⚡ 15th zap | video/action ✼ back-dated to the 27th ⚡

[i_am_not_cute]

[In the late morning hours, the face of an androgynous-looking girl appears over the journals. Despite the bruises and scratches marring her face and exhaustion weighing down her eyelids just a tad, she's smiling brightly at the camera from somewhere outdoors. She does sound distracted, though.]

Hey, everyone! I guess I'm here again. Geez, I wonder how long it's been...

[She doesn't specifically remember what her last month here was. All she has is a general impression that it was chilly then, which is no help.]

Maybe it's been so long that no one here knows me anymore, huh? In that case: my name's Pao-Lin and it's nice to meet you! Hope things have gotten better since I left.

[The cheer fades from her countenance a little as thoughts of elsewhere stain her slowly returning memories of Luceti. She shivers a little, though that's related more to the cold than to her mental tangles.]

Well, I'm gonna go get some clothes. I'll be in the plaza if anyone wants to talk. I really wanna see everyone again!

[She really hopes that there's at least one of her old friends around. Normally she'd be okay with being by herself, but...not right now.]

***

[After Pao-Lin finds clothes more suited to the cold, she shuffles to the clinic to get her injuries checked out and properly treated if need be. Once that's dealt with, she visits Seventh Heaven to answer any replies she might have received while wandering around. (And to get a couple of bites to eat, of course.) Finally, she'll check that her old apartment at CH7 -- whoops, the Heart Building -- is still free. (Whoah, there's an elevator now?! Thank goodness. After the beatdown she received while fighting that old NEXT geezer, she really doesn't feel like walking any more than she has to.)]

Comments

Action

[i_am_not_cute]

A Malnosso working with the Third Party?!

Action

[windandrain]

Well, that is a long story. But the short of it is that Zompano was insane, and the Malnosso tried to kill him. Do you remember a mission where residents were sent to perform a play?

Action

[i_am_not_cute]

[Nodnod.]

I was on that mission! We were going to Rata...Rater...Rattata Keep.

[.......uh.]

Action

[windandrain]

Ratteran or something, I believe.

Do you know the woman Syre, a former resident?

Action

[i_am_not_cute]

No. Was she on that mission?

[Oh, hey, there's the extra dessert she ordered. Sweet! Pun completely intended.]

Action

[windandrain]

She was. She died on that mission, since the ultimate goal she told me was to deliver Zompano to a Third Party Shaman.

That...failed. He just joined the enemy.

Action

[i_am_not_cute]

Huh? I thought the mission was just to gather information on him... So there was another mission on that, well, mission?

[She pouts a little. This was getting a little complicated for her preferences.]

Action

[windandrain]

Yes, it was a double mission, I'm told.

Regardless, Zompano didn't die. He returned and rewrote our memories. But...we broke that curse somehow.

[She was never clear on that.]

And then I killed him.

Action 1/2

[i_am_not_cute]

[Pao-Lin stares at Saori a moment, her dessert momentarily forgotten. That was not what she'd expected to hear during this explanation. For a moment, she's disappointed with Saori for such a brutal decision. Just because people come back from being killed in this world doesn't make it right to kill them!

And yet...they were at war with the Third Party. And Zompano had apparently joined the Third Party. And people got killed in wars, and had to kill, didn't they?]

Action 2/2

[i_am_not_cute]

[There's an awkward, tense silence before Pao-Lin finally says:]

Did he come back?

[windandrain]

[It wasn't a decision Saori would have made given the choice. That fight had been among the most brutal she'd ever been through. She'd been angry, but her anger never manifested as homicidal rage. She preferred to keep valuable enemies alive, contain them. She'd not been in her fullest state of awareness, her internal balance had been off, and she had only known about the lightning at the time.

And Yuuna had been in danger. That was what she'd known at the time.

Her fist clenches, anger flashing behind her eyes.]

Yes. He did.

[i_am_not_cute]

And did he threaten Luceti again?

[windandrain]

Yes. On a draft, we believe.

[That...Saori's demeanor shifts when she mentions that, a shiver running down her spine.]

[i_am_not_cute]

Another draft, huh...

[It's definitely one aspect of Luceti life she doesn't care for.]

[windandrain]

The worst one yet.

[Saori lays her palms flat on the table, clearly struggling to make the words come out.]

Does the phrase...Shift Bomb mean anything to you?

[i_am_not_cute]

[A slow headshake.]

I don't think so...

[But it must be bad if Saori looks this distraught.]

[windandrain]

It's a bomb that uses the shifts I mentioned.

[A beat.]

It makes people stay dead. Gone, forever.

[i_am_not_cute]

What?! That's --

[Awful, she wants to say, and it is, but...that's how it is in most other worlds, right? She shouldn't feel this shocked over it. (Luceti is so, so confusing for her sometimes, and not just in terms of the rules it plays by.)]

[windandrain]

Wrong.

[Saori finishes the statement.]

But that's not the real worry. You know how the enemy would...sacrifice people? To the planet?

[i_am_not_cute]

Y-yeah?

[Actually, Pao-Lin either didn't or had forgotten about the planet part, but that's not important.]

[windandrain]

The Third Party made a bomb...that could do that.

[She just says it straight out, letting that hang in the air there.]

[i_am_not_cute]

[It's hard to believe that the news could get worse.]

But...isn't the Third Party...I thought they weren't good with technology and things like that! How could they make a bomb that would sacrifice people?

[windandrain]

It was dark magic, Pao-Lin. Not any technology. A ritual meant to power a device...with evil energy, the magic of death.

[i_am_not_cute]

So it was a magical device that...

[She can barely wrap her mind around this.]

...how many people got sacrificed?

[That's how this ends, right? Why else would Saori look and sound so grim?]

[windandrain]

Everyone who was on the draft. Myself included.

[It's all she can do not to just break down then and there, sobbing. It's taken her ages to move beyond that, her temporary death. When one's greatest fear is just that...acceptance does not come easy.]