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Angela	Angela has invited everyone to the Library once more to help with jumping down into another book and helping change an Abnormality's story. This time it's Malkuth who greets everybody in the lobby, however. "Ah... Angela said it was my time to go down with everyone. We were going to do Laetitia but we sent Roland ahead this time and it was, um, it was going real well until he exploded into spiders. So we're going to wait until we restore him from his book state and try again later. Sorry for the switcheroo on all of you--but really sorry about all this. Sometimes these things happen! You just gotta push on through and--" Malkuth trips over a misplaced book and hits the floor. "Gahh... when did that get there? This should be in the Floor of Technology... It couldn't have been Yesod, one of the newbies must have dropped it--It's fine! I'll put it in its place." She places a ducky sticker bandaid on her skinned knee and then continues leading the group to the Floor of Technology. Once everybody is up at the floor of Technology, Malkuth slides the book into one of the glass cases after confirming it's in the right spot. Angela is present too. She has to be around to put people into the book after all. "Hello everyone. Unfortunately I had to seal Laetitia's book for the rest of the day so we'll be moving onto the one I planned to do after. I suspect this one won't be too difficult in terms of solution but it may be upsetting so I'll try and make sure Laetitia is free next time as a palate cleanser." She hesitates, no doubt about to add 'though admittedly she's only a palate cleanser if you don't burst into spiders' but she decided that there was no need to add such upsetting imagery. "That book... is the book of Forsaken Murderer..." Malkuth says. "His story is..." "Similar but not quite the same as the experiences at LobCorp. Therefore--" She hesitates a little upon seeing White. She can never quite shake the feeling that one day White will ''really'' get to know her and be disgusted and she has to steady herself for a moment. Be cool. She knows the deal more ro less. "--It should be easy to adapt to if not exactly pleasant." "Ahh...I see some...newish faces? So remember the goal here is, um, rehabilitation. The big risk here is that Forsaken Murderer is in of himself an attempt to 'rehabilitate' a prisoner that did more harm than good. He is usually docile but when his mood declines enough he transforms and tries to crush people with his metal head. Ideally we'd want him to be able to live relatively normal and only murder people the normal City amount--" "My understanding is this one used to be a human being." Angela just casually drops this?? "But I do not recall the full details. Nevertheless, it shouldn't be too difficult." As before, both Malkuth and Angela will take time to answer questions before...
Angela	COGITO-CORP The facility you appear in does feel very much like Lobotomy Corp, if smaller. There's fewer locked cells--indeed, most of them are presently completely unlocked. Forsaken Murderer isn't immediately within view in those cells, though a pair of researchers in labcoats pass by, seemingly seeing you as part of the staff. "He seems docile again today but he'll go berserk at any point. Are we sure we want to keep running tests on this one? He was already a killer before we brought him here..." One says to their colleague. "Mm. The problem is, we don't have much supply of Cogito. If we try it with someone else, we might run out before we figure out how to reproduce it. Only Ayin knows where we get this stuff and if the Head finds out..." "We're in the Outskirts. They'll never find out." The windows show that you are indeed in the Outskirts. There are shattered buildings everywhere and no sign of functioning civilization wherever you look. According to maps set up around the facility, there is no 'Central' department and indeed, all the names of the departments are different though there are still Control, Training, Welfare, Disciplinary, and Research divisions the whole facility seems a little less regimented in design. "Oh ... I remember working here..." Malkuth says. "But when I joined they were already well past this stage so this is, aha, new history for me too." LobCorp always smelled faintly of blood and bleach. There is still a faint bleach smell periodically but it's significantly less omnipresent at Cogito Corp it seems. No battles seem to be being waged across the halls. The first trick might be to find Forsaken Murderer's cell.
White	White has been called, and so she arrives! Her early arrival pattern isn't much different from before, but this time if she brought something with her it seems to be safely out of view; she'd originally made arrangements for how to earn the appreciation of another unaligned spider, not... Well, a regular person. Well, regular for anomalies anyway. Actually, she doesn't even know if that's correct... But either way she doubts that 'person with a knife' (she imagines) has much interest in a big monster-frog's corpse. It'll just have to stay in cold storage for now...      Following Malkuth along as she deals with misplaced objects and talks about... Roland exploding into spiders... White's really glad not to have to deal with many of this brand of abstract horror-based threat on a regular basis. Even if it seems like half of her workdays involve some kind of brain-pain regardless! She doesn't quite know why Angela hesitated seeing her, though. She lifts one hand to chest-level and finger-wiggle-waves slowly, thinking maybe she just got distracted thinking about their last visit. Or maybe the next one to come? Optimism never hurts anyway, even if Malkuth is still a goober for saying it out loud.      The problem, of course, is that White has no idea how to handle 'normal people', let alone ones that transform and try to kill her. She can't really think of any silver-bullet questions to resolve this either, but... Well, there are other people here who probably know better than her, and watching them should offer some cues. So, she only has one thing to do before going into the book! She gets out a small bag of pork rinds from her sleeve (hot and spicy!) and wordlessly walks over to offer them to Angela, pulling the corners so the label is legible before she hands it over. It's a light snack, just something to try while she's relatively alone outside the book.      Once inside, she does a slow spin to try and take in the scene bit by bit before anything else. Really trying to memorize the quirks of the location, since it's a precious source of information on how to solve these discomforting puzzles. Particularly as those researchers pass by while chatting, she tries to look in the direction they came from as a starting point, using her enhanced vision to peer as far as she can and try to find some signage relevant to the murderer's cell. If it's not immediately in view, then there's nothing for it; she'll just have to let some- let's say ten- of her agents do the searching for her. There are only so many walls she can peek through after all, and she doesn't know what this guy looks like.
Kukuru	"He did? Oh, I hope that doesn't sour him too much on all that. Laetitia's such a sweet girl." Kukuru sighs fondly as she remembers that particular Abnormality from way back when, checking the pockets of her skirt briefly to confirm that whatever she's feeling inside of that confusing void is still there. Looking satisfied, she chuckles pleasantly and gives Malkuth a little 'no problem' kind of dismissive wave. "It happens, mhm. Nooooot a problem, dear." She assures, shuffling over sleepily to offer Malkuth a hand up along with the probably-expected little bump of healing nanites to patch her knee up. Today, Kukuru's brought Angela a new book as a gift: The Great Catsby! It looks like The Great Gatsby, but with a cat face on it. "I haven't read this one yet, but it looks reeeeally cute." She explains, not making it clear if she's ever even read the original. Malkuth names the book, and Kukuru's mood doesn't shift one bit from her usual pleasant sleepiness. She just looks happy to be here. "I'll make sure to clean up Laetitia's gift a little before next time, then. Oh, we do have new people here today, huh...?" Time to make a good first impression! Kukuru covers her mouth while yawning loudly, then taking out little, yet densely packed takeout containers from her pockets to offer it to the everyone. Today's meal-in-a-box is sandwiches! Vietnamese-style banh mi with the grilled pork, pickled carrots and radishes, and... Cheese? White frying cheese for some reason. "So for the Forsaken Murderer... Hmm. Do we haaave... Any info on what kinds of people he went after?" She asks, then taps her chin softly while trying to activate her brain processes. "If he wasn't happy getting rehabilbi... Reabilitated to not kill aaaanyone, maybe we could try nudging him towards bad people instead. Or cooking, so he does less killing because he's got a new hobby?" COGITO-CORP A new place with new faces! Temporary enough ones, but still. New! Smiling pleasantly and taking the lab-staff impression in stride, Kukuru addresses the researchers right up front. "What tests are going on today? Maybe he's getting upset because he didn't have enough time to study..." Knowing what she knows about Forsaken Murderer, Kukuru could probably ask the researchers where his cell is. That might raise some suspicions, though, so she instead opts to follow her nose towards wherever the smell of blood or bleach feel the strongest.
Audrey Basque	Audrey is present, donning her usual General Works Librarian uniform, styled and secured rigorously as it almost always is. No stray shirt today. Maybe she's self-conscious about whether she's been communicating some kind of unrest after earlier, and now Angela's worried about her or something?     She's certainly vulnerable to being a bit more sloppy with her outfits when feeling off, but now she's mindful of it. "until he exploded into spiders."     "Oh."     Thank you for your sacrifice, Roland.     The worst is delayed just a bit longer. "That book... is the book of Forsaken Murderer..."     "Isn't that the one whose hammer you made me try out once?" That sucked! "B-But, anyway... if bad moods make him try to kill people, is it just as simple matter of keeping him in a good mood? No, that's... just delaying the issue. We have to make him able to cope?"     It's not even remotely her field of expertise, but then neither was Helper and she somehow came up with that solution. Cogito Corp     Audrey brings a sleeve up to her nose, the slight smell of bleach displeasing her nose for a second or three until she adapts. Her attention is drawn to the windows; after hearing about the Outskirts so many times, getting to see them is interesting, even if it's what she imagined.     With White deploying her agents and Kukuru questioning the staff directly, Audrey looks towards Malkuth, who's at least familiar with the place. "Was he still contained here when you worked here? I'd think any information you have is going to be useful."
Petra Soroka	"Ah... Angela said it was my time to go down with everyone. We were going to do Laetitia but we sent Roland ahead this time and it was, um, it was going real well until he exploded into spiders."     Petra is also here! Given that Roland is her employee, it fell to her to deal with the explosion of spiders, sweeping them up to keep the book tidy and orderly and not send Laetitia into a spiral that would make her harder to deal with next visit. So Petra is already a tiny bit beat up in her Librarian uniform, even a little more ragged-looking than usual, with a smear of rainbow-and-black blood on her neck that she didn't notice.     She's fine, though. That's just work. All things considered, it's *less* messy than a similar death would be at LobCorp, and he's not even really dead!     "Honestly, fucking up Laetitia is pretty humiliating. It's not *that* hard to be nice to a girl." Obviously it's more complicated than that, and Laetitia is only questionably a girl in the first place. "Similar but not quite the same as the experiences at LobCorp."     Petra flashes an easygoing peace sign at Angela, while lounging on the edge of one of the tables in Info. "Then you've got the best agent on the job, Ange. It'll be no problem." "Only Ayin knows where we get this stuff and if the Head finds out..."     Petra, for all intents and purposes, *could* be part of the staff here. Dressed in clothes from the City, with an eminent familiarity with her surroundings-- though, not the specifics of this building, given that it's an abstract psychic representation of a building that was destroyed before L-Corp existed-- she falls in line with the researchers easily enough. Immediately, she wonders if she could find Ayin's office in here and kill him a second time. That wouldn't be helpful, though.     "Yo, glasses. You're on the team testing Cogito extractions, right?" Petra fully decides to bullshit her way back into the role of crass-but-irreplaceable employee immediately. This is probably for emotionally healthy reasons. "They want the emotional suppression team to take a crack at the guy first. Could you swipe the door open for us?"
Angela	BEFORE "It's a little more complicated than that. We'll know the story when he revives but my guess is he underestimated the, ah, range. It's his first Abnormality, that usually gets people." Angela is soothed by finger waggling at least. She smiles and finger waggles back. She has been emoting too much lately, the android who barely ever emotes thinks, she needs to rein it in or someone's going to think she's expressive. "Oh--thank you, White. I haven't had spicy food before. Roland said I might want to ease into it, but I am certain I can handle this." Angela says. "If you're hungry once you get out I'll make sure there's some to spare." Easy to do, she just doesn't have the appetite to finish a whole bag of pork rinds. ''The Great Catsby!'' "Oh I've heard of this--one." She hesitates upon seeing Catsby instead of Gatsby. It's impossible she misremembered, but perhaps she misheard and it was Catsby all along? Or maybe it's in some language where the C kind of sounds like a G? "Thank you Kukuru." Angela decides. ''Any info on what kinds of people he went after?'' "Fixers, mostly Grades Seven to Six." Malkuth says. "It's a miracle they captured him alive instead of just axing him." ''Isn't that the hammer you made me try out once?'' "It was supposed to suck. I intentionally picked an EGO you had little resonance with. The idea was to build up your resilience to Corrosion so you could utilize stronger EGO." She pauses and then adds, "Sometimes Elites forget that Petra is a bit of a rare exception in how she utilizes EGO Gear." ''Then you've got the best agent on the job, Ange.'' Malkuth bites the inside of her cheek. Angela's smile returns, "Naturally. The other Abnormalities shouldn't be any stronger but Forsaken Murderer will be stronger in his own story. Other than that, it shouldn't be too difficult." She does seem more relieved in more than one way.
Angela	COGITO-CORP White can glance around no problem. She doesn't see the Forsaken Murderer on this levell. Or anywhere the maps designate. Which might seem concerning but her spies have better luck. One of her little spyders ends up digging DOWN instead and ultimately finds an elevator shaft that leads into a lower level that isn't on any of the maps, leading to an area that far more resembles LobCorp than even this upper area. Of course, since White has never been to LobCorp, it is all pretty new to her. IT's an underground area, accessable only by elevator. The cells down there are still, mostly, unfilled but the smell of bleach is a little thicker here. The serious accidents happen down here, perhaps, but it otherwise vaguely smells like a hospital that happens to also be underground. White can see, through her spyder, a young girl in an oversized labcoat making her way to a room wheeling a tray with a bright green syringe on it and heading to a sealed room with scientists standing around in. Through the viewscreen, White can see an unusually tall bald man held in a straight jacket within. Kukuru has a bit of a tougher time, the blood scent up here is so faint as to not even really be noticeable, but she can smell that it's coming more from the vents than from this level in particular. Coming from below? It matches with what the spyders see. "He was still detained here." Malkuth admits to Audrey. "But he was already an Abnormality at that point. I am actually one of the newest members of Lobcorp. It took me a while to learn the ropes! Even Hod had been around longer than me, and Tiphereth--though, uh, Lisa and Enoch weren't employees at the time. They were really young. But it sounds like he was one of the very early tests for Cogito injection. The two usual reactions are death or transformation into an Abnormality. I know now, of course, that only Carmen and Enoch were the viable subjects, with Netzach as a distant third option. ... But I don't actually know how they figured that out. I died before I could rise up through the ranks." It makes her wonder, for a moment, why she was even picked to be a Sephirah. COULD Petra kill Ayin again? Probably, if she found him, but that might be straining the 'world' of the book. In stories, you don't always get to meet all the characters influencing the tale. #-1 ARGUMENT OUT OF RANGEThe man in the glasses, a researcher that Petra doesn't recognize (probably because he died before Petra showed up)], is briefly startled but then puffs himself up. "We're just assistants, but we prepare the syringes. It's a small part of the work that will change the City someday." He sounds so casually confident about that. He takes a moment to look at Petra's jacket--there actually is an ID card there now that wasn't there a moment ago, indicating Petra's an employee of Cogito-Corp. "Ohh! Petra! Yeah, I can let you in the elevator. No problem." He leads the group there, slides the keycard to open the door and says, "Make sure you remember your keycard this time, they've been a real stickler for security lately. They are always worried there's gonna be a security breach." The path down the elevator will be uneventful and it'll open up just in time to see... LITTLE HOD (actually Michelle) pushing the tray along uneasily. Her labcoat doesn't fit her at all, the sleeves nearly going all the way past her hands. "O--ohh... hii..." She manages. "Ayin asked me to bring this down since they don't need me yet..." The group can see Forsaken Murderer in his cell, still untransformed. "Are you new here...?"
White	White considers teleporting the group once she has a lead on their destination, but once Petra's confident bullshitting seems to get a bite on the proverbial line she decides to hold off and follow her lead. While in the elevator, she even produces an imitation labcoat from her silk, over the top of her dress, after noticing the ID Card appearing on Petra's jacket. She's never worn one before, so the coat ends up having a little more tail than might be typical, but it looks convincing enough with her dress... And it's much softer than a labcoat typically ends up being. She'd generally want to have a real one to handle if she was going to manipulate the texture of the silk to be as convincing as possible... But she's content with the short-notice product, even if it doesn't have proper buttons on closer examination.      White doesn't really have the familiarity with most of the Sephirah or agents that others here do, for obvious reasons; one visit, ever, to Lobcorp before it fell didn't give her much context, especially not when she was encouraged to only enter one particular area of it that was deemed the best for polite company. The best she can do as a result is nod calmly at itty-bitty Michelle's question, hoping Petra can deflect for her while she opens her eyes to examine the Murderer with her Evil Eye. What's his health looking like? Any negative status effects ongoing? Any strange and ominous meters slowly filling to charge up for a super transformation skill or something? She can never be quite sure what to expect when Analyzing people from outside the System.
Kukuru	With the scent directing Kukuru's attention towards the vents, she... Mo, she's not in the mood to do vent-crawling today. Besides, there's still plenty of info-gathering to do up here, including hearing about the Forsaken Murderer's past from Malkuth's perspective. Judging from the talk of Cogito injections, she can easily guess that the latter reaction happened, and that gives her a little bit to chew on while the man in the glasses starts leading them along. "Keycards... Oh, right. I should really check in the couch later for all those..." Kukuru murmurs to herself, not making it clear whether she means the ones from here that she totally has for real or some other keycards that have been lost to to time. Security breaches are the least of Kukuru's worries, though, when she sees Michelle pushing the tray along. Just the sight of her has Kukuru holding her hands together in front of her mouth, trembling a little while trying not to make some kind of unholy squealing noise. "Her uniform doesn't even fit, and... She's already trying her best...!" Doing one slow turn in place to let herself calm down, Kukuru returns to her pleasantly calm-enough smiling demeanor as she leans forward to address Michelle. "He-llo, dear... Oh, we're here to help with the preparations." She asserts with a light hum, gesturing towards the Forsaken Murderer's cell and resisting the urge to pat Michelle's head lightly even though it's pretty clear from the beaming smile that Kukuru wants to scoop her up right then and there. "You have that stuff already, so that settles one thing. We just need to do some pre-flight checks to make sure eeeeverything's okay before we start putting anything in." She explains with a light nod, sounding casually confident about the whole matter. She's not lying, after all, so of course she'd be confident about that much.
Sarracenia	'We were going to do Laetitia but we sent Roland ahead this time and it was, um, it was going real well until he exploded into spiders.'      Sarra hmphs in a haughty way as if to say 'could not happen to a nicer guy' before she blinks. "Wait...you -can- restore people from book state?" Sarra asks, then pauses and thinks. Did she know that? Had someone said that before? She considers a few moments before shaking her head. "So, all those that are killed here and become books can be restored? Or is Roland somehow preserved because he works for Angela or something?      Malkuth trips on...a book? That seems a bit odd in a Library with Angela, Petra, and Audrey working here. Malkuth insists she is alright, and Sarra giggles a bit when the ducky band-aid is applied. It is cute!      'Unfortunately I had to seal Laetitia's book for the rest of the day so we'll be moving onto the one I planned to do after.'      'That book... is the book of Forsaken Murderer...'      "...lovely..." Sarra mutters before listening to the explanation.      'My understanding is this one used to be a human being." Angela just casually drops this?? "But I do not recall the full details. Nevertheless, it shouldn't be too difficult.'      Sarra raises an eyebrow in curiosity. "That is fairly rare, is it not?" Sarra asks, then peers. "Wait...-you- do not recall the full details? I thought you literally could not forget things? Were you able to remedy that somehow?"      'The goal here is rehabilitation.'      "...right." Sarra says, sounding skeptical. She sighs after a moment. "Well, I suppose if Love was rehabilitated...mostly...then it is possible for other Abnormalities."      'Only Ayin knows where we get this stuff and if the Head finds out...'      Sarra might stand out quite a bit being a tall, eye-patched, silver-haired woman in a golden crown and a black velvet dress. But, it seems the book is handling the disguise. She looks around similarly to White once they are inside. "...Ayin was in another corporation before L-Corp...?" she asks quietly and to no one in particular. Then, more loudly she starts to ask the two workers something. Surely asking questions in a book won't get her in trouble. But, then she remembers that Petra said she would answer questions during a mission without yelling or being mean. So...Sarra asks over the comms instead.      'Isn't that the one whose hammer you made me try out once?'      "If you did want lessons on wielding a hammer properly, I would be happy to teach you." Sarra adds toward Audrey. And it is only slightly snarky! "Throwing them is fine, but swinging them is where the real power of a hammer lies." That's obvious of course, but Audrey didn't really swing hers even with her telekinetic powers.
Audrey Basque	"It was supposed to suck."     "Oh. That's-- smart. I think."     Audrey would not know.     But she will take Angela's word for it. "He was still detained here."     Cogito injections?     They just... did that?     So there's a chance the one here is still fully human? LITTLE HOD     As they are led to the cell, Audrey is immediately and completely distracted and enraptured by the tiny little Hod.     "Oh, hello! We're new, yes. What's your name?" Audrey asks, rather than presume, knowing the Sephirah had different names once and this is nebulously in the past. "Is what you're carrying related to the prisoner?" "If you did want lessons on wielding a hammer properly, I would be happy to teach you."     "Don't take it the wrong way," Audrey says honestly, "But I almost dislocated my shoulder. Despite Gebura's urgings, I am... not meant to wield a weapon in proper combat, I think. I need weapons that act weird to do well. Like those swords. That I still struggle with, but..." But, they're easier than the hammer. "I'll leave being a warrior princess to people who know how to be." She doesn't clarify that means her, specifically!
Petra Soroka	"Ohh! Petra! Yeah, I can let you in the elevator."     Lobotomy Corporation elevators, Petra's long-beloathed foe. The number of times that Petra went up and down them, had to fight them to get them fixed when they were busted, had to fight them *to* break them for some tactical reason or another, got frustrated and simply bounded up or down the elevator shaft... there were a lot of reasons she defaulted to taking the dusty concrete stairs more often, but she's still as familiar with the interior of these elevators as the back of her hand. Which is a really stupid thing to get sentimental about. "They are always worried there's gonna be a security breach."     Petra knows very well what happens to the proto-LobCorp of Cogito Corporation. As charming (to Petra) that this simulation of it is, its fate is still set in stone: just like Cogito Corp in reality, just like Lobotomy Corporation, it'll be swiftly, brutally destroyed one sudden day, and these narrative researchers whose names Petra doesn't even know are definitely going to die there too, along with most of the Sephirah.     Petra averts her eyes, looking down into the corner of the floor. "Well... yeah, I'll be careful. I mean, you can't really be too careful when it comes to working with stuff like this, right? Thanks for the hand, though." "...Ayin was in another corporation before L-Corp...?"     While riding in the elevator, Petra deigns to exposit to Sarracenia, mostly because she's restless and feels the need to talk about *something*, and she's very well acquainted with the history of L-Corp. "Before L-Corp was a Wing, it operated in the Outskirts to avoid being discovered by the Head. This is Cogito-Corp, so, still most of the same people-- at least the ones who hadn't killed themselves yet-- in charge, built up from when those three started it all. In the next months or years or whatever, this place gets raided by Garion and wiped out, along with... Gebura, Chesed, and then right after, Hod." "Ayin asked me to bring this down since they don't need me yet..."     And speak of the devil! The devil, of course, having earned her sins due to being a little fucking tattletale who ruined everything! Still, even with Michelle, it's effortless, and a little indulgent, for Petra to keep up the employee act.     "Hey Doc. That's the stuff, right? If you'll be administering it, could you give us a few minutes with him first? Disciplinary protocol stuff, since his mental corruption's been pretty high."
Angela	''Thanks for the hand, though.'' "Hey no problem! We're all in this together!" The Murderer seems to be fine physically except for the fact that he has had pieces of his brain removed and replaced with metal plates. He seems kind of vacantly not ''there'' but there is neural activity. He is already injected with Cogito, though the process seem to be progressing as far as his status sheet is saying. There is a status called 'Ringing' that seems to be going up, nearing 100 percent. It seems that when that meter hits 100 he is, in fact, going to transform and go utterly berserk. ''Her uniform doesn't even fit, and... She's already trying her best...!'' Michelle frowns. "You don't have to make fun of me. This is the smallest size they have..." Malkuth's eyes are dazzling at Hod but she's trying her best to focus on the mission. "Ah yes! Would you mind if we take some quick readings?" Keeping it vague enough that it could be anything. ''Ayin was in another corporation before L-Corp...?'' "Well we couldn't exactly keep the same company name as the one that was supposed to be annihilated by The Head." Malkuth says. She's not actually sure if this is true but it makes so much sense she can't imagine that it's anything else. ''Oh, hello! We're new, yes. What's your name?'' Michelle seems to calm down, just a smidge. "Michelle. My parents said I had to start working so we could stay in the Nest. I didn't want to be here... Miss Carmen's nice and says it's gonna change the world but..." Michelle doesn't have it in her to finish that sentence. "Ringing... Ringing..." The Murderer moans. "Metal in my head. Banging. Banging...!" White will notice at this point that the little progress bar isn't progressing with time, but based on how close everybody is moving towards the Murderer. Like a cutscene in video game waiting for you to step on the right trigger. Also like a cutscene, Petra can no doubt see the parts of Michelle growing that will eventually break free when the situation at CogitoCorp just gets worse and worse. #-1 INVALID ANSI DEFINITION: 243''Hey Doc. That's the stuff right? If you'll be administering it...'' Michelle's face turns bright red and she turns her head to try and keep Petra from seeing it. People don't usually call her ber her title here because she's too adorable as a button. "Y..yeah. Sure. Go ahead." She moves up to unlock the cell though it won't open until Petra approaches. Michelle doesn't seem to react to the Sephirah names. When Petra--approaches the door, suddenly metal plates erupt around the man's head, forming a giant cylinder where it ought to be. "RINGING! RINGING!!! OUUUUT LET ME OUUUUT! GET IT OUT!" The Forsaken Murderer starts slamming his new 'head' against the wall, cracking it and making enormously loud CLANGING noises with each strike before it turns on Petra. "Ahh! It exceeded the threshold. No no no...!" MIchelle panics, tears in her eyes.
Sarracenia	Sarra accepts one of Kukuru's lunches when offered. It seems rude to refuse, and Kukuru is a decent cook. "Thank you, Miss Kukuru~" she says with a smile before taking a bite of the sandwich, which she is still nibbling when they enter the book.      'Do we haaave... Any info on what kinds of people he went after?'      'Fixers, mostly Grades Seven to Six.'      Sarra blinks in surprise at this. "Why specifically those grades?" She's a six after all, so she could become a target at some point. Or it could be useful if they need a distraction.      'Don't take it the wrong way, But I almost dislocated my shoulder. Despite Gebura's urgings, I am... not meant to wield a weapon in proper combat, I think.'      Sarra lets out a thoughtful 'hmm'. "Weird weapons..." she ponders, while eyeing Audrey for not saying 'I'll leave being a warrior princess to you'. Sarra knows when people are being insulting toward her! Although admittedly she mostly assumes people are always being insulting toward her since it happens so often. "...how does a sword being explosive or very very sharp make it any more wieldable than any other sword? It is still heavy and without training not much use in real combat." She looks Audrey over, then hmms. "If you ask me, you should be looking at something like a rapier. Though if you did want a 'weird' weapon you might consider something more unorthodox. Like a kusarigama. With your gravity powers you could control it quite effectively, I daresay. And it would give you the range advantage if you do not wish to engage in close quarters combat."      LITTLE HOD      Sarracenia has only a slightly less intense reaction than Kukuru. She also wants to pat Hod on the head! Though, when Petra talks about how Hod is going to get -- well, has already been -- wiped out with the others Sarra frowns. Her smile returns quickly if Michelle happens to look her way, though! "Yes! Quite new! Well, I am at least. It is good to meet you! I am Pr-pr..." Sarra stammers as she realizes she shouldn't use her usual greetings. "...pretty unaccustomed to all of this. My name is Sarracenia." She curtseys to Michelle despite herself. "And you are?"      Sarra may not have time to get her answer as Petra approaches the open cell and the Murderer becomes Cylinderhead. "Oh dear...and here I thought we might actually get to talk to him like we did with overly-affectionate space leviathan." Sarra reaches to touch the metal lotus in her hair and conjures up her Silver hammer, but since they supposedly are not actually here to fight she holds off on swinging for now. "How are we supposed to rehabilitate that?" she huffs.
White	White tenses when she realizes how close that meter is to being full, but unfortunately it seems it took her too long to recognize the stimulus that would cause it to fill. She's only just raising her hand to try and stop Michelle and Petra with strands of webbing when they pass the invisible boundary of 'too close', and instead she shifts to damage control. One hand gestures to Michelle, teleporting her further back, behind the group and closer to Kukuru and Sarracenia, at the same time as the heel of her boot taps the floor. Petra might just be disoriented if she moves her suddenly, and Petra is the one best equipped to try and resolve the Anomaly's needs as far as White can tell, so rather than remove her from proximity entirely, she starts carefully timing castings of Terrain Spear, raising columns of the floor up at the moments when the Murderer's hammerhead skull is being swung down to try and roughly meet the strikes before they can gain full momentum, hopefully reducing the danger of his tantrum so that Petra can make her own call more securely.      She *tries* to share aloud what she's learned, but her soft voice ends up completely stymied by the clanging and smashing noises, and she eventually has to resort to using her phone in the other free hand. After she hammers out the message 'It was proximity-triggered', she goes back to monitoring his status, attempting to gauge whether moving Michelle further away actually made a difference now that he's already losing control. If not, she'll have to help with subdual next...
Kukuru	"You don't have to make fun of me." "Hmm...? Oh, not at all, Ho..ctor. Doctor." Kukuru tries to reassure Michelle, taking a cue from her reaction to Petra calling her by that title. "If you want, I could help fix that right up for you." She offers while pantomiming sewing motions, just in time for the Murderer to start freaking out inside his cell. "GET IT OUT!" "... Aaaafter we take care of this, okay?" Kukuru concludes, sounding as easygoing as ever like she's sure things will go alright. Part of it is false bravado to try and calm Michelle down, but part of it it also coming from her general confidence in everyone here already. Hopefully, she can use that confidence and ease while heading towards the cell herself to help calm the Forsaken Murderer down, too. "Petra, could you open this up for us?" Kukuru asks as she continues just smiling softly at the Forsaken Murderer. "He-llo in there... Oh, it's okay, it's okay. We're here with you now. You're with friends, okay? What's wrong?" She asks, ready to head in up until she sees White's warning about something being proximity triggered. She's seen that word before! As much as she'd like to head in and convince/force him from thrashing around so much, Kukuru holds back instead and only steps in if anyone else winds up in striking range and needs a booster shot of nanites. Even though Kukuru remains standing outside of the cell, however, she tries to get a better read on the Forsaken Murderer's physical state. There might be something physically ailing the almost (or already?) Abnormality she can fix with a dose of healing power, after all! "You can tell us... Nobody's gonna hurt you in here. Is there someone that's hurting you?"
Audrey Basque	"...how does a sword being explosive or very very sharp make it any more wieldable than any other sword?"     "It's more like... if I'm in a swordfight in the first place, it's a bad situation for me. If I'm to be armed at all, it needs to be something that gives me new options, but doesn't lock me into a style that disadvantages me. This rules out... almost every weapon that exists," Audrey laughs, in a way that's more awkward than anything. "Those floating swords Angela had me try fit the bill though. The one I hold is more like a conductor's baton than anything else, and it only occupies one hand."     She muses on that a bit, honestly.     "So it may look like a sword but it's more like a bunch of telekinetic ranged weapons. I already know how to do that-- kind of. And, as you observed... it's essentially a rapier. That's a lot easier on me. But either way... I'm not looking to become a knight. A little bit of versatility won't hurt though." "Michelle."     "Well, don't worry, because we're here to help."     Says Audrey, who has half a mind to panic when meters spike and the Murderer starts screaming. The cell is opened, the Murderer starts slamming its head about wildly-- Kukuru and Petra are going in.     What has she even got for this kind of situation?     "I'll-- if proximity is a problem, I have the means to quickly alter that while you focus on treating it," she offers both White and Kukuru. "And, White, I'll keep Michelle safe while you're busy with this. It wouldn't do if your attention was split."     Something like that, she can handle.     She can widen the cell, shunt the Murderer to the other end of it until it calms down; and keep Michelle well out of its reach, too.
Petra Soroka	"Y..yeah. Sure. Go ahead."     It's important to call people by their titles, especially when most people don't. Michelle didn't like it here, and who can really blame her when she's a prodigy forced into some backwater illegal company, surrounded by people who don't respect her, while her friends drop dead around her one by one. Is she pathetic? Of course. But when she's pathetic *and* young, then... Petra kind of just feels sad. If calling her doctor is a positive point in her day, then Petra will do it-- even though she isn't the real Hod. "Miss Carmen's nice and says it's gonna change the world but..."     "But it's hard to tell that from where you're standing, right?" Petra sighs. Even in the future, the best thing anyone could say about Lobotomy Corporation is 'Carmen's nice and she says it'll change the world'. For Lilian, that was enough justification to kill Angela. Even knowing Michelle's eventual dysfunction, Petra finds it hard to reassure her that anything in 'the world' is better.     "I guess all we can do is the best option we have in front of us." Petra's hand inerringly goes towards Michelle's head, and then veers off to the more respectful shoulder pat instead. "We couldn't do it without you, though." "Why specifically those grades?"     "Strong enough to put up a fight, weak enough to not be suicidal." "Ahh! It exceeded the threshold. No no no...!"     Petra automatically steps back and reaches for her hip where Fourth Match Flame would usually be, but of course, in Cogito Corp, there was *one* EGO and it was Kali's alone. Instead, the Silver blooms into a hilt and blade that stretches out of her fist, and then after a moment's hesitation, loses cohesion and drips into a puddle on the floor. <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "In the end, this guy is one of the first Abnormalities. The way he got there was by being lobotomized and tortured to death by scientists." <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "The only way I can imagine that story being positive is if... his needs are cared for and being an Abnormality can be a more healthy thing than he was before?" <J-IC-Scene> Audrey Basque says, "Well we can't undo its--" Treading carefully, "His, torture. But we can undo the lobotomy, apparently? Unless you think he's better this way but... I mean, what does he need now?" <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "'Out', is what it sounds like." <J-IC-Scene> Audrey Basque says, "You think just opening the door and letting him free is going to suddenly make him... hm. I guess Angela said he just needs to murder less, not 'not at all'."     "I'm not just gonna let his ass roam around and flatten Doctor Michelle to death, dude." Petra shoots aside to Audrey. "No, I mean..."     The morphmetal puddle quivers and reforms, into the rough shape of a smooth metal person. Its head is placed exactly in the most convenient position for Forsaken Murderer to squash, but when he does, he'll find that it's even harder than his own metal head, stunning him.     "Okay-- the plan is, White, disable him, with webs and stuff, and then we'll do the surgery to get the metal out. After that, we should let him wake up *without* a straightjacket on, in an environment he can walk around in, even if it's just for a bit."
Audrey Basque	"in an environment he can walk around in,"     Oh!     Audrey nods.     "I could make his cell the size of a mansion or something. Would that help? I'll have stairs and rooms, a high enough ceiling it won't feel claustrophobic... give him a real living space, see what he wants to do with it."
Kukuru	"then we'll do the surgery to get the metal out." "Hmmm... Oh! Like getting the bones out of a fish without messing up the meat too much... Mm. I think I can handle that." Kukuru suggests with a helpful clap of her hands, wiggling her fingers a bit for emphasis. She probably means the claws, and she probably means that it's going to get messier before it gets cleaner, but she still sounds confident all the same. "And then I can fix him right up after."
Angela	MEANWHILE, OUTSIDE THE BOOK Angela has been holding a spicy pork rind in her hand, studying it intently. Eventually she just puts the pork rind in her mouth and chews on it and-- HOT! SPICY!x100 LENGTH Angela sinks into her chair, dazed and defeated. ''pretty unaccustomed to all this...'' "Yeah..." Michelle says glumly, and then more quietly repeats her name when asked it again. "I hope other Wings aren't like this." Michelle probably would've agreed to the tailoring but kind of cuts herself off and shyly looks way from Kukuru. It probably doesn't really matter if you are kind or cruel to a MIchelle that will probably stop existing once you leave here, but... ''But it's hard to tell that from where you're standing.'' Michelle gasps as Petra hits the nail on the head. She almost flinches as the hand goes towards the head--Hod is more comfortable with these displays, having grown more comfortable in her place at LobCorp and then the Library--but she is surprised when Petra goes for the shoulder instead. She smiles at Petra, "Aha.... Sorry. Thanks. You really are nice. I'll try." ''I'm not just gonna let his ass roam around and flatten Doctor Michelle to death.'' The considerably less suicidal Michelle says, "Um--yeah! I would appreciate not being flattened to death!" "Mhm mhm!" Malkuth also votes for not killing baby Hod. The Forsaken Murderer senses something in front of him. Still all straightjacketed up, he lunges towards the morphmetal head and CLAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!! The Abnormality jerks back and stumbles away before slumping back down in the chair he had been sitting on. "It's staggered! Your plan--do it now!" Malkuth shouts, covering her ears (Michelle also covers her ears).
White	White finds herself a little surprised by the plan, but she'd already committed to following Petra's guidance on matters of relevance. She'd have to immobilize him to remove the metal plates safely via teleportation anyway, so she nods her assent to Petra. With the Morphmetal taking over for her magical pillar parrying, White vanishes from the hallway and appears behind (and slightly to the side) of the hammerheaded man, using that moment of dizziness and disorientation to grasp the metallic faces in an artless, tight hug. While holding it steady, webs start to crawl down from her fingers, palms, and arms and spread across the anomalous man's transformed head, binding it first to his own shoulders, then to the ground below. This creates multiple anchorpoints to restrain the force of a thrashing neck and a heavy weight, quickly making it easier and easier to support further restraints. If she can get a clear view with the Evil Eye of each of the metallic plates, she'll carefully target each of them for a group teleportation and excise them all at once, but if something interferes with the targetting she'll instead try to use Earth Magic to bend the metallicized hammerhead around his skull, reshaping it to expose a spot that Kukuru can perform surgery on.      Either way, it's up to Kukuru to fix him after the fact, and White focuses on holding him steady while wiping away any resulting blood spilled in the process using small silk cloths. Only once the 'procedure' is complete, she will fully release him and start shifting the webs off of his body as Petra instructed... And convert the excess silk into a thick blanket over his prone form, once he's laid down.
Kukuru	Even if Kukuru won't be able to do it with this pre-Hod, she'll have to remember to check on current-Hod's wardrobe to see if she needs anything tailored later. "Cute..." For now, she needs to focus more. With a plan set on how to handle the Forsaken Murderer's rehabilitation, it's time to act. First things first: Covering her horns with her hands when he bashes his face into the morphmetal head. His screaming is one thing, but that clanging really leaves a ringing headache reverberating through her skull. Once that unpleasantness is over, though, she moves in to aid in subduing the bound Abnormality. With her superpowered weirdo strength, she just aims to brute force the bound Abnormality down and help White bind the Abnormality down. She brings her claws out to give herself a little more leverage through the sheer size of the things, too, and once he's sufficiently still enough, Kukuru joins White in getting those metal pieces out of his head. Luckily, White has her methods of actually teleporting those plates out, and exposing the spots to work on means Kukuru can get her claws in with relatively little fuss! It really is like deboning a fish like she said, complete with delicately wiggling pieces out so as to not damage too much of the surrounding flesh/brain matter. Either way, she can soon focus on repairing the brain and stopping all that excessive bleeding after the fact. Does she know human head anatomy? Mostly. Does she know what parts of the brain do what, or what the brain is actually supposed to look like specifically? Not even a little. Can she fudge it together with healing nanites anyway? Definitely. True to form, Kukuru's survival instincts also don't quite kick in, and (unless she's instructed otherwise) she just stays right there besides the Forsaken Murderer to greet him once he reawakens from the procedure. If he behaves, he'll even get a confusing sandwich!
Petra Soroka	It probably doesn't really matter if you are kind or cruel to a MIchelle that will probably stop existing once you leave here, but...     Well, does it? Petra's thinking the same thing as the narrative text. When you boil it down, what they're here *to do* is to demonstrate kindness to stories. The Abnormalities, before or after assisting them, whether they were human originally like Forsaken Murderer or not, *aren't* people either: they're narratives, as was so often repeated during L-Corp's time.     If there's a lesson to take from this, that can be lived consistently and internalized, it's 'to be kind to the things created by humanity', isn't it? Petra's always loved stories all on her own-- the self-reinforcing cycle of narrativization between the construction of stories and the interpretation of reality, that there must be a fundamental 'truth' to fiction being made the way it is. In the real world, people, history, events, even seemingly basic precepts like 'time', are all able to be observed more truthfully as the way that they are because of interpretation through a narrative lens.     So it must matter, at least a little bit, to be nice to Michelle here, just like with the researchers before. Brutal machine carelessness is what makes the City the City, and all of its stories turned out 'this' way. "Um--yeah! I would appreciate not being flattened to death!"     "Michelle-- take the cart, move it a bit away, and wrap the syringe of Cogito in cloth so it's not visible. White-- oh thank god you can teleport stuff out like that, I was gonna be so upset if we had to do bare handed neurosurgery like that. Audrey-- can you loop either end of the hallway and room, stretch it out, and maybe get some star action going on? Once Kukuru's healed him..."     Petra sits down cross-legged in front of the Forsaken Murderer, a ring of Silver on the ground around herself for a quick bubble shield if she needs it. Once he opens his eyes again, she takes a breath.     "Okay, like, this isn't a situation where you have power for yourself. You're kind of an evil bitch and I can't bring myself to give a shit about how you'll never be free again. But, like, you're right to be upset that so much of your, uh, dignity and well-being has been taken away. Treating people as disposable pieces of meat is the exact thing the City tries to do with everybody, and this place is *meant* to be better than that."     "So, after all of this... you can't go free, but you shouldn't have to just be miserable all the time either. There's eventually going to be a place that'll be tolerable enough to live even for a murderer. I mean, *I'm* a murderer too, I can't really, like, throw stones or anything. Solitary confinement sucked shit."
Sarracenia	Sarracenia is a bit surprised at how talkative Audrey is with her. It is like...they are having a normal conversation. A normal conversation!! Sarra is having a normal conversation without getting yelled at or told to go die or how stupid she is! This makes her smile, and she laughs a bit along with Audrey when Audrey rules out almost every weapon that exists. "Well, I suppose telekinetic weapons are perfect for your powers. And swords are quite elegant. I might have chosen a sword style if not for my family's hammer. And...my aversion to killing."      'How are we supposed to rehabilitate that?'      Sarra asked the question, but the answer she gets is something she would never have thought of. Remove the metal plates and heal his brain. Sarra is a bit dumbfounded after she hears it. She looks at White then Kukuru, then at Petra and the Murderer. "...w-well...that sounds like it would work."      'Strong enough to put up a fight, weak enough to not be suicidal.'      "That does not really sound like a murderer." Sarra says. "It sounds more like someone looking for a challenge, but one they know they can overcome."      'CLAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!!'      Sarra winces at how loud the clang is...then can't quite stop a giggle. There is just something comical about it, like when someone is hit by a frying pan in a cartoon. She is definitely not a cartoon character.      And...that is about all the princess can contribute to the plan. White has him restrained. Kukuru will be handling the healing once he is out of surgery, and Sarra is in no hurry to see someone's exposed brain up close.      But, Sarra doesn't want to NOT help. So, she moves to place herself in front of Michelle just in case somehow the Forsaken Murderer feels like murdering someone small and cute when he emerges, or if he decides he needs to murder a Grade 6 Fixer there will be one in easy view. "You should stay behind me, just in case." she says to Michelle. "I will not let him hurt you if something goes wrong with this." she says.      Then, Sarra listens to Petra's speech. Sarra frowns lightly. Not because she doesn't approve of the speech, but because it is just another thing she -can't- do in this situation. She can't relate to this murderer, or being held in solitary confinement for who knows how long. She huffs softly and just watches, and after a moment melts her hammer back into her metal lotus. "If this does work, it might be quite unnerving for him to see weapons upon awaking."
Audrey Basque	"And...my aversion to killing."     "Surely it's easier NOT to kill someone with a sword than with a large hammer? Especially with the strength you put into your swings? Though I suppose if you were swinging a sword with your strength..." That might be a fair argument, actually. "Audrey-- can you loop either end of the hallway and room, stretch it out, and maybe get some star action going on?"     "On it!" Audrey confirms.     She gets to work, to remodel the cell and hallway into a passable and safe larger area. Stretch some walls out, throw the ceiling up-- it's all quite self-contained, unaffecting the rest of the facility, not that it matters in a storybook. This is a narrative; it's easy to reshape, to take the edges of reality and place them further, curve them, raise them up.     She even opens the ceiling to the bare sky, though ensures that if someone were to try jumping out of the cell, they would loop back around to the ground level. You know, just in case.     But star action?     That'll take her a bit longer. Doing it on Petra's island was an all-night affair, and while that means she knows how to do it now, and the narrative bends more easily here... it's still... no, no excuses. It's a lot smaller of an area to do here. Just the top of the cell.     It'll take her a while-- surely, a little bit longer than the 'surgery' and the care takes, but by the time she's done the Murderer'll have an immensely large cell to move about with an open ceiling that shows the full night sky.
Petra Soroka	"It sounds more like someone looking for a challenge, but one they know they can overcome."     "They're a murderer when they murder those people after fighting them," Petra points out. "What, are fucking, like, gang members not murderers when they kill cops? Or those wandering samurai who just used to behead people on the street? It's murder when you murder someone. Duh."     Petra blinks and double takes. "Wait, *you're* a Grade Six Fixer! If someone ran up to *you* and started trying to kill you, wouldn't they be a murderer??? Is it okay to try and kill you?? Why would being a below-average fighter change anything about that?" "Though I suppose if you were swinging a sword with your strength..."     "This is like listening to two children trying to discuss the state of politics in the Middle East."
Sarracenia	'They're a murderer when they murder those people after fighting them,'      Sarra mmphs in annoyance. "Well of course they are still a murderer. Running up to someone randomly and trying to kill them is bad! My point was why go to the trouble of finding people that can put up a fight to murder? Why not go after easier targets?"     'Though I suppose if you were swinging a sword with your strength...'      'This is like listening to two children trying to discuss the state of politics in the Middle East.'      Sarra nods sagely at Audrey's realization, then blinks at Petra. "What is the Middle East?"
Audrey Basque	"What is the Middle East?"     "There really isn't enough time to explain that one," Audrey helpfully responds, because she couldn't even explain it without pulling out a history book and refreshing herself on it all, and remodeling the entire cell means she really can't focus on that!! She's been saved.
Angela	It isn't really tough to wrap the Forsaken Murderer up. Even stronger in this place than he ever was in reality, White is used to wrapping up far bigger prey. It certainly helps that White gets to have a headstart on the Abnormality thanks to Petra's gambit. He eventually starts trying to rip free from the bindings by flexing out its body and thrashing his head, but he's surely well secured--once White has pinpointed the plates, she can teleport them free precisely, not even taking any brain along with it. This is still not a procedure that was supposed to ever be reversed, however, and the hammerhead around his skull is part of an Abnormality foundation, it isn't actually sprouting from the original plates in his head. It remains there for now, though White gets a warning he's about to revert to an 'egg' state, undoing all her hard work. 5rFortunately, they have a Kukuru for this. She unleashes the power of her nanites to repair brain matter. Does she actually know what she's doing? Probably not, but that's okay. This is about a story, after all. She doesn't have to know brain surgery so long as the tale thinks she does. Michelle, and frankly even Malkuth, watch with stunned awe. Angela never said anything about how to help Forsaken Murderer because she didn't think she needed to. After all, Angela is also a thing created by humanity. And most of the people here fought so that SHE could have freedom, whether they have complicated feelings about it or not. Even if others forgot, Angela knew that Petra understood--she too had been forsaken in an underground prison and was formed out of a human mind despite not being one. ''Michelle-- take the cart'' Michelle is inclined to listen to Petra right now. Right now the last thing she is thinking is to stick someone with that syringe. She pulls off her labcoat and drapes it over the cart as she pulls it away. "I can't even see it under this myself... Guess it being a little oversized doesn't hurt right now..." Not that a Michelle-sized labcoat wouldn't have done the trick but she doesn't even have to wrap it over to make the syringe completely obscured under the cloth. She does NOT object to Sarracenia adding another layer of princess protection here. Similarly whatever reasons he started killing is long pried away from this story, but Audrey opens up the cell in practically every direction, and even lets in the sky. Fortunately, it doesn't actually matter if The Head or anyone can see it the story isn't going to start bringing in offscreen characters like that. But something about opening the sky up causes the Forsaken Murderer to rapidly calm down. The metallic cylinger peels away as the Forsaken Murderer stares open at the sky. It takes him a moment to realize his straight jacket has also been pried free from him. Petra too can see the night sky of The City, not really all that unlike when Audrey first showed Angela the stars. "The...the..." He tells Petra insistently, reaching for her hand and using it to point up there. "The stars...." He sighs peacefully, slouching in his chair. "So pretty...The ringing... It's so quiet... Th..thank you doctors..." Maybe all that talk about Petra also experiencing solitary made him want to show her that she's no longer imprisoned as well.
Angela	That increasingly familiar sensation of being pulled out of the book occurs once more. And just like the other times... I couldn't say for sure. When they made you, perhaps they took away the parts of me I could no longer afford. That longing for freedom, that sense of self loathing for failing those kids, the fear of dying...of never living. All I know is, Angela, is that when i was placed in that jar and felt the Cogito infuse what remained of me, I could feel my sight growing farther, my voice getting louder, and my ears hearing even the quiet whispers. You have that voice inside you. Telling you you need to experience humanity in order to care enough for humanity to sacrifice for it, right? That you need to live before you can care for the lives of others fearlessly? You should listen to it. Everything I'm doing this for is so we can be kind to our truest, selfish but beautiful selves so how can I say no to you? They needed us to be invincible, but for you... I just want you to be you. Angela shakes out of her stupor when everyone gets out of it. "Ah--welcome back." Angela says, taking a moment to check the book. This time she doesn't even seem like she's going to question what the book said. Her gaze lingers on Petra, then White, like she's trying to gauge their experience just from looking at them but she doesn't pres sfor details. "...I've always been a little sympathetic to this one myself, so I'm glad you were able to help him--but I had a feeling it wouldn't be hard for you." "I'm gonna check on Hod real quick." Malkuth says, her gaze lingering on Angela for a bit as she makes a decision she doesn't speak about before rushing off.
White	White hadn't paid much thought to empathizing with someone whose name she didn't know, whose life she didn't know, who would never impact her in any way. Doing this work, to her, was just that. A job, done to make Angela's life easier and maybe learn a little more in the process. She hadn't cared, personally, if the job was done well or just sufficiently, if 'sufficient' was the limit of what she could manage with everyone else's help. She gets through the restraint, the brutal treatment, and settles in against the wall behind Petra from there, content to let the expert finish the job as always.      But, following the man's gesture, just as he wished for Petra to do... Seeing the stars there, in the originally small, confined space, and hearing... *something* in his voice that she wasn't expecting... Leaves her lingering there, distant and lost in her thoughts. Wasn't she supposed to be able to empathize? Another person, buried away out of sight, craving the open sky, with nothing to do at all but... To fight, to try to be free? Struggling when others swarm in around her to bring her in line? Letting her mind come apart if it meant survival? If it meant she could defend her dignity, even just to herself? Even if she was just a monster?      She hadn't been prepared for such a small interaction, at least by her perspective, to be so hard to digest. She ends up leaving Petra with the would-be murderer, quietly stepping back out of the room too late to actually miss anything on purpose. The group is withdrawn from the world of the book, and those perhaps literally *haunting* words ring in their heads. For once, it's hard to miss the tension in her shoulders, in her jaw, in the way her fingers clench at the hem of her dress for a brief moment before finally being forced to release and relax when Angela speaks. She manages a nod in Angela's direction, but it's slow, and even though her eyes are open they're turned downward. She's not saying it was easy... She's agreeing with that sense of sympathy. Either one of them could've been as unlucky, after all... Or worse.
Sarracenia	The idea of not being friendly or kind to Michelle or anyone within the book world does not even occur to Sarra. For better or worse, her child-like mind doesn't really consider them not people. Which is why she moves to protect Michelle even though this Hod will not exist once they leave.      Or will she?      Seeing the stretched out and sky opened cell draws a bit of an awed smile from Sarra. Seeing the plates removed and FM healed does not draw as much. Sarra has experienced Kukuru's healing first hand, and White is just apparently able to do anything as far as Sarra can tell.      When the tortured Abnormality man speaks up in a human way and thanks the doctors, Sarra finds herself approaching the cell to try and get a better look. "I think it is safe now." she says to Michelle. Then, a thought crosses Sarra's mind. Michelle is another child she met in a fake world who is a real person. Niko and Worldy pop into her mind, as does the future she knows Michelle faces. Sarra's eyes tear up, and she wipes at them a moment before she reaches into her purse and pulls out...a Luma plush. Sarra has no idea if Michelle will appreciate it given how she has reacted to being treated like a child so far but...who doesn't love cute plushies? "I know we just met, but...here." she says, offering it to Michelle. "...life in this place can be difficult. But, if you just hold on to the good things and the hope they bring...you can make it through anything." Sarra says. A hand wanders to her eyepatch as she turns to look up at the stars again before they are pulled back to the real world.      Carmen's words are indeed haunting and melancholy, but that is typical for these adventures. Each time Sarra gains a bit of insight into both Carmen and Angela, and when Angela greets them Sarra ends up gazing at Angela with an odd sort of look. It is hard to tell what she is thinking.      'I'm gonna go check on hod real quick.'      Sarra smiles sadly, her eyes still moist. She doesn't go check on Hod because...well, she is fairly certain that Hod does not like her even if the cute little scientist is too kind to really say or even strongly imply that. So, she ends up watching Malkuth go and then just staring quietly at the door that Malkuth left through.