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[shutupmarco]

[ Rachel's in the feed, looking a mixture of angry and upset and honestly, kind of grossed out. For once, she looks like she might lose her cool. Or might have lost it already. Either way, she's holding a grease-stained takeout box in her hand, her lip pulled back in disgust. ]

You know, it's bad enough that both of my roommates just up and disappeared. It's bad enough that I'm stuck in this crummy apartment all by myself, when the blue bitch in charge has just locked us into the neighborhood. But when my food starts talking to me? I'm so done, okay?

[ She opens the top of the takeout box to show to the omni-tool feed -- the indistinguishable heap of food in the box looks perfectly innocuous at first, until it starts...wriggling. And then a couple of black bean mameshiba pop their heads above the surface with a little whoosh of air. They stare at the camera with wet, quivering eyes for a long moment before one of them starts to speak in a tiny voice and heavily affected English. ]

Do you know? Most lipstick contains fish scales --

[ Rachel snaps the top of the box shut, and the mameshiba inside let out muffled cries of dismay. Never has a teenaged girl looked this angry over bad takeout. Seriously, if looks can kill... Well, at least Rachel's grizzly morph can.

Her nostrils flare, her jaw set tight, and oh yeah, she looks pissed. Pissed to cover up being scared and upset because she's alone, and the food is infested with weird little Japanimation beans, and she doesn't like it when the rug gets pulled out from under her. ]

It's been crap like that, nonstop. Creepy, disgusting trivia every time I open the stupid box. And it's all so weird! Who even knows this stuff?

[ Nerds, Rachel. Nerds know this stuff. And right now, that makes her so angry.

She leans forward, eyes narrowed, and pronounces with total, seething conviction: ]

This. Is. So. Gross.

Comments

[shutupmarco]

The Yeerk invasion doesn't have anything to do with God, I can tell you that much.

[ A little bitter, maybe, but Rachel's still more fixated on Severa's weird matter-of-factness about...gods. ]

Besides, I think your world has a different idea of gods than mine does.

[squanderlust]

Our world's differences are becoming clearer by the sentence. These... Yeerks, then, they discovered your planet and decided that they wanted to have it? I suppose that part isn't quite so different. You would be one of the warriors in this invasion that you were so semantically pushy about?

[shutupmarco]

[ god severa don't remind her of that that conversation is so embarrassing in retrospect ]

It's more complicated than that, but...that's the gist of it. We weren't the first planet they'd come to conquer, either. There were others they enslaved first.

[squanderlust]

I didn't think these invaders capable of more complicated motivations than "ooh, shiny", but I suppose you would know better. Did you plan to liberate the other races? Would you have even been able to?

[this is tactics, mostly, or perhaps justice—either way, it's got Severa's attention, so she's pretty curious about the particulars. she looks rapt.]

[shutupmarco]

Trust me, they're just as intelligent as humans. Most of them more advanced than us, too. And in the case of the Yeerks, they're evil.

[ There's conviction in her voice, bitter and angry just at the thought of them. The audacity of those parasites, that they thought they could just take Earth for theirs. It didn't belong to them.

She swallows some of it, though, her expression softening a little at the question, sombering a little too. ]

I mean -- we'd like to, yeah. We've freed a few Hork-Bajir -- one of the aliens the Yeerks enslaved. But...there are only a few of us fighting them, Severa. And most of the time, we don't do so hot. Of course we want to free the Hork-Bajir, but we have to free our own people before we can do that.

[squanderlust]

Gods.

[the word sounds hollow. even against the seemingly insurmountable forces of Emperor Walhart, Severa had never felt as hopeless as Rachel's fight in this war may seem. she exhales slowly.]

The Fell Dragon is vanquished and Ylisse is rising into another age of peace. If we ever find a way off of this floating rock, I will gladly lend my sword to your cause.

[shutupmarco]

[ Rachel lets out a humorless laugh. It's not that she doesn't appreciate it, but -- what are the odds she's even going to go home, let alone figure out how to take someone with her? As if another teenage girl would add much to their cause. She appreciates Severa's spirit, really, on a level that Marco probably couldn't. But it's hard not to feel a little bleak about it all anyway. ]

I hate to break it to you, but a sword isn't much good against a Yeerk. A Dracon beam could probably fry you from the inside out before you had a chance to hit anybody with it.

[squanderlust]

And if the sword is just a metaphor? [her look turns almost devious, daunting though she knows the task ahead of her may be.]

I may not be the most skilled marksman of my time quite yet—hm. I guess I am, actually. But that's not the point. I'm sure this space station must have if not more advanced technology then at least equivalent technology to that of the Yeerks. If we both train in it enough, perhaps when the time comes to return home, the fight would not seem so hopeless.