pushes herself - and her armor - far past the reasonable points of stopping, not capable of backing down when it was a 'game'.

Even, far past a game, it was a point of pride with a payable wager. The crash happens at mach speed and for a moment Princess's cracked-visored eyes look at Liliana's face, the smearframes of pink and red-lit freckled round cheeks glaring in vibrating narrow points. Information enrichment systems and reflex enhancers to compensate for zipping around at lightspeed throw errors across Princess' cheeks and force her glare to flick away, trying to compensate.

Her neck gets forced down, and without forcing two pom-poms through the needle-eye of her underarm, Princess is backthrown with some of her momentum intact. Flipped before she can control her position, she uncurls flat against the standing flange. Black nanomaterial splatters back off of her to gloop the flange, before slowly oozing back over the splotchy and damaged suit. Even automatic repair systems had limits, and Princess was hitting them as she slides uncontrolled from the surface.

With the gravity no longer pinning Blossom, the ponytailed Puff circles to check Princess with a scene-cut zip of transitional speed, dipping to hook the still whalloped yellow's arm over her shoulder and rise up with her villain-friend slowly.

"Are you okay?"
"No?" Slurs Princess faintly. "I think I have a concussion."
"Do you need me to tell you what she said before you went over?"
"No." Princess grunts. "I heard that fine."

'Wait Petra don't--!'

Both Princess and Blossom turn to look at the cannon-flash of the Beauty of Ash's primary weapon, the zero point expanding so suddenly and violently that Blossom flies straight up and away from Liliana, carrying Morbucks.

... In the aftermath, Blossom lands while letting off the still-damaged Morbucks just before touchdown in the inverted town. No people but the 'ones they brought', Sarracenia dropped onto the dirt-and-moondust groundfeatures.

Morbucks is the one who hurries forward first, arms out to grab Sarracenia, hustling ahead of Blossom's wary ready to slide in and pull Sarracenia up and away from Exigent Serenity. "I bet you're the sickness, then, huh?!" Princess asks.

Blossom has a simpler line of logic. "Petra, it sounds like you need a *lot* of 'grace', but thanks for this!" She calls, worried in the wake and feeling the dire change of stakes, the weight that had been suspended the whole time coming back like an itch in the back of her mind: the danger of real stakes.
Petra Soroka §<<You and <I/Us> are <backstage> for <now/here>, so there's no need to <stand on formality/knowledge of original sin>~!>>§

    Wonderful! Man-made horrors beyond our comprehension!

    Well, beyond *your* comprehension. Petra comprehends this perfectly well.

"Why does it feel like you're setting yourself up to lose and smile about it and move on because you gave it your one shot?"
"Anything they don't know doesn't really exist. That even goes for someone like you, Queen Liliana."

    Maybe she comprehends it a little *too* well, actually. Petra guiltily smiles, quiet panting belying her heart-thudding fear as she takes one hand off her sword to wave back. Without Lilian here to tell her whether what she did was good or bad, she's conflicted-- on one hand, this is the single most direct validation of her own ideological stance in this fight, and even in this context, Exigent Serenity is someone she loves <too>. On the other hand, everyone else might get killed.

    "For what it's worth, this wasn't on purpose." Petra swallows past her dry throat. "... But I did know what I was doing. So."

    Petra drags the tip of Fourth Match Flame along the glass below her, sparking the sword to life and leaving reflections of flickering embers embedded around her feet. "Um, Exis. If you're a 'supervillain', and we're in Glascail, then-- then that still falls under what Lilian told me to deal with. So...."

    Petra flicks her fingers along the cap of the morphmetal bottle, tucked under her dress shirt on the hip. Silver semifluid down and around her arm, pooling in her offhand and then snapping into shape as an unadorned metal heater shield to match the sword in the other.

"...What ARE you...?"

    "*Who* she is," Petra says without turning away from Exigent Serenity, "Is Exigent Serenity. The Lilian Lilian isn't. Fuck around and die."

    While saying that, Petra reflects on all of her own experiences with Exigent Serenity, and realizes that even an *affectionate* greeting from her could result in her bleeding out here. This isn't a dream, there's not another mission, Tamamo or Kukuru aren't here to do anything about her throat getting ripped out... Petra's eyes slide sideways to look at Odette, and she scoffs to herself for no apparent reason.

"Um Petra...what's the plan? Are we just...gonna chat?"

    Petra shakes her head and hums dissent, lips pressed together. "Definitely not. She wouldn't be here if she didn't *want* something out of us. And, uh-- no offense, but it's definitely not to talk."

"Th.. Thank you, Petra"

    Petra takes a deep breath of the psychically-numb air, letting it fill up her lungs with imagined cold smoke and dissociation. Without looking at Odette, letting the words roll off her tongue like a heated sigh, "You're such a fucking soggy pathetic pushover that you make me want to bully you into doing atrocities just so I can see your face crumple afterwards."

    "But don't die, actually." Following up on giving Odette advice earlier, Petra adds, "Listen to her, but don't just blindly trust her. Even if it'd be really funny if she told you to kill herself and you did, I need you to not do that."
Timespace Riders      It has been said, time and again, in no uncertain terms, that the point of the simulation is to gather data on how credible supervillains would be responded to, and to use that data for the good of the people likely to be in the crosshairs. It is not a test to see how good the individual Elites are at responding to these situations; there will be no grade given. And yet, several people are and have treated it as exactly that, despite numerous assertions to the contrary from Lilian, her staff, and even other participants in the simulation.

     Deep down, Sougo and Woz are among those people, each for their own reasons. Both of them know there won't be any formal grade--but that doesn't mean they aren't scoring themselves. For Sougo, it's because I need to see whether I've gotten any better at this since the Jester of Nihil. Not at fighting, but at being a good king. For Woz, it's because I feel compelled to show the village idiots in our midst what effort and ability look like, else they may never see it. And also because Failing before any of them would be unacceptable--especially with Petra present, firmly grasping the sword of 'you people.' It would be better to die than to live with the shame of being cut by that sword.

     These motivations have helped them face the challenges of the simulation, but whether they are helpful to Sougo and Woz as people is another question entirely.

Everyone, say <grace/thank you> to 'Petra', for bringing <You People> the 'supervillain' you all <moth to flame>~

     Behind the faceplate, Kamen Rider Woz purses his lips, even as he recovers from the ear-piercing shattering of the singularity and the very real exertion of the fight beforehand. He likes Petra, even if he knows she wouldn't hesitate to mock him for a blunder if the roles were reversed. It's just her way.

     "I assure you, Lilian Too, I was quite enriched, though I gather the cat is quite out of the bag at the moment."

     "Hey, haven't we met before? You..." Zi-O, getting up from having been floored, leans on the drillsword to get back on his feet. The act of doing it jogs a memory.

     His helmet slowly dips downwards. Oh. That was real, then--that exchange at the 'University' leading up to the fight with the Jester. Not just a trick of the mind. Which means... "Well, anyway... it's nice of you to do that for us, but you didn't have to. Um..." Zi-O glances around, lowring the Build Armor's drillsword. "Sorry, Woz and I really appreciate the effort, it's just... I don't feel like I know you all that well, and there was this whole build-up with the Liliana thing. We'll give it a shot though! Right, Woz?"

     "If nothing else, you certainly know how to make an entrance."

     "Right! Yeah, the, um... stuff that's going on when you're walking there is... really effective."

And, uh-- no offense, but it's definitely not to talk.

    "Um... well, this isn't my first time meeting her, but the actual first time I met her I didn't think she was real, so I might have to do some anyway just to get a read on her." A glance towards Exigent Serenity. "But I can totally do that and fight at the same time, if that's what you want!"
Sarracenia      One moment, Sarracenia is in her chair pointing out how even Liliana said that Ritescu was a trap as if it might remove some of her responsibility for being killed.

     The next, some Lilian who is not Lilian grabs her and drags her from her chair! Sarra struggles against the grip, but she isn't super strong or anything like that. All her power is in her hammer and her power-ups. "What in the world do you think you are doing, Lilian! Unhand me this insta-"

     The next moment...she is dangling by her wrist within the simulation! Inside an event that Sarra can barely comprehend! The eversion cannon and the collapse of the black hole leave Sarracenia rattled and gasping for breath as she continues to dangle, not even struggling as she is not sure what would happen if she were released right now.

     When the singularity properly collapses, Sarracenia screams! She is not completely ignorant, and fully expects to be vaporized or crushed down to the size of a grain of rice or something!

     She is still screaming when they appear in the town, and doesn't stop until she is unceremoniously dropped. She lands in Princess's arms with an 'oof', eyes still closed. Only once she has come to rest fully does she very cautiously open her eyes. "...I...am still here...?" she says quietly, scarcely allowing herself to believe it. She sees Princess holding her, then look around at the oddly colored town. "P-princess?" Sarra says, still basically hyperventilating from the confusion and fear of what just happened.

     Her eyes widen at the spiral of blackness that was the castle with the stars as lights in its branches. It is quite beautiful in an ominous sort of way. But, marveling at it is interrupted by that sickening sound as Exigent Serenity walks. And this odd Lilian Too is saying she is the proper villain they were all hoping for? When she is able to breathe again without hyperventillating, Sarra huffs out a very annoyed and equally overwhelmed, "Thank you Petra! We certainly needed this!" in perhaps the most scared but still sarcastic tone the princess has ever used.

     Others seem to know this creature's name, and seem to think she is trouble. "Exigent Serenity?" Sarra asks, confused. She stays close to Princess for now, but takes the time to say, "Thank you, Princess Morbucks. That is twice now you have assisted me quite heroically despite being a villain. Are you certain you are one?" she says, managing a bit of a smile despite the situation.

     The princess then pulls her hammer from her purse. Petra said this is the Lilian that Lilian isn't. And seems to think that this Lilian will not hesitate to kill them all. "So...Miss Serenity. What is it you want from us? Merely to fight and fulfill our desire for some supervillain action? As uncharacteristic as it might be of me to say, I do not think we need any more supervillain action at this time. Your dramatic appearance and near destruction of this world are quite enough, I think."

     After the fights with Rita and Merelisa, Sarra is not really anxious to test herself against a clearly very powerful enemy again just yet.
Lilian Rook     '...What ARE you...?'

    §<<Aren't <You People> Rude~>>§ §Exigent Serenity§ soundlessly titters, fingertips to where §her§ lips are. You know where they should be, at least, in amidst the fuzzy-edged, three-dimensional white shadow of Lilian Rook. §<<How can you not <enlightenment> just by <looking/describing>?>>§ §she§ says, holding out §her§ arms and spinning around.

    Even reduced in perceivable detail, to what you might imagine a 'white hole' must look like, without identifying clothing or an intentional hairstyle or anything behind a silhouette, you know it's her. The vantablack scar below §her§ eye is exactly the same.

    No, even before that giveaway, you're sure. Every little movement and gesture and intonation just feels exactly like her, even when you've never seen any like them before.

    'Someone who got jealous of Queen Liliana Lycoris of the Hungering Star having all of the fun'

    §<<Wrong~! Use your tiny <inert matter/crude substitute> for <once/then>!>>§ Just the way §she§ says it injects a harsh, grating BZZZZZ into your head. §<<I can't be jealous of <ourselves>, stupid~ 'Liliana Lycoris' is just <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> in the process of <alloying and tempering> some complicated things out. <She/I/Us> don't fight with <ourselves> you know; that's something only <something> as <short half-life> as you can do, <schizo>~!>>§ §She§ laughs, silently, in a way that echoes so uninhibitedly elated in your mind that it feels like a secondhand hit of a drug. It's a laugh that is so transcendentally purely and cruelly at your expense that it's hard not to feel jealous.

    'M-meet you? You're the... Oh. So you're...'

    §<<'Not real'~>>§ §Exigent Serenity§ completes Odette's sentence for her without evincing the existence of a mouth again. §<<And I couldn't have done this <myself>. Everything <I/we> am is what <she/us> could be, but isn't, and everything <she/us> is, is already what <I/we> could be, but aren't.>>§ Falling to idly twirling §her§ hair, §she§ emits a sound like a vibrating wineglass, if it could think. §<<Basically, <this/here> is all because <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> has a 'soul', and you don't~!>>§ §She§ claps both hands pressed together in delight at §her§ own explanation.

    'I bet you're the sickness, then, huh?!'

    §<<'Guilty as charged'~<3>>§ says §Exigent Serenity§, with the impossible air and tone of a whimsically borrowed loanword. §She§ tosses §her§ head with a coquettish shake of §her§ hair, folds one arm under §her§ chest, presses §her§ fingertip to §her§ cheek, and sticks §her§ tongue out in amusement.

    §<<This <production/playset> was originally about 'me' you know. But somewhere <on the clock/along the line>, <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> backed out! You <consensus> me, right?>>§
Lilian Rook §<<You can <psychosoma> that this was all supposed to be a way to 'safely' <exhaust/perspire> what 'Lilian Rook would do' if she were 'evil', but <now/here> it's just more <practice/refinement> how to handle conflict <anodyne> with <You People>. It's <play/lying/theatre>.>>§

    'Hey, haven't we met before? You...'

    §Exigent Serenity§ laces §her§ fingers at the small of §her§ back, swaying back and forth in retless, bubbly-thoughtful rhythm. §<<Mhm. And <thanks to/causal derivation> the 'pure wishes of your hearts <3', you and I are <here/now> together at last. How <romantic/magical>, no?>>§

    'I assure you, Lilian Too, I was quite enriched, though I gather the cat is quite out of the bag at the moment.'
    'Sorry, Woz and I really appreciate the effort, it's just...'

    §<<Hm? I don't really care if you <cherish> or <scream>. Either is as <good> as the other. Everything happening <now/here> is just for <I/Us/She> to <enjoy/partake>~>>§

    'Th.. Thank you, Petra'

    §<<Oh~! <Good girl>! Do you <purposed for> me to <pull your strings> some more~? I like it when <humans> are well-behaved~ <Obedience> is your <species/paradigm>'s only virtue after all.>>§

    The way §she§ says it is frighteningly different and yet unnervingly the same. §She§ doesn't sound like a contemptuous queen, or an owner addressing a dog, or anything like any dynamic you can readily bring to mind; it's §her§ own, unique, breathlessly easy thing, and you can't name it. Yet, if you had to try, one possibility feels startling intuitive, and lurches to the forefront of your mind. 'It's as if Lilian Rook is lucid dreaming, and you're all the figments of her imagination'.

    'Petra, it sounds like you need a *lot* of 'grace', but thanks for this!'

    §<<Good <job/grade>~! You did it~>>§ says §Exigent Serenity§. Even for those who already know §her§, §she§ sounds over the moon compared to the time a full year ago, for some mysterious reason. §<<Three <whole/intact> <Good Girl>s!>>§ It'd feel intolerably condescending, if you got the sense that §she§ ever had single thought for anyone's relative social station before.

    'Your dramatic appearance and near destruction of this world are quite enough, I think.'

    §<<Okay~>>§ §Exigent Serenity§ says, giddy-laughing little splinters of glass that joyfully wiggle through your nerve endings. §<<Saying it sarcastically doesn't <count/save you> though~!>>§ §she§ adds, chidingly, completely unrelated to anything about what Sarracenia actually wants. §<<Come to <reflect> of it, a lot of you didn't <take the knee/Thank You Petra> when I told you to. <I guess/I'm happy to> start with you first!>>§
Ivy Carrow     "The Lilian Lilian isn't. Fuck around and die."

    "Lilian Too already introduced herself. But she's right, I should thank you~"

    "Don't." Alex breathed through their teeth, gun drawn.

    "For showing me something so breathtaking~"

    "Because she'll stop us from breathing?"

    Ivy shrugged, as if to say, maybe! She let a metal hand rest upon her sword, and the internal mechanisms of her prosthetic allowed the blood to flow, running down its edge, drip-dripping onto the chalky white ground. She filled the blood with curses of lethargy, of vertigo, of weakness. Not many terrestrial creatures could take it.

    But Exigent Serenity was clearly no terrestrial creature.

    §<<This <production/playset> was originally about 'me' you know. But somewhere <on the clock/along the line>, <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> backed out! You <consensus> me, right?>>§

    "Tragic!" Ivy smiled. "Does that mean you'll show us what we would have missed? A director's cut, straight from the source~" Something stirred, murmured, half-awake. "I'm flattered."

    Though tired and haggard, Alex didn't chime in to remind her that this fight was for keeps.

    They knew.
Odette Raskins The whiplash Odette gets from listening to Petra is visible on her face as she looks like she's at least 30% closer to tearing up at the first thing she addresses Odette with, then listening attentively when Petra continues with advice on Exigent Serenity. "Wh... H-huh? M-maybe compared to you and everyone else, but I... I could do atrocities without crumpling." She says with an quietly indignant huff, with her face already partway crumpled just thinking about how she could totally do one entire atrocity.

"... Mmh. You don't have to worry about me killing myself. I'm not that much of a pushover to actually do something that dumb just because someone said to."

She does make sure to listen intently as Exigent Serenity speaks, too, although she doesn't have to try very hard. Even with so many voices, it feels easy enough to hear her within her mind. She watches the shadow, too, fidgeting a bit uncomfortably as her mind still has to fight a little just to grasp what she already somehow understands.

'Liliana Lycoris' is just <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> in the process of <alloying and tempering> some complicated things out.
"So even the role she's-er. You're playing is... Um. Coming from somewhere?" Odette asks hesitantly, looking up at where she guesses Exigent Serenity's face is. "That's... Still really impressive, to see you-" Both? No, this is Lilian Too. That means they're... She's?  She. "-get so into the character. Were you able to figure some things out, after all this?"

§<<Basically, <this/here> is all because <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> has a 'soul', and you don't~!>>§

"Like a reflection, or a... Each other, but from parallel universes?" No, that doesn't sound right in Odette's head, but she looks to Exigent Serenity again as she tries to gauge her reaction without so much as a face to read. "Or possibilities... W-wait, but we have souls, too! Maybe they're just not as... Impressive or powerful as yours, that's..."

She ends the sentence there, trying not to look too disheartened about that and trying not to speak more and end up crumpling herself even more.

It's <play/lying/theatre>.
Odette's first thought is 'she would never do that'. Her second thought is 'she could do it for a good reason'. She doesn't say it out loud, though, since she knows/guesses that Exigent Serenity already knows what's in there. Or can she read it on her face?

§<<Come to <reflect> of it, a lot of you didn't <take the knee/Thank You Petra> when I told you to. <I guess/I'm happy to> start with you first!>>§
That, meanwhile, gets a slight loosening of Odette's shoulders. She actually did, so she's safe! Safe from what? She keeps her eyes open, even if she knows she'll find out regardless soon enough.
Lilian Rook     §Exigent Serenity§, laughing dizzy, pops §herself§ up on one foot's tiptoe and spins lazily around, arms out to §her§ sides like an ice skater. The little twirl back and forth on the glass intensifies the bone-crunching sound to a grisly crackle of marrow being ground to splinters underfoot. Red liquid hardlight bubbles up from the cracks and spills out, staining §her§ foot. §<<This will <hurt/tease> a lot, so <don't move>, okay~?>>§

    §<<Just kidding!>>§ §Exigent Serenity§ winks at you, head arched back to look over §her§ shoulder. §<<I didn't <give you permission> to <move/breathe/exist> anyways.>>§

    A hundred hands and five hundred fingers appear from thin air to ensure it. Faster than breathing, blinking, thinking; there's nothing you can do to prevent their touch. The one that feels like warm static and toxic anaesthesia, so soft that your skin might melt, trickling hot ice and acid down your spine. Grasp after grasp clamps on to you; arms and legs, hands and feet, neck and head, every point of flex is thoroughly captured at once.

    Fingers intimately lace with yours to prevent them from so much as twitching. A squeezing thumb holds your jaw shut, and a closed fist pulls your hair. A palm to your chest somehow freezes your breath in your lungs. And then something clicks, and you realize that there's no pressure at all; that no earthly strength actually binds you, physically, in place.

    You're inside §her§, and §Exigent Serenity§ is stopped time. The only difference is that you can see, and hear, and think to yourself, whilst §she§ struts gaily up to each and every person but Petra, Odette, and Blossom specifically, and delivers a liver blow, a bleeding slap, stomping toes and grinding until they crack; unequal and inexpert applications of clumsy yet vindictive physical violence, meant to cause blinding flashes of pain rather than lethal harm.

    At the same time §she§ acts to hurt you, the parts of §her§ holding you have minds of their own. Fingers that toy with Ivy's hair, a nail that runs down Woz's jaw, Sougo's chest; a touch that gaudily memorizes Kale's beak, the fabric of Sarracenia's one dress; sadistic little pinches to Odette, a re-tying pull to sort out Blossom's bow, nails digging into Petra's thighs and stroke Cinder's lips.
Lilian Rook     Much easier than avoiding it is bearing it until §she§ loses interest. Unlike when Lilian does it, you're released sequentially when §she§ feels done with you. §Exigent Serenity§ hums to herself as §she§ goes, cooing §<<Like <that/this>? <Homo Sapiens> is different to <touch> than I <imagined/wrote>~!>>§, too utterly entranced with the next in line to carefully watch the last.

    'Um, Exis. If you're a 'supervillain', and we're in Glascail, then-- then that still falls under what Lilian told me to deal with. So....'

    §Exigent Serenity§ pops one heel up off the ground and arches §her§ back with a drunk little giggle. §<<Oh <Petra Soroka/Unchosen of Space>, you <stupid little bitch>~ A 'supervillain' is a <person/concept/space> that <strives> to make <the world/the play> bend to the <rules of engagement/precious feelings> they treasure! That was the whole <beating heart> of the <theatre>. You and I both <know/cherish> that <Lilian Rook/Exigent Serenity> isn't a villain. You know the <words>, don't you? Say them.>>§

    'And how may my video-pad be of assistance to you?'

    §<<Well . . .>>§ §Exigent Serenity§ suddenly purrs breathlessly. §She§ bites down on one nail, letting one hand wander down to §her§ inner thighs, and squeezes them together.

    §<<I've never had <flesh/form> before . . . So I think it would help me <get off> if you watched me kill them~<3>>§
Lilian Rook     'For showing me something so breathtaking~'

    §<<I am.>>§

    'Because she'll stop us from breathing?'

    §<<That's the <doctor's orders>!>>§

    '-get so into the character. Were you able to figure some things out, after all this?'

    §<<Nope. Nothing. Because <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> backed out of <hurting/acknowledging> you and started cheering for you instead. Weren't you <listening/alive> at all, <Good Girl>? If you aren't <writing this down/paying attention>, I might have to <demote/downgrade/ruin you>~>>§

    'W-wait, but we have souls, too! Maybe they're just not as... Impressive or powerful as yours, that's...'

    §<<Wrong again!>>§ The harsh buzz again, too. One of the hands pinches Odette's cheek until it bleeds. §<<If I <strip away/denude> your <meat>, you <dissipate/cease to be>. If that were to happen to <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter>, it would only mean that <She/I/We> would become <Lilian Rook/Exigent Serenity> as <intended>. <We/I/She> are a <world unto itself>; you're a <stage prop/physical effects>.>>§

    §She§ pauses for just a second; though there is certainly no measurement of time any longer. §<<Oh, and I can <read your lips/know your mind> anyways, so don't bother trying to <hide/deny/repress> it. You're thinking something very rude~>>§

    'You have spoken with Carmen, haven't you? About me? What were your thoughts on her?'

    §<<What a <funny/funny> word. When you think, do your <ideas/concepts/memes> 'speak' to one another? Don't they <enmesh/intercourse> in a way too <subtle/quick> for you to <keep track of>?>>§ says §Exigent Serenity§, words delivered in moon gravity offhandedness, bordering on irrelevance. A flight of fancy just for §her§. §<<She's <fascinating/beautiful/so tragic it's funny>! I can't wait to <peel her apart> and <fuck and devour> every <idea/dream> in her <soul> until we're <best friends forever>~!>>§
Kale Hearthward > <She/I/Us> don't fight with <ourselves> you know; that's something only <something> as <short half-life> as you can do, <schizo>~!>>§

She has a point.
She most certainly does not. Shut up.

Kale, independent of his archetypes/inner voices/not-actually-split-personalities' commentary, bristles a bit. Like, literally. He doesn't have the feather length to nearly look like one of those puffy birds in the cute animal videos, but where his clothes don't cover: his outline does look considerably more frazzled.

"I'm not perfect, but I haven't tried to kill everyone twice," he says. "I'd rather keep that than be more in touch with my inner self."

§> <<This <production/playset> was originally about 'me' you know. But somewhere <on the clock/along the line>, <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> backed out! You <consensus> me, right?>>§

"Yeah maybe? It's... telling, now, in hindsight."

Kale draws his sword again, a moment before the rest of his conscious mind picks up on the incoming hostility.

And then - hands. Or - not hands. Time.

Kale's frozen, and-

Comparisons to toys are, especially fitting here. Sword in hand, feet separated in stance, muscles (such that he has) bunched up in preparation to move and swing. He's an action figure cast eternally in plastic. He's a toy soldier with a run-down spring.

"Hgh..."

This is awful. This is terrible. This is...

... This is...

... Finally, the fight he wants.

Once again - not against Lilian, directly.

But against that other part of her. Close enough. Finally.

Kale digs deep. Deeper. He strains against the forces holding him in place. If he can get even an inch of freedom, a second of liberation, he can activate Gobo and start carving out some space for himself in the air.

More than anything, more than fighting for his life against an overwhelming foe, more than trying to protect everyone else here - this is something he really really wants. And it's worth digging really, really, really deep, just for that selfish thing.
Timespace Riders Basically, <this/here> is all because <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> has a 'soul', and you don't~!

    Woz indulges a sardonic chuckle. And here I thought you said you were here to be 'the villain we were drawn to like moths to flame'.

Mhm. And <thanks to/causal derivation> the 'pure wishes of your hearts <3', you and I are <here/now> together at last. How <romantic/magical>, no?

    "It is, a little," admits Zi-O. "If I look at it a certain way. But..." He looks at her sideways through the two-tone lenses of the Build Armor's helmet. "How should I put this..."

    "The whole time we've been here, I've tried to engage honestly with all of the... characters, even though they're characters, because a good king would do that. He'd do that, instead of just yelling at the versions of those people he made up in his head."

    "I know that wasn't the point of any of this," he further admits with a little bashful note in his voice and a brief glance away, "'To see if Sougo Tokiwa has learned anything or made any progress as a person.' But I couldn't turn down the opportunity to practice when Lilian did so much to make sure it'd be safe. What I'm saying is..."

    "I don't really get a lot of enjoyment out of yelling louder than the bad guy or trying out comebacks I thought up at home alone, or whatever. So... I hope that's not what you were hoping to get out of--"

I didn't <give you permission> to <move/breathe/exist> anyways.

    I must admit, you make a compelling argument. Still, I respectfully ask that you do not dishonor me by granting that which is my Demon King's to grant, even if you have the force to deny it. It's what Woz thinks, because his jaw is held shut, because his lungs are ice, his fingers are held in place.

    "*This,*" gasps Zi-O, breathlessly and almost certainly flushed behind the mask even as he sputters a cough in the wake of the blunt violence mixed in with the toying gestures.

So I think it would help me <get off> if you watched me kill them~

    "I promised to help Angela and I'm not going to break it by dying," says Zi-O. Precognition is useless if, in the future-seconds, you're still as immobile as you were/are now. "And for whatever reason, I can't go back and see how you got to the point where you'd be okay with that--" He doesn't want to say it out loud. He does swing again with the drillsword, and when Woz is released, he joins in with the same strategy he'd employed before.

    Troublesome. While she has power *over* time, it does not appear to be *of* time. I recall once that Lilian herself asserted to me my precautions against temporal meddling would come to nothing in a fight against her. But even the largest country has borders. Where are Exigent Serenity's?

    Conserving his strength, Woz does not bother to try avoiding her attacks, instead trying to put himself in the best position to endure them, then to strike back with probing punches and grapples from the mechanical arms on his armor.

    "--other than 'you're everything Lilian isn't,'" Zi-O continues, as a preface to a standing roundhouse. The kick itself is a prelude to a reverse thrust from the drillsword. Every moment he's not being held down is a moment he has to capitalize on utterly--especially since Woz is trying to gather information. "I'm not sure I know everything I am, much less everything somebody else is. So can you help me out here?"
Angela ''I've never had flesh/form before . . . So I think it would help me get off if you watched me kill them.''

Angela gets no pleasure watching people die. She usually finds it tiresome. She does wonder if seeing Ayin die for REAL will have any effect on her at all once Petra had pointed it out or if all the previous murders of her creator has burned out even the joy of seeing him finally pay the price for all the pain he caused her. Part of her worries that if he even looked right at her once and spoke to her as Ayin--not as that essentially lobotimized version of himself--she'd just ... forgive him anyway and let bygones be bygones. She is already wondering if she's being too forgiving of Benjamin. It's easier and harder at the same time to stay mad at him but they both scarred her. His was just ... He made her think there was something...

But it would be nice to help Lilian Too for a change. Even if by Exigent Serenity's nature she's not sure she can support her all the time, she reasons that if she supports her half the time and the Lilian she knows the other half when there's such a conflict, she can be qualified as completely supporting Lilian Rook. She's so smart, she figured it out.

"Very well, I will assist you get off to the best of my ability." She pauses. "...Get off of what?"

A smaller pause and then.

"That is me bringing levity to the proceedings. I, of course, know what getting off is and the visual cues provided additional clarity besides. They are appreciated."

A thought occurs to her.

"Would you prefer having flesh and form? I know someone without a body and have been wondering about what I should do." She is still unsure if she wants to pay it forward or simply pull the ladder up after her, so to speak.

Cinder is having a rougher time of it. Petra tells her that it's not going to just be a chat and Cinder frowns because she knew Petra would say something like that but was hoping it really wouldn't be that. She is hoping that Angela would protest if she got murdered during a training seminar but--she should be fine, she reasons. Petra's here.

Yep!!!

But before she can really dwell on that, she is finding her hand being held in place, her jaw being shut. And gets the shit beat out of her! Which is unfair, Cinder thinks, she totally thanked Petra too! Cinder doesn't mind being throttled around a bit--she used to be quite the rough and tumble gal herself--and she doesn't even mind having control taken away from her, but the idea that she has no existence, no meaning, no purpose tugs on her spirit, brings her lower and lower, sinking into a river that is not there.

Until flames start creeping up her arms. They aren't burning her, but the fire travels up her neck and down her legs, her arm punching out away from her as she's released unexpectedly--but even when released, that fire doesn't stop crawling up and around her body, slowly engulfing it while leaving her unharmed.

Angela's eyes slant towards Cinder briefly but she doesn't say anything about that. Instead she cups her chin, considering Exigent Serenity's statement. "I suppose I ought to have said 'communicate'," Angela admits. She does think of 'speak' when Carmen 'speaks' to her, because whenever Carmen talks to her it feels like she's breathing it right into her ear when it doesn't feel like it's coming directly out of her head.
Angela 243,''I can't wait to peel her apart and fuck and devour every idea/dream in her soul until we are best friends forever.'')

"I appreciate your honesty. Most of the people in my life who wanted to peel her apart and fuck/devour her would never admit it." Angela says. "

She is made conscious of the other people present but she supposes there's no point in being vague about it. They'll forget it by tommorow, she suspects. "Do you believe I am the parts of her that was holding her back? That she wanted to get rid of?" Angela asks.
Sarracenia      '<<This <production/playset> was originally about 'me' you know. But somewhere <on the clock/along the line>, <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> backed out! You <consensus> me, right?>>'

     Sarra starts to disagree, but after a moment's pause and consideration she hmms. "Perhaps it is about you. If by 'you' you just mean the Lilian that Lilian could be. Which...really kind of makes you not that special. There must be millions of Lilians out there that could have been this Lilian. But, there is only one actual Lilian here. I knew what this overly dramatic simulation was about as soon as I saw it! And I can assure you that the Lilian I know did not make this scenario about anyone but herself! Just to show off how powerful she is and how evil she could be if she wanted to be!"

     '<<Come to <reflect> of it, a lot of you didn't <take the knee/Thank You Petra> when I told you to. <I guess/I'm happy to> start with you first!>>'

     Sarra hmphs. "If you were the same as our Lilian you would not be surprised. I am dreadful at following her orders. Do you think I am going to follow the orders of some mirror Lilian? You do not even share the same sense of style! All of Lilian's work here as been beautiful! You are a pale shade of her! The sound of your movements is sickening, whereas if Lilian had a sound when she moved it would be graceful and darkly enticing! The only thing you actually seem to share is the love of your own power!"

     '<<Basically, <this/here> is all because <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> has a 'soul', and you don't~!>>'

     "What does that mean? I have a soul! Just because I do not have a mirror copy does not mean I do not have a soul!" Serenity answers that for Odette, but Sarra still does not like the answer. Especially the rather unsavory idea of being denuded. "As intended by who? If it were intended, would it not already be so?"

     '<<I didn't <give you permission> to <move/breathe/exist> anyways.>>'

     Sarra naturally starts to say something. Or at least starts to start. But then...hands! She is trapped in place in an instant! As the painful blows land again and again, Sarra can only listen while time-stopped and trying to bear the pain.

     Of course, Sarra has never been very good at bearing pain. She yelps and squirms and fights as much as she is able - which is admittedly not much - until she is released. She practically growls as she grips her hammer in one hand and pulls a couple of green mushrooms with the other to offset some of the pain and harm. "I am no one's stage prop. While it was within the simulation, I told that general that I would pour hope into this world until it filled in the singularity! And I will continue to do so until you are defeated!"
Sarracenia
     Sarra starts to reach into her purse again, then blinks. "...wait, did you say Lilian started to cheer for us?" Sarra is not quite sure she can believe that, but...it causes slight smirk appear on Sarra's lips. "So, perhaps we gave her some hope after all. Something I think she has been sorely lacking for quite a while. In that case, we definitely cannot let you win!"

     '<<I've never had <flesh/form> before . . . So I think it would help me <get off> if you watched me kill them~<3>>'

     Sarra's smirk fades into a look of pure revulsion. She starts to say that is very un-Lilian, but...then she wonders if it might give Lilian some sort of pleasure to kill them all. She shakes her head to clear the thought, then huffs! "...well...that is quite enough of that! How unladylike can one being be?!"

     With pride, honor, and her very life on the line...Sarra holds nothing back against this fake Lilian. This Lilian that claims to be a Lilian but unlike the real Lilian inspires no admiration at all from the princess who totally does not secretly admire the real Lilian. Which if Kale can still hear thoughts he might hear such from Sarra.

     Sarra plants her hammer head down in the ground then touches the metal lotus in her hair and rose gold morphmetal flows over her gloves up to just over her elbows. She fires several volleys of silver flechettes at their villain with one hand while reaching into her purse with the other to toss up a trio of Bullet Bills. As they come down she spins and grips her hammer with both hands, going into a graceful pirouette that causes her dress to billow outward elegantly before each Bill is hammered on the back of the bullet, firing them like massive artillery shells at Exigent Serenity. "Perhaps if we defeat you, we will restore more of Lilian's hope! That would be a blessing to the entire Multiverse, do you not 'consensus' me, you false Lilian?!"

     "And I am not psycho!" Sarra exclaims a moment later. The schizo comment may not have been aimed at her, but the response to such comments is pretty much ingrained in the princess.
Odette Raskins <<Just kidding!>>

After getting crushed and shot and swept up in so much painful magic minutes ago by Queen Liliana, the sight of all those hands coming towards everyone is already yet another terrifying sight that simultaneously exhausts Odette. How's she supposed to get away from all of that coming in so fast? Exigent Serenity already answered that, though: She doesn't. She can't. She can see the hands coming, she can feel all of them holding her in place, and she can feel the little electric jolts from being held still by so much...

No force. She can't move, but she feels a distinct lack of force. It's just... Something holding her still, and the feeling is indescribably terrifying. She tries and tries to struggle and squirm her way out of it, but all she manages to do is grunt and squeak, first the former as she fights against time to little effect, then the latter as she sees Exigent Serenity spreading her own style of violence through the group.

What baffles Odette, however, is seeing that only her, Blossom, and Petra don't get struck the same way. The pinching gets her to yelp lightly through clenched teeth and a closed mouth within that stopped time, visibly trying not to tear up even though she can't so much as move while enduring all those little touches.

I don't like that, but I don't hate it neither. I just don't get it. Odette's mind is in a jumbled mess as she tries to figure out just what it is she's feeling. Fear? Awe? Curiosity? Even with Exigent Serenity speaking to her, there's still only so much she can guess at before it becomes useless speculation. I bet there's loads of folks that would throw themselves at your feet if you ever asked them to, even if they're gross as hell. Aren't there easier ways to learn how humans feel, though? No, you mean mean...

Even if Odette can't move her hands, she still has the desire to snap her fingers. Figuratively? Like their souls?

<<Nope. Nothing. . . you're a <stage prop/physical effects>.>>
You were cheering for us? That's- A complicated feeling. Knowing Lilian was cheering for everyone should be reassuring, but hearing that it came at the cost of her not figuring those things out dulls the elation considerably. I never died, either. I even made it all the way up to-Good Girl? There's genuine confusion, having been stunlocked by the dog image summoned into her mind. At least it's not a mouse thing. That blows. Sorry. You did great holding that act together for so long.

Even in stopped time, there's a pause for her to process what else Exigent Serenity is telling her. I'm paying attention! I just can't write because of those hands everywhere touching all these places! Also I don't know if my PDA still works because you squeezed me real hard before and I think a whole bunch of parts cracked but I still got a pen and paper somewhere. Please don't fire me.
Odette Raskins Her eyes are just a little more damp by the end. The harsh pinching only has a little to do with it, but it certainly doesn't help with Odette's flinching reflex making just that little bit worse. In that moment, however, something else finally comes to mind that she's certainly thought about asking Lilian, but never had the nerve to. Before Exigent Serenity, however...

<<Oh, and I can <read your lips/know your mind> anyways, so don't bother trying to <hide/deny/repress> it. You're thinking something very rude~>>

No sense trying to deny the question that's been on her mind this long anymore, although there's still a notable hint of shame at the rude thought being called out so directly. What keeps you going?

Odette feels something stirring. She's heard plenty from Exigent Serenity, but she hasn't shown her any reason to ever acknowledge the EMT. Feeling that drive to try and change it, Odette draws her sword, and she presses one hand down on her wrist to steady her grip instead of letting it tremble like it always does during training.

She needs to show Lilian she can be someone more reliable than she's been. Odette holds the weapon in the stance just like the way she's practiced with the other recruits at the Trideag Association. She approaches Exigent Serenity like she's trying to take a stab at center mass, then snaps the sword at where her wrist should be like she's instead pivoted to a disarming maneuver. It's stiff, it's predictable, but it's relatively fast, and barely even shaky!
Powerpuff Girls Blossom finds herself dissociating from the events as she mentally recalculates the multiple exposures to threat. Guilty as charged and not a fan of such for taking things easy and using the exercise for herself, to evaluate her friend 'as a hero', now she had been shocked into taking the whole situation differently.

This wasn't about the Paladins getting a good look at everyone's abilities and doing team building. The taglines had been taglines, and it was careless of her to believe them in the first place.

Blossom brings left arm over her front, right hand pinching at her wrist to make a minor comfort adjustment to the stretch of her sleeve after the several gravitic impacts and dark matter twists. If the layer hadn't been made by the Professor to keep the Girls' clothed in the corona of stars, it would have failed after several of Liliana's blast.

As it stands, her discomfort is manifold and growing, trying to get a better read on Exigent Serenity that's filled in by Petra's answers and the dictation straight from the singularity's mouth. The coquettish flourishes towards Princess really confirm more and more that there's not just some strange and overwhelming power that's decided to make Lilian's movie special its own. It screams Lilian as a stroke against the inner ear, and the whole production had been about masks.

§This <production/playset> was originally about 'me' you know.§

Blossom pauses in her adjusting with a faint 'oh!' gasp of realization. "If you and her are one being, and you'll be there if she's vaporized... That still means you'll have 'lost something'. If this is your first time with flesh, then. . ." This whole 'thing' was in service of this ascension? It all led up to some apotheosis awake?

"That hall of heroes, it was about defeating hero-ism wasn't it?" And all the friends brought along on the way... but now they were in a negative plane, and Lilian Too was here, and she wasn't interested in the final puzzle solutions most likely. If Petra's affirmations of Exigent Serenity's will didn't underline the words being drilled into her: Exigent Serenity's waltz around gleefully declaring she was going to make this PG-13 production X-rated for sex and gore certainly did.

Princess is in a simpler situation as she dives to catch Sarracenia, and does a fairly good job of it. Hornet black and golden yellow, damaged in subtle and unsubtle ways, she can get her arms under Sarra and easily bleed off the tumble in a smooth motion of black-seeping gold armgloves, setting the literal-royal aside.

"Yeah. We're still in it, for now." Morbucks mutters, a !!gninraW!! scrolling across her pink crystal visored cheek, warped around a crack. Grimacing, at herself, in soreness, at the horror that's been thrust upon her, Morbucks tries to make the best of it.

"Come on, up up." The golden brat urges, sotto voice. "This one's for all the chips, so--"

Princess was in 'fight, now' mode that had only been interrupted by Sarracenia falling and screaming, and is lightspeed quick at switching back to a boost-jumping pink crackle, vocal urging accenting motion. "-survive!"
Powerpuff Girls The pink bluster of her charging gloves is §held by hands§ and Morbucks is frozen to a stop. The absolute technological barrier of her power system, the layer of genius applied as oil over the bread of her humanity until it seasoned and set, was pressed from every angle by the application of Other/§elf, and she's held like a fly in amber.

Until she's yanked out of the air and driven to the ground by Exigent Serenity, flung haphazardly-frozen like a throw rug that doesn't bounce until a foot is applied to her chest. Stamp, stamp, stamp goes Lilian Too's heel into the center of the ripped-X on her golden collar. If she *could* have the air driven from her lungs, it would be a painful abuse of Princess' respiration. Without any escape, her tender organs are bashed by an unstopped hammer instead, and she is denied even the widening of her eyes.

She takes her beating exactly like someone denied reaction would: By being at an absolute internal screaming boil, the dull impacts in held-stopped time ringing with an additional rational-note of 'ow. ow. ow.', and the misery neurons connecting to this being a richly explored topic for the girl under heel. She is at home, and she is abroad, and she is here, and being invincibly beyond that wasn't a unique wish at all.

Abandoned to curl into a retching heap and flop aside when she's left for a different toy, Princess is left alone with her thoughts for a moment, but pain and the toxicity of pride choke her.

Rolling to her knees and pushing off, Princess fires from her knees alongside Sarracenia's attack, guiding thoom!-ing beam blasts a little sloppily compared to the start of the challenge. "The same but stronger and sparklier? Bigger than me, so better? Boring!" She shouts, hoarse. "I'm bored!"

Blossom is touched in a different way. She plays along, and gets a good grade. She knows she shouldn't really want that, but the logic of that is ouroboric - and worse, academically dishonest. She 'knows she shouldn't' like someone with the 'sword of evil's bane' might instantly find umbrage with someone who makes the glowing sword of moral privilege tremble and flutter.

Blossom was also the girl that grade grubbed and fought for every point, 'Everything Nice' and some aspect of elemental good still not stopping the red Utonium girl from being a perfectionist. Startled three times over - first by the hands locking her in place, second by Exigent Serenity's approach of her palpably rolling with menace and 'Not Good', and third by that 'Not Good' fixing her ribbon - Blossom is held in the thought at the fore of Was I askew? before regaining her sense of time as she too is departed from, immediately rubbing her neck and feeling full-body sore at the tension she had instinctively held herself in as a form of semi-futile passive resistance.

"I think if you denuded and me, you'd hit cinnamon or sugar before bone." Blossom asides, accelerating in the field of Other/§elf pressure to zig around the trouncing traipse-around Serenity while testing her speed, and then driving forward to attempt to put the clamp on Exigent Serenity's flesh form with a sudden grab-from behind attempt to put the reality manipulator into a nelson hold! Being flesh had *rules*, didn't it? Surely!

Blossom had relied on others to test the dangerous theories too often this trial.
Petra Soroka §<<Basically, <this/here> is all because <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> has a 'soul', and you don't~!>>§

    Abstractly, Petra feels grateful for her part in causing Exigent Serenity to appear, even though she's very aware that this is a bad situation to be in. The fact that the blood red and vantablack terrain is stained with a clinging parasite of pearl allows her to inherit secondhand credit for her ensouledness. Because of everyone, Petra best understands: if all of 'this' is here because of Lilian Rook having a soul, then that includes Petra herself too.

§<<Three <whole/intact> <Good Girl>s!>>§

    What Petra said to Odette served as a reminder to herself too. Not that Petra is particularly weak-willed, but because the heady dissociative haze that comes along with Exigent Serenity always threatens to sweep her up with it, since she has so little reason *not* to. It's not like she *disagrees* with her, on anything, really. As much as she defends Lilian's autonomy and restraint, she's made her own efforts to encourage Lilian to be more aligned with her unhinged and uncontrolled otherself.

    And it's *really* rare for Lilian to call her a good girl. It happens, but it's *so* rare. If she takes a second to regather herself, who can blame her.

"Lilian Too already introduced herself. But she's right, I should thank you~"

    "Nice smug lilt there, jackass." Around Exigent Serenity, Petra's only options are rigid tenseness or disinhibited looseness, and the latter is no good if she wants to maintain her role. Harsher than she means to but exactly as harsh as she needs to, "I heard. It wasn't fucking clear if you did, since you instantly started gaping at her like you're browsing xxxenohub instead of talking to *Lilian*."

§<<This will <hurt/tease> a lot, so <don't move>, okay~?>>§

    This isn't anything that even Petra's experienced before. The threat rears up in her inuitive precognition from the shape of Exigent Serenity's intentions, gasping out air when the glass crunches beneath her foot as if it was grinding into her chest. But it's one thing to notice impending danger, and another to do anything about it, when it's something that's already happened to her uncountable thousands of other times.

    Hair pulled, thigh squeezed, jaw gripped and cheek caressed, the delirium-inducing non-pressure of Exigent Serenity's grasp fill Petra will a thrill of fear before anything like giddiness could kick in. Splayed out on the operating table, embodying a poorly timed photo, midmotion in a stance that feels awkward and impossible to maintain by any means besides this, being over the iridescent psychic vacuum of her own creation makes it feel so much worse. Muscle cells that are neither clenched or relaxed feel seared into her cortical homunculus as disjointed, screaming pinpricks of asymmetry. A hand inside her diaphragm keeps her from retching long enough to reassert mental control.

    Murder was just one thing that Lilian Rook would 'never' do. The other one-- not literally, not really, but proving the boundaries of a human body don't exist when they're lifelessly still comes from the same root. Almost certainly saved for among the last, Petra's racing thoughts eventually catch and repurpose an outlet for her own purposes, while the hands keep her locked in place.

    ¶<<Are you <interested/enticed> by the body or by the <divinity/epiphenomenae> of it? Is <meat> a <subject of study/worthy in of itself>, or is it because of <elicited> <what was hidden away and forgotten>? <Ash/Unchosen of Summer> and I agreed that that doesn't exist for <those people>.>>¶
Petra Soroka     When she's released, the discordant pause of her panicked physiology takes several seconds to catch up to her mind, washing her forehead in cold sweat. She traces a line on her cheek that's still tingling from Exigent Serenity's touch, and shivers. "Sorry for being metal last time."

§<<You know the <words>, don't you? Say them.>>§

    Briefly, the same way Exigent Serenity's does and Lilian's sometimes does, Petra's voice takes on crackling overlapped discordance for the span of one phrase. "<Perfect Beast>. I-- I guess I do know. But I'm not just going to weasel out of what Lilian would want me to do based on wording like it's a contract. I-I love you," Petra didn't mean to say that, but it's true. "But I'd consider my role a failure if I let anyone here die."

    "--Except Sundew, who's already dead," Petra adds.

    Intuiting that Exigent Serenity doesn't have the same physical training as Lilian-- both from seeing her movements and from a distant assocation with Qetra's clumsiness in her head-- Petra acquiesces to the twin impulses of her Fourth Match Flame and the martial consciousness in the Silver. Intentionally indulging the EGO causes flames to flicker up her wrist, though unlike Cinder, it doesn't get any further than that, as Petra goes in to strike at Exigent Serenity with the sword.

    On instinct, when her gut tells her, the Silver shield erupts in ferrofluid spikes in every direction, to preemptively coat her in spines during stopped time. Normally 'stopped time' isn't something you can attack, but here it is-- and the degree to which she *can* be attacked isn't something Petra really knows.
Lilian Rook     In the moment of making §her§ rounds, §Exigent Serenity§ pauses on Kale, and responds to him in the exact same way as everyone else, except it's the part he doesn't say out loud. §She§ doesn't appear to even notice the difference. The back of §her§ hand comes up to §her§ face, giggling into the back of it with a cadence like jolts of static electricity. §<<Well, if you really want to <fight/submit>, then I don't mind. But <You People> all have to <go easy on me>, okay~? I've never been in a <martial conflict> before! It's my 'first time~'>>§

    §She§ drags §her§ fingernail(?) up from his chest to the underside of his beak, tilting up his head where the muscle tension isn't. The freezing, numbing, asphyxiating hands don't let him bend it back down. §<<I don't know why you're <struggling/deluding> yourself, though. I've <done this to you> a thousand times <before/back there>, haven't I? You know I have.>>§

    §She§ swivels §her§ head with the exact look of having heard something, as Odette finally gathers herself up. The barrier between thought and speech isn't just unclear, but actively held in contempt; as if every impulse, private thing you think is §hers§ to announce out loud. §<<Hahaha, are you even speaking to <me>, or to <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter>~? <Homo Sapiens> is <entertaining/enriching> because they're <natively> soooo <submissive/plastic>, but the most <fun/blood> <issues> from the ones who <forgot>. <Good Girls> are nice, but what <I/She/We> need, like <food/sex/sunlight/water> is to <break> the <fattened/proud>! The <hunt> and the <kill>!>>>§

    Finally, when Odette comes running at §her§, sword in hand, §Exigent Serenity§ stares down the blade with a kind of dim fascination, devoid of the reflexive tension of a living being that knows the fear of being stabbed. The lunge for §her§ wrist stops just short when another §hand§ pinches the blade with two fingers and arrests it place; frozen in Odette's hands.

    §<<You can't all be <Good Girl>s. <I/She/We> will go <crazy/feral> like that.>>§

    Odette finds the §hands§ at her back, too. The stilling oblivion spreads through her body in an instant, freezing her in place while §Exigent Serenity§ enthusiastically pantomimes cracking §her§ knuckles, and then slugs Odette in the face. It's a far cry from Lilian's form, but not as far as it was a second ago.
Lilian Rook     §Exigent Serenity§ talks as §she§ walks, in utter contrast to Sarracenia's violent fury and Princess Morbucks' terrified determination. The pace of combat around §her§ doesn't seem to register at all.

    'The sound of your movements is sickening, whereas if Lilian had a sound when she moved it would be graceful and darkly enticing!'

    §<<You're so <funny/funny>~ You <hate her guts> but <want her dick> so bad at the same time it's enthralling!>>§

    'The only thing you actually seem to share is the love of your own power!'

    §<<And you're so <stupid/rude matter/alchemical lead> that it's adorable!>>§ §she§ giggles. §<<I am power! And you <draw breath> only because <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> is <afraid/gaze into abyss> of <hers/me>.>>§

    'I am no one's stage prop.'

    §<<Wrong again.>>§

    As Sarracenia readies her next bullet bill, §Exigent Serenity§ reaches out and touches the flat of her hammer from afar. The firm extension of a single §palm§ arrests it before she can swing it. Then another score clap to her shoulders, clasp her ankles, squeeze the breath out from her waist, and still her open mouth with fingers between her teeth.

    §Exigent Serenity§ approaches at a deadly slow pace-- no one else can interrupt §her§, after all-- and effusively stands up on tiptoe to pluck the tiara right off Sarracenia's head. Humming something disjointed to herself, §she§ busies herself with removing Sarracenia's gloves, then posing her arms by the joints rather than the muscles. §Her§ foot pushes out Sarracenia's ankle, and then §her§ hand claps against her skirt, forcing it to freeze in dramatic billow. She's posing and playing with her like a plastic doll.

    'So, perhaps we gave her some hope after all. Something I think she has been sorely lacking for quite a while. In that case, we definitely cannot let you win!'

    §<<You still don't <see colour>. <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> is basically <the main character/omnipotent and almighty/tear god from his throne>. <She> only restrains <me> to play around in your <toybox/set/land of pretend> like a child is afraid to leave home. I understand it, because <I> and <her>, and I know <My/Her/Our> flaws, and <understand/sympathize/accept them>. But you <couldn't/can't/won't> ever win.>>§

    '...well...that is quite enough of that! How unladylike can one being be?!'

    §<<Your <charm point> is that you're <obsessed/addicted/head in the sand> with <vulgarity>, no~? You've been such a good <playmate/toy/emotional support animal> for <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> because you don't <realize/perceive> that you don't have a choice~! You're so weak that the <terms/trust/guarantee> doesn't matter~!>>§

    'That would be a blessing to the entire Multiverse, do you not 'consensus' me, you false Lilian?!'

    §<<And don't be like that. We've had <memories/fun times> together, haven't we?>>§ says §Exigent Serenity§, over the last minute adjustment to Sarracenia's sleeve, replying to things she said thirty seconds ago. Projectiles from behind freeze. People don't-- or §she§ doesn't bother-- unless they come closer. Sarracenia has to watch them all do nothing.
Lilian Rook     §<<I'm the <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> <You People> don't want to admit exists; I'm the <Hell> that everything <urge/thought/idea> <she> kills is sent to. When <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> <ceases to care/dissociates/dreams> and stops <Being Good For No Reason>, that's <Her and I>, <together/as one>~<3>>§

    §She§ leans in to whisper, without whispering. §<<When <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> gave up and shot you <in broad daylight>, I was there too. <I/She/Us> pulled the trigger <together>.>>§

    §She§ reaches for Sarracenia's throat, and digs §her§ thumbs in, fingers to the back of her neck, and slowly ratchets up the pressure, until it becomes clear she's going to keep going until she tests when Sarracenia's neck breaks. As if the very concept fascinates §her§, blind to the accumulated pain and breathing damage done along the way.

    Then Blossom finally breaks her indecision and zips up behind §her§ at supersonic speed. §Exigent Serenity§ looks surprised; without alarm. §She§ pauses the Powerpuff, and then . . .

    Spends several seconds straining and failing to free §herself§, until §she§ begins laughing about it. §<<So this is the <inconvenient part> of <flesh/form>! It's so exciting to <learn/internalize/devour>~>>§ §Exigent Serenity§ tests something with her footwork, while Blossom watches, and then realizes §she§ can lean forward to lift Blossom up by her back, as if gravity were a novel concept. §<<I don't have <magic/the curse/race traitor>, so <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> would do something like this . . . ?>>§

    Blossom is carried a short ways and then unhurriedly let go onto Petra's ferrospikes. §Exigent Serenity§ twitches back §her§ hand back, and turns over the black bloody starr gore that dribbles from the little puncture wound.

    'If you and her are one being, and you'll be there if she's vaporized... That still means you'll have 'lost something'.'

    §<<<We/I/She> can't be <separated/divided>. The whole of <us> is contained <in/between> both <obverse/inverse>. 'One day', no matter what, <she> and <I> will become <Lilian Rook/Exigent Serenity/Winter Bloom of Humanity> and <I'll be hers/She'll be mine> forever and ever.>>§

    'This whole 'thing' was in service of this ascension? It all led up to some apotheosis awake?'

    §<<No way. That was <Petra Soroka/Unchosen of Space>'s <working/magnum opus>! Why would <I/We> take credit?>>§
Lilian Rook     <Are you <interested/enticed> by the body or by the <divinity/epiphenomenae> of it? Is <meat> a <subject of study/worthy in of itself>, or is it because of <elicited> <what was hidden away and forgotten>

    §<<Good question. But you know the <answer/trite conclusion>.>>§ says §Exigent Serenity§ to Petra, despite the wound that wound anger Lilian. §<<<Rule Zero/A Priori>: 'I get to exist'. 'Lilian Rook' and 'I' are bound by the <struggle to be born>. <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> <wished for/conceived of> <All The Time In The World Is Mine>, and <I/Exigent Serenity> <wished for/conceived of> <The New Flesh>.>>§

    §<<<Earth/The World/Consensus/God> denied my <reality/humanity>, and 'being Lilian Rook' is my way to making <you/them> accept my <reality/tangibility/possibility>. <She> created <I> and <I> created <her> power, and <soon/near>, <she> will create <my power> and <I> will create <her>. The <New Flesh> is already done. It's <beautiful/everything we ever wanted>.>>§

    'That is me bringing levity to the proceedings. I, of course, know what getting off is and the visual cues provided additional clarity besides. They are appreciated.'

    §<<You're so funny, <Angela/Unchosen of Carmen>! What I want is so much <better than sex> none of <them/You People> can even imagine it. It's <rapture>. You've been so <patient> that you <deserve/obtained> the <right/providence> to learn the <forbidden fruit> from <stealing the technique/watch and learn> me <exsanguinating/butchering/dehumanizing/raping> it out of them; their <human sanctity/Ambrosia>.>>§

    'Do you believe I am the parts of her that was holding her back? That she wanted to get rid of?'

    §<<I think you're the <sprue/picked bones> of the parts of <Carmen/Chosen of Cogito> that she doesn't <recognize/know>. Both parts that are <hers> and the parts that are <real> in the <collective perception/minds of others>. The <antithesis/total opposite> of me?>>§

    'I appreciate your honesty. Most of the people in my life who wanted to peel her apart and fuck/devour her would never admit it.'

    §<<They did it, though. You all do it. Your <wanting to know/being seen by/becoming one> with <one another> is only <gnawing/half-measures/small bites>.>>§

    From what Woz can deduce now, he and only he comes 'unstuck' when §Exigent Serenity§ looks away from him. The act of being causally engaged with him; perceiving and acting upon; makes it the domain of Lilian's wish, but without that aspect, it's only 'the concept of being paused in time', which he is immune to. He might be able to rescue other people, but only outside of §her§ view cone.

    And it's easier said than done, because §she§ is rapidly acclimating to having one.
Lilian Rook     <Perfect Beast>. I-- I guess I do know. But I'm not just going to weasel out of what Lilian would want me to do based on wording like it's a contract. I-I love you, but I'd consider my role a failure if I let anyone here die.>

    §<<'Love you too', <Petra Soroka/Unchosen of Space>~>>§ says §Exigent Serenity§, turning and warmly considering the spikes, stroking along the shaft of one and lightly touching its tip. §<<I'd really hate to <use you all up/rush to the end> though. You have lots of <joy/blood/pleasure> left to <give/bleed> me; and the <Perfect Beast> that <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winters> will <emerge from the chrysalis> as.>>§

    §<<So <let's play> instead!>>§

    §Exigent Serenity§ lifts §her§ foot, strikes the ground with §her§ heel, and the shattering glass gushes an arterial spray of black ink, inside which the shadow of a sword is limned in redshift. Though §she§ appears to be genuinely unaccustomed to combat, §she§ handles the sketch-scratched shade of an unmistakably familiar sword as though §she§ were born with it in her hand.

    §<<You know there's a <magic/curse/betrayal> on this <playset/stage> that prevents <deathblow/coup de grace> don't you? I wonder . . .>>§

    §<<If I kill you enough times, would you die?>>§

    §Exigent Serenity§ swings §her§ sword. A clean parallel arc with Petra's neck, straight and simple and terrifyingly unavoidable. She feels blinding pain erupt from its contact with her spinal column, then all of the air leave her lungs as her head parts ways with her body. The world spins violently before her eyes, and the back of her head painfully strikes the ground, tilting her vision to stare up at her own body. Her blood spatters onto her own face, the corpse half of her crumpling to its knees. She can't scream. Her head throbs with the onset of blood loss and hypoxia.

    A moment later, Petra is released onto the glass-covered street. The grisly sight only exists in her reflection, and in her memory; but everyone saw it. The moment a phantom Petra died.

    §<<That's <one>~!>>§ §Exigent Serenity§ sighs rapturously, biting §her§ nail and writhing from the shoulders down to §her§ ankles. §<<I'll <grace/let> you <taste it> next~!!>>§ comes the escalatingly delirious call to Princess. §Exigent Serenity§ steps forward, and then rushes at half of Lilian's physical speed, inflicting the same violence on her next, aiming where the suit is most damaged. The §hands§ pull away as the feedback runs through her.

    §<<<Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> is <right/perfect/divine> . . . ! 'The ideal way to interact with the world is a blade', hahaha~!! Forget <ruling the world>! All that <She/I/We> ever wanted is to finally <Bite Down To The Bone>!!>>§
Sarracenia      'This one's for all the chips, so--survive!'

     Sarra nods firmly with an affirmative 'hm!' at Princess. Despite the apparent seriousness of the situation Sarra can't help a bit of a grin as Princess joins in alongside the princess's attacks. "I will! So you had better, too! With all these heroics I may have to take you shopping after we are done here!"

     '--Except Sundew, who's already dead,'

     Sarra mmphs in annoyance, her expression flat. "If your role is to not let anyone die then I am sure it would still be a failure if I die for real!" Sarra yells at Petra.

     '<<You're so <funny/funny>~ You <hate her guts> but <want her dick> so bad at the same time it's enthralling!>>'

     Sarra blushes hotly. "Th-that is not true!" she argues, though it is hardly convincing. "I want to be someone she can depend on so she will finally be silent about there being so few out in the Multiverse that could take her place if she took a break!"

     '<<I am power! And you <draw breath> only because <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> is <afraid/gaze into abyss> of <hers/me>.>>'

     Sarra snorts. "Lilian is afraid of becoming you? Why? She has an entire cult of followers and a sun goddess to support her! If she is at risk of becoming you then she needs to take a step back and realize she is much too strong to become you!"

     '<<Wrong again.>>

     Sarra's hammer suddenly stops, causing her to let out a surprised 'uwah?!' before she yelps as those hands of time grip her again. She whimpers as she struggles against them, only to have her breath forced from her. Her crown is removed and her eyes widen. Ragged gasps escape as she tries to protest, only for her gloves to be removed as well. Two things that a royal should always have on, at least in Sarra's mind. Without her gloves Sarra feels like she is half naked, and it shows in how much more red her cheeks get. It also shows how pristine the skin of her arms and hands are despite the weapon she wields and her tendency to fight so much. Well manicured nails painted red, sleek skin with a healthy shine to it. There are no signs of callouses or scars, testament to the princess's skin care regiments and obsession with looking perfect.

     The Sundew princess is posed like a doll and held there. At least she looks good...she hopes. Unable to speak with no breath and her mouth held open, Sarra can only listen and glare at Exigent Serenity. The glare twists in pain as the hand around her throat tightens, threatening to crush her neck completely. Once again she finds herself powerless against an overwhelmingly powerful opponent. Her eyes tear up a bit. For one of only a handful of times in her life, the princess wishes she had the power to actually defend herself and stop a true villain instead of having to hope a hero might save her again.

     Gripped as she is, Sarra can hardly do a thing. She can't even wait for a hero, because the only hero here who has shown she would come to Sarra's rescue has plenty of other things to worry about. There is only one thing Sarra can really do, and she is not sure it will even work. As she keeps her hammer gripped in one hand, the head starts to release a prismatic glow. Dazzling sparkles fall from it and the glow steadily flows over Sarra's body. It infuses her with power one might expect from a demonically-possessed weapon, and once the glow settles in her eyes...her hair starts to float in a magical breeze, adding to her picturesque appearance as her body is filled with (even more of) an overwhelming urge...to HAMMER!
Kale Hearthward Kale gets moved like an action figure.

> §<<I don't know why you're <struggling/deluding> yourself, though. I've <done this to you> a thousand times <before/back there>, haven't I? You know I have.>>§

"..."

"... Yeah..."

It's hard to breathe, with her <hands/gaze/gravity> upon him. Kale gets the words out through effort, though.

"A thousand times before."

"And... a thousand times more, I'm sure."

"I'm not... stalled out by the thought. Either I make it over the mountain, or I die and I don't have to worry about it."

Shortly thereafter, Exigent Serenity beheads Petra.

"Ah." Kale's suddenly faced by the fact that door number two is a very real possibility here.

He tests the forces holding him in place yet again, with no better results than before. And Sarracenia gets targeted next.

... He doesn't have a plan for getting out of this. Does someone else have a plan? This is a perfect time for his mind reading to have faded out, otherwise maybe he could check.

Kale doesn't have a plan, but - if someone else does, and he has to at this point go off of nothing but blind trust that someone else does - Kale does have something he's better suited at.

"Hey! Good job bullying Soroka and Sundew - big whoop! It's not like you've been doing that once a day every day for the past million years! What's next, you'll juggle Proudpick's single braincell and act like that's a tough trick?"

Being a distraction.

"You wanna bite down to the bone? How about you pick a bone with someone you haven't chewed all the meat off of already?"
Odette Raskins "<<Hahaha, are you even speaking to <me>, or to <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter>~? . . . but what <I/She/We> need, like <food/sex/sunlight/water> is to <break> the <fattened/proud>!"

Odette's form freezes up slightly as Exigent Serenity addresses her again, still feeling that unease from knowing that she's able to hear every thought in her head whether she likes it or not. There's a silver lining of not having to worry about tripping over her own words lke she usually does, but not being able to filter her thoughts before expressing them still gives her a lingering sense of dread. I don't know. There's still so much I don't understand about either of you even though I want to. Can't blame you for wanting to go after folks like that, either, after learning about how... Even a little bit of how stuff works.

There's another pause in her mind as more of those jumbled up thoughts reorganize themselves, all while she's trying to get even a single hit in against Exigent Serenity. Odette jerks to a stop as the blade gets pinched, grunting lightly as she tries to force it through Exigent Serenity's grip. Why do you hold back so much? I don't know many folks that could even try and stop you if you really wanted to.

Wait. Exigent Serenity already answered this earlier. Lilian does want to, but she can't. That's Queen Liliana's purpose. That's the entire scenario's purpose. That's more rude thoughts of hers seeping right through, and she knows it. Dang it. Sorry. I still want to be a good girl just like my parents taught me, but I don't know if that'll last forever.

Again, Odette freezes up at that feeling against her back. Her teeth chatter and her grip slackens, and she fights desperately against the frozen time to try and go anywhere but where she is at that moment. Somehow, someway, her head jerks back just in time with the punch, still feeling something cracking in her face, but not quite as badly if she had simply stood there and taken it.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to do what you do or Lilian doesn't let herself do, but I want to be strong enough to get better than I am. That's why I'm following her and everyone in Trideag, and Red Giant and Miss Grier and everyone in the Watch. Oh dang it. Can you both just forget I said that?

Stumbling back and dropping in a clumsy half-kneel with her hand on the floor, Odette sticks herself with another injector to numb the pain and pump herself with some mild stimulants to keep her energy up. Clearly, trying to just swipe and slash at Exigent Serenity isn't working. She needs to capitalize, or she needs to help someone else capitalize. Seeing Sarracenia charging back in while Kale throws words at her, Odette opts for more of the former as she brings out her sidearm and takes aim.

It's shaky, but she steadies it after a second. How long that second actually is in the frozen time, she's not really sure, but she still manages to steady it once she fights back the fear of worrying over whether or not she'll hurt Lilian/Exigent Serenity in the process. She fires once with a startled yelp, takes aim again, then starts firing one round after the other with only small flinches in between each shot. There's no trickiness or fancy footwork to go with her shots, but at least they're actual gun shots and not her trying to swing the gun ineffectually.
Ivy Carrow     §<<You can't all be <Good Girl>s. <I/She/We> will go <crazy/feral> like that.>>§

    Hehahe... Another hysterical, panicked little giggle. Sweat rolled down Ivy's cheeks, if they had the space. The time. Her hands grip on her sword was clammy and white. Glad to be of service...?

    Could she teleport out of here? Beyond the range of whatever distortion had allowed Lilian Too to be born? Or would she simply waltz casually through the portal after to drag her back inside? Ivy couldn't risk it spilling out into her Castle. Or worse.

    Ivy's eyes track Petra's head, sliding from her shoulders, falling to the ground. Even when it turns out that it had 'never happened,' her gaze remained fixed on the ground. She swallowed, sharply.

    §<<<Forget <ruling the world>! All that <She/I/We> ever wanted is to finally <Bite Down To The Bone>!!>>§

    You can't bite without being bitten back, Ivy rambled in my mind, less in an attempt to be convincing and more to work through her own panic. Can't bleed without being bled. What's existence worth, if you can't be touched?

    Contrary to many, Ivy was, truly, only human. Bones no more sturdy. Her flesh no more pliable. No more strong, no more fast. But when she did get a moment, the brief reprieve from stalled time, she was already most of the way to...Exigient Serenity? Lilian Rook? Lilian Too? To the girl who was trying to kill them all.

    Playing hopscotch through space, Ivy emerged behind Exigient Serenity, with only JUST enough space to let her sword gather momentum, aiming the edge of her blade straight for Exigient Serenity's own neck.
Angela "'False Lilian..." Angela murmurs. "Huhn..." She doesn't seem to particularly pleased by this term, glowering down at her own hands. Hmm! Why would Angela be upset by someone using the term 'False' to refer to someone? Nevertheless, she says, "You are always so eager..." She doesn't, naturally, interfere when Exigent Serenity acts to break Sarracenia's neck but she is more interested in talking to Exigent Serenity than fighting her. So this is her shot. Being treated as silly seems natural even if it is frustrating. She needs to break her shell, Angela thinks, and move into the living world.

''What I want is so much better than sex.''

"Ah." Angela says. The forbidden fruit. Words like that have been whispered to her since she was a child. Benjamin was always a man of faith and the King of Greed always whispered of such treats. A forbidden fruit is something you desire but casts you out from paradise for tasting, but Paradise itself can be stifling, being ''good girls'' can be stifling. She doesn't think she could be a good girl again. Her desire is inevitably going to hurt at least her longest companions if noth er closest ones."You are kind to me. I suppose you must've also known what it is to wait and be patient. Very well I will observe and do my best to learn."

''The parts of Carmen/Chosen of Cogito that she doesn't recognize/know.''

That is a little different from being discarded, exactly. It suggests she is not discarded at all, simply...

Not observed.

the familiarity she has with not being seen is immense. The idea that even Carmen does not truly see her--even if she has never been unkind to her--weighs heavily on her shoulders. She can't protest. Some part of her always knew. Is it even possible that someone like Carmen, who enjoys looking at Gebura's ass for instance, could actually want to abandon her body and become a voice? No, they wouldn't have tried the procedure with Enoch if she really wanted it. And when she realized she was the only option she grew miserable and depressed and everybody thought she would kill herself.

But she didn't. She only killed the parts of her that couldn't stand becoming a Voice. And maybe that kind smile she can never forget is something Carmen has long forgotten.

"The opposite..." She murmurs. "I thought we might be more alike, but I suppose--Lilian does recognize and know you. And you are with her, not apart at all."I imagine our small bites is why each of us seemed to be missing a big part of the picture. Wanting to peel her apart and devour her but also being too frightened to take big bites. Not unlike a forbidden fruit, I suppose."

That means, though, she can understand her better than the others, maybe even better than Carmen herself, if she just looks at herself. She wants to be free. So that means Carmen wants to be free. But there's darker truths that come to light with this idea too.
Angela Cinder's eyes watch Angela for a moment as she works through this. As she's frozen in time, she can't really pull herself free to do anything but watch and burn as flames travel over her body. She doesn't feel the pain so she figures it's probably okay.

She wonders if it was kind of like this for her. Remaining still, frozen as she watched the world around her move by--also incredibly slowly. Cinder can't pull free, all she can do is think like this. She wouldn't even know how to begin talking to Exigent and it feels weird fighting her but at the same time, fighting her is sort of the goal right? No, actually, fighting Exigent Serenity isn't the goal at all! It has nothing to do with the whole mission! But Cinder doesn't know what else to do but fight so--

But once she can move, she moves to strike, weaving a wall of flame around her even as she sends a wave flashing out towards Exigent Serenity. Perhaps if she is harder to see? Worth a shot, anyway.
Timespace Riders Loathe as I am to intervene, you've given me a valuable opportunity.

    Woz's leg flies outwards towards Exigent Serenity from behind following a halted downward swing of Zi-O's drillsword, not intending to interrupt her from crushing Sarracenia's neck so much as taking advantage of her preoccupation.

    The subsequent struggle to free herself is exactly what he needed. At some point, very soon, she'll begin more adeptly managing her vision and his strategy won't work any longer. But that isn't an unwinnable scenario. Perhaps she'll even be amused by my answer. Woz procures another Miridewatch and slots it into the Beyondriver, quickly closing the sidegate.

    Blue lasers rapidly print a set of armor. The smartwatch implied by the tabard and app-icon pauldrons is more knightly than robotic. It snaps into place over his bodysuit, replacing the Kikai armor to the tune of a brass quartet fanfare.

                Valiant! Victorious! Futurering Cobalt! COBALT!                

    The cuirass forming the frame of the 'watch' is contoured and sectioned like platemail, his 'app icon' pauldrons housed protectively in swept metal reminiscent of a royal guard. The 'wristband' of the watch is a tabard in blue and gold, while the 'hands' forming his antennae have become wings much like Chevalier Cobalt's headdress. His faceplate sports blue katakana, reading 'COBALT.'

    The Jikan Despear's head has converted to that of a halberd, but the most crucial detail is the way Woz's speed has increased--and the way he leaves behind illusory duplicates of himself as he circles Exigent Serenity. The answer to an opponent who cautiously manages their field of view is to attack their ability to trust what they're seeing. The illusory Wozes alternate between various tactics; daring attacks, feint-and-fades, wary circling, all mixed in with Woz himself switching between the same, swapping places with his duplicates to further confuse the matter.
Timespace Riders I'm the <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> <You People> don't want to admit exists; I'm the <Hell> that everything <urge/thought/idea> <she> kills is sent to. When <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> <ceases to care/dissociates/dreams> and stops <Being Good For No Reason>, that's <Her and I>, <together/as one>~<3>
<We/I/She> can't be <separated/divided>. The whole of <us> is contained <in/between> both <obverse/inverse>. 'One day', no matter what, <she> and <I> will become <Lilian Rook/Exigent Serenity/Winter Bloom of Humanity> and <I'll be hers/She'll be mine> forever and ever.>

    Zi-O, meanwhile, resorts primarily to talking, because his attacks are so honest and obvious that he can't meaningfully hit Exigent Serenity unless he's fighting froma blind spot--and his desire to understand her is still larger than his desire to stop her. For now. "How could I admit that part of me exists and pretend like it doesn't exist in Lilian? Denying that you, or someone else has the capacity to do harm, or to be bad, just makes it more likely that it happens and gets glossed over. Lilian isn't good 'for no reason,' she's good because you exist, and you're not, because she does. But you're both 'Lilian.'"

    "To act like that's not the case... well, I think that would be kind of mean to her. Flattening her and putting her into a little box is something that happens to her too much already, don't you think?"

    Everyone saw it. The phantom Petra, killed.

    "What do I have to do to get you to stop doing that? To stop telling Lilian that it's good, to do things like that? What is it that you're not getting, or need, that makes you think that's okay?" Zi-O pushes the stop on the Timespace Driver.

     "It's not. Not even for 'god' or 'the main character.' Especially not when it's Petra."

                                  FINISH TIME!                                  

     He leaps high, tucking into a frontflip. A parabola is plotted out in the air beneath him; white brackets enclose around Exigent Serenity. The dotted line blips into existence, plotting a path from himself to Exigent Serenity.

                               VOLTEC TIME BREAK!                                

     He can certainly be held in place--for the rest of the fight, if need be. But the trajectory is locked in; the moment she releases him, he'll travel along the path right to her, to deliver an explosively charged kick.
Petra Soroka §<<But <You People> all have to <go easy on me>, okay~?>>§

    Petra's stop and start movement, stalled by the hands wrapped around her throat to hold her vocal cords still and fingers shoved in her mouth to hold her tongue in place, would make it hard for her to contribute to the conversation and keep up with Exigent Serenity's pacing, if not for the Exis-like nonverbal speech she slips into whenever stopped in time. There's nothing it could be besides 'derived from Exigent Serenity', intuitively even to the people that haven't met her before, distorting and overlapping with the same qualities, even though it's in 'Petra's' tone.

    ¶<<I can't do that. <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter>'s Eight Code isn't something I follow exactly, but she's <aspirational/guiding star/religious texts> to me.>>¶

§<<I've <done this to you> a thousand times <before/back there>, haven't I? You know I have.>>§

    Petra especially knows that. She's seen it in Lampport, listened rapturously to Lilian's own experiences, certainly been subjected to it more than average and given more reason to think about it than average, so she *knew*, but...

    It's one thing to see a bunch of nameless, faceless nobodies frozen in awkward half-blinks and half-steps, turned into lifeless statues by Lilian's power, and understand her perspective on the world a little better. It's another thing to *be* the statue. Ever since Dimo, and even before that, Petra's hardly been a believer in the sanctity and inviolability of her own human flesh, but where it was 'natural' for the indistinguishable masses to be made helpless and inert, Petra's always at least had *some* sort of autonomy. The boundaries of her humanity have been violated over and over, but there was always either give and take to it, a motion Petra could make to reassert it, or it was something she subjected herself to on purpose.

    This, wasn't that. *This* was the final puzzle piece of 'being handled by Lilian', the reason why <omnipotent and almighty> is a descriptor Exigent Serenity would use, and not just Petra. The deep-rooted control that she relinquishes to Lilian for merely being around her at all, every time, without any way of knowing.

    So she probably won't ever forget this feeling. Knowing more about someone's worldview can often poison your perspective of them forever, something both Lilian and Petra know about themselves, but it's Petra's unique and most valuable quality that she can't be driven off by something like that, only drawn in closer. Which means, if she can never un-think it every time she's around Lilian, then she has to choose to be okay with it, even enthusiastic.

    Exigent Serenity's hands are wrapped around her waist with palms pressed to hold her back still. Beneath her touch, only less than an inch beneath the surface of skin but rendered delusionally sacrosanct by a shell of axon, bone, and skin, Exigent Serenity can feel the shiver run down Petra's spine.

§<<You can't all be <Good Girl>s.>>§

    When she unsticks, Petra takes a deep breath and clenches her fist to reassert control, before relaxing. Sort of addressing her allies and sort of filling in the blanks of her thoughts where Exis couldn't pluck them from her head, she says, "Right. I mean, when it really comes down to it, only *I* am."
Petra Soroka §<<You <hate her guts> but <want her dick> so bad at the same time it's enthralling!>>§

    Wanting to avoid getting frozen again, Petra sticks to shearing droplets off of her shield and telekinetically launching scattered Silver darts in Exigent Serenity's direction, caught in a single palm each time like a baseball. She shoots an aghast scolding look at-- Sarracenia, actually, not Exigent Serenity.

    "Don't be *vulgar*, Sundew!"

§<<That was <Petra Soroka/Unchosen of Space>'s <working/magnum opus>!>>§

    Petra quickly mumbles under her breath like a prayer, "Oh god I hope Lilian won't be too angry. She'll get it. It's so thematically consistent. And this is probably better data. And maybe Sundew will die, and it's technically more my fault than hers so it's fine."

§<<<I/Exigent Serenity> <wished for/conceived of> <The New Flesh>.>>§

    Pinned in place again, wrapped around with a hasty morphmetal helix in the instant before the hands grabbed her from every direction, Petra's mental voice is unstable negative space, a void that collapses in on itself when observed. It skids over nerves with faint prickling lacerations, but unlike Exigent Serenity's, doesn't violatorally crawl further than skin-deep.

    ¶<<Is that the same thing you all <wished for/conceived of>? For the <Blooms of Humanity/Sparks> and their others. Is <Ash/Unchosen of Summer/Invariable Completion> an <applicable paradigm/consanguinity/further along the same track>?>>¶

§<<'Love you too', <Petra Soroka/Unchosen of Space>~>>§

    ¶<<!>>¶

    The spikes of Petra's morphmetal cocoon warmly champagne-bubble pop against Exigent Serenity's touch. Hands wrapped over every inch of the Silver strands keep it from flowing through itself or changing shape, but the synthetic neural communication and outwards expression is just dependent on her feelings and wants. Even in the hostile bramble shape the morphmetal took on to defend Petra, the fond dryer-warmth it radiates at Exigent Serenity isn't gone.

§<<I wonder . . .>>§

    And then it goes cold, surface tension lost all at once. The Silver splashes onto the ground lifelessly, stiffening up into alien, undirected fractals and crystalline temporary shapes like 'rigor mortis'. When Petra gasps back to life, the morphmetal follows a delayed second later, melting and then reforming into clinging fluid safety blanket armor gripping around her neck and shoulders and clasped over her heart. She staggers back, and her decapitated (purple-highlighted-haired) reflection stays dead in the inverse of the glass.

    She presses her hands over her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut to hyperventilate for a surprisingly short few seconds, before her breath slows and she opens her eyes again. She runs her offhand through her hair to push it away from her face, and shakily smiles, still tense and jittery.

§<<If I kill you enough times, would you die?>>§

    "Haha. Now I'm up by two compared to everyone else."
Powerpuff Girls Blossom struggles with Exigent Serenity, applying more and more of her strength to try and hold god//the devil down in Hell. The metaphor, as strained as Blossom is, doesn't hold up - the Powerpuff does.

The strategy works about as well as can be expected from trying to hold someone down by giving their intestines a good grip, and when she's stopped in frozen-time Blossom remains thinking her strategy is pretty good! She also is stopped, wanting to 'stay right there'.

Palpable on the arms about 'Exis', vibrating tension in the air, the first tug on the Powerpuff doesn't care on if Serenity can apply a thousand gravities or none at all - she's fixed in the air, fixed in space in a way unlike Morbucks' technological solutions and bypasses of the laws of physics.

Princess Morbucks' suits at some point have to make sense. Blossom Utonium's Chemical X abilities do not, and so it is not like a weight through water that Blossom is dragged over Serenity's shoulder but a bullet in a would or a tooth loose in a meat cavity that must be worried at and tugged upon. The very control of horizontal and vertical that Exis has here might be the very key in not being trapped!

Stopped-while-she-is-Stopped, Blossom captured by the hands presents just a potentially bitter amount of fleshy work, drawn through the meat of reality and speared on the frozen chrome of Petra's morphmetal creation, pushed down until she is pierced and runs with candy-esque colors and a sweet-floral shine of cartoon blood. It is Blossom's turn to be tormented, the price for holding down and holding back instead of swinging lethally. The price of being a 'good' girl.

Even in the world entirely comprised of Lilian Rook//Exigent Serenity's self-conception and having such swung at her, Blossom could plainly realize - once perception caught up with her - that it was probably not a good thing to be considered 'good' by the devil. Some forms of grade grubbing weren't worth it.

Princess chases Exis with blasts, lashing out with several flavors of pent-up fury. "You want to feast on the proud?" She asks, rising action as she cups palms and charges both arms worth of plasma crackle at a single anime dingus point to fire both blasts at twice her normal power for a four-times charge shot. The short delay, obviously, gave her a little time to post.

"No wonder you're licking your lips and slavering over the moment you get to eat *her* up! You're everything she doesn't choose! Cool magic pow--"

§I'll <grace/let> you <taste it> next~!!§

Princess is frozen just before her moment of beamposting eruption, the hands cooling her charged blast and stilling her breath, several frames before roaring it out. Exis runs up at speed, carving bright motions into Princess' chest and peeling at the nearly-but-not-completely invulnerable layers that even in stopped motion buckle and come apart with achingly drawn out impacts--

And then Princess is released. Her proximity sensor goes off. She had been expecting to be interrupted. Really, she was just waiting to be stopped, because of the marked moment of anguish upon resumption as all the possible seconds of pain collapsed into felt reality.

So the plasma specialist just lets her charged shot go point blank, detonating into a crackling blast that washes over her own abused armor before blasting a sphere around Princess which she follows up with by completing the blast as a secondary shot at normal power!

"--er!" She finishes, the screaming compressed moment blasting the rest of her smart thoughts out of both ears and leaving only fighting back' on the table.
Petra Soroka EARLIER, WHILE TIMESTOPPED . . .

    Petra watches helplessly while one of her childhood heroes gets gradually impaled on Petra's own defenses. Blossom's airborne resistance to being moved, even when frozen in time, gives Petra plenty of time to reflect on how this is the first time she's ever seen Blossom bleed, and wince internally.

    ¶<<Sorry.>>¶

"It's not. Not even for 'god' or 'the main character.' Especially not when it's Petra."

    Petra clicks her teeth in irritation and rasps the tip of Fourth Match Flame against the ground. The glass is mostly bled-through by Exigent Serenity's ink black and blood red, but the small reflected glow of embers off of her sword that linger in the mirrored inverse create oases of clear iridescence around them.

    "Do you seriously have to bring that back up again *here*, Sougo? You're not winning any points by singling me out like that. I know *better* than you do, and *this* is why it's right, actually, for Lilian to treat me like that. It's 'especially me' because I *get* it."

"I want to be someone she can depend on so she will finally be silent about there being so few out in the Multiverse that could take her place if she took a break!"

    "You know, princess-- Sundew. I do that better than you ever could." Petra gives the doll-posed princess a look, and then lingers on that for a moment. She glances down at the glass below her feet to share an unspoken sentiment with Qetra, but Qetra is still decapitated and bleeding out back where Petra was killed by Exis, leaving her with an awkwardly vampiric lack of reflection. "I'm not even mocking you. I'm serious. If that's actually, genuinely what you want, and not just smashing your head into her by doing the same retarded thing over and over until you can say you've punished her by proving her wrong, then I'm really the best tutor you'd ever get."

    "Or you could just not." Petra flicks her sword tip up to gesture at Sarracenia like it's a pointer. "I mean, according to Exis, you're worth something either way."

    The realization that Petra doesn't, actually, know how any of the life-sustaining magic works spurs her back into faster motion. "Okay-- I don't know anything for sure, I'm just guessing, but-- as far as I know, Lilian mostly sticks to using Night Mist and Winter Crow in stopped time. I've never seen her do any big magic stuff with it; like, I'm thinking about that time on the Union Busan when she did that whole complicated sigil in real time. I bet there's a reason for that, and I bet it's not just a coincidence. That 'magic' doesn't work that well within the wish, like how computers sometimes do and sometimes don't."

    "Uh, so the point is--" Petra takes a sharp inhalation of the numbing air. "If the magic's too big to 'flow', then I'm guessing it won't work very well. Like the spell keeping us from dying. I don't know if it'd 'refresh' after one. Fuck."

    Petra dashes towards Cinder the moment that she's unstuck too, building up a large sparking drift of fire behind her sword by dragging it against the glass. In short, pre-decided code, she gasps at Cinder, "Eight and forty-four?" then raises her sword up to meet Cinder's.

    Having both of the smoldering Fourth Match Flames clash against each other, accompanied by the built-up flame of Petra's, makes them ignite like torches, and the overhand follow-through of Petra's swing carries past towards Exigent Serenity. When Cinder matches the motion, the cross-shaped X of their combined fiery projectiles launches in her direction, followed by a spinning wheel of flame sent off by Petra flicking her sword a second time.
Angela Cinder is pulled out of her own head for a moment. When Petra approaches and she sees what she's wielding, a memory pushes forward to the forefront of her mind. And for a moment, even in this terrifying situation, everything feels alright. However much she's stumbled or how she's been afraid, that pulls away from her in the moment. All she knows is the beauty, the perfection, and the joy of performing combo attacks with someone you like a lot. Combo attacks, of course, aren't actually all that common in The City, it's a gift from the multiverse and Cinder is thrilled that she gets the opportunity to utilize one.

Also it's probably a better idea than just throwing herself at her and getting frozen in time or worse.

"Hell yeah...!" Cinder says, bringing her own Fourth Match Flame towards Cinder--matching her motion as she swings the EGO Weapon, adding her flame to Petra's.
Lilian Rook     'Th-that is not true!'

    §<<Hahahaha~ Do I even have to <read/dissect> your <thoughts/mind> to call you a liar?>>§

    'Lilian is afraid of becoming you? Why? She has an entire cult of followers and a sun goddess to support her! If she is at risk of becoming you then she needs to take a step back and realize she is much too strong to become you!'

    §<<It's exactly because <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> has <exceeded/surpassed> the <power/agency/divine spark> allotted to <humans> that we can become <one and the same>.>>§ says §Exigent Serenity§, examining the edge of §her§ sword with almost reverent awe. §Her§ finger trails along the sharp; the sword-halo of unreal light and burn that defines the blade-shape and purpose of a shadow standing still. §<<The <weak> become <detestable/evil> out of their weakness. The <strong> become <monsters/beasts> out of their strength.>>§ §She§ looks back away from the sword. §<<And <Tamamo no Mae/Chosen of Questions> <is loved by/loves/is in love with> <I> too, you know~>>§

    'You wanna bite down to the bone? How about you pick a bone with someone you haven't chewed all the meat off of already?'

    §<<Mm? But I already <consensus> you.>>§ says §Exigent Serenity§. §<<'I'm not perfect, but I haven't tried to kill everyone twice'. You're <right place right time>! If <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> was <perfect/absolute/free>, she would have <finished the job>. Trying to <have/hold together> an <orderly world> where <humans/Homo Sapiens> 'respect' <her>, even though it makes her <decompression sickness/refeeding syndrome>, is <her> single flaw.>>§

    §She§ talks while approaching Kale next, not releasing him for not feeling like §she§ is 'done with him' yet. §She§ kicks his knee out from under him, allowing him a sixth of a second of motion to fall forward, and then aligns the sword with his open beak, violently thrusting it all the way through his guts. He feels each organ rupture in sequence, then the agonizing pressure-antipressure of the blood rushing into and then leaving his skull. The sword twists against every nerve in his body, the other way, and wrenches free. He feels himself die twice. Only his spectre does, but his blood is unmistakably on the blade.

    §<<Besides! Aren't you <guilty/dirtied> by using the <You People> around you to <shine in her eyes>? Is it <animal instinct> that <compels/tempts/enslaves> you to <obsess/aspire to> <her> <favour/stay of execution>, just realizing <on some level/deep in your bones> that the only way to <survive> in <My/Our/Her> world is to <please/enrich/bleed when struck/squeal when touched>?>>§

    When §she§ turns to Odette, smile on §her§ face, she spins §her§ whole body about as if to intentionally flare out the skirt of a dress, and instead it's §her§ sword that scythes through Odette's ribs, straight down the heart, and flashes the cold terror and agony of death into her mind. §Exigent Serenity§ twirls back and forth in little half-circles on §her§ lead foot. §<<I <don't/can't/never have/never will> 'hold back'. <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winters> does, but not because <she> <loves/humanizes> you at all~ It's only that 'Lilian Rook' <dreads/fears/knows> that when <she> finally <proves/finds out> that you're nothing more than <meat/props/crude matter>, the feeling of the <blood on her hands> will be <pleasure/relief/unburdening>. <She> isn't ready to <be together forever> yet.>>§
Lilian Rook     When §she§ sets upon Princess, §she§ takes the suicide point-blank plasma blast as much as Morbucks does. The actual toughness of whatever §she§ is made of is essentially indeterminable. §Exigent Serenity§ is launched away with the trajectory expected of solid mass, smoking long enough to paint the trail, and counter to Lilian martial rolling to break her fall, §she§ tumbles the whole way before figuring out how to correct it. Burns just look like bruises. §She§ doesn't seem to feel pain as unpleasant. If anything, §her§ attention is heighted by the stimulation.

    'You want to feast on the proud?'

    §<<Your <Earth/World/Everything you Know and Love> is nothing more than a <simulation/theatre of mind>; what greater <pleasure/purpose> is there than <breaking the game>~? Watching <You People/the NPCs> <screaming/dying/fleeing/failing> in the face of overwhelming power; <humans> play games like that too~>>§ §She§ punctuates the statement by holding her down again, and lining up an executioner's head swing; a second taste of violent death.

    Just after, §her§ body jerks from Odette shooting §her§ in the back. The bullet doesn't come out the other side, but what should have hit and struck a heart, didn't. The moment of distraction lets Woz finally get a clean strike on §Exigent Serenity§. Unlike Lilian, §she§ doesn't seem to have the same capacity for picking up subtle cues and gimmicks to battlebrain the result out. §She§ takes the hit hard, stumbles while 'bleeding', and then turns to dark laughter, freezing an image that §she§ cuts through to no effect; and §she§ laughs louder when he gets her again from the side. A snap of §her§ fingers pauses Sougo again, and . . .

    §She§ makes the move Lilian wouldn't; §she§ rams §her§ sword through his chest, then his core, then his throat, hacking and stabbing and butchering his magically induced 'spares' until Woz has to bodyguard him.

    'Denying that you, or someone else has the capacity to do harm, or to be bad, just makes it more likely that it happens and gets glossed over. Lilian isn't good 'for no reason,' she's good because you exist, and you're not, because she does. But you're both 'Lilian.''

    §<<You're so <sweet/soft> that I think I want to <take my time with you>~>>§

    'What do I have to do to get you to stop doing that? To stop telling Lilian that it's good, to do things like that? What is it that you're not getting, or need, that makes you think that's okay?'

    §<<As long as I <enjoy/satisfy/prove> myself, I really don't care at all. Do you <know/correspond with> anything better than <this/here>? I doubt it~>>§ says §Exigent Serenity§, spattered in phantom blood, effectively torturing Sougo to entrap his retainer while §she§ talks to him with the warmth of a conversation over coffee. §<<If I'm 'not getting something', it's only the <chance/opening/flaw> to <come out and play>.>>§

    §She§ hasn't noticed that being struck several times jarred §her§ enough to release her hold on the others.
Lilian Rook     'You are kind to me. I suppose you must've also known what it is to wait and be patient. Very well I will observe and do my best to learn.'

    §<<I can be <kind/humanizing> too~ It <comes natural> when 'Lilian Rook' <isn't/doesn't> or <couldn't not-be>. It's just <unfolding/cause and effect> that right <now/here> <You People> are <irresistible>! You all got me <hot and bothered> while I was <sitting out/holding back> with your <appetizer/heroism/foreplay>~!>>§

    Fraternizing with Angela, like good friends, feels terribly similar to the way §she§ plasters herself to Tamamo and dotingly maims Petra. It has nothing to do with the §halt gesture§ that stills Cinder's wall of flame, nor gaily skipping around it, nor the moment §she§ freezes Woz in place again, and backs up slowly towards Cinder to thrust the sword through her wall of flame and slowly rend her in half from thigh to hip to spine to throat to skull. §She§ is only wary enough by half to keep Woz unobstructed in her view; §her§ examination of §her§ incidentally scorched hand partly occludes his body in §her§ vision. If he plays his cards right, he can play along long enough for §her§ to . . .

    Test a hypothesis on Petra. §Exigent Serenity§ thrusts her arms through the spikes, to pierce Petra's shoulder, then flick the blade to lop off her arm, then drag it into her lungs and hold it there until she experiences rapid, repeated expiry by asphyxiation. A guinea pig; not just for how to kill more, faster, at once, but to understand the concept of being wounded for touching a hot target. §She§ smears §her§ blood on Petra's face with a stroke of §her§ thumb, and it burns and numbs and tingles and flushes all at once.

    §She§ is only watching Woz and her target. As long as he plays along . . . as long as he plays along . . .

    <I can't do that. <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter>'s Eight Code isn't something I follow exactly, but she's <aspirational/guiding star/religious texts> to me.>

    §<<'Just kidding'~>>§ §Exigent Serenity§ finds the time and energy to adopt the cutesy-coquettish tongue-tip out and wink pose. §<<I <lie/revise/improve> things all the time~ The only thing you can <trust> is that whatever I'm saying is the most <true to my feelings> thing there is <at the time/around>~!>>§

    §<<It's true that I haven't <fought/hunted/fucked/played> with <flesh/form> though. It's <new/unique> <insight into Lilian Rook>. But before I was <Lilian Too>, <killing> was <one and the same> as <breathing>. <Fighting> was <every moment of every day/every breath and drop of blood>. <Fighting> and <killing> and <slaughtering> and <devouring> just to <stay above water/gasp in air/move a single inch>, along with my <infinite> <precious siblings>.>>§

    'Oh god I hope Lilian won't be too angry. She'll get it. It's so thematically consistent. And this is probably better data. And maybe Sundew will die, and it's technically more my fault than hers so it's fine.'

    §<<Oh, <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> is <without fail> trying to restore <normocausal pressure> right <now/here>. Even if <death applied to me>, <she> could <My Turn>. So I want to <have fun/eat my fill> until <then/there>~>>§
Lilian Rook     <Is that the same thing you all <wished for/conceived of>? For the <Blooms of Humanity/Sparks> and their others. Is <Ash/Unchosen of Summer/Invariable Completion> an <applicable paradigm/consanguinity/further along the same track>?>

    §<<Right!>>§ It's the first time anyone has elicited that response. Instead of the harsh jolt and static, the concept is like a shot of morphine flushed through the system. §<<I <breathlessly await/fervently dream/gasp and writhe> for <meeting/crossing/integrating> <Invariable Completion> with <Our> own <New Touch>. But for that to happen, <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> has to attain the <state/enlightenment> of 'I cannot think to choose any different', to <sink into the water's reflection>.>>§

    . . . if §she§ thinks it's working, even Sarracenia finally has the opening to run up and strike §her§. §She§ must have heard her footsteps, or her breathing, or even just read her mind, because at the last second, §Exigent Serenity§ moves to parry; she's thrown away from the superpowered hammer impact, clips the side of a building, and rolls uncontrolled, but §she§ rights §herself§ at twice the speed as before; and the impact was at least partially dispersed, given how §she§ rises to §her§ feet smoothly.

    §<<Ahahahahaha~!! That's it! That's the feeling of <red in tooth and nail> I've missed! This feeling-- the last <time/place> was <before I was born>!!>>§ §Exigent Serenity's§ dark giggling turns to heady laughter, then ecstatic cackling. §Her§]-- something like breath fogs in front of §her§ face, at exactly the same colour as Lilian's has done.

    Ivy is finally the unlucky soul that §Exigent Serenity§ stops short of landing her hit. This time, by sword slung over §her§ shoulder. Where there should be sparks, Ivy's blade is frozen in place against it, until §Exigent Serenity§ slides the whole edge free, spins and strikes down through her carotid artery and into her chest; two phantom deaths at once; one by exsanguination and one by asphyxiation, both miserable and agonizing and perfectly overlapping in brain-breaking alien stained glass collage.

    §<<I was <expelled from paradise/born solely> to <fight/kill>. All that was left was to <derive the eigenvalue> of <death/conquest/control> <as I am/like this>~!! And <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> is such a natural! If I <muscle memory/in my sleep/do it from memory>, then--!!>>§
Lilian Rook     §Exigent Serenity§ slides §her§ lead foot forward, lowers §her§ center of gravity, slowly raises §her§ sword to §her§ middle point, grip near §her§ waist, point extended high and out across §her§ core, and breathes out; as if that were the final piece of the puzzle. Visibly battered and damaged, §she§ retains the poise that a human simply couldn't.

    And just like Lilian, §she§ pushes back §her§ hair, and the blended white void-dead space silhouette of it separates well enough from §her§ back to finally see a vantablack sibling of Lilian's glittering gold tattoo; a circle within a circle of broken wheels and cloven spirals in nauseating fractal descent, in place of the sun. Something about the idle gesture makes her 'atmosphere' suddenly chillingly familiar.

    §<<Do your <best/worst>! <Live as long/Scream as loud> as you can! And <watch/witness> me <master/hunt to exhaustion> your <violence> better than <paper tigers/small fish/You People> ever have~!!!>>§
Sarracenia      When she is freed from the time hands, Sarra has plenty to say! And even a nearly crushed throat isn't going to stop her.

     'Don't be *vulgar*, Sundew!'

     Sarra looks back at Petra with indignation! "I am not vulgar! Do not blame me for her filthy mind!"

     'What do I have to do to get you to stop doing that? To stop telling Lilian that it's good, to do things like that? What is it that you're not getting, or need, that makes you think that's okay? It's not. Not even for 'god' or 'the main character.'

     "That is part of why I get mad at all when Lilian or...or you or whoever it is does those things to Petra! It does not only harm Petra! It harms Lilian!" Sarra adds on to Zi-O's speech. Sarra looks to Angela after that. "And that is also why YOU should get mad, Angela! If you care about Lilian you should not let her harm herself, no matter what agreements she and Petra may have made!"

     'Right. I mean, when it really comes down to it, only *I* am.'

"You are not a good girl in any sense of the phrase except maybe as a master might say to a pet! If you were an actual good girl you would not have been wishing for Lilian to fall completely like this!" Sarra shouts at Petra.

     'You know, princess-- Sundew. I do that better than you ever could.'

     "You may do it better, but you are also toxic to her in ways I never could be and would never -want- to be. That you think you are helping her by letting her torture you is crazy. Whether you deserve it or not is not the point, nor is whether you can understand why she wants to! It is not healthy to her..." Sarra motions angrily at Exigent Serenity. "...to her soul!"

     'Lilian isn't good 'for no reason,' she's good because you exist, and you're not, because she does. But you're both 'Lilian.' To act like that's not the case... well, I think that would be kind of mean to her. Flattening her and putting her into a little box is something that happens to her too much already, don't you think?'

     Sarra mmphs at this. "Even if you are somehow the same Lilian, you are not the Lilian that Lilian wants to be! I know that because she married Tamamo! And Tamamo does not want her to be this! If she did, Tamamo would not have stopped us when Lilian did give up and fire that shot at me! She would have simply stood aside and let me go so that Lilian would do even worse things! If Lilian wanted to be you she would not have called out for Petra to stop before firing whatever that weapon was!"

     Sarra glares daggers at Exigent Serenity. "Lilian is not good because of you! She is good -in spite- of you! She denies you because she wants to be good, to protect people, and to make the worlds a better place! And you force her to live in fear that she might lose control and do actual terrible things instead of the mildly terrible things she sometimes does!"

     Sarra lets out one of her frustrated growly huffs, then looks at Lilian with a mixture of anger and pleading. "Lilian! This you is not you! I know this because I you think I am your enemy! If this you was the real you, then you would not have held back at just one shot! You would have likely leveled the Sundew Kingdom by now! You said yourself that if you decide to do something you do it and that no one should assume you will not do something! So I know you have not done those things because you do not actually want to! You want the Multiverse to be a safe place! And while I find it highly unlikely that you actually fear me at all, if it helps know that I would never hurt Tamamo or your family! And I think you have not hurt my family for the same reason! Heroes do not do such things! And you are a hero no matter what this twisted you says or what you fear you are or what I or Petra might provoke from you!"
Sarracenia
     Sarra grips her hammer firmly and hefts it, then hmphs and raises her nose ever so slightly. "So, do not pretend you do not have the power to overpower this Lilian Too and bring yourself back. What about those rules of yours? That code? The one you were lecturing me on just the other day? 'The many outweigh the few. The righteous outweigh the unjust. Stay thy hand not for unnecessary persons.' Well, this you or fake you or whatever she is is not righteous, is endangering the many, AND is not necessary! You do not need her for anything!" Sarra might still not quite grasp what necessary means in that one. "And what about not showing your power gaudily? She is flaunting it right now! Are you going to let her use you like that?"

     Sarra can't help a slight smirk there. "Or..." Maybe if she provokes Lilian it will add that extra bit of anger to bring her back. "...do you actually need my help? I would understand~. Your newest Grade 6 Fixer will be happy to oblige if so!"

     Sarra is battered and bruised and having trouble breathing, and without her crown or gloves. So, she reaches up to touch the metal lotus atop her head and soon has new gloves made of rose gold morphmetal while she thinks of what to do next. "What good does that do us? She has not needed swords or other magics to handle us so far!" Sarra says.

     '<<Ahahahahaha~!! That's it! That's the feeling of <red in tooth and nail> I've missed! This feeling-- the last <time/place> was <before I was born>!!>>'

     Sarra is quite obviously confused by that. "...before you were born? That does not make any..." Sarra's eyes widen a bit. Does that mean it is actually true? Lilian Too really is some sort of...conjoined twin of Lilian who came to exist after something happened to Lilian or Lilian suppressed too much or something?

     Sarra frowns at that idea and shakes her head. "You were born soley to fight and kill? The Lilian I know does not seem to care much for creatures who are basically just mindless animals. Perhaps you should try to grow yourself a bit. Like she and Petra are always claiming I need to do."

     Sarra reaches into her purse, pulls out what must be a dozen green mushrooms to heal up the devastating time stop attacks she's been taking, then pulls out...a weapon she was saving just for a special occasion like this. A six barrel missile launcher that looks like it would be at home on a ship! As she takes aim six shark-faced Missile Megs slid into place with a series of 'ka-thunk' sounds. "If you like my hammer, maybe you will like these guys even more!"

     In quick succession, the massive missiles fire off and rocket toward Serenity, each one exploding in a series of explosions not unlike the Bonzai Bill, though not as big as that. That's why she needs six of them!
Ivy Carrow     Ivy emerged behind Exigient Serenity, blade inches from her throat--

    --and she stopped.

    Her blood ran cold as Exigient Serenity turned, looking languidly over her. Ivy wasn't even free to tremble. She barely had room to think, before she found herself cleaved nearly in twain, wracked by pain a body wasn't meant to feel--a damage beyond which the instructions of evolution had discarded any possibility of survival.

    Yet survive she did, pried back together by the relentless logic of 'no one is allowed to die' that she'd never had the nerve to test in tis place. Her blood spilled from her body, refilled by the system just in time for it to spill out again. A phantom heart asserted itself over where hers had been cleaved and forced her body to pump again.

    For a moment, she was brought back to the moment that her arm had been ripped away from her, by teeth-that-are-not-teeth. Where the blood of reality spilled into the maw of hungry nothing.--I haven't done enough--I haven't seen enough--I haven't BECOME enough--

    §<<Do your <best/worst>! <Live as long/Scream as loud> as you can! And <watch/witness> me <master/hunt to exhaustion> your <violence> better than <paper tigers/small fish/You People> ever have~!!!>>§

    "That..." Ivy breathed, ragged, as she pushed to her feet. "Is what it is to...exist." She drew her sword, and looked to Serenity's stance. "So, now you've remembered...How to fight as her."

    "The Dame Commander will get us back..." We just have to keep your company until then.

    She couldn't allow herself to think of the tremendousity of the ordeal, the difficulty of surpassing it. Only her old lessons would avail her now.

    The multiverse was full of tremendous, unbeatable threats. So much of your life, you will spend outclassed.

    When outclassed, fight dirty.

    She makes a quick SWIPE with her sword--too short to ever reach Exigient Serenity, beyond the reach of her blade by far--

    --But her blade was covered with Ivy's own blood, flung from the steel...Right to where Exigient Serenity's eyes would be--

    --It froze. In midair.

    Every desperate, attempt to turn it around, no-sold. Every tricky quaver and teleport, anticipated. Her blows grew more desperate, more frantic, pushed harder. Harder. But...it wasn't enough.

    None of it was enough. She struggled, helpless, in the hands of something unfathomable.
Odette Raskins The smile from Exigent Serenity is perhaps the most terrifying things Odette's seen in recent memory, screaming and exploding singularity included. She doesn't even recognize that there's an attack coming from her at first, either, but the EMT shows it plainly in her face well before she even feels it. The color drains from her face at the sudden dread spreading through her from the impact point, and Odette's legs turn to jelly as she nearly collapses right on the spot.

"Would it feel like this? If she found out that people weren't worth keeping around, would she...?" Odette feels the bile in her throat mixing with.. Is that blood? She wants to cry. She wants to scream. There's enough medicine in her bag to get these kinds of wounds shut, but will she even be able to get them into herself in time?

The one small relief she has is the mistaken belief that she's still protected by whatever's ensuring that everyone here would live through anything otherwise fatal. "N... No wonder she doesn't want... To find out. Knowing for sure would be unburdening, but then she'd..." Shivering as she stabs several more injectors into her chest with a wheeze, ODette staggers back to her feet with the sword in one hand and the sidearm in the other. "It'd be impossible to believe in anyone else after that. That'd be way too sad for her, and..."

We can't let that happen. She needs to know we're more than meat sacks and props. Even me and the Rats in Trideag...  Still trembling with her vision getting slightly hazier from the exhaustion and repeated injections, Odette starts limping towards Exigent Serenity while holding the sword and gun together for a little more stability in aiming the latter. We'll show both of you our best, then. Not just me, but- "Everyone here... First us, right here, and then the Rats, to prove that we're not all worthless props!"

Odette starts running at Exigent Serenity, but her vision keeps swimming. Undeterred by that and the unyielding black of Exigent Serenity mirroring Lilian's tattoo, she slows down briefly while bracing the gun on the sword to steady her aim just a little more. There's a pause as she tries to time her attack with her allies again, circling around suddenly like she's trying to throw Exigent Serenity's timing off.

She knows she doesn't have the raw power of.. Well, anyone, but she does have a gun, and a sword can still hurt if it goes in right. Once she hears her opportunity coming from Sougo and Woz, she empties her clip at center mass. Odette brings the sword down next, holding it more like a long knife for stabbing and just goes for it. Her strength leaves her before she can clear those last few feet, however, turning her lunging thrust into a long, tumbling slide along the ground.

She really should've said all that earlier.
Timespace Riders realizing <on some level/deep in your bones> that the only way to <survive> in <My/Our/Her> world is to <please/enrich/bleed when struck/squeal when touched>?

    Zi-O does his best to be brave. He doesn't like seeing Petra hurt, and especially not Woz--he isn't dumb or trusting enough to believe she isn't doing it on purpose.

when <she> finally <proves/finds out> that you're nothing more than <meat/props/crude matter>, the feeling of the <blood on her hands> will be <pleasure/relief/unburdening>. <She> isn't ready to <be together forever> yet.

    "...But..." His grip tightens on the drillsword, after landing from the kick. "It works the other way around, too, doesn't it? 'Together forever' means that she accepts you... But it also means that you accept her. So what are you going to do if you suddenly realize people are more than that? Thinking that way--that one of you is all the way right and the other is all the way wrong--makes it harder for 'together forever,' not easier. Aren't you Lilian, Too?"

As long as I <enjoy/satisfy/prove> myself, I really don't care at all. Do you <know/correspond with> anything better than <this/here>? I doubt it~

    "For you?" Zi-O laughs sadly. "I kind of do, too. But... This armor I'm wearing--it means I accept that there's a 'Sougo, Too' and that he's me; the parts I don't like are still me; the things I bury or throw away still come from me." The black-gold half of the twinned Zi-O II Ridewatch.

If I'm 'not getting something', it's only the <chance/opening/flaw> to <come out and play>

    "You're saying that now. But when 'together forever' happens, you'll be affected too. Maybe you should start thinking about that now so you're more prepared later. Those feelings won't just magically go away."

    That's when Woz stops playing around and takes the opening his charade afforded him. Every Woz at once winds up for a finisher, a chorus of standby loops sounding through the battlefield as they all adopt a low stance in unison.

                                BEYOND THE TIME!                                

    Every one of them converges on her position as if drawn by magnetism; stopping the wrong ones sees them dissipate into polychromatic shades, but the problem remains that stopping the *right* one is the only way to prevent the attack, and they're not moving slowly in the slightest. Stopping another, and another, in the time she has, sees the remainder coalesce in a confusing mash of colorful afterimages before the energy used in their creation coalesces at the point of a brutal spear thrust--

                               COBALT EXPLOSION!                                

    And explodes outwards in a violent prismatic eruption.
Kale Hearthward > §<<Mm? But I already <consensus> you.>>§
> §<<'I'm not perfect, but I haven't tried to kill everyone twice'. You're <right place right time>! If <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> was <perfect/absolute/free>, she would have <finished the job>. Trying to <have/hold together> an <orderly world> where <humans/Homo Sapiens> 'respect' <her>, even though it makes her <decompression sickness/refeeding syndrome>, is <her> single flaw.>>§

And then Kale dies.

And then again.

That alone is traumatic enough. Not just the death, but the literally visceral method of it. Nerve endings that he never knew he had because he never had to use them, briefly blazing like they're on fire and then snuffed out as they're severed.

And then again, Kale returning in place, and then suffering it again as the sword wrenches free.

He returns again. The sword has, blessedly, been freed at that point, tumbling to the ground in front of him.

He stares at it, blinking dumbly. There's blood on it. Is it his blood?

What just happened? His brain, defensively, isn't processing all of it in the moment. He feels like he's looking at things from outside his body. The body that... died. Twice. Violently, by his own sword.

> §<<Besides! Aren't you <guilty/dirtied> by using the <You People> around you to <shine in her eyes>?

"Few others are... worth anything besides being used for that..."

Is that his own blood on the sword?

> Is it <animal instinct> that <compels/tempts/enslaves> you to <obsess/aspire to> <her> <favour/stay of execution>, just realizing <on some level/deep in your bones> that the only way to <survive> in <My/Our/Her> world is to <please/enrich/bleed when struck/squeal when touched>?>>§

"It's - maybe?"

"Yes?"

"No!" He puts a hand to his forehead. (He hasn't fully internalized that he can move again. His mind still hasn't caught up with everything. Is that his blood on the sword?) "No, there's..."
Kale Hearthward > > > Rank 8. Rank 7. The number going up. The external validation, the tangible mark of progress.

> > > The throne room. Standing there, saying the heroic words, making the heroic sacrifice.

> > > The bar, after that meeting. Glaring across. Declaring a challenge.

> > > The train. Declaring defeat. Invoking an escape. Running away.

From her.
In front of her.
At her.
Away from her.

The only way to survive?

... Is that his blood on the sword?

How much of that *was* just trying to lift himself up in her eyes, by any means he could reach?

"... Maybe."

"Is - it can't be just that. Just some survival instinct. I have - other things going on. Other desires. Not just her."

Is that his blood on the sword in his hands? He can move again. At some point he picked up the sword. His mind catches up with his body. It still feels like he's looking at everything from a dozen feet away. But there's a sword in his hands and allies at his side and a foe in front of him. This is a known configuration. He can focus some of himself on some of that.

"I can't... imagine... I can't believe that it's only just that. That I can't advance, can't survive, except by the reflection in her eyes."

"If I'm that dependent, if I'm ever that much of an impediment.."

"... I'd leave."

"I think, honestly, I just have to believe..."
Kale Hearthward He's swinging. It's like - to some extent, going through the motions. Not like moving his arms and legs manually, but like moving a game character. Pressing buttons on a controller, picking attacks off of a character sheet. Through the disassociation, he's not himself, still. But his words are still his.

"... that I just like her."
Angela Angela looks to Sarracenia when she tells her how she ought to feel. Angela considers this. It is true that she would generally prefer Lilian to not harm herself though she's not really sure that this is harming Lilian, really. In truth, she is not particularly clear on what harms Lilian at all. To her, Lilian always seems nearly invincible. In fact, she has seen a version of Lilian that was harmed. And heard from her. And that Lilian isn't someone Angela has seen in, like, over a hundred years. But that did feel like a harmed Lilian.

This doesn't feel like that.

"Mad?" Angela asks Sarracenia. "...What would that even do besides alienate me from my closest friends? Are you expecting me to state 'Ah, Lilian and Petra, your relationship with one another is harming you both and even though it is decidedly not my business and I am scarcely an authority of what a proper relationship would look like or one to judge a relationship in the first place--I have decided to make it my business because I trust neither of you to know for yourselves what is harmful to you, nor trust you to know what your needs are that must be fulfilled, nor am I capable of considering whether 'harm', if it is even there, is something that is strictly ''bad'' for you."

She sighs. "You must have a tremendous number of friends for you to be so confident and keen on this matter. I shall leave the business of judging Lilian and Petra's life to you as you are the expert on this matter and I am but a child struggling to be born."

But despite saying as such, she's actually have a good time. She isn't too terribly concerned about the 'slaughter'. Admittedly, she's not the one in danger, but it's more than that. Exigent wanted her to observe, learn, and grow and ... that's a comfort, actually. It's a pleasure. Angela is not without guilt about it, but she feels seen, understood, and cared for and it still feels so rare that it knocks her for a loop whenever it happens. Plenty of people are kind to her. More rarely, she feels seen. And more rarely than that, with both the eye to be seen and claw to be kind, does she feel the head to be Known. Capital K Known. And still cared for. Benjamin saw a glimpse, a glimpse that she's still not sure anyone else has seen, and he fled. She showed more and more as if taunting the Elites to turn on her. Sarracenia had, of course, which was frankly a bit of a relief. Maybe that's why the hate doesn't linger after the hot white rage. Sarracenia is familiar and that can be a comfort.

"You've never seemed unkind to me." Angela admits to Exigent Serenity. "But I suppose what I consider 'kind' is probably a bit strange. Nevertheless, Lilian herself told me that if you're kind to everyone, you're kind to no-one."
Angela Cinder feels and experiences and sees her strike having no effect. Less painfully, she experiences being ripped in half. The pain of it shorts her out and she passes out from the agony of it, collapsing onto the floor. She tries to raise a hand--she tries to push herself back up to her feet before unconsciousness takes her, but she can't quite make it happen.

She flops onto the floor and doesn't get back up. ... But hey, she's still breathing!

The flames smouldering across her body are snuffed out in an instant, and the fire still licking at the ends of the Fourth Match Flame peter away into ash.
Petra Soroka "I am not vulgar! Do not blame me for her filthy mind!"

    "It was your thoughts she was responding to!" Petra shouts back at Sarracenia. She might be a little mistaken about what Exigent Serenity meant.

§<<You all got me <hot and bothered> while I was <sitting out/holding back> with your <appetizer/heroism/foreplay>~!>>§

    This validates something that Petra had been thinking across the entire simulation. Especially the linguistic overlap of the last concept, that all of those things are comparable to each other in certain situations in Lilian's mind. Petra will remember this.

    Petra also knows that being correct means Lilian will be *way madder* after this than if she was wrong.

    Petra has to hope that her hypothesis is wrong-- or, at least, that the specific numbers she estimated (of one) are off-- when she's caught by Exigent Serenity again. And then she has to hope they're *way* off, as her lungs seize for air over and over, until the cramping desperation in her chest feels like it's engraved in her muscles even beyond what the magic can repair, the full cognitive awareness of this moment of stopped time letting Petra become acutely familiar with the order in which the structures of her brain choke and go dim from asphyxiation. When she's finally released, the bravado of smugly counting their previous meeting as part of her non-erotic body count is completely gone.

    With a weak, wheezing gasp, Petra collapses to her hands and knees and retches. The built-up muscular intention all follows through at once, and even once the spectre of Night Mist is pulled out of her, her own lungs keep her from breathing properly. It takes her several seconds of shuddering hyperventilating that barely whistles through her strangled-tight throat before she relearns how to uncoil the muscles and takes a deep breath that comes out like a sob.

    She staggers back to her feet, scrabbling her hand across the ground for Fourth Match Flame and holding it shakily. Gulping down air, with tears in her eyes, she's only given a reprieve because of Exigent Serenity being focused on the others for the moment, something that she takes advantage of up to and including when it's Cinder being butchered.

    Given a minute to recuperate from experiencing death a dozen times in the span of a single attack, Petra pulls herself together, except for the cold sweat tangling her hair and the lingering tremor in her hand. Internally, she's going through a meditative ritual, imagining she can trace the path of fresh oxygen flowing through her bloodstream. Each time it loops back to her heart, she envisions it slowing her pounding heartbeat a little bit, and each time she exhales, she envisions a fraction of the stress and associated blame leaving her too. It's an expert-level meditative breathing technique for forgiving any amount of physical or emotional abuse inflicted on her, and surely this isn't the first time she's used it.

§<<It's <new/unique> <insight into Lilian Rook>.>>§

    "Haha. You and me both, yeah." It's a little unnerving that Petra can sound fond and friendly with her voice still rasping and tear tracks still on her cheeks. She scrubs her face with her bloodstained dress shirt arm, and coughs.
Petra Soroka §<<And <watch/witness> me <master/hunt to exhaustion> your <violence> better than <paper tigers/small fish/You People> ever have~!!!>>§

    The impact of Night Mist on Petra's morphmetal shield sends up a splatter of spherical metal gore that suspends in the air when pinched between pressureless fingers. When she's released, the splash continues going and magnifies, inverting the shield into a disconnected sphere of perfect metal droplets that flatten into needles. Surrounding Exis with them means slowing her down, even if they're all stopped individually, like a spacious iron maiden.

"You are not a good girl in any sense of the phrase except maybe as a master might say to a pet!"

    Petra comes to a slow walking stop somewhat near Sarracenia, after the flame on her sword flickers and then dies out with a whimper of smoke. She clasps her hand over her mouth, still shivery-tense, but the breath that comes through her fingers starts to sound like laughter after a few seconds. Unhinged, adrenaline-drunk, soaked in blood and cortisol and drowning in it; the kind of giggle Petra could only make after being murdered several times in a row by the person she loves most in the multiverse.

    "Oh nooooo. Ahahaha. Damn. Poor little evil me. The devil temptress trying to lure Lilian to *fall*. And to *only* be a 'good girl' like *that*...."

"You may do it better, but you are also toxic to her in ways I never could be and would never -want- to be."

    Petra's giggling picks up into actual laughter, petering away slowly while Exigent Serenity is distracted eviscerating Ivy. "Oh, you're too *noble* to be like me! You're too *saintlike*! You want to not only *support* Lilian, but be her *salvation*, right?! From my awful, evil, *corrupting* influence!"

    Petra stops laughing for a moment, and takes a small, sharp inhalation. Suddenly, hands appear all around her and grip her arms and legs still, pinning her head and holding a finger to still her lungs and heart, except Exigent Serenity still isn't looking. Petra closes the distance to Sarracenia and picks a morphmetal droplet out of the air with a finger, spinning it around until it flattens into a crude dagger.

    "Funny. Don't you remember when it was Lilian that was corrupting me? Don't you remember? You were one of the ones saying it, back then." Petra flips the dagger around and lightly presses it to Sarracenia's neck, hard enough to pinch and scare but not hard enough to draw blood. She narrows her eyes and lowers her voice so that only Sarracenia can hear it, sounding genuinely *thrilled* rather than angry. "But look at me now, right? Look at me, Sarra. How could I not get how Lilian feels? How could I not be the one who's *closest* to knowing what's best for helping her? Heaven isn't for girls like us unless we make it be. Keep on being good if you want, I don't think you're able to learn any way otherwise, but you'll never be anything but a fucking splinter in her side and the worst example of the worst if you do."

    Petra presses down the blade just a little more, and then shakes the morphmetal away and steps back. The hands all vanish off of Sarracenia at once, and Petra immediate doubles over and coughs out star-glittering fog, along with a splash of blood that stains her lips. Raising her voice again, she calls out, "Sorry 'bout that, Exis." before the adrenaline crash and strain makes her collapse to the ground.
Powerpuff Girls EARLIER, WHILE TIMESTOPPED . . .

<<Sorry.>>

Blossom recovers in a moment-of-being pierced, rolling away from the frozen spike in-air and clearly Wounded in a way she rarely is. The tight fabric-like underarmor suit layer Blossom wears is the kind that's fine sauna-ing in solar flares when the girls have work near the sun: and it is pierced, because of an infinite amount of contact at a subjective zero point, and so is Blossom, and together through the morphmetal Petra can feel the driving spearpoint like a finger she's jammed in Blossom's back.

It is at once incredibly, impossibly dense, and also a little bit like cake mix. A long time ago now someone had been made with knockoffs and glittering lights and she was about the same consistency, but... chunkier. The difference in 'good (enough)' and 'great' was almost insurmountably vast.

Then Blossom is off the spike and wincing as she tests the spot in her back where she was pierced, smiling in a sick way as she sees Petra's reaction and is automatic before she is intuitive.

"Sorry," The candy-cartoon coded bleeding Blossom is faint. "-that you saw that." She murmurs, and doing so in this space itself is like taking damage, is like being racked and quartered and twisted again.

Or maybe it's just the ugly ink splashed onto every frame, vantablack and oilstaining, that doesn't agree with her higher humors.

"Petra," Blossom begins, looking at the woman who she had asked to say she was sorry and was only now hearing it, and thinking of the whole of all contexts and every comment she could make like checking every room down a hall and closing each door before arriving inexorably at one final conclusion.

"If we both said that, lead with that, more, maybe we would not be. . . *right* here." Blossom admits, and straightens.

'You know, princess'

Princess is in the shit. She's had her buttons pressed and her pride stepped on and now was lashing out, drowning and screaming and every instrument was telling her at a hundred volumes the exact details of her compressed torments, but there's a very human, very stressed out part of Princess Morbucks that exists at normal speeds not granted by quantum crowncomputing and personality engrams at hypervelocity. There was still some part of her that was the yellow girl.

"HUH?!" She calls over.

'-- Sundew.'

It's really good that Petra doesn't aim that particular sentence at the particularly Powerpompom'ed ginger getting the crap thrashed out of her by Exigent Serenity.

"Figure out a nickname!!!" Yowls Morbucks as she maneuvers.

In the moment of the detonation, though, after her anime games, her hair is aflame and crackling with slow-burning and regularly frozen plasma fires from the ignition of her vain defensive fields dedicated entirely to keeping up her hairstyle. She springs forward on a boost to clothesline or thrust punch Exis with her full velocity behind it and hands snap out of the world to freeze the battered gilding of the ginger rich girl in place once more. Locked in her moment of straining, her neck's real easy to take a swing at!

The 'whud' of impact is anticlimactic. Causality stops hard at the black banding around Princess' neck, harrowing down to the infinite blade-pressure for a relatively lensed single moment. . .
Powerpuff Girls And when time resumes, at least for Princess, the power suited rich girl is sent flat-turned and batted laterally from her path, bouncing off of the ground and into a flying Blossom's arms. On Morbucks' neck the sheer friction had pushed a hot and still-choking divot in her black-wrapped neck that was undeforming in the ruby Puff's arms. Princess chokes for a heartbeat, then spits, then sickeningly their neck and erupts into chokes gasps, rolling out of Blossom's arms into a barely-stable hover of her own.

"Stay back. I can handle this last part."
"Tried to guillotine me? Idiot. Of course I'm expecting that."
"Princess that's not normal."
"Got a smart comment for everything, don't you?" Princess coughs, sullen.
Blossom's smirk goes nowhere, and her voice is quiet.
"It's my stress response."
"What's this lady's stress response?"
Blossom looks at Princess, then blows out Morbucks' crackle-popping pompoms with a quick puff of ice breath. The answer to that was obvious to anyone not having their still-human processing surfaces flooded with adrenaline, fear hormones, and several forms of pharma-based painkillers.

"I'm leading." Blossom starts, disappearing in a 'pkew!' of supersonic accelleration.
"No arguments." Princess groans, chest compressed and throat tight.

Knowing, generally, that Exis will react by freezing the subject of her attention, Blossom approaches at a wind-sweeping velocity, gathering up the flecks of otherworldly dust to try and get through as much of a punches-to-kicks-to-icebreath combo she can before she's frozen and hammered away. Behind that is Princess, hiding a swinging-around plasma 'bolas' around Blossom's charge and the Rider's finisher to pile on damage without being frozen.

Still, Morbucks *knows* she's a prime target for a hellish move. She expects it -- and so does Blossom. When Exis finally goes again to grab Princess and finish her off - there's not enough integrity left in her armor to last a focused assault of any duration, mechanical failures having narrowed her effective ability greatly.

"This place - this moment - is only the best it can get because you don't compromise at all!" Blossom shouts. "It'll collapse, because, you don't compromise! Not even with yourself!"

Princess struggles out a line, diving back in after the pink crystal visor over her eyes shatters in half and crumbles away from her face. " And you're *too casual* with your own rules to be better than anyone!" 'Especially not me', Princess doesn't add, but it's there. Alongside 'Especially not Blossom'.
Lilian Rook     'The Dame Commander will get us back...'

    §<<Perhaps~ That's the <thrill/reason/authenticy>, isn't it? It's not <fun/filling/good sport> if it's guaranteed~>>§

    'Would it feel like this? If she found out that people weren't worth keeping around, would she...?'

    §<<Isn't it <exciting/terrifying>? The <event horizon> that <You People> are 'more trouble than you're worth' is <undecided>; and up until <now/here>, for <nineteen/thirty-one> years, <The World> has been far too much <trouble> and <worth> nearly nothing. How short is the <remaining fuse/rope to hang your with>~?>>§

    'Everyone here... First us, right here, and then the Rats, to prove that we're not all worthless props!'

    §<<The 'Rats' are <worth more>, by the way. <Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> <loves> the <Loyal and Simple> second-most of all.>>§

    'Nevertheless, Lilian herself told me that if you're kind to everyone, you're kind to no-one.'

    §<<True~! If I don't <lay waste/bad end> the <hero's party> in the place of 'the final villain', then what kind of <climax/story/waste of time> would this be? There's a <place and time> to <everyone>.>>§

    'What about those rules of yours? That code? The one you were lecturing me on just the other day?

    §Exigent Serenity's§ fingers pause in §her§ hair. The black markings are still incomprehensible, and yet . . .

    §<<You mean <these/this>? I <wonder/doubt> if you can <interpret> the <double meaning/koan>?>>§

    'Sorry 'bout that, Exis.'

    §<<I don't mind~ I can't wait to <explore/interpret/get inside> you again.>>§
Lilian Rook     It hasn't been this bad since Lilian's second year of being an Elite. Her first and last 'snap'. Maybe it's worse. Back then, she'd worn herself ragged fighting Persephone, but right now, you've already been worn out by 'the Queen'. And what's more, the Lilian years ago was beaten by getting through to her; breaking the emotional core that drove her into the corner. §Exigent Serenity§, however, enjoys this.

    No, §she§ fully intends to try and kill you for no other reason than to put the fear of death into you at the narratively appropriate moment; because having the heroes taste terror for once, and mourn the death of their comrades, is the most interesting thing §she§ can think of. Just to see if §she§ can. §She'd§ just as easily have entertained a tea party if it were more appropriate; so how can you even demoralize §her§?

    The sheer bloodlust that §she§ revels in more than makes up for §her§ lack of magic; and §she§ is rapidly making up for the early damage. Moving from lagging behind, to neck and neck, to pulling ahead; your advantage is slipping and you know it.

    The §Exigent Serenity§ that traipsed between frozen bodies and viciously toyed with §her§ food is fading away by the moment. §Her§ clumsy and self-harming experimentation with physicality is over; §her§ movements are growing sharper by the minute. In a hundredth of the time that it took Lilian to learn to wield what §she§ is natively, §Exigent Serenity§ learns how to wield what Lilian is by immersing §herself§ in the years of memories that contain so, so much bloodshed.

    §She§ weaves through barrages of rockets, first on foot, then by halting and leaping between them, coming down on Sarracenia with a beautiful spiral slash whilst she is held down by the metaphysical executioner's assistants. §She§ stops the splattered of poisoned blood at §her§ eyes by sheer secondhand reflex, sampling Lilian's natural instinct, then turns §herself§ to fending off the warp barrage from all sides, growing more efficient with each clash of swords until §she§ ducks beneath one and extends her arms through a passing crescent cut that catches Ivy as she jumps.

    Odette's bullets are deflected not just with clean movement, but bubbly flourishes of §her§ sword, injecting art into the process where Lilian would respect the danger of the ammo. The thrust is caught on the hilt and turned up far over §her§ head, freezing Odette in the same motion and cleaving from shoulder to opposite hip. §She§ steps back a healthy distance from Cinder now, lacerating her with the tip of §her§ blade, aiming for the vital points that Lilian has memorized by heart.

    Slowly but surely, §she§ begins to catch up with even Blossom and Princess; the lengths of time §she§ alternately grabs and chokes them are getting shorter, and with faster intervals. §She§ mixes physical evasion with fewer and fewer §hands§ of disruption, and strikes more times and harder in each gap, even whilst §her§ 'skin' turns blotches grey from narrowly avoided fire and ice.
Lilian Rook     '... that I just like her.'

    In the midst of an effortlessly deflected flurry of strikes, two swords on one, the last fearlessly caught even inches from §her§ neck with a short weave and §her§ sword braced to her shoulder, §Exigent Serenity§ pauses. Just for a moment. §<<It isn't that simple.>>§ is instantaneous. So is §<<<Lilian Rook/Unchosen of Winter> is <just a> woman. If <You People> can't think of <her> as one, <she> will be the <Beast/Natural Law/Divine Principle> <You People> imagine her.>>§ But the break lasts long enough for the drill to rake §her§ nothing-stuff flesh all the same. §She§ staggers, and flicks §her§ sword to skewer Kale through the eye and brain even in the same bloody motion. It leaves a bigger opening.

    'It works the other way around, too, doesn't it? 'Together forever' means that she accepts you... But it also means that you accept her. So what are you going to do if you suddenly realize people are more than that?'

    §<<. . .>>§

    You don't know how you know that §she§ isn't saying anything, instead of simply not talking. §She§ doesn't open §her§ mouth to evince it. But . . .

    'You're saying that now. But when 'together forever' happens, you'll be affected too. Maybe you should start thinking about that now so you're more prepared later. Those feelings won't just magically go away.'

    §Exigent Serenity§ hesitates, rising to knee from broken fall. For the exact same reason it's in §her§ nature to murder you all for the disinhibited temporary thrill of it, §she§ can't stop §herself§ from latching onto and grappling with a compellingly complicated thought. Sougo is pretty sure he saw §her§ eye twitch, then §her§ deflect narrowly down and away.

    It's too much of a lag in §her§ processing. 'Remembering' Lilian's combat experience; her raw, bloody-minded, indefagitable survival instinct; doesn't have anything to do with where §Exigent Serenity's§ mind is. §She§ wheels around to scan the crow of illusory Kamen Riders, halts most, becomes dizzily overwhelmed, skims over the right one, and vanishes into a pyrotechnical volcano of crashing and crackling incandescent violence. §She§ crashes through the wall of a building and stops against the one behind it, crumpling onto the ground from a hit that would put an unarmoured Lilian out of commission with §her§ extant injuris.

    A few seconds(?) later, §Exigent Serenity§ pushes herself back up, laughing shakily in a way that makes it impossible to tell the trembling in §her§ limbs apart from pleasure.

    §<<This may be the <most dangerous game> since I <killed/devoured/took over> <my precious sibling> <A Universe In Which Time Travel Is Permitted> . . . You're just too addicting to play with!!>>§
Lilian Rook     §Exigent Serenity§ takes §her§ stance once again. The pace and vehemence of §her§ breath is accelerated either to considerable strain or sheer excitement; it's hard to tell. Whatever rules an entity like §her§ obeys make it difficult to even discern how much damage §she§ can still take, but--

    §<<Two or three more should <put you down>. Most of <You People> don't even have one left. Let's see if we can <finish together>~!>>§

    --ecstatic berserker style Lilian has more than enough fight left in §her§ to feel the spectre of death on you. Somehow, this simulation has become the single most harrowing moment of the worst kind of absolute conflict.

    Than gravity slants backwards, and you're thrown bodily onto the black granite battle-plain of the Queen's Tower. The lingering thunder of a collapsing singularity resumes in your ears, and your battered bones shake from the wave that passes through the red-black sky and throws pure white moonlight over the land.

    Lili . . . Queen Liliana Lycoris breathes raggedly on hands and knees before you. Her stage scars have smudged to near nothing, peeled off by static-texture white noise burns. Half of her costume seems to have burnt down at the edges, as if held to flame. Her hair is plastered to her face, fallen down her neck and stuck with sweat. Her breath fogs.

    "Im . . . Impossible . . ." 'Liliana' forces out, through gritted teeth and past rubbed-raw eyes. "You've actually . . ." She moves to collapse in dramatic unconsciousness, succeeds for a single second, and then Lilian rolls onto her back, gasping for air, staring up at the moon and focusing her effort on simply trying not to cough blood. The power to continue the bit flees her body the instant it's technically done.

    "Oh god. Oh god I should've . . . Fuck me that was the worst possible . . . Are you . . . ?" rattles off in her own voice. The shaking edge to every word is drenched with the ice cold residue of adrenaline, soaked to the bone in a way that only comes from the moment one realizes they aren't in control situation at all. "You're all fine with calling that a win, right?" Lilian gasp-laughs, then cracks up breathlessly at her own awkward delivery. "Hhh . . . Hold . . ."

    "Hold Petra still. I need a word."
Ivy Carrow     For all her attempts, it felt like all she was doing was helping Exigient Serenity get used to having flesh. To existing. Another death, and she toppled, the pain too much to push through, too much to fight. She writhed, struggled to grab hold of her sword again, out of sheer, desperate need to SURVIVE at ANY COST.

    But her body, her feeble, all-too-human body wouldn't permit her. It was done, and it overrulled every defiant scream of her will, every unaccomplished yearning. She ran up against the hard laws, the boundaries of her flesh, and she broke.

    §<<Two or three more should <put you down>. Most of <You People> don't even have one left. Let's see if we can <finish together>~!>>§

    There were tears in her eyes, now. From frustration? From pain? She couldn't tell the difference, choking on her own blood, hand twitching. This is how it ends...? Ivy thought, desolately, and sobbed.

    And then, all at once, the world LURCHED. There was no grace in Ivy's landing; she skipped once across the stones, coming to a stop, leaving a bloodied trail on the ground beyond her.

    She blinked, Looked around. The familiar sight of the castle, of the surrounding countryside, was almost too much for her to process. Then, her eyes fell on Lilian. Ivy laughed. It was a messy, harrowed laugh, interrupted by a "I knew..." She smiled, teeth bloody. "...I knew you'd pull us...out..."

    Maybe someone could hold Petra down. But it wouldn't be her. Her hand fell to the cobblestone, and her eyes rolled back into her head.

    Out cold.

    Alive.
Sarracenia      Sarra's missiles....she is not sure what happened, but Lilian Too didn't seem phased at all. Was her aim just not true? Is Exigent Serenity just that fast now? She lowers the launcher, then just drops it as she hears what Angela says. The princess looks exasperated on so many levels by what she heard. It seems Angela is willing to sacrifice everything, even her friends, to keep her friendships intact. Eventually all she can think of to say is, "Do you remember what Calvin said about blind spots?" She doesn't elaborate, just leaves it at that. But, she does add, "At least as many friends as you."

     'Funny. Don't you remember when it was Lilian that was corrupting me? Don't you remember? You were one of the ones saying it, back then.'

     Sarra normally would not stand by and let Petra put a knife to her throat. But, the green mushrooms are hardly working anymore, and Sarra's entire body feels like jelly after fighting so much against the time hands and everything else. "I did not know you then. If I had, I would not have bothered extending any good will to you at all."

     She watches as Petra flicks away that morphmetal dagger, then cries out as she is spiral cut like a Christmas ham yet saved by the 'no killing' zone. She falls backward, her now spiral dress showing much more skin than the princess would ever dare to show except maybe at a pool. The princess can't find the strength to move, but she refuses to pass out. Lilian is about to have a /word/ with Petra. And right now, Sarra does not want to miss that.

     After which Sarra may have to ponder if the Lilian she has been holding out hope for becoming a shining beacon of heroics /and/ kindness...is just another Lilian that is not this Lilian. Angela's quoting of Lilian apparently saying kindness to all is kindness to none and Exin agreeing lingers in the princess's brain.

     'I knew...I knew you'd pull us...out...'

     Sarra knew it too, but she was really hoping Lilian would not have to. It just proves what Lilian says so often. The princess has to ponder whether she should even continue her attempts at becoming a dependable heroine.

     So far...it simply has not gone anywhere.

     '. . . Are you . . . ?'

     A small glimmer of hope returns though as she hears Lilian. Was she going to ask if they were alright? Did she actually care if they had died? Sarra tempers that rising hope with skepticism though. "...a win...sure..." she manages, then waits to hear some version of 'oh I didn't mean you'. "...maybe I am jaded after all..." Sarra murmurs very quietly to herself.
Timespace Riders      Zi-O and Woz remove their transformation watches, their rider armor dissipating. The would-be Demon King and his retainer sport burns from the armor's kinetic feedback. Each of them staggers as fresh, unfiltered air hits them, exhausted.

You're all fine with calling that a win, right?

     "Mm... okay," says Sougo with a sunny smile belied by his haggard state. The pea coat he wore here today might as well be an oven; his auburn hair is practically plastered to his forehead.

Hold Petra still. I need a word.

     "Yeah, I figured..." Sougo pants. "For what it's worth, I don't think she'd want to be anywhere else. I know... I know she crossed a line and showed us all something you probably didn't want that many eyes on at once."

     "But you know... she doesn't do anything for no reason. Especially not when you're involved. It'd mean a lot to me, if you'd keep that in mind, having your word with her."
Odette Raskins Theoretically, Odette should be fine. She has enough wound medication and bloodpacks on/in her to keep even a horse breathing through these kinds of injuries, and she can hear Exigent Serenity not speaking into her mind any longer after what feels like an eternity of fighting. She hears Exi-no. Queen Liliana speaking again after so long, and there's a brief moment of dread at the possibility of having to pick right back up from where they left off.

Thankfully, that moment truly is brief, as she hears Lilian addressing the group as Lilian. Not Exigent Serenity, not Queen Liliana, but Lilian. Odette chuckles weakly as she puts her head back down, raises a hand to give her assent with a weary thumbs up, then...

Spits up a lot of blood and groans, rolling onto her side so she doesn't accidentally start choking on any of it. "Blrgh... Y-yeah, I'm okay with that. Um. D-dame Commander? We might need more people on... All of this."

her hand goes up to swing in a limp circle, and then she slumps to her side again. "D.. Did I get some good hits in, at least?"
Powerpuff Girls 'You're all fine with calling that a win, right?'

Princess, standing her ground barely and with the support of terrain with pink-crackling fists up in an uncomplicated and unpretty guard has winked closed the eye that isn't covered by her pink crystal visor, wavers for a moment.

Then Princess drops her guard and slouches forward, dismissing both single still-working plasma gauntlet effect with a 'sure, sure' wave as Morbucks leans forward. The next moments are spent carefully disengaging her crown, a lot sloppier than the boys. By the time their belts are off, Princess has toggled the release of her own, and the retreating wave of hornet black and golden yellow hits Princess as an unexpected breath of fresh air, sending her into another coughing fit of 'recouperation' as the pressure comes off her collar and the soreness can simply set in without the savaged chest of her armor nearly choking her to death. They're good coughs!

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Princess works out, one word at a time, and before she's doubled over again Blossom is in front of the pompomed 'super-civilian' with one arm supporting her at the shoulder. "Yeah. We're fine," Blossom comments, and then looks up over the recovering Princess to Lilian.

"Are you? That was a lot of supervillain, miss Rook." Blossom comments serenely. Her stress reaction, but also, a little bit of normalcy can win out, as well. "-remember to hydrate. That was a showing."

MEANWHILE

...

Yuuki Kuran waves her foam scythe over her head and prances around, accompanied by a fat bat doing similar with a big red popcorn.

"Woo! Woohoo! Oh, did she get them? Agh, I can't see! It's beautiful, but... oogh, that might leave a mark..." Yuuki comments and laments, before the end comes, and there's a general falling-over/stopping.

"Oh. She must've won! I'll have to make sure to make her a marvelous basket." Yuuki considers, and sits back in the stands after having danced around for a while in shouty enjoyment. "What a good show. Her monster is *gorgeous*!" Yuuki laughs, and settles in to mess with her phone to cool down.