Scene #9168: Eighth Match Flame

Owner	Pose
Petra Soroka	Lobotomy Corporation is a big place. Like a warship built on one budget and operated on another, laden down with the uncountable trivialities necessary to account for when there's no way to enter or exit, there's a thousand hallways designed with architectural or functional purposes that simply didn't pan out in practice. People streamlining their routines avoid some locations and prefer others, and before anyone knows it, a hallway might only see one set of footsteps a month, and rooms might be untouched for a year. This is where Petra is: a facility in the Training Department that hasn't gotten use in the past year, granted privacy by the lifeless settled-ness of the dusty stacked chairs lining the hallway outside, like it's a concrete cube floating in the middle of nowhere. The room is set up for EGO weapon training, but the concept sucked badly enough that no one ever uses it. Batting cages, now rusty with their black paint peeling, lined up with mock standees of Abnormalities at the far end that launch projectile attacks or get attacked in turn. Since, with the general state of abandonment and only a month remaining in the lifespan of Lobotomy Corporation, today is likely the last time this room will ever be used, Petra feels fully justified in burning through all the remaining stocks of standees. --Literally, since she's here to test out her Fourth Match Flame, along with Cinder. An old peeling standee of the Magical Girl of Love is propped up opposite Petra at the far end of her cage, giving little canned crunchy audio lines ("In the name of Love and Justice-- here comes magical girl~!") before firing off a glowing projectile from the automated launcher behind. Petra slugs it with the EGO sword when it gets close, slicing it into two flaming comet trails that clatter against the fencing. "Hell yeah, nice. I'm getting the hang of it. You wanna take a few swings too, Cinder?" Sufficiently isolated rooms also mean you can totally smoke inside and no one will get mad at you. This gives Petra an opportunity to practice the most important trick of all: trying to light a cigarette between her lips with a swipe of Forth Match Flame, without burning her face off. It's not easy; and she fumbles with the sword length a bunch.
Angela	Giving Petra more EGO might seem like a waste of resources since most people can only handle a small number of them at one time, usually one weapon and one armor, but Petra is one of the few people who can handle an EGO without any of the negative reprecussions so providing extra EGO that would otherwise be gathering dust in a closet is an efficient use of resources. Angela's been uneasy. It has been a long time since the last Meltdown and Hokma has been taking his own sweet time to do whatever plan to fuck everything up that he has. She wants it to be over with already. She's reached the point where the joy of being so close to being free, SO CLOSE, is being outweighed by the impatience of there still being work left to do--made worse by the fact that she'll even end up free at the end is a hope and a gamble rather than a confirmed victory she just happens to be inches away from. She has to believe, she tries to believe so hard because of Petra's reassurances but it's hard to maintain that confidence for this long. She's so close. And so she has no reason to object to a training period--not that she even has to be the one to be gone to about something like this. Hod will naturally give the goahead and then proudly declare herself good at her job before meekly worrying about whether she's doing a good job. Cinder, who is still stuck with her EGO Gear because she only has the proper sync-rate with Fourth Match Flame, is thrilled at the idea of training together and she arrived, full of smiles. "This'll be great," She says. "I've never used this training room before... But I do know you gotta be careful with projectiles because even if you intercept them with Fourth Match Flame you might just turn them into small fireballs rather than knocking them out of the way..." She says this as if she's experienced something like that before. Cinder's eyes go big and wide when Petra slices a beam into two flaming comets that spill across from her. "Yeah that's perfect!" She scooches up to get into position. "Sure sure I'd love to and--oh wait, Petra--" She draws out her own cigarette. "Let me show you how I do it first. You don't want to use the full length of the sword for that, it's too much fire and you'll burn your eyebrows off--!" She puts her own Fourth Match Flame in her scabbard and then flicks it partially up with a finger, releasing a small spark that Cinder uses to light her cigarette. This STILL seems like there's at least some risk to burning one's eyebrows off but this might just be something Cinder has accepted as a worthwhile risk. That done, she redraws Fourth Match Flame and gets in position. "It feels like nobody's been in here for years... I guess, uh, ''Love'' really is an old Abnormality. Or was." She brings fourth Match Flame down and gives it a few experimental swings as if she were really up for bat.
Petra Soroka	"Oh, right, right, that makes sense. So, like..." Petra slides Fourth Match Flame into its scabbard to mimic Cinder. She puts her hand on the hilt and lowers her stance in focus, as if she's a samurai ready to end a duel in a single blow, purses her lips to waggle the cigarette around and get a feel for it, and then in a swift, decisive motion, flicks the blade up to spark off the scabbard and-- Yelps, when the spark goes wide and flies towards Cinder instead. Instinctively, she tries to block it with her hand, then whines and cups the small burn against her chest. "Fuck, fuck. I almost got it. Next time, I'll, like, turn away from you." There's other cages Petra could keep using, but she takes a step back and lets the fence gate swing shut to watch Cinder and keep trying out the cigarette trick. As the launcher revs up to start flinging projectiles at Cinder, and the standee winds up Love's Arcana Slave chant (the audio quality makes it hard to tell, but it absolutely sounds like some random clerk was reading and recording these lines for an old project of Hod's, rather than getting them from Love herself), Petra stares at a smoldering splinter of wood on the Queen of Hatred's face. "Yeah... I bet Ange wouldn't have signed off on something like this even a couple years ago. I've seen the Info files and all, but it's still weird to think about... Love being here, like this. But in another way, it kind of makes perfect sense." "She sort of moved on from here, and, I mean, soon enough the rest of us will too. All this... weird junk that no one ever uses, there's probably no one who'll use it after us. This room'll be empty until the facility falls to pieces, so it's like, it feels right, a bit, that we're also torching these old-ass target practice dummies of Love." Cl-click, she flicks another spark out, and this one just flies too far from her face for her to catch, and she swears. "... It's weird. Do you get sentimental about, like, buildings?"
Angela	It IS a bit like how a samurai would do it. Cinder isn't exactly a samurai but she has unintentionally borrowed some of the posing. Cinder would like to seem like a cool hero, or at least a hot one, but she struggles with confidence sometimes--less due to insecurity so much as a vibrant understanding of just how incredible the people she gets to fight alongside with are. And sometimes that means she's just grateful she gets to stand on that same stage as everyone else. Sometimes it feels like she's gotten lucky and just got promoted one level beyond her means. She says, "Woops--!!" As a spark flies to her. She reaches out herself but Petra beats her to the punch. Cinder winces. "Yeah I burned myself a few times before I really got it. But it's so cool when you get it right, right?" She supposes that Petra's resilience to EGO may be working against her here since it makes the use of them less intuitive than to someone whose mind is getting dug into by the echoes of the Abnormality that lies within. Cinder squints a little, feeling like she's heard that voice before back from when ''she'' was a clerk. Cinder may not have the best EGO Gear but she's nearly perfectly attuned to the Fourth Match Flame. She deflects away projectiles from reaching her, largely through cutting through them, adjusting her body's position like she definitely remembers getting clobbered by 'burning remains' in the past. "She's going to be free soon, so I imagine she sees this as an opportunity to maybe not have to be as strict as she used to be. She probably doesn't want to get out of here with everyone hating her--they probably will already to some extent--I don't know exactly how she plans to do it but I doubt they planned for it. She's already this world's enemy whether she wants to be or not. And I know she can't exactly call me ''friend'' until after she escapes. So I hope she gets to. She was a little scary at first, but I feel like I've really gotten to know her over the past couple years too. She's just doing her best like everyone else." ''She sort of moved on from here.'' "...She was one of the Abnormalities that would do a ton of damage to the facility if she breached, but I know Central Team still really misses her. I'm glad she has a future now." ''That we're also torching these old-ass target practice dummies of Love.'' "Yeah... Burning away the past so we can move to the future. That's how it usually is, even if it's a bit sad too sometimes." ''Do you get sentimental about, like, buildings?'' Cinder cleaves through another projectile and it falls apart around her. "Well I was sentimental about my village. And I guess I was even weirdly sentimental about my home in the City. Like my memories there were mostly awful, but it was still a iittle sad to leave it." She sighs. "Those comfortable beds... I got used to them without even wanting to. But the sleep piles ''are'' better, you know? It's gonna be weird not having those anymore. It really gave us the sense that we're all in it together."
Petra Soroka	"She was a little scary at first, but I feel like I've really gotten to know her over the past couple years too." "Mmmhm. I got to know her best when everyone still said she was a little scary. I'm glad people are nicer to her now, but... well, really, I'm glad you like her. Everyone else can kind of fuck right off." "I'm glad she has a future now." "Hey, she's just got the same chances as anyone else now; not every girl gets a future." Petra coughs, taken aback by how grim that sounded once it actually exited her mouth. "Er-- holy shit, that was dark. I'm just a bit worried about her, ever since... yeah. She's a sweetheart." "Like my memories there were mostly awful, but it was still a iittle sad to leave it." "Yeah... I mean, it's not like we're all going to stop talking to each other, but everyone's going their separate ways, you know? Nonon and Shajo're going to Apple Tree Island. Angela's plan is to travel, though obviously I'll be, like, hanging out with her where I can. And... do you know where you'll be going afterwards?" Petra leans back against the concrete wall, grey with a streak of black water damage, leeching warmth from her body. Talking in this context makes the ever-familiar smell of bleach (and dust, and smoke from Fourth Match Flame) feel more acute than in the background, as if she could get sentimental about that. "The sleep piles, the dorms... I mean, even the Sephirah're going to be scattering too, right? What're we going to do without Malkuth to yell at us to stop lazing around? It's like, sure, you know... Lobotomy Corp kind of sucks, and the work's insane and evil, and kind of everyone here's been tortured at some point, but..." "Even though we're keeping the best parts of it afterwards, I still feel like I'll miss the worst parts too. Like, you know, all the shitty creepy stairways that make you feel like you're gonna get jumped any minute, and everyone talking as we wait for the elevators because they're so fucking slow, and the gross cafeteria food and everything. Like, fuck, I hate when Nonon wakes up the entire fucking dorm wing by shouting something stupid, so why do I feel like I'm going to misss iiiiit!!" Petra whines the end, semi-sarcastically, and gasps in exasperation and wipes at her eyes. "I'm such a fucking crybaby, god. Just, like... I know we're keeping the people, but people and buildings are, you know, synergistic. People are made more or less people by their buildings. So it still feels like, losing something."
Angela	''Everyone else can kind of fuck right off.'' "Do you think they'd stick by her even if she has to be 'scary' again?" Cinder wonders. "I mean, I wouldn't want her to get used to fairweather friends either." She takes a breath and lets it out slowly. Not that she'd say she really has experience with that kind of friend, but she has had experience with friends in that general vicinity. ''I'm just a bit worried about her, ever since... yeah. She's a sweetheart.'' "Since she lost her memory again? I think she can rebound quickly but ... Well, she escaped before you started working here really, but she was the kind of Abnormality who'd look like everything was fine, would act like everything was fine--until suddenly things were really not fine. It's not like a light switch but it can shift really fast. It might be good to check on her but I think if most, um, LobCorp employees went they'd assume it was for retrieval." Which wouldn't really be an out there expectation. The odds are that Ayin and Angela just don't want to risk the project by trying to take back someone who has befriended Elites. They're so close to the end, adding any additional risk factors is a no go and their Enkephalin reserves should be steady for the last month of operation. ''Petra speaks to the various ways everybody's going to split up.'' "...Yeah, I want to travel too. I mean, we already do that, but... GOSH... The world is so much bigger than The City, you know? I have the freedom of the multiverse now, I don't need the freedom of the Outskirts. And it's beautiful out there. And weird! And fun. And sometimes dangerous, but only sometimes. I hope we get to see plenty of places together." She misses another projectile and her hair nearly catches fire from the energy bolt. She quickly pats it out. ''Even the Sephirah're going to be scattering too, right?'' "...I dunno what the Sephirah are gonna do... They never seem to talk about future plans that much. Or, um, at all. I used to think that maybe they just figured they shouldn't get their hopes up but..." She trails off uneasily. "...Do you think ... They might be hiding something? ... Like, about their plans? Or... maybe their lack of plans? Malkuth keeps talking about getting to ''rest'' soon these days and whenever I ask Hod she gets this guilty little look on her face..." ''Even though we're keeping the best parts of it afterwards, I still feel like I'll miss the worst parts too.'' "Heh... I get that. I mean, change is scary. I think even Angela's a little worried about what will happen even though it's all she wanted. But it makes sense right? ... Getting what you want can be a little scary sometimes. It might be hard for her to adjust to suddenly having the infinite open to her. I mean, I'm sure it'll take some getting used to for me too! And I've been going out more than she has." But it's more than that, Cinder realizes. It's not just not the unknown, it's the absence of the known. The familiar. "...You really thrived here, didn't you Petra?" Cinder asks, smiling. "You really did a great job at your job here and--the work was practically tailor made for you. But even those moments where things kinda sucked--they were... I dunno... ''real'' I guess? I don't know if it's making any sense. I don't think it's... " She lwoers Fourth Match Flame. "Hey...it's okay to get sentimental about it. You spent a while here with us and..." She pauses for a moment. "Hey want to... try and make up some combos?" She does step away from the 'plate' to move towards Petra.
Petra Soroka	"Do you think they'd stick by her even if she has to be 'scary' again?" "Yeah," Petra says immediately. "But that's worse. I'm scary and they still try and stick by me. As long as they can pretend it's not about them, as long as they can pretend they've got us on their side, or on a leash, or that they can gamble on being right, they'll stick. It pisses me the fuck off, because they still don't know anything." "It might be good to check on her but I think if most, um, LobCorp employees went they'd assume it was for retrieval." "Well, that's just another part of the job that I can only depend on myself for, obviously." Petra says it half-jokingly-- it's checking on a friend! A kid that she's very specifically fond of.-- and realizes how Lilioid it sounds a moment later, and also, how true that dynamic actually is within the relatively small pond of L-corp. She folds her arms and broods for just a second, then puffs out air and swings the gate open to swoop into the cages with Cinder. "...Yeah, I want to travel too." "I mean, like, specific places? Buying a camper? Goals, stuff to do? Ange's got this whole, list, you know, and... it's coming up real soon, right? I'm gonna have a ton of free time too, and I don't really know what I'll be... huh, and I'll have Elite stuff and you won't anymore too, right." "...Do you think ... They might be hiding something?" "Ehh, I mean, even Malkuth's gotta take some time off after a psycho time loop death facility. And Hod's guilty because she's always guilty. I know how she feels though; like, losing your opportunity to be useful when that's the main thing holding your brain together sucks. I'll really need to grab her after... or maybe even before." "...You really thrived here, didn't you Petra?" Petra distractedly tap-taps the blade of her sword against Cinder's while they're both lowered, getting entranced by the little bursts of sparks that the contact makes. She drops the tip of her sword to the ground and leans back against the cage fence with a little bounce on impact. "Yeahh... I kind of did, didn't I? I don't really know how I feel about that. I mean, I like the people here. I like Hod, I like Ange and you obviously, I like plenty of the guys in Extraction and the clerks upstairs and everything. But...." Petra sighs heavily, groaning. "I swore I'd never work a fucking corporate job, and this literally is one, even though there's the Abnos fucking it up. So you'd think I could at least say that I won't miss the work, but if I think about that for a bit too long, then I kind of feel sad about that too! Fuck!" "Hey want to... try and make up some combos?" "Oh, oh, yeah, hold on-- let's-- no one's gonna check this room again. Let's open up some space." Rather than cramming two people into one batting cage, Petra excitedly lifts up her Fourth Match, turns to the side of the cage, and swings it down to sever the fence separating the cage from its adjacent one. She kicks it, hard, and the melted edges tear off and the wall falls over with a crash, doubling the size of the cage. Petra cackles with delight, and swings her sword around. "Hell yeah, that's why we love the Fourth Match Flame. Ready now, let's double up on Love and turn her to ash."
Angela	"Heck yeah you're scary." Cinder says, lets face it, flirtatiously. "Getting people to know--and knowing--that comes by pretty hard sometimes huh..." In truth, Cinder isn't really sure ''she'' knows. She thinks she has gotten something of an understanding over the years but she's still always learning. Philosophy. The majesty of the world. The suffering some people have unfairly went through. The meaning behind words. And she can't help but weirdly worry about Love. Oh she doesn't have the same relationship, but she hasn't done a Magical Girl lesson in ages. That, in of itself, suggests SOMETHING happened even if she's not sure what. ''Specific places? Buying a camper?'' "I definitely want to try camping but ... Well, there's so many places it's hard to just pick one. Maybe I'd just pick a random portal someday and step on through--er, after I confirm that it's environment isn't like immediately deadly..." She looks back to Petra. "Oh! Yeah, she had mentioend a list. I don't have one of those but... I want to go to places where there's a lot of nature. Maybe even ''new'' nature, a natural world I haven't even experienced before. Going back to the village made me realize how much I just miss going to like a woodland area and just wandering for a while. Maybe I'll start with parks and then move onto more out there worlds." ''I'll have Elite stuff and you won't anymore too, right.'' "Well I won't be sent off by LobCorp anyway. I might not be able to keep Fourth Match Flame so I'd have to find some new way to adventure if I want to keep that up.--Should I keep it up? Elite work, I mean." While Cinder only really knows a couple of the Sephirah well, so when Petra assures her Hod is just always like this and it makes sense for Malkuth to 'rest easy' for a bit... "That might be a good idea." She admits. "She probably needs to be reinforced now and then." Most people do! But Hod probably needs it a little more than average. She watches the sparks bursting off her blade when their swords' tips touch. It's giving her an idea.
Angela	Cinder actually isn't sure what to say about ... kinda missing the corporate job despite never having wanted to work at a corporate job. Cinder has only had the one job, so she's not really any more experienced than Petra in this arena. But after being quiet about it for a while, a thought does come to her. "You know... Not everybody, but some of the people who came to work fopr LobCorp did so because they wanted to make a difference. I came here because I wanted to feel ... ''real''. Like I was living a real life because living in a Nest started to ... take away the things about me that I felt made me ''me''. And I'm still recovering from that, actually. I am still not nearly as decisive or angry or proud or strong as I used to be. But meeting you and--working here... I feel like I started to get some of that back. And yeah, it's fucked up, and yeah it's corporate but for all its flaws as a company, the relationships we made here--the work we did--It was ''real''. And it's partly ''real'' because you made it so. If it wasn't for you, maybe we would've simply been living in an illusion forever, but that realness--and even that dream, however warped it became--it still ... it still means something. And losing that--even if it's because of the project's culmination and Angela's freedom--that still means something too. And it's okay to be a little fucked up over, like, a chapter of a story closing. I know how much you care about arcs and--well, this was one, right? It might not be the arc you expected, but you had one here. I did too. And... even the parts that were just kind of...in the background of that story, they were still a part of it, and they were still real. Even the waiting for the stupid elevator." when Petra destroys the cage, Cinder lets out a wild laugh. She kind of digs destruction of property, it always sends a thrill through her--even if nobody's going to CARE about it--there's still something...delinquenty?...about it. Living, perhaps. "Yeah, it's a little harder to control but I think we can light our Fourth Match Flames against one another and make like one big fire slash. You ready?" Unfortunately for however much Love might be, well, cared for...the cardboard cutout version of her shall receive no mercy!
Petra Soroka	"--Should I keep it up? Elite work, I mean." Petra groans and leans back, fingers running through her hair. The conversation she had with Lilian comes up to her mind again, and makes answering Cinder's question momentarily overwhelming. "I mean, I don't know. 'Elite work' is like, such fucking vague nonsense anyways, isn't it? Like, should you go conscript yourself in some random foreign war because people in the Concord, which you aren't part of, are sponsoring one of the sides? No, because that's total insane bullshit, right? But that's Elite stuff." "I feel like-- I feel like it'd be wild to keep it up, wouldn't it? Like, go on adventures, don't lose touch and all, but..." Petra trails off, and then words spill out of her mouth, only realizing that they feel true as she says them. "I feel like you'd just die if you threw yourself at everything. And it'd be for no good reason at all. You don't really need me to tell you that part, I think." "And yeah, it's fucked up, and yeah it's corporate but for all its flaws as a company, the relationships we made here--the work we did--It was ''real''. And it's partly ''real'' because you made it so." This, though, is something Cinder understands well about Petra. She softens into a smile, droopily thankful, and squashes her cheek on Cinder's shoulder. She sighs, one-armed lean-hug letting her absorb the warmth of Cinder's EGO suit. "Yeah. I did really make a difference here. I mean, it'd have been worth it a million times over even if all I did was walk in and save you that first time, but... I don't mind the follow-through. It's nice that the numbers say that I was valuable, and, like, nicer that the people do too. Maybe I... should feel worse, about putting myself in a situation where I'm not forced to grow as much, but...." Petra takes her cigarette out of her mouth and flicks it across the room. She exhales slowly, streaming smoke, and watches the little ripples of heat make it dance around in the air. "It feels like L-Corp's the end of that in more than just one way. It feels, a little bit, like this was a... 'pause', a little relief period I'd get, before everything starts... happening more. Not that it was easy, but working here was... comfortable, and rewarding, and normal, in a way that I don't think things ever will be for me again. It's not a career. It's the plane I'm skydiving out of. You know? I think I'm happy with that." "Yeah, it's a little harder to control but I think we can light our Fourth Match Flames against one another and make like one big fire slash. You ready?" Petra huffs and stands up straight, drawing her Fourth Match Flame in a streak of light. "Alright! Let's fucking go. This is that shit Xion recommended-- like, flint and steel off each other, then throw that outwards? I got it." There's a bit of finagling of sword angles and speeds, figuring out how to hold them against each other while close together without it being awkward, as there always is when trying a combo attack for the first time. Eventually, they figure out how to slot the EGOs together naturally, hold their arms out, and after counting to three, the Magical Girl of Love is incinerated in an arc of fire. Excited, Petra immediately tries to come up with the next option. "Oh! How about, like, do we want to name them? Like-- 'Eighth Match Burst', or, something silly like that? I mean, we have to have a signal in combat for each other, and a name is just proper for something like that. I can see how we'd do it at other angles, too...."
Angela	''Elite work is like, such ucking vague nonsense anyways, isn't it?'' "Yeah, I guess I more mean like--adventuring. In general. You're right, I don't work for Concord and... Well, I don't know if a purely peaceful life is for me even if it's not, like, a life with ''fighting'' in it--I need at least a little risk in my life. But I don't want to die either. I mean, I did kind of--for a while--want to go out in a blaze and glory just to ''mean'' something, but I don't want that anymore. I mean, I don't ''need'' that anymore either. I'm happy and--well I haev bad days too, I mean, and I still get sad sometimes but all in all... I'm happy." She, after a moment of hesitation, kisses Petra on the forehead. "Yeah, you saved me." And she doesn't want to shit on that by letting it go wrong and bad. ''Maybe I... should feel worse, about putting myselfi n a situation wherE I'm not forced to grow as much, but...'' "Hey you grew. Maybe not in the way you expected--but I get what you mean. It was kind of a 'rest' spot all the same. But resting--I mean, even you need to take breaks now and then. Something has to take you up into the air before you can leap out of it. Maybe this 'fall' will last a really long time, but don't--hah--burn yourself out I guess. If you do, you'll miss out on more change in the longterm." She pauses. "But part of that flight is the Beauty of Ash, right? Like, I know it's an old friend but even if I don't get everything I can tell that it really means a lot to you and that you coming together right now is the start of something new. Not just a reclamation of the old." She nods with a smile. "I hope everyone else feels similarly--maybe not using the same words, but ... ready to start something new. I think the worst thing that could happen is if people still feel chained to Lobotomy Corp even after it's no longer needed. That's not what everybody says everything was all for, after all. The whole point is to no longer need it. Or even want it." Xion recommended combo attacks? Cinder brightens. "Gosh, Xion's the best." She says. "Yeah! You goti t!" It takes time to properly work the two blades together but they manage it! Cinder squeals with excitement! She's a pyromaniac, you know, so of course she knows the one thing better than one wave of flame is two waves of flame combining into one super flame. "Eighth Match Burst...!" She cheers. "Or maybe something with Flare in the title? ''Flare'' just sounds epic, right?"