Like Lightning, Part 6/Interlude 2: First, Do No Harm

(Cowritten with HoodedPitohui.

Also, this gets pretty solemn and grim halfway through, so be prepared)

---

You would think figuring out how to transpose the abilities of your avatar of a super high tech VR game onto your real life body would be the pinnacle of strangeness for a person’s life.

For Elsa Kanzaki, it had been the start of a plateau of strangeness.

This had to be a winner, though. If you’d asked her what she thought she would be doing today three or so days ago, she would not have ventured being a doctor’s aide.

Well, that was a very loose description. And it had taken some twists to get there.

First, she’d been pulled back to the Teapot. Another job? Great, the last one had been a ball and a half. Then when she got there, she found out it had been cancelled. As a consolation, Dawn had given Pitohui something new to add to her arsenal, which was nice and all, but she knew Dawn had some really, REALLY amazing weapons tucked away that she was darn curious about.

“No. You’re deadly enough already. I’m not giving you a gun that fires an invisible head exploding force beam.”

“What about the larger-”

“THAT weapon super-increases gravity in a very localized area. But it doesn’t sight like a normal gun. You fire it wrong, you’ll crush yourself, or an ally, or something in the background.”

“I’m not seeing the problem. Collateral damage is all part of the fun.”

“You have exactly proven my point.”

So, back home then? No. Dawn thought she might have something down the pipe. Might as well keep Pitohui around for the moment…

Then an hour later, she needed everyone out of the Teapot. What WAS this woman doing? Whatever it was, it was in such a hurry that Pitohui wasn’t sent home.

Instead, she got bundled in with Joy’s group, and sent to her homeworld. And was told to basically chill unless they really needed to leave or were called on again.

Joy seemed annoyed Pitohui had been shoved in with her group, but accepted it. Bernard didn’t care, though his guest was more welcome. She’d adapted to the insanity of his life and what it connected to remarkably fast...then again, she was almost always drinking, so, maybe a constant buzz helped there.

Joy’s world was, from her first hours, a LOT like her video game in a lot of ways.

It was a crazy patchwork, for one. Medieval farming could be down the road twenty miles from a high tech cyber-city (though Joy said that the former were a LOT more common than the latter). And like a video game...there were monsters.

Not that said monsters bothered the group. Oh no. Pitohui did that herself, running off after the strange felines with jagged bone manes had popped out of some woods, decided Joy and co were not easy prey, and retreated.

“Pitohui! Get back here! You’re not Stream trained and we don’t know the level of danger in this area!”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha! You don’t have to worry about me, not a bit. I’m just playing with the cute little kitties. Besides, I’ve got a pretty good intuition when it comes to danger levels,” Pitohui said, a sarcastic tone on her final two words. She had, after all, been an avid gamer. Danger levels were no foreign concept to her, even if this world was decidedly not a videogame level. “I know what I can handle.”

At least until the bone-cats had set her on fire.

They hadn’t breathed it either. Their eyes had glowed, and suddenly she was ablaze, before Joy threw her coat over her and drove the monsters away with gunshots.

“Because if you’re not Stream trained, you don’t have any way to counter beasts that can tap it as well.”

“Psh,” came her reply, as she spat out the smallest bit of scorched hair from her mouth. Joy’s swift action had kept her from receiving a whole lot worse than just some minor singes from the fire. She’d been through worse, too, so being set ablaze, while not what she expected, didn’t bother her too much.

“Right. Right. Fiiiiine, I’ll stay on track for now. But, if there’s something piques my interest, I can’t say I won’t go chasing it down. That’s what I’m here for, right? I thought I was contracted to hunt monsters.”

Pitohui tilted her gaze upwards, losing herself in thought for a moment. “Hey, you know, you could just teach me that Stream junk. Can’t be as fun as a good gun, but you use it with your guns, right? If you’re so worried, what’s stopping you from giving me a lesson or two?”

“The fact I’m a lousy teacher.”

“Neeko disagree!” Joy grimaced as her attempted point was destroyed. “Look, I don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here together, so maybe I will. But for now, we’re heading home. We can’t have you running off any time you see something that strikes your fancy. This place is just an unprotected forest. There’s a lot worse.”

“How far the Woe?” Neeko said.

Joy paused. It seemed like she was trying to sense something.

“I’d wager over a thousand miles overland that way, if you want some rough numbers.”

“Good.” Neeko said.

“Wait, what’s the Woe? And what did you just do?” Shun’ei had caught up by now, Meitenkun having stayed behind with Bernard and his own guest.

“You been near the Woe, you can tell where it is.”

“What’s the Woe?” Pitohui said.

“Megan’s Woe. The worst place in this world, maybe. We are not going anywhere near it. Trust me Pitohui. Some places are best left undisturbed.”

“What makes it so bad?”

“You been down near Green Hell in Olympia? How the place is just broken and WRONG? The Woe is the same. Except worse. The last time a Kobber went there, he brought back a copy of the worst evil that’s ever walked this world and inflicted it on the Kobbers. And they were damn lucky it was a pale shadow of that...woman.”

Elsa had always been good at concealing her expression. She had to learn how, being the teasing flirt that she was. It was more fun when they were left guessing what you were thinking and feeling. But if there were one thing she never could conceal, it was the shine in her eyes when something grabbed her attention, the very shine Joy might have taken notice of as she explained the nature of Megan’s Woe.

Instantly, Pitohui launched into probing questions, trying not to play her hand too much.

“I’m guessing you mean Megan, if the place is named after her. So tell me. What’s her sob story? There’s nothing better than coming to the aid of a lonely, longing woman in her hour of need.” Pitohui’s penchant for the dramatic and the patently untrue shined through once more. “I’d pay her a visit. Imagine it. Us two women who found each other in this cruel, fleeting wasteland of a world!” Her gestures were almost as grandiose as her ego, her performer side coming out in full force.

It got her a dope slap upside the head from Joy.

“Megan has nothing to do with the area. She’d been dead for years when it got ruined. It’s named after her because she set things in motion by accident. She never saw what her name got attached to, nor did she deserve to.”

“...so what happened?”

“Megan had a lover, he was a magician, she wanted something special, he went into some new territory of discovery to get it,which was MOSTLY harmless...he wrote the process down, others built on it, then others twisted it and went into horrible places, and then it climax’d with a bunch of the biggest Blackbirds ripping that part of the world apart with magic so bad that it’s broken on every level there is. Megan’s Woe is the name that stuck. And you are not going near that place. You might never come back. In more than one way.”

“My father…” They’d been pulling Pitohui back to the road, and Bernard had clearly been listening in, Kozue drinking a bottle nearby while looking at some flowers. “Told me that hell is just a word. That place...is.”

“The place is hell? Then I don’t care what you say. I want to see it. I’ve been called the devil before, and this devil’s gotta take her place as the rightful queen of hell, ahahaha!” After laughing at her own joke, Pitohui snaps herself back to the matter at hand with a sudden thought. “Guess I couldn’t stick around anyways. I do have to get back to Olympia at some point. Too many commitments. But, c’moooon, Merilee. Don’t you know what it’s like to explore? You’ve still got some sense of fun in you, right? You don’t even have to come with me. Hang out outside, let me poke around. I’ll be out in half an hour, and if I’m not, you come get me. It’s not like you couldn’t handle whatever big bad monster’s gonna jump me, right~?”

Click.

Joy’s gun was now against Pitohui’s head. Only the sheer unexpectedness had let THAT happen.

“Elsa. I will say this once. You will not be going there. And if you try, I will kill you and ship your body back to Dawn who will, upon your revival and repair, remove the information from your head.” Joy’s voice was low, cold, and to Neeko, Shun’ei, and Meitenkun, clearly terrifying. “I am not saying this to try and big up the place. The Woe is not a place to do anything except run from. Are we understood?”

“And if she can’t do it, I will.” Bernard said. His voice was, somehow, even worse.

“...hey hey hey hey!”

It was only Kozue, Bernard’s guest, that was unaffected by the sudden immense tension, as she wandered over.

“Look okay cool, you both got real big sticks. Why don’t you offer a carrot as well?”

“...fine. But my vow stands.” Joy lifted her gun. Neeko was looking very unhappy behind Joy; she’d accidently brought the place up, after all. “Pick something else, Elsa. I hope that brain in your head is not going to look for an excuse to end up all over the ground.”

Pitohui had learned plenty of lessons in her time with the Kobbers, one of those being that it was better to not antagonize Joy whenever it could be helped. Not just because Joy could kick her ass - albeit, not without a hell of a fight - but also because she had already done Joy wrong once. That was a thought, like so many others, she didn’t like to dwell on. But there was nothing that could be done about what happened. She could only work on being more cooperative and friendlier now.

None of that, however, stopped her from glaring daggers at the cowgirl, from staring her down with their eyes locked. She was also rather annoyed at Joy using her real name. She’d found it out by accident: Neeko had somehow picked it up from some sho’ma viewing and spoken it to Joy, not getting that it was supposed to be a secret.

After a tense moment, a smile crept across Pitohui’s face.

She’d go with it. And while Joy knew her name, it was clear she knew nothing about her other side, nor did she care to find out. To her, Elsa was to her as Merilee was to her usual handle of Joy. Nothing more. And so...

 “Fiiiii~iiine,” she whined, with the expression and tone of a spoiled, pouting child. “I won’t run off into Megan’s Crying Corner, but… you’ve got to do something for me, right?” Pitohui, not against teasing Joy, strokes the cowgirl’s chin with her hand. “If you wanna entertain me, you could give your girlfriend,” at this, she gestured towards Neeko, “a little peck. C’mon, what’dya say? I need something with some emotion to keep me entertained.”

Silence.

---

Well, that had been interesting.

And it did seem that Joy regretted taking such a harsh stance against Pitohui, if just because it had upset the others.

So when they’d stopped for the night at a roadside inn, Joy had knocked on Pitohui’s door past midnight.

“You want to hunt so bad? There’s Horrorsworn nearby. They’re not very good with the Stream, but they’re damn hard to kill. They’re just keepin’ to themselves for now, but the ranks of the dark one’s soldiers never stay quiet forever. Better to off ‘em now. Bring every weapon you have.”

Luckily for Joy, Pitohui had never been one to have much of a consistent sleep schedule, so she was ready to go at the first offer of something to pass the time. “Hey, if you’re offering, I’m not saying no. You give me just a sec, and I’ll have enough to mow down an army.” Indeed she did. Not just her usual assortment of weapons - her KTR-09, her .40 XDMs - but a few new toys she had picked up over the past few months.

Getting the last of her gear, Pitohui, without looking up at Joy, poses a question without any of the usual sarcasm or playfulness in her voice. “So, what’s the sudden change of heart? This just practical? You figure if you let me blow off some steam here, it’ll keep me from running off later? Or is there more to it?”

“Little of all of it. There’s three kinds of dangers in this world. Beasts, Creatures, and Fiends. Beasts are animals, maybe with a little extra muscle or brainpower. They can live natural. Creatures have a leg in both worlds. They can live natural but also seek unnatural things. Those Needlemanes you encountered were them. Then there’s Fiends. Fiends are completely alien to everything. They fit in nowhere. All they can do to any system is break ‘em. And there’s special groups o’ Fiends that Xaxargas’ generals made. They’re all dead, but their work persists. The Horrorsworn are one of ‘em. Undead monsters, all mess stitched together to kill and poison. Maybe, just maybe, when you see what I’ll take you to go tangle with without any hesitation, you’ll get an idea of why I am so strongly against the damn Woe.”

“Fiends, hm? Don’t fit in anywhere and destroy everything? Sounds like I should make their acquaintance. We’d get along just fine.” Pitohui’s words were more than a little betraying of the fact that there was more going on in her head than just bloodlust, a hint of sadness. Was she going to tell Joy anything about her woes, though? There wasn’t a chance of that. Instead, she starts moving out, following behind her mission partner as they set out to get some hunting in.

“You know, I took you for smart. You think letting me go toe to toe with these Horrorsworm’s going to make me want to check out that place any less? Look, at deal’s a deal. I’m not going to rush off in there or anything stupid like that. But, I’ve gotta be honest. I’m not all that hard to read. You know this is only going to make me want it more, don’t you?”

“All I can do is try.”

“Eh. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”

---

Joy called them Boneyards.

Pitohui was familiar with zombies and the concept. In the end, Boneyards were that...except all of them were as big as a bear. And that was their normal, unaltered size.

Because when they came, their bodies ripped open. The flesh and muscles of arms and legs slid down, the head rising even higher on the spine of the creature. Despite vital framework having been turned into glorified extension cord, the bodies of the creature were completely unimpeded.

Joy had given Pitohui some warnings, but she’d had to test them. Joy was right.

The exposed lengths of bone were not a weak spot. In fact, they were so resilient that they resisted her plasma sword. When Pitohui later complained that no amount of calcium or any other mineral could resist a hyper-concentrated beam of heat, Joy had simply said something about “The Waste doesn’t care what your science says.” The Waste being, Pitohui gathered from later questions, the ultimate expression of the dark manipulations that had resulted in the Woe.

They were also not rigid. They bent and contorted like rubber, refusing to break. It was like fighting a gorilla crossed with Slenderman, with the added ability to throw body parts as weapons.

She gritted her teeth. Having to fight something so resistant to everything she could throw at it? Not exactly fun. But, hey, if there were no challenge, then it wouldn’t have been worth the trip. She didn’t even bother with the Photon Sword except when the things came too close for her liking, not after finding out how little use it was. She didn’t need melee weapons, though. She had plenty of guns, after all.

At first, as the beasts approached, she stuck to her KTR-09, the assault rifle laying down a hail of bullets with the right mix of power and spread… well, for a moment, at least. She couldn’t exactly aim all of her shots with it, so she wasn’t so much hitting their weak spots and stopping them as she was slowing them down just enough to study how they fared under fire.

She frowned. Better than she would have hoped, clearly. With the beasts close, she traded her assault rifle for her plasma sword and leapt back a ways. She wasn’t exactly looking to retreat or run away. No, if she did that, they’d be on her faster than she could prepare for. She just needed to put a little more space between them and herself.

Enough space that she had the necessary moment to breath and to break out her M320, the grenade launcher. Were the things a little less resilient, she’d have switched to a gun that gave her a finer degree of control over where she was shooting, and she would have opted to kill them all by focusing her firepower on their weak points. She couldn’t, though, so she had opted to settle for the next best thing. That is, blowing them to bits. Between the grenade launcher and her plasma grenades, she wasn’t lacking in the capability to do that, even if they were proving far more able to handle even that than she would have liked. Most beasts, even the toughest, would give up the fight when you blasted half of their mass away. These were not most beasts.

Of course, she wasn’t getting them all. No, some of the beasts managed to draw close enough - even if some of them were only a fraction of what they had been before she started firing away - to get a hit on her. But she didn’t complain, didn’t flinch. No, getting attacked was what made the hunt fun, she was laughing as she came under assault. For a few hours, it became a game. She’d blast away and cackle at the carnage, some of the creatures would slip past and get close enough to her that she’d have to go at them with her plasma sword or pull out her pistols and keep shooting at their weak points until she could get them to slow down enough that she could bring them down. On a few occasions, she tore, as much as she could, into weakened monsters with her bare hands, more than happy to take the pain for the thrill of getting up close and personal. Eventually, the numbers would get too high, and she’d be forced to roll, leap, take any maneuver she could to back off and reset. She fell into a rhythm of it after not too long, the biggest worry on her mind being the difficulty of ensuring she didn’t pull out a plasma grenade at the wrong time and blow herself up while throwing it at a nearby foe.

Were the beasts easy to take down? Not at all. Her ragged breath by the end of the night’s hunt, along with the bruises and scars and gashes that ran up and down her body, made that clear enough. Still, as she wrapped up her hunting, she approached Joy with a swagger in her step, one which, alongside her genuine exhilaration, masked, for the most part, her exhaustion.

“Wew! Now that’s the way to work up a sweat! You’re not going to hold out on me forever, are you? We could hunt something tougher, come out here every week for a challenge. It’d be good training, don’t you think?”

“...You had to kill the lot of them eight times because you kept missing the weak point at the base of their back.”

“...really?”

“Yes. They kept re-animating back together. They’re all permanently down now, though. So better late than never. Come on.” Joy had produced a hammer and chisel. “We’re going to crack their skulls open. Look for small red stones. They’re valuable.”

“Ooh, loot-hunting! I like it! Just how valuable are we talking? Can you make anything with them, or are these things just good for selling?”

“They’re used to power the charms and protections that keep these sorts of things from invading towns, homes, and whatnot. Well, unless they’re a Harrower.”

“Harrower?” She was starting to look almost bored, realizing the fun was all over, but she kept some interest in what Joy had to say. “You’ve got things roaming around attacking settlements? Must be a rough life.” Her voice had a playfully mocking tone, Pitohui knowing all too well that she would have fit happily in among folks who had to defend themselves as part of their everyday life.

“Ah fuck.” Joy realized she’d stuck her foot in her mouth again. Or rather, stuck an idea in Pitohui’s brain. “Tell you what Pitohui. Harrowers are incredibly rare, but if by some chance we encounter one, I will happily let you run off and fight it.”

“...how quickly do you think it would kill me?” Pitohui said, reading between the lines.

“...twenty-five seconds.”

“That’s a tempting fight if I’ve ever heard of one...” She was bluffing. Pitohui still held a fascination with death. That hadn’t changed. When Joy pegged the time down to less than half a minute, Pitohui felt chills - the good kind, those of excitement -  go up her spine. But, still, she had learned that Joy didn’t mess around when it came to these kinds of things. Sure, the cowgirl sometimes underestimated her abilities - at least in Pitohui’s eyes - but that didn’t mean that her advice was completely worth ignoring. If Joy was trying to keep her in line, she probably had good reason for it, one beyond just pragmatism and a focus on expediency with regards to the mission. Pitohui didn’t say a word more as she continued scavenging for gems with the cowgirl, content to let Joy read between the lines as well and decide for herself what Pitohui had meant.

---

Maybe Joy had wanted to scare her. But if she had, Pitohui didn’t show any signs the next morning.

It seemed like that was the last bit of excitement she’d be getting, as well. Because as she discovered, she’d been pulled along to an esrtwhile family and friends gathering.

Purely by accident, at that. Dawn still needed them gone, so she’d quickly found Shimmer and Voyd and taken them to Ashworld, Joy meeting up with them, well, joyfully, Neeko even moreso. And just to feel even more of the odd man out, another two hours journey took them to a pair of cottages on the lake, where the family was.

Joy’s family, that was. Neeko knew them, even Shun’ei and Meitenkun knew them somewhat, and Bernard vanished with Kozue at some point. And so Pitohui, while not unwelcome, found herself at a semi-party where she didn’t know anyone.

Well, sort of.

She knew Ash.

In an extremely roundabout sense. She’d encountered a computer simulation of him. This was the real deal, hence he’d never met her. This Ash was a good twenty-five years older, a touch more solemn, and a bit wary of Pitohui.

Ash may have been wary of Pitohui, but she made clear from the start that she wasn’t at all wary of him, greeting him with a friendly-if-somewhat painful slap on the back. She rested a hand on his shoulder while greeting him, as if he were an old friend. She really preferred to think of him as such, if only because she wasn’t interested in letting her thoughts linger on the night she opened up to a machine.

“Hey hey! There’s my Ash! How’ve you been doing? So nice to finally meet ol’ Guns-N-Roses’ old man!”

 “...beg your pardon?” His voice was rougher than the one she remembered. She’d later see a nasty scar on his throat, a wound gained between the time she’d seen and now.

"Oh, it's nothing. Don't worry yourself too much over it. I've got an eye for a man with good sense, that's all. And you have to have good sense, if you've survived in a place like this so long. Doesn't look like it's been too kind to you, hmm?"

“Father is the greatest hero this world has ever seen! Those who have been unkind have been erased from it!”

That would be Sunny, the very ANIMATED and off the wall daughter of Ash. Biological, in her case. She looked about fourteen...and like a rainbow had vomited on her. After she stuck her finger in an electrical socket, as her hair was standing straight up, like she’d wanted a mohawk but hadn’t wanted to shave her head.

But as soon as Pitohui turned her always-a-tad-too-feral grin towards her, her exuberance vanished and she retreated behind Joy.

“Don’t worry about her. She doesn’t bite. Hard. Or much. Dad, a word?” Joy pulled her father aside. Sunny kept her distance from Pitohui, still wary.

Pitohui, for her part, mostly kept to herself while Joy and Ash spoke. She was trying to survey the scene, really, get a feel for this family she had found herself caught up in. Sunny's hasty retreat, however, did get her attention, enough to get her to call out to the girl, a devilish grin on her face.

"Hey now, what's wrong? Never seen someone so stunning before? I know my style can be intimidating, but you don't have to be scared… yet. No, you only have to worry if I like you, and we don't know each other yet. You sure have a lot going on there. Tell me, you ever consider getting some ink? It'd fit right in with your… everything else."

Her tone was genuine, but the wink at the end seemed to imply the entire question was a joke. She didn't care how the girl took it, only of she'd prove she could play along.

“Dad won’t let me.” Sunny grumped.

“I’m not having you PERMANENTLY mark up your body until you reach the age where you might not regret it in a year or two.” Ash said.

“You just don’t appreciate art, dad!”

“I appreciate it just fine. I pay your allowance, don’t I?”

Sunny crossed her arms and sat down, doing an exaggerated sulk. So then. That was one of Joy’s sisters.

The others were AWOL at the moment. That would be Athena, the firstborn, and the golden girl who’d gotten into some real big trouble with the Kobbers some years back, which had kept her from ever returning. She was, Pitohui found out, engaged in a years long task with her sister Clash, who was another Kobber adopted into the Marsello family, and it had hit a peak of trouble in the last two months.

Then there was Beckett, Ash’s only biological son, who looked to have recently turned seventeen or so. He took after his father in appearance, though he was reedier, his hair cut short. He was quiet, but he seemed to be friends with Shun’ei and Meitenkun, as they were discussing combat related matters. Alongside them for that discussion was Cypress, who was the most obviously adopted of Ash’s adopted children, mainly because he was black. He was also gigantic, looking like he had adapted some of the process that made the Boneyards in a beneficial way, nearly six foot eight and with a crazy mane of spiked hair which was dyed blue running into a crimson-tinged purple. He was also the only one who, outside of Joy, was dressed for combat, wearing an armor setup that seemed to be made partly of metal and partly of what appeared to be shells, various pouches and bags on his person carrying several small weapons and other items. He also seemed to really like giving Beckett shit, though Beckett seemed to think it was harmless shit. He was also the only one drinking alcohol, throwing back a shot glass of liquid time and again.

That just left the last adopted son, Bastion, who was there, but in one of the cottages. With Ash’s wife and Joy’s adopted mother, it seemed. And of course, Neeko, who was clearly much more familiar with the family and had added herself to the Ash/Joy conversation.

What a shame, that Sunny didn't seem all that receptive of her teasing. She responded, sure, but she wasn't all flustered. Pitohui shook her head. Well, if Sunny was going to be no source of fun, maybe there was someone else around here she could relate to. Her gaze fell upon Cypress. It wasn't often she found herself looking up at someone, but she looked straight at him with the same confidence she would have while towering over any other prey of her choice.

She could have asked him about his gear, or about the kind of combat he had seen. She wanted to, no doubt. But there was more she could ask about, and, as much as effort she had put into realizing it, she had no intention of losing sight of the fact that there were sometimes more important things than combat.

"Oh, oh, you're a big boy, aren’t you? Tell me, what are you kicking back? Some kind of local specialty? I've had this stuff from all over the world, but I can't say I've had a drink in another dimension."

“Heh heh henh.” A challenging, albeit not mean spirited chuckle. “You couldn’t handle Skullbuster, stripeling. But I can already tell you’re gonna wanna try, so, get ready for the rocks to smash you upside the head, gut, and probably some other places.” He poured another shot of the dull brown liquid.

“Uh, Pit? He ain’t much kidding. That stuff’s VILE.” Shun’ei said.

“It’s also distilled via fermenting wheat through the cracks of boulders, so it tastes like a mouthful of dirt, miss.” Beckett said.

"I know what a mouthful of dirt tastes like." Now it was Pitohui's turn to pout, as Sunny had done earlier. She gestured at Joy. "Trust me, she's had me on the ground enough for me to have learned that."

"Actually…" Her puffed cheeks quickly deflated as a mischievous grin formed on her face. "I'll have to tell you all about what we've been up to. Oh, we've been laid out on top of each other so much. I can still remember when we first met. She couldn’t resist getting on top of me then and there. Girl's got stamina, too. She sent me soaring with how hard she worked to please me. But you'll have to loosen up my lips a little if you want to hear about that." Pitohui conveniently left out that they had been fighting, and that the pleasure she had been looking for was a chance to die in combat. She'd let Joy explain it later, leave them with the innuendo for now.

"Speaking of, let's do this. You called this grog Skullbuster? Sounds like it was a drink made for me. Hit me." She stuck her hand out, palm open, and waited expectantly for her chance to down the drink, all warnings be damned.

The end result of her double speak? Beckett looked horrified. Shun’ei somehow looked even more horrified. Meitenkun looked confused. Sunny was craning her neck, having not heard all the details but enough to catch her attention. Cypress’ expression was unreadable, but he handed her the glass.

“Pitohui, don-” Joy’s voice came.

And down it went.

The first thing that hit her was yes, it WAS like eating a dirt pudding.

The second thing was the sensation of being punched in the stomach. From the inside.

And then the world went upside down and fell down into darkness.

----

She woke up later with a very rare experience for her. She had to vomit.

“Right here.” The female voice and hand guided her as she partially got out of the bed, leaned over, and vented her stomach contents. It burned going up, and in a sweaty daze, she saw there was bright glistening blood in the mess.

“Lie back.” A cool cloth had been placed on her head, the other hand being placed on her aching, burning stomach. Within seconds, the pain had faded away, Pitohui feeling a deep tingle as it was dispelled.

“Skullbuster is for our world. Our teachings make our bodies tougher. For you, I’m afraid...your natural constitution was too frail for it. An oversight. Cypress apologies.”

"Guuuuh. What the hell was that? Uhrmmm..." It wasn't often that she groaned, but, even with the pain mostly cleared up, Pitohui still felt sick. She had expected the drink to be strong, but she hadn't been prepared for it to literally knock her out. Her senses came back to her faster than her mind. It took a few minutes for her to piece together what had happened. Being told she was too frail for something? That riled her. It set a fire in her heart. She wanted to leap up and take a second drink, to keep drinking until she was dead or she had held it down. But she wasn't stupid. Reckless and stubborn, yes, but not stupid. She couldn’t have gotten up that quickly if she wanted.

"Wh-whatever. It is what it is. You don't have to apologize. I do what I want. Not like you forced it down my throat or anything. Though, god, let me tell you, that's a fun way to kill someone. I'd do it in that Brawl in a heartbeat. It'd be even better with that crap."

"But, uh, thanks. Thanks for getting me patched up here. Guess it's better than you leaving me out on the ground."

“We would be poor hosts if we did. Drink this.”

A cool, soft, vegetable-tasting drink. So. This was Christine. Ash’s wife, Joy’s adopted mother, and the matriarch of that brood outside.

If you’d TRIED to put together the classic ‘golden haired, sweet of face and touch’ type woman, you’d have to really stretch it to get past the stereotype that Christine seemed to embody. Though life and her actions had clearly worn on her. Her face was lined heavily, crows’ feet beginning to bloom on both eyes, and it looked like she hadn’t washed her face or hair for a few days. One of her eyes was oddly discolored, a faint tinge of green amongst the white of the main body of it, though it seemed functional and un-irritated. She wore simple, if patched, dull grey leathers, and her hands were the most comforting and assured that Pitohui had felt for a long time, if ever.

With the drink down, Christine dabbed at Pitohui’s head with the cool, damp towel a little more, before she fluffed the pillow and indicated she should lie down.

Which was when the other man stepped over her.

“Look into this, please.”

“Bastion. Unnecessary.”

“I disagree, Miss Brynn. I don’t like the information I’ve been hearing about Roe’Ort lately. I consider a lack of grace a small price to pay. Look into this, stranger.”

“At least call her by her name.” Pitohui felt SOMETHING emitting from the glass he was holding. Like a magnifying glass. Some sort of probing scan. Trying to break her down, assess her…

"You'd find out whatever you're looking for faster if you asked. I can't promise I'll tell you everything. A lady's gotta have her secrets. But I'll answer you if you ask me nicely." Pitohui said.

She didn't enjoy the thought of someone trying to probe her for information, no matter how they were going about it. She had just laid down, but she was ready to spring back up now. Still, she wasn’t going to bolt upright and tell him off, not with the circumstances, at least. Instead, she sat up. Well, it was more like she pulled herself into a sitting position, really, with the strain. Even with Christine's aid, her body was still recovering from the Skullbuster.

"So, you planning to leave me in the dark? What's this Roe'Ort? You need something shot? I'm the one to do it."

“It’s not your concern.”

“Bastion.” Christine said.

“You would be unable to handle such a danger anyway, considering how drinking one unit of-”

“BASTION.” Now there was an edge in Christine’s voice.

“...Sorry. I am used to military engagements. My social skills have suffered somewhat. It seems you are not him.” Bastion put the magnifying glass away. “Joy vouches for you, so I’ll leave it at that. If you’ve somehow fooled her, I will put you in a hole so deep that not even ten lifetimes would let you climb out.”

“Bastion, go have dinner and relax some. I have been dealing with Roe’Ort since you were playing with toy soldiers. I am versed in how he behaves.”

“...You know why I prefer to be so intense in this regard.”

“Yes. It is noted. Go.”

Pitohui found herself getting dozey as the conversation went on. Something in that drink...

“As for you, Miss Pitohui, you rest.”

She didn’t have a choice, fading away into the dark. At least it was calm this time.

----

“Don’t feel too bad that it hit you so hard. Skullbuster flattens ME in three shots.” Pitohui felt something being placed on the bed over her. A portable table, with food, as she came back to her senses fully, Joy holding the table with one hand so Pitohui didn’t bump it and knock it or its contents over.

“If you don’t feel hungry, just wait a bit. It’ll kick in. I’ve been where you are.” Joy said. “Oh, and thanks for your nonsense. Now Sunny wants gossip, Neeko is making bad jokes about my ‘infidelity’, and my dad’s being extra awkward around me. Ya damn bitch.” Joy sipped from a skin of some sort of liquid of her own.

"Hehehe." Her laugh wasn't a genuine one so much as it was mocking. "If you don't want rumors flying around, you've gotta be careful how you spend your time." After getting her friendly jab in, Pitohui's expression and tone hardened into something more serious "Relax. If they're still not getting it, I'll set 'em straight as soon as I'm back up."

She reached for some of that food, taking just a bit for herself. She had never been one for huge meals, anyway, even when she wasn’t feeling poorly. "Alright. I'll bite. I don't know why I'm here, really. All I know is Dawn told me to come, so I came, and then you took us here. So, what’s your angle? You couldn’t have just brought me around your family for no reason, right? You'd know I'd make too much of a mess. What's the deal?"

“Beats me. Why did Dawn want you?”

“Pest control.”

“Must have been some exceptional bugs. And she cancelled it?”

“And then said stay, and then said I need everyone gone, altogether, and stuck me with you.”

“I don’t know what that golem is thinking half the time. Maybe she just wanted you somewhere easier to find. Or maybe she didn’t want you getting into trouble and I got stuck with babysitting. No offense. Or maybe she thinks there’s something good for you here. It ain’t Skullbuster, that’s for sure. Cypress ain’t just a mass o’ muscle. He’s got a real talent for Stream channeling. Immune to Immersion.”

“That being?”

“The Stream is like water. It can be vital, but too much water, and you drown.” Joy let some electricity shoot between her fingers. “As we learn to direct it, it refreshes us. It makes us stronger. Tougher. Faster. But you can’t just throw open a dam and try and become an unstoppable terror. Too much Stream energy, you’ll fry yourself. You need to learn how to build barriers, direct it. And even if you learn that well, not everyone can channel the same level. And even IF you’re in a higher class, like myself...use it too much, and you’ll get Immersion. Your body stops being strengthened and starts breaking down. Like a dam bursting. My father once equated it to something called “radiation poisoning”. My mom had it. The Kobbers helped her recover, but she got it again, five years or so ago. Weaker this time, but even though she recovered again, she’s not at the level she was back when she was my age. But Cypress is unique. He can channel whole oceans, it seems. Downside is he can’t really direct it. It sort of just plops and fizzles all over the place. But it means he’s being forged and reforged to a level very few could even consider, let alone get close to. Which is why he can down Skullbuster over and over and just grin and bear it, and you nearly get your guts melted with one glass. He forgets that sometimes. Though he probably thought that if you and I fought, you had more in the way of power than just GUN.”

“...So you could get that Immersion one day?”

“Me, my dad, my whole family...it’s the risk we take. Why do you think I always react so badly when some foreign body has figured out how to tap it? They’re liable to make themselves explode and take us all with ‘em. Or turn their body into a fine slurry. And since you’re starting at adulthood and don’t have any base to build on, I will note, you have a higher chance of suffering either or if you try and learn it.”

"Doesn't sound like it's too bad a deal to me. I'd take the risk, going out with a literal bang. But, I can't say I'd really want all that, y'know? All that about it refreshing you, making you stronger? Sounds like it's a recipe for stacking the odds against, and he and I have a game of chicken we're playing." She sighed. "Besides, I can't really blame you. I don't know I'd trust me with something like that, if I were in your boots. You of all people have good reason not to trust me not to blow up myself just to take out everything with me."

"But, if you're sticking your neck out in spite of that Immersion crap, then you know some of what I'm getting at. So, why? Why do you bother with it? You focused more on basic weaponry, and you'd get by fine without it. What makes it worth that risk to you? I get it, trust me, but we all have our own reasons, don't we?"

“...It’s what I learned. It’s what I choose. And I like the numbers. Some might not.”

“Like your brother?”

“Bastion? Yeah, don’t mind him. He’s fond of Sunny and there was a mess in the last two years that gave him a scare.”

“With Roe’Ort?”

Joy looked confused for several seconds, a thinking expression crossing over her face before it clicked.

“Oh. The Sharp Featured Man. Yes, him.”

“Who is he? Need him shot?”

“I have a feeling that even if you shot him, it wouldn’t do much. He’s proven...infuriatingly hard to kill.”

“First question again.”

“That’s a tale and a half. What have you picked up about my world’s history?”

“Uh...there was some evil god, your family beat ‘em, he’s the reason this world is so weird and has monsters and powers and elf-people and stuff...that’s about it.”

“Xaxargas. The Dark One. Killed by my father, yes. And several hundred other heroes, most of whom died doing it, as he would insist I say. Xaxargas had eight elite soldier-general-monsters. One was responsible for the Woe. Another was the THING that the Kobber brought an echo of into their ranks. And one was Treasure Moutebank. Ruin. She was a shapeshifter, a manipulator, sow’r of lies and treachery. She thought every idea of truth was nonsense, that everyone just lied to get what they wanted and she’d prove it. She and my mother...they had a feud that makes ours at our most intense look like squabbling infants. One sided, mostly. My mother just wanted to keep people safe. Treasure HATED my mother. Everything she was, everything she stood for, everything. Eventually...there was a conflict where mom came back. Treasure never did. Considerin’ she never talks about it...I personally think she had to cross some line to deal with the woman that she never wanted to. For the greater good. Unfortunately, as you probably know, there’s always those out there who are willing to lay praise on the worst because they see their evil as strength and admirable behavior. Enviable. That was, is, Roe’Ort. Ruin’s successor, of a sort. He’s been plaguing my mom since before I was born. And in the last decade he’s started going after Aggie, me, and just recently Sunny. Exclusively us. He’s got a THING for us female Marsellos, I don’t have a clue why. We’ve put him down seven or eight times, tried lockin’ him up, breakin’ him, even killing him...he keeps turning back up like a stone in your foot just when you think you shook it loose from your boot. He’s also a shapeshifter, and he’s just gotten better with age. And he’s active again, or so Bastion heard. So any stranger who comes along? Might well be him. I don’t think he could just slip in under our noses like Bastion worries, but he’s not one to take chances. So even if you found him and shot him, well, he’s been shot before. A lot. With bigger guns. And yet...the Sharp Featured Man keeps coming back into our lives.”

"Right. Right." She paused, taking the whole story in. She'd never been partial to big exposition dumps, being more the type to prefer discovering information for herself in bits and pieces. Now she had to process everything at once.

But one piece of information did stick clearly in her mind. She didn’t exactly have a whole host of standards and morals, but, if there was anything sure to get under her skin, it was that awful kind of creep who went around harassing women.

"So that'd be why he was scanning me up and down with that nerd gear, huh? Gotta tell you, the guy sounds like an ass. A total creep. That you haven't put him down yet makes it more believable that not just anything can kill him. But listen, I'm always looking to add a new entry on the list of ways I've killed people, and this guy sounds like the type who deserves… Well, death's too good for him. But it's the best we can do. So, what'd I have to do? Some secret technique? Some big quest I have to go on to get his weakness? If I can't kill him with a gun, I can kill him with something."

“If it comes to that, I won’t get in your way for trying. But much like a Harrower, I doubt it will. I dunno how long Dawn’s gonna leave us here, but it can’t be THAT long.”

----

The day had passed swiftly. Mainly because after Joy left, Pitohui found herself dozing off again.

She felt a lot more like herself when she woke up, and swiftly realized she wasn’t alone.

“Miss Pitohui? You alert?” It was Christine again, looking up from some files she had on a nearby desk.

She was, very quickly so, too. Years of priming battlefield instincts did that to a person, made them quick to rouse, especially in the presence of another person.

"Yeah, I'm awake. What's up?"

“How do you feel?”

"Got blood coursing through me, so I'd say I'm fine. I've been worse, way worse."

“Good. Because I need your help. And while I am not going to say you are obligated...it will not involve combat. Or inflicting harm, provided nothing goes wrong. But I still require you.”

Pitohui cocked her head, somewhat confused.

“I spoke with my daughter about you. Your preferences, your...inclinations. There is something where I require a second. It’s a purely ceremonial placement, but...it is for something I’d rather not subject my family or friends to. You have a certain...firmness about you. I think you’d be best suited to aid me.”

"You're sure you want me for the pomp and circumstance?" It was a half-joke, half-dig at herself. She still had trouble, sometimes, thinking of herself good for all that much besides fighting, and cracking jokes was a way of dispelling those doubts. "I'll do it. Sure. Don't really care what it is. You helped me out. I can do the same. Though I guess I do have to know what it is to do it."

“This process I have volunteered for requires a second. Tradition, in case I cannot carry my task out. This is unwarranted here.I will complete the task solely by myself. But they refused to allow me to break their tradition. I must have a second.”

“For what, exactly?”

“To kill a man.”

---

Despite her seemingly worn state, it didn’t keep Christine from setting a brisk pace. Having left early that morning, they’d gone nearly forty miles before bedding down for the night. Christine had blown off Pitohui’s questions during the day, saying they needed to devote their energy to the pace.

“You sure your family won’t think I kidnapped you?” She’d tried to joke.

“I doubt it.” Was all the reply she’d gotten. But now they’d settled down. Christine had built a fire, set down some sort of valise that she’d screwed into the ground thirty feet from the fire (Pitohui noting that it contained numerous red stones like the kind she and Joy had cut out of the Boneyards), tossed out some framework that had unfolded into a crude tent, gotten ration-esque food containers out, and now, after eating, was working on weaving some sort of rope. Pitohui had basically followed her lead, acting as an extra set of hands, pack mule, or muscle if needed.

“I’ve gathered that you view killing lightly, for lack of a better term.” Christine said while Pitohui was drinking some freshly boiled water she’d fished out of a nearby pond, Christine having provided some sort of clay charm that had sucked up all the dirt and debris from the gathered water first.

"You could say it that way, I guess. I prefer to think of it a little differently. We're all on the edge of death. Seems like a weird lie to get caught up in, making it some big deal, y'know?" She paused to take another drink. "It's not that I don't think it's a big deal. I just can't see any reason to dwell on it. It happens to all of us."

“Not all in the same fashion.” Christine said. “Have you any opinion on capital punishment?”

"Eh, can't say I really care about it. Seems cowardly, if you ask me. Putting people down without giving them a chance to fight back. But I get why it's done. I just think it'd be a lot more fun if we got to chase 'em all down, kill the killers. Get what I mean?"

“...Not really, no. You’d have better luck with my brother in that regard, but I don’t know if he’d think you worthy of conversation. He’s...a purist, of sorts. It can be hard to tell which way he will jump sometimes. A good man, just...very troubled. I suppose the same could be said of Holge.

“He’s who we’re going to see. Holge Matteo was a thief and bandit. Not a very good person. But there’s a lot worse. Fourteen or so years ago, he took a job to rob a manor lord’s home. His client gave him a drink to ‘steel his nerves’. The drink was drugged. Wyrmblood. A maddening tincture. It made him sloppy, and when he was discovered, he went fully insane when his adrenaline kicked in. Killed seven people. Including the manor lord and his fifteen year old daughter. It wasn’t...willing. He’d been totally lost in a red haze. All he could register was danger everywhere, and the only solution to his blazing mind was destruction. I think...you may have experience with such an animal riding on your shoulders.

“He was caught. Sentenced to life in the gaol that served the townships that the manor was part of. A just sentence. He committed the crime, and circumstances were not enough to consider much in the way of leniency. But inside, he had another disagreement and killed three more men. Two were in self defense, but the last was accidental, a lashing out. That last victim was a guard. His sentence was reworked. Death. That was eleven years ago. The local system has given him all the chances it allowed, and some more, to convince them that life is a better punishment. He has failed. Tomorrow, he will be hanged.

“I met him eight years ago by chance. He inadvertently aided me in a mission that crossed through his prison. I am probably the only person in this world that still sees the man under his deeds. If the law where he committed his crimes says he must die, and if despite pleading to others more than once, or twice, or thrice didn’t work, and after I made sure the system was, as grim and barbaric as I find it, clean and neutral in the wider societal sense...then I will make sure it is done properly. And that he won’t be alone when it happens.”

A hangman’s noose. That was what she’d been crafting.

“The customs of the laws he was tried under says that any executioner must have a neutral second, to carry out their deeds should they be unable. That is you. I will not require your service in that regard. You are ceremonial. And you...I do not want to subject any of my family or friends to what is essentially a controlled murder. Not if I have another option. With a heart that can beat apathetic slime instead of blood...sorry. That is the wrong term and is an insult. You are...capable of properly boxing such things. It’s not a gift I would wish on anyone, but if you come into my company, I may as well use it.”

Pitohui's expression normally always betrayed a hint of amusement. Failing that, it was usually possible to see her complete and utter boredom. But, right now? In this moment? Her expression was unreadable, her face stony as she gazed forward, staring off into the distance. She didn’t look at Christine, or ever directly address her. Her words came slowly, in fragments, as if she were contemplating something, trying to process it.

"So, you say this Holge guy… he killed while under the influence, basically? Didn't really know what he was doing? Huh. Getting so caught up in your own head that you don't know what you're doing… Yeah, it sounds familiar. Guess there's no excuse for the guard, though, unless you want to try and say it never would have happened if he hadn't been in there in the first place.

“...if they put people to death for idiotic decisions where I'm from, I'd never have had to go around chasing death. It would have come for me quicker than I ever could have found it."

After that, she paused. She paused, and sat in silence, still staring off into the distance. It was only after a few moments more of contemplation that Pitohui finally turned her attention back to Christine properly.

"I should tell you to go to hell for that comment, but, hey, whatever. It's true. Can’t say there's anything wrong with someone speaking the truth. You could've at least put it in cooler terms, made me sound more like a badass." There was that hint of amusement, Pitohui's characteristic dramatic flair and tendency to tease. "Guess that doesn't really mean much when you're living through it, anyways. Gotta be honest, I'll help you out here, but I don't get why something can't be done about it. Guy's a dumbass, but so am I, and they didn't kill me. If you really think he's got a heart, isn't there something you could convince them to let him do? Hell, it could still kill him, long as it's useful. Just give him a chance to make things right."

“That’s not how it works.”

“Doesn't that make it kind of arbitrary?”

“Yes.” That was pretty much all Christine said. Pitohui realized, after several seconds, saying so hurt her almost as much as Pitohui getting shot would.

“...I’ll still show you some basics. In regards to...such a process. Just in case. Would you prefer it to be now, or tomorrow during our mid-day rest?” Christine

"Let's do it now. Might as well fill the time somehow."

So here she was. A doctor’s aide. Except she was being taught how to kill someone. You would think it would be easy.

But this was not something to savor. By the time she went to sleep, even Elsa had something of an understanding why.

---

The pace the next day was slower. Pitohui wasn’t sure if it was because they were close, or because Christine had set such a blistering pace on Day 1 in case anyone in her family tried to come chasing after her telling her that her choice was a bad one.

Given their slower pace, Pitohui was getting rather restless. She wanted to get a move on, yes, but she wanted to know more, too. She'd had questions bouncing around inside her head since Christine had told her the sorry tale yesterday. At her earliest opportunity, she finally stopped to ask something of Christine.

"Alright. Tell me something. You don't have to be involved. This isn't your fight. But you're here. You've gone through all this effort. What's the point? You could be like the rest of them. Wipe your hands clean, point to what he's done and call it. What's so important to you that you look for something more in him? Why put yourself through any of that?"

“...because he who saves one life, saves the world entire.”

“But...well, obvious point here.”

“...Xaxargas murdered my family.

“He gifted me with incredible power and talent, and then he arranged it so I wouldn’t be able to discover and use it until they were all gone. It was amusement to him. I was a product. A thing. And it’s so easy to turn something into just...a thing. Fun. Pleasant to experience. Less stress in life.

“Never again. Ever. I renounce him, his banal ways, and anyone who follows in them. And those who tread on lines...all I can do is try and set a better example.

“So that the Merilees of the world can become what they are, instead of what Holge became.”

The talk of Xaxargas treating people like objects, it made Pitohui squirm as Christine recounted thise experiences. She knew all too well how easy it was to slip into treating people as if they were toys, made only to amuse. "I'm starting to think it's a good thing I don't have some kind of weird powers… I don't know what I would've done with them, but I can tell you it wouldn’t have been good."

"Listen, I'm not one to talk, but, however you want to take it, coming from me. You're doing something right. Merilee's already better than I am. I don't know how much she's told you, but I'm sure it's enough. Now, I can't say she's better than me in a fight… but with everything else? Yeah, you're doing something right."

“Thank you.”

What more needed to be said?

---

They didn’t spend long in the township of Farncombe, just stopping for some fresh supplies, while Christine showed how Pitohui could trade in her Raidstones, the skull clusters that were used to repel monsters. She was given a number of small square cubes in return, each different colors. Christine told her it was Terrae, and was equivalent to about five thousand ‘dollars’ in general. At worst, she could exchange it at the bar when the season rolled around.

It was another two hours journey to Charred Cove, the prison. Its name became obvious: not only was it built into the side of a cliff overlooking a gigantic lake, but it was covered in blackened dust-like material that Christine told Pitohui blew in from wind storms every few years. After a few basket-elevator lifts and some steep stairs, they finally arrived at the front door.

“You’ll need to turn in all of your weapons. All of them, Miss Pitohui. I’ll talk them into giving you some of their gear to defend yourself if there’s an unexpected emergency, but don’t disagree with me on this front, please.”

"Fine, but these better be in exactly the condition I hand them over in when I get them back." Pitohui complied with the request, not particularly pleased to have to part with her guns and other weapons, but producing a cache of them to hand over to the guards nonetheless.

“...You carry more firearms than Paul. That is an accomplishment, and he has an Emotion Engine.”

"What can I say? There's nothing like a good gun." Pitohui put on her best act, but, as with most of her performances, there was truth mixed in with her exaggeration. "One day, I'll have fired every model of gun in the world, put every last one in my collection!"

“Mmmm. Just don’t say that around Bernard. He severely dislikes firearms.”

Charred Cove had a few unique aspects. For one, it didn’t have a lot of cells, but rather pits, the prisoners kept in holes cored out of the rock with a cage put over the surface. There were scaffold-like paths over the actual ‘pit floor’, which let Pitohui look down into the pit’s occupants. They didn’t seem THAT bad: each hole was a good fifteen paces by fifteen paces, and had bedding and/or beds, a latrine, and various pieces of furniture: some had desks and bookshelves, some had chairs, some had a larger bed, and they seemed fairly clean and dry. The nicer conditions didn’t stop various calls of varying degrees of crude from going up towards the women.

“Ignore them.” Christine said.

“Trust me, I’m used to it. I’ve heard worse.” Pitohui dismissed Christine’s concern with a shrug. She really had heard more vile comments before. The crude calls of the prisoners didn’t even register for her.

Secondly, while the guards did carry clubs and daggers, they primarily carried what appeared to be whip-like ropes. And most, though this wasn’t much of a stretch, seemed to know Christine. And their opinion, which was more, was primarily negative, though they kept professional about it. A bit wary as well.

Finally, there was the head pointer, which was their term for a warden, who was actually a woman. And younger than Christine. And bald, in the sense that it looked like someone had stuck her head into a pit of fire and the healed burn tissue had made sure no hair would ever grow on that scalp again. She met Christine at the next set of main doors, pulling the woman aside. Christine noted that Pitohui should stay where she was, before beginning a quiet but very intense argument with the woman. Pitohui tried not to show she was prying, but even her best efforts couldn’t get much. The basic gist was that the warden disagreed with what Christine was doing, and Christine was standing her ground.

The warden broke first, walking off with a mild snort of disgust.

“We’ll probably have to wait here for...maybe thirty minutes at most. Passive aggressive power projection, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t mind. Not like I had anything else planned today.” Pitohui paused for a moment, seemingly content to settle into an award silence while they waited, but her curiosity soon had the better of her. “You know her, I take it?”

“To a small degree. She’s been here for four years. Sour woman, though I can’t blame her much. This is a sour job. Even so, there’s certain lessons she refuses to learn. That’s her right, but well, it means trouble for us. Even if it’s just very small trouble.”

“They wouldn’t try to lock you out so they could…”

“No. They know the consequences. And if they went mad and did it anyway, I’d kick down every door needed to prevent it. I can’t go to war on a whim any more...but I did not come here on a whim.”

Pitohui nodded, a sly smile on her face. Well, she’d give the woman credit. She wasn’t all about peace, it seemed. It probably wouldn’t come down to it, based on what Christine had said, but, were she to need a second set of hands… well, she’d be happy to provide it. With nothing more to say and nothing to do but wait, Pitohui leaned her back against a wall, ready to bide the time, if a little unhappy about the delay.

Fortunately, it was only about ten minutes that passed before the locked gates were open. There was another pair beyond, but those were opened in five. Now the prison had given way to guard barracks and ‘offices’, and though she never saw it, the cells for those slated to be executed.

They also had a small side kitchen/eatery for them, which was where Holge was being kept.

The first look at him, to her shock, sent a deep chill of horror twisting in Pitohui’s guts. She was surprised at it, for the several seconds it took for her to process why.

This was her nightmare. If death came for everyone, you might as well make it a part of life. Even moreso now that death was somewhat under her control. But this…

He could have been anywhere from late 30’s to late 60’s in age: his time in prison had scoured every part of his face, and most so his eyes. This was death at its worst: with specific knowledge of its coming, but absolutely no control over it. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t resist. He couldn’t put it into any sort of positive (if somewhat sanity-questionable) experience. He normally seemed to have been the type to shave his head and face, but there was nearly two week’s worth of growth of dull grey hair on both, the sign of someone who had slowly benumbed to a cold inevitability. His body was one that had gone to seed for a few months after a lifetime of constant activity, his tattoos almost seeming like they were sinking into his skin, trying to hide from what was coming. The only thing that seemed to have been kept up was his neatly trimmed nails, and even that clearly had a few days of lack of activity at hand.

This was akin to cancer, or bleeding out via a small wound that wouldn’t clot and you couldn’t reach. This wasn’t staring in death's eyes and daring it to take you. This was watching death make a long, slow walk towards you, giving you more and more time to really, really think on it. To contemplate it.

To really drive home just what an inevitable end was.

This was a death she’d sprint back over her newly forged moral lines to avoid, and keep going until she’d gone beyond even her worst, and beyond THAT. Anything but this. Anything but a demise like this. Slow. Pointless. Unavoidable.

...deserved?

She was never more grateful for her poker face ability than now.

And the way Holge’s eyes actually got just a small spark back in them when she saw Christine, and he realized that even with it all bearing down, she’d kept the promise she’d clearly made. She’d come to be there, at the end. To make sure that even with everything else, he wasn’t alone.

“Lady Brynn.” He said. His voice was very small.

“Sire Matteo.” Christine said, before she looked at Pitohui. “...I’m afraid it will be another...two hours I think. Before it is time. And I...don’t have anything for you to do. So, I must beg your forgiveness, but you’ll need to sit off to the side and wait. If need be, I will compensate you for this…”

There was a phrase. People spoke about folks “looking like death warmed over.”  That phrase rang through Pitohui’s head as she studied Holge’s form. He had given up. He had no hope for the future, no fight left in him, and that had been the root of the apathy now baked-in to his appearance, or, at least, that’s the explanation she pieced together in her mind. It was part of why she had always preferred the idea of going out in a blazing fashion. She never wanted to be subjected to that slow, agonizing demise. Yet here was someone before her who had no choice in the matter. More than anything, it made her feel sorry for the man, sorry enough that she didn’t even attempt to make light of the situation. She completely abandoned her usual jovial personality as she spoke, her facial expressions cold and all-too-serious.

She didn’t speak to Holge, but she didn’t really speak to Christine, either. The words came out of her mouth before she even registered what she was saying, really. “Compensate him? With what? He can’t use anything you give him.”

She felt a twinge of guilt, at the comment. It’s not like the man needed any more reminders of his fate, not if how he looked was any indication. Still, it was the truth. She couldn’t fault herself for pointing out what seemed obviously wrong to her.

“...compensate you, Miss Pitohui. For having to just sit there.”

Well.

She’d been so caught up in her thoughts about Holge, that she hadn’t even realized who Christine had been speaking to. She had been too fixated on the man before her to follow the conversation, had absent-mindedly assumed everything that Christine had said was addressed to Holge.

This is why she hated thinking too deeply about things. When you ended up too caught up in thinking, you missed things. And when you missed things, it never worked out well.

She tried to play it off, shook her head and gave herself a light slap on the cheek, as if to make a show of rousing herself from her thoughts. “Uh, right. Uh, don’t worry about it, okay. I’ve got enough. Besides, I’m not doing all that much sitting…” She wanted to finish the statement by noting she wasn’t doing much waiting compared to Holge, but she had already stuck her foot in her mouth, and she had no desire to do it again. Instead, she left it there, and, to punctuate her words, she actually wandered over to the wall to take a seat.

Christine just nodded to her, and went to sit with Holge.

They spoke the whole time. Christine took his hand occasionally, patting it for comfort. He was given a last meal, though he only ate some. A last drink, that Christine shared with him despite her clear brief look of distaste when she actually drank whatever he’d been given. He did not weep, though he seemed close a few times. The room was heavy with regret, of hindsight and things you couldn’t take back.

The knock on the door almost sounded like a gunshot, in how much it startled Pitohui. She looked at the door, and then back at Holge, who seemed...cracked. Somehow, they’d found one more thing to break.

“It’s time.” Christine said. “I’ll be with you every step of the way. Miss Pitohui, can you follow me please?”

Some guards were entering the room, weapons at the ready.

She didn’t have much else she could do, so Pitohui followed without fuss. She wanted to do something, but she didn’t know what it could be. She couldn’t offer compassion or comfort in the way Christine did. She didn’t think it was in herself to do, and, even if she could dredge up some kind of final compassionate words, she didn’t have the relationship with the man that Chrstine seemed to have. She might have been able to help him if they would have given him a fighting chance. Hell, she could have even helped had they just given him a second chance. It’s not like she didn’t have experience with that. But, clearly, no amount of appealing would have convinced anyone to grant him either of those things. It was unfortunate, in her eyes. Executions didn’t need to be this way, such sorry affairs, pitiful sendoffs.

Without words to offer - kind ones, snarky ones, any kind, really - Pitohui followed in silence. She could understand, now, why Christine hadn’t wanted to subject any of her family to this. Even she, someone who was more than comfortable, with death, found the entire ordeal depressing, like watching a caged animal with no chance at any kind of real life get dragged off to slaughter. For someone… well, she couldn’t exactly call herself “emotionally stable,” but someone with a more sensitive disposition might have struggled greatly with this.

When she saw the actual gallows, she suddenly realized that even with her lack of a sensitive disposition, she was still going to struggle.

Just a bit, but it was there.

“Stay down here.” Christine said.

“Okay.” Pitohui said.

So it went. Christine had stayed by Holge’s side the whole time. Looking at him, Pitohui got a sense that even now, he wanted to run, he wanted to fight, he would have had to be dragged to where it would all end...but he didn’t want to disappoint his only friend. The only one who still saw him as human. If they hadn’t reduced him to a thing, like many guards, and the warden (who was there, watching as well), they’d sealed themselves off so they could do their job. In the end, someone had to bell the cat, and Christine was just the one who had to apply the collar.

“Holge Matteo, you have been sentenced to hang at the neck until dead. This sentence will now be carried out. Do you have any last words?” The warden said.

“................I wish things could be different. I’d...do it different.” That was all.

Christine was handed a dull grey hood. She moved to put it on.

“No. Please.” Pitohui actually couldn’t HEAR Holge say that, but she knew it was what was said, in his lips and body language. Christine immediately put the hood away.

“Mrs. Marsello, that is part of the process.” The warden said.

“Not tonight.”

“Mrs. Marsello, we have gone out of our way to accomodate you. Place the hood on.”

“Not tonight.”

“MRS MARSELLO…” The warden was irritated, and some guards were reaching for their weapons. Christine finally deemed to look at the warden.

She had some sort of charm, affixed to her front, a broach of some sort. Pitohui had noticed it only in the most basic of senses, but she darn sure noticed it now, because it was glinting like a diamond. She never found out what it was.

The Frozen Flame.

“No.” Christine said.

The silence was so suffocating Pitohui actually had to take a deeper breath.

“...fine then.” The warden backed down.

Christine carefully applied the rope, cinching it in, before she walked in front of Holge. She leaned in, whispering quietly to him...and then, as Pitohui suddenly flash backed to a locker room, placed her forehead against Holge’s, a hand gently on his cheek.

One last brief exchange. Only between them.

Then she pulled the lever.

The final sound rang in Pitohui’s ears long, long after the actual noise had faded to nothing.

---

Christine kept quiet and stone-faced as it all processed from there.

The body taken down, Christine examining it personally to confirm the death. A good, proper death, as much as such a thing could be in such a setup. One quick drop and snap, gone. No choking, no distortion of the flesh.

The body was taken away, fed into a specialized cremation furnace that must have been magically enhanced, as it only took fifteen minutes to produce a small, ceremonial box that was given back to Christine. From there, Christine was led up through several staircases and finally out onto a cliffside overhang overlooking the large lake.

“...You know how to get down from here, Miss.” One guard said, and then they left. Now it was just her and Pitohui.

“...maybe you will get a chance to do it different.” Christine said, and as a wind gusted across the cliffside she opened up the box, the grey and black cloud blooming and casting itself out across the waters. And within seconds, gone.

She was still for a time.

Then she reached down, pulling out the hood that she’d stood between the system and Holge to ensure he didn’t have to wear. She looked at it for a bit.

Then she started ripping it up. Quick, efficient motions, but ones that spoke of an IMMENSE rage and pain, let free, her low breaths twinning with the dull noise of rupturing cloth. Once she’d torn it to pieces, her hands flared, and it was also reduced to ashes.

“....and we’re done. We can go home now. There’s a stairway back down to the elevation devices.”

Going home felt like a good idea. She wanted to get back, back to Christine’s family, and more importantly back to Olympia. After witnessing that, she was ready for a bit of normalcy, the very normalcy she had once rejected completely, interestingly enough. Still, she couldn’t absolve herself of all responsibility in this situation, could she? She wasn’t great at helping people process emotions, but she could offer one thing, at least.

“I’ve seen that before. That anger? The rage at the things you hate and can’t do anything about? Pretty clear in how you handled the cloth, there. I’ve been there, too.” As good as she was at concealing her true feelings, even Pitohui couldn’t hide her discomfort as she forced out her offer. “You need to talk about it?”

“...what bothers me the most...is that in my experience...doing harm to others...it’s not about a desire to see others in pain, that cutting joy as our survival instincts are directed the wrong way, as a primary reason. It’s...ease. It’s easier to take away their humanity. Easier to not care, or indulge in those dark ways. Not many people are evil, but so many are just...LAZY. It’s...an injustice. It was one that Xaxargas had no need to inflict on us. He would just...nudge it. Here and there. And even now that he’s gone, it remains. It will remain once I’m dust. Sometimes...it just makes me want to scream.

“...but screaming...that’s also easy. Just letting it explode and ride roughshod over you...that’s what makes a godly being who should be leagues above such things turn a whole world into a million little cruel games for amusement. It makes people hate you, and that hate...just become you. It’s brought sadness into my life, my family’s life, my friends’ lives…

“...but you’re wrong. I can do something about it. I did.

“It’s easy to wallow. But no one never slips and falls. But I always got up, and always will. Because otherwise...well, life isn’t life. It’s just a long walk to death.

“And there’s too many who got denied their journey.”

Christine drank from her water-skin once she’d finished talking.

“I think we can get back to Farncombe tonight. I suspect you may be too...alerted by experiences to want to sleep. But I may be wrong.”

She shook her head, but in all reality, Pitohui knew she’d more than likely end up lying awake. She wasn’t the type to sleep easy, anyways, and, while it wasn’t so much that what she had seen had shaken her, she couldn’t escape the thought of how it could have just as well been her in Holge’s place, in a different timeline, at least. Not here, but she could have ended up rotting her life away in a cell, maybe even dragged to a sorry execution one day. It was quite a bit to think about.

“Yeah, yeah. Sounds like we have a plan. We should head back that way.”

So they went.

---

There was one last surprise for Pitohui, and as it turned out, Christine as well.

The elevation platform/container was down when they arrived, having doubled back briefly to collect their weapons, because someone was pulling themselves up. Someone who spoke just before they came into sight.

“Mom?”

Joy?

...no.

She was a little shorter. Her hair was brown instead of white-blonde. Her outfit was completely different, in the way a rain coat and snow coat were. And most of all, Pitohui could see the resemblance of both parents that Joy, Merilee, technically didn’t have.

“Athena?” Christine said. So, here she was, the prodigal firstborn daughter, out of nowhere.

“Mom!” Athena didn’t bother waiting for the bucket to fully close with the platform, pulling herself up after a small leap.

“Athena, what are you even…”

“I heard you were nearby, and when I realized just where I was, I put two and two together. You…”

“It’s over.” Christine said.

“Oh, mom…”

“I did what was needed.” But when Athena hugged her, she still sagged a moment, the strength leaving her. From comforter to comforted.

Pitohui watched.

It was a lovely…

Wait.

…..wait…….

Something about the sight didn’t sit well with Pitohui. She felt her chest tighten as she watched the duo hug. Something felt… off. She couldn’t place what, though, and that, more than anything, frustrated her. Was it that she was the problem? Envy, jealousy, perhaps, at the way these two could comfort and support each other? Whatever it was, something gnawed at her, enough to set her on edge and make her ready to fight. The only issue was, there was no one to fight. This was how it was supposed to be, right? So what was it about the sight of this girl hugging her mother that was bothering her so much…?

“Miss Pitohui?”

They were looking at her.

“This is Athena, my daughter.”

“Pito…..hui….hui, ah, yes. You’re Joy’s friend.” Athena tried to shake her hand. She did…

The feeling crept over Pitohui again. What the HELL?

“Like the goddess, huh? I guess I can see the resemblance. You’re not exactly my type, but you aren’t bad-looking, either.” Cover the feeling. Don’t betray your failing-feeling, she meant feeling...

“You should see me in a dress.”

“You never wear dresses.” Christine said.

“I could start.”

So the handshake was done.

But after that, Pitohui was again the odd woman out. Cut out of most of the conversation as the two women talked quietly all the way down to the ground, and then all the back to Farncombe.

With every step, with every passing minute, the feeling didn’t fade. And that fact just made the feeling worse.

And on top of that, she couldn’t process it. Two years ago she’d have drawn a gun and started shooting and let the chaos shake whatever was out, but now…

...this was her troubles. Christine’s. She wanted to do something, but couldn’t, oh she COULD, but she also COULDN’T, and that fact was driving her inwardly mad, but she had to keep it under control. Why was it this bad? She didn’t have anything approaching the older woman’s life experiences, in any stripe. She wasn’t a healer, or a carer, or a mother, or anything that really connected her to people. At best she was a friend and a luster, wasn’t she? Surely it was all that. Like Joy, she was missing a piece, except she’d given it up herself, and now aspects of her life were falling into the void, and it hurt, and she didn’t like it, but damn it she may have been a basket and a half of flaws and messes but her instincts had always been good, just pointed the wrong way, ARRRGGGHHHHH…

She didn’t sleep that night. Not just because of what she’d been through. But because of everything about her.

In the morning, Athena was gone. Christine knocked on Pitohui’s door; to her mild surprise, she had a mug of some form of cocoa for her.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Christine said. She somehow knew. Knew Pitohui wouldn’t rest.

Did she? More than anything, she just wanted to stop thinking about it. She’d done enough thinking, and doing any more was just going to drive her mad. But it had helped to talk before, even if it was with an AI, so maybe talking here could help, too. But what was there to talk about? Was it just the execution, and ruminating on that, or was it her own struggle with who she was? Or was it something else? Was it her suspicion of Athena? She still hadn’t been able to place what she felt was wrong with the girl, why she was suspicious of her in the first place. She wanted to say it was a problem with herself, but… she just didn’t feel like she was wrong about this.

“Thanks, but…” She sighed. “No thanks. I’m fine. What’s done is done.”

“All right. Drink this.”

It was drugged again. But was that fine.

She could trust this woman.

...that fact surprised even her, before she finally was send drifting back off.

---

-Several Days Later-

“You look like Riotous dragged you back from wherever you went.” Joy said. “My mom didn’t take you to see my uncle, did she? To scare you straight?” Joy’s tone made it clear that she did not actually expect this to be the case.

Pitohui had respect for Joy, but not enough to avoid slinging some vitriol at her for her comment on her appearance. “Oh? You want to talk about someone who looks like hell, do you? Maybe I should pull up some of those pretty, pretty pictures of you during our fight in the Brawl.” After spitting her comment out, Pitohui settled down some, enough to address Joy with a more serious tone. “No, we went out to a prison. Saw some guy get executed, came back. Simple stuff, y’know? I’ve dealt with worse. Can’t say I’ve slept great, but… that’s just me. Probably this wasteland of a world. It’s great, feel like I could run into a fight at anytime, but it’s not exactly good for my beauty sleep, y’know?”

“You should try sleepin’ rough without any Raidstones. That’ll teach you a new meanin’ of sleep.” Joy said. “Dawn was by the other day. She said once you got back she’ll probably pick us all up. Things are back in order. Though when she came back she was in the middle of something. Actually came by on a portable lab base thing. She left some stuff behind by accident. When she came back to get it, she missed the thing I palmed for you.”

Well well well.

They met again.

“But, BUT BUT…” Joy pulled it away from Pitohui. “I took out the main battery. Without it all you can manage with this is a hard poke. You learn it well, and THEN I’ll give you the battery. Got it? And if you blow the wrong thing up anyway, I will be REALLY FUCKING ANGRY. And disappointed. Got it?”

“Right, right, right.” Pitohui was already only half-listening, too enamored with her new toy to care. Besides, she knew how to handle a gun, even one as exotic as this one. “Ooh, this one’s going to be fun. Can’t compare to a real gun, but it’ll be a treat. I wonder if there’ll be any fights this year I can use this big girl in… Sure would be fun to add another entry to the list of ways I’ve killed people.” She flashed a devilish grin at Joy. “Bet you’d like to watch, too, see what it’s like to watch me kill someone from a perspective besides the victim.”

“No, because I still, last I checked, am not completely nucking futs.”

“And you love it.”

----
There was, however, one stop left to be made on the way back to the Teapot.

The skull was the size of a house, and had been polished and properly put on display, even if it was in the middle of a forest where no one would visit. That was fine. This was a private area.

For trophies. Set in trees. Broken weapons. Parchments under some sort of amber. And now the centerpiece. The gigantic skull of Ghidorah (well, one of them. The only one that had endured, to be precise), vanquished and made solely into an avatar for someone else’s glory.

Which was a LITTLE watered down by the fact that Joy, Neeko, and their friends were all taking selfies around it. Well, everyone except Joy, who was mostly just posing in them.

Pitohui, for her part, joined in the merriment only half-heartedly. It wasn’t that she had a problem with anything going on. No, that wasn’t it at all. She was simply more interested in the skull itself, in the setting, really, than in taking selfies or otherwise recording the moment. She had always been one to enjoy good set-dressing. Post-apocalyptic wastelands were better with a good story behind them, in her view of things.

“Is this my trophy too?” She’d asked, mostly to annoy.

“You were there, so yeah, yours too. You want to sign your name on it?” Joy said.

ONE CAN OF SPRAY PAINT LATER.

“...are you always so literal?” Shun’ei asked, as Joy frowned over the signature. Someone would probably have to clean it up a little.

“Depends. It’s whatever’s more useful to me in the moment.” Pitohui tilted her head and smiled as if she were some innocent child. “That’s the thing about words. There’s always a way to give them more than one meaning. Sometimes I don’t decide if I’m being literal or metaphorical until after I see what happens.”

“...Neeko seems to like it.”

“Who wouldn’t?”
---

The pair of eyes that watched the sight, unbeknownst to anyone save itself, would agree with that. But eventually, it moved away. And walked.

In a familiar form. Just in case they’d been caught.

Athena walked along the road for several miles before she broke.

It was getting harder each time. So much change, so much burying. No wonder that whenever the features returned, it was like his old face had been replicated like a stone attacking chisel. Or a blade attacking flesh.

Worth it all. Right under her nose, in the face of the one she should know best...and not a single suspicion. He’d never match up against her glorious power...but if he could come within a mile, it would be enough.

After all...no one never slipped and fell.

“Everything went as expected.”  Roe'Ort said, as he approached the figure waiting on the road.

“It’s all happening again, like before.”... Roe'Ort replied. It was like looking in a mirror.

“Well...not exactly.” The first Roe'Ort said...as the other flickered. For a moment, it could be Neeko who was standing there, except she was shorter. Chunkier. And for the eyeblink her face was visible, she looked terrified.

Then her form was subsumed to her new master, as she again was remade as he was. In every way. The Oovi-Kat vanishing.

Deep down, she wailed as the pair grinned at each other. Yes...it was all coming together. For the last time.