Resonance Days

by TakerFoxx

Falling their mutual demise at each other's hands, Kyoko and Sayaka wake up in a strange world. Now, with Kyoko's soul gem missing and Sayaka's humanity and personality only partially restored, they must band together to survive.

11. From the Top to the Bottom

From the Top to the Bottom

"As of now, the Alliance still has the only two known members locked up in the Xenologic Institute," explained Gesala. She moved one of her three-fingered talons over a floating, three-dimensional representation of Cloudbreak and tapped a domed, two-story building. The image of the building expanded, allowing those gathered to see it in detail. "Information pertaining to their culture and their planet is still classified, but word has it that Ki'no'vask has been spending a great deal of time with them, so we can expect a lengthy thesis to be officially published on them within the month."

Gesala was a vekoo, which was to say her body was vaguely avian, with six sharp talons, a vulture-like head on the end of a skinny neck, and a fleshy membrane that stretched between her limbs, allowing flight. But she was completely featherless, instead having pebbly white skin (originally brown before committing herself to Oblivion's service) and long, stiff hairs that covered her back and lower arms and legs, each one tipped with a tiny bladder. She wore knee-length black kilt and silver-studded armbands. Her official title was Minister of Foreign Information, which essentially meant that she was Reibey's spymaster.

Looming next to her was Eton, the Void Walkers' Minister of Defense. She was small for a dockengaut, being just over two meters tall, but was no less intimidating. The fact that she often kept her hood down, making her writhing, faceless "head" plainly visible had a great deal to do with this. "Ki'nnnno'vasssssk is a pomfouzzzzz fool," she buzzed, contemptuously referring to the famous ai'jurrik'kai scholar. "Her thezzzzziiiizzzzz vill be more zzzzzelf-congruzzzzulaizzzzzon zzzzan fact, annnnd zzzreee timezzzz longer zzzzan nezzzezzzary."

"You'll hear no arguments from me," Reibey remarked. The Incubator sat in front of the holographic image, gazing up at it with unblinking eyes. "But if we have to sift through her egotistical ramblings and pointless conjecture to gain concrete fact, so be it. It'll serve as a beginning."

It was a routine council meeting, usually held on the morning of the first day of each week. Today, the subject of conversation was the Savians, who were the first new species to arrive in the afterlife in some time. Currently, the only two known members were being held by the New Life Alliance, which was something of an annoyance. Reibey, who had never even heard of the species until their arrival, really didn't care one whit about the Savians themselves, but it rankled him that the Alliance had gotten them first, especially since he wasn't keen on having an entire species join their ranks. Simply them having the lion's share of the calliopes and the ai'jurrik'kai was bad enough.

"Perhaps," Gesala allowed. "Though given the source, I fear the bulk of the paper will be devoted to the Savians' mating habits and romantic poetry."

This was met with a chorus of low chuckles, Reibey's voice among them. Ki'no'vask's academic respectability was a dubious thing at best. "Be that as it may, I'm more concerned-"

He was interrupted by the sound of rustling cloth. The ground at the head of the room twisted, and the Matriarch rose out of the vortex. The other council members, who were long accustomed to her abrupt entrances, bowed their heads in respect and muttered greetings.

As for Reibey, he simply nodded at her and said, "Well?"

"Done," she responded.

"Good." He turned his attention back to Gesala. "As I was saying, I'm not interested in their culture. The place in which they spawned is of greater importance. If they came into being in known neutral territory, then they are indeed the first of their kind to arrive. But if they originated from an unknown spawn site, then it's possible that there is already a fully established-"

The door to the room creaked open, and a voice said, "Reibey? Are you in here?"

The council stiffened, Reibey included. No, he thought in despair. No, no, no. What is she doing here?

"Reibey?" Oblivion said as she shuffled nervously into the room. "You weren't in your room, so-" Then she noticed all the staring eyes (or, in Eton and the Matriarch's cases, lack thereof) and froze. "Oh," she said. "Uh, hi."

"My lady," Gesala bowed her head and hooded her eyes, the vekoo gesture of deference. All around the room, the other council members were likewise prostrating themselves before Oblivion in the manner of their people, all save for the Matriarch, who had never been very reactionary, and Reibey, who was now too pissed off to show much respect.

A heavy silence fell, which was only broken when Reibey had regained enough control for him to speak calmly. "Good morning, your grace," he said, sounding as servile as he could manage. "Is there something you wish to discuss?"

That seemed to jolt Oblivion out of her stupor. "Uh, yes," she said, focusing on him. "It's been almost a week now, and you still haven't-"

"Splendid! We'll do so in the privacy of my quarters." He quickly moved toward the door, nodding to the council as he left. "Your pardon, ladies. I'll be back in a moment." As he passed the Matriarch, he said in a voice only she could hear, "Don't let any of them leave this room."

The Matriarch nodded.

Reibey struggled to maintain his composure all the way back to his quarters. Once they were safely behind closed doors, he turned to Oblivion, with great effort of will, said as kindly as possible, "Oblivion? Honey? Do you remember what I said about wandering around and revealing yourself to the help? Do you remember how I said you weren't supposed to do it?"

Oblivion's face darkened with anger. "But I'm bored!" she shouted back. "You got me cooped up in a stupid room all day with nothing to do and no one to talk to! You said I was going to be a queen! Being a queen isn't supposed to be boring!"

And with that, Oblivion demonstrated her ignorance on what being a female part of a monarchy was actually like. Queen, princess, empress, and so on and so forth, none of them were anything like the storybooks commonly portrayed them. Honestly, only the princes ever got to have any fun. Everyone else was either burdened by endless responsibility, lethargic figureheading, or just waiting to be traded off like some sort of genetic political gift. Well, at least the decent ones were. Tyrants at least knew how to have fun before being dragged through the streets by their successors.

But Oblivion was no tyrant, as much as the opposition would like everyone to believe otherwise. She served as an excellent figurehead, but her actual influence on matters of state began and ended with the yearly Releasing Ceremony. In the meantime, she was supposed to stay well out of sight. The last thing Reibey needed was for the wrong person to catch her whining like an elementary school child. Which, in fairness, she technically was, physical size notwithstanding.

Note to self, Reibey thought wearily. In the event that this iteration ends with a reset, find a way to contact my future self and keep him from giving the strange little girl the powers of Oblivion. Of course, that was probably impossible, as it was thanks to Oblivion that he was even aware of the resets to begin with, but hey, he could dream.

In the meantime, he did have a façade to maintain. "But what of those entertainments I provided you?" he asked. "Are they not adequately amusing?"

Oblivion scowled. "All you gave me was that dumb colorful cube that I can't figure out, a paddle-ball, a hula-hoop, and a beach ball."

Hmmm, apparently Oblivion found human children's toys to be just as inane as he did. Still, in fairness, her list was incomplete. "What of that game machine?" he asked. "I hear they're quite popular."

"You just gave me an Atari with no games, no TV, and no place to plug it in!"

Reibey supposed he should have actually looked up those items up before putting in the order. "My sincerest apologies," he said, bowing his head. "My knowledge of modern human entertainments is somewhat lacking, I'm afraid. So how about this: you can compose a list of the items you desire, and I'll have someone with more knowledge of your culture procure them for you?"

That seemed to mollify Oblivion a little, though she still looked upset. "What about big sis Kyo?" she asked. "When is she going to get here?"

Oh right. That. "It's a work in progress," he said with as much forced cheer as possible. "The Alliance is continuing to make things difficult. But I've already sent some special agents out earlier this morning to talk to a friend of mine who'll help them sneak her out."

Oblivion bit her lower lip. "Oh. And how long with that take?"

Though his outward demeanor was of complete submissiveness, Reibey's claws were starting to protrude from his paws. If this kept up any longer, he was going to start scratching up the floor. "Impossible to say, I'm afraid," he said, pumping every drop of civility he had into his words. "With the Alliance going out of their way to be uncooperative in every way, they will no doubt do every in their power to delay your reunion as much as possible. I've already explained the situation to their leaders a dozen times, and even to Kyoko herself-"

Oblivion's body jerked stiff, the heavy folds of her robe swishing across the floor. "Wait, you talked to Kyoko?" she blurted out. "When?"

"Yesterday evening," he responded. "She was near the border of the Neutral Zone, and I took the opportunity to try to explain how much you missed her and wanted to see her again."

To Reibey's discomfort, Oblivion responded to this tidbit of information by swooping down and snatching him up by the front shoulders. "Why didn't you tell me?" she said, shoving her face forward until their noses were almost touching. "What did she say?"

Reibey had to resist the urge to claw his way to freedom. "I didn't want to upset you," he said. "Unfortunately, the Alliance had already filled her head with misinformation, and she has been taught to hate us. In fact, after I finished explaining the situation to her, she lost her temper and tried to attack me."

A small squeak of surprise came out of Oblivion's throat. "She what?" she said. "Then…she hates me?"

Finding that her grip had loosened, Reibey wiggled free and hopped up onto Oblivion's shoulder. "As I said, she has been brainwashed by our enemies. Not her fault by any means, but it does…complicate things."

"Then what do we do?" Oblivion said pleadingly. The girl sounded like she was close to tears. Which, in Reibey's experience, meant she was one wrong word away from becoming an impossible blubbering mess.

"At this point, find a way to bring her here and show her that your love for her is genuine. Even as we speak, the agents I sent are preparing themselves to mount a rescue operation." His tail twitched. "Of course, you realize that such an operation will encounter many unforeseen obstacles, and must be carried out with utmost caution. So I'm afraid it is impossible to predict exactly when they will return."

Wringing her gloved hands in agitation, Oblivion said, "B-but it'll work, right? They'll get her and bring her here, right?"

Reibey made a show of heaving out a heavy sigh. "Oblivion, I do not wish to fill you with false hope. As I said, what we are trying to do is very dangerous, and there are many things that can go wrong. But please believe me when I say that everything that can be done will be done."

"But you promised!" Oblivion cried, falling back to the classic child's argument, as if the fact that a promise had been made trumped everything else. "You promised you would get me whatever I wanted. Well, I want Kyoko!"

"And I intend to keep that promise," Reibey responded. "However, the situation has changed drastically since I made that promise." He leaned forward so that he was looking right at her face. Predictably, it was scrunched up with defiance, an expression that was offset by the tears forming in her blue eyes. "Please understand I am doing everything in my power to bring you and Mr. Sakura together, but given the circumstances, it will take time and effort. A little patience is all I ask."

She held onto her frown for a moment longer, and then it dissolved. "Okay," she muttered, hanging her head.

"Thank you." With that, Reibey leapt off her shoulder onto the floor. "In the meantime, feel free to make up a list of what kind of entertainments you'd prefer, and I'll see that they are delivered to you as soon as possible."

When Reibey returned to the meeting, everyone was still sitting (or nearest equivalent, depending on the anatomy of the person in question) in silence, waiting for his return.

"Sorry about that, ladies," he said, hopping onto the table. "Just some minor affairs needing to be sorted out."

Eton regarded him, her writhing mess of a face impossible to read. But Reibey still got the impression that she, like the rest of her council, was a bit concerned. "Zzzhhhen all izzzz velllll wizzzz zzzzeee mazzzzzzerrrrr?"

"Of course. Nothing to be worried about." Reibey bobbed his head diplomatically. "Please, let us continue."

After a short hesitation the council returned to the subject at hand. Sighing, Reibey returned his thoughts to the meeting. Though he had no great trust in the competence of those he sent out on this task, he was very thankful that the Madam had agreed to assist. She at least knew what she was doing, so hopefully with her guidance they would stand more than half a chance at success.

…

There are certain moments in which it pays stop what you're doing, take a step back, reflect on the situation, and wonder when and how did your life go so wrong.

As Annabelle Lee plummeted from the sky toward the wretched docks of one of the worst towns in existence with a gaping wound through her stomach and her mentally unstable sister screeching into her ear, she might have had such a moment. Unfortunately, she was too busy with her own screaming to do much reflecting.

They hit the docks hard and mercifully blacked out before the pain of the impact had time to register.

When Annabelle Lee finally came to, she noted another mercy: despite being taken down by a deranged assailant in the bad part of Bertha's Brothel (though in truth, Bertha's Brothel did seem to be all bad parts), she was not waking up naked in a dank basement somewhere with her arms tied to a steel chair and a blindfold covering her eyes. Instead, she was waking up fully clothed on the same dank dock she had passed out on with her arms tied to a rusty barrel and nothing covering her eyes. Still not a preferable situation by any means, but it was far superior to some of her alternatives.

As the throbbing in her head ebbed away, Annabelle Lee was able to verify that her torso was no longer sporting a great big honking hole, which meant she had been out for almost half an hour at least. Her jacket and shirt were still ruined though. Furthermore, she had been stripped of her wrist-blades. A problem.

Further investigation revealed that Ticky Nikki was similarly tied up to her left, while Nie was chained to a pipe at her right. That was three-fourths of the team taken out. Another problem.

As for the crazy fop herself, she was looming over them with her hands on her hips, upper body leaning slightly forward, and amber eyes dark with disapproval. In her still fuzzy state, Annabelle Lee couldn't keep from giggling. The nutcase looked more like an uptight class president who had just caught her underachieving classmates goofing off again instead of a deranged criminal who had just eviscerated three complete strangers.

Naturally, that pissed the fop off. "Hey, why are you laughing?" she demanded, tilting her head to one side. "Do you find me funny? Because that's just rude!"

Enough of Annabelle Lee's mind recovered for her to remember that laughing at the girl who had just handed all three of them their asses in under a minute was probably a bad idea. "No," she said. "Not funny at all."

The fop glowered down at her suspiciously, as if trying to gauge the truth of her words. "Then why were you laughing? Don't say you weren't laughing when I saw you laughing! Stupid, stupid girl! Don't you know better than to laugh at people better than you? That's the thirteenth rule of survival here at Bertha's Brothel!"

Despite the severity of her predicament, Annabelle Lee found herself idly wondering if Bertha's Brothel had an actual rulebook that Reibey had neglected to provide her with. It did sound like something he'd do: trick her into committing a fatal faux pas through ignorance and let her get torn apart by the locals. But given the source of said rules, it was more likely that the fop was just making them as she went along.

Then she saw something that gave her a rare feeling of hope. As the girl ranted down at her bound prisoners about their lack of knowledge concerning local etiquette, Arzt emerged from the shadows of the cargo containers behind her. Crouching down low, she stalked toward the crazy fop, arms held out like bat wings, golden eyes burning with fury. The syringes she had for fingers were all filled with a luminescent crimson liquid. Annabelle Lee didn't know what nasty substance Arzt had armed herself with, but she was looking forward to finding out.

Then, demonstrating that Murphy's Law was taking special interest in everything Annabelle Lee did, Nikki chose that moment to regain consciousness. She groggily sat up, looked around, and then focused her attention, not on the crazy fop standing directly in front of her, but on girl trying to stealthily advance on said crazy fop. And for one disastrous moment, Nikki forgot that Arzt was supposed to be her ally.

"No!" she cried, trashing at her bonds. "She found Nikki! Don't let her get her! Stop her Annabelly! Stop her!"

Panicked, Annabelle Lee shoved a hand over her sister's mouth. "Shut up!" she hissed. Unfortunately, Nikki didn't even notice that the hand was even there, as she continued to screech in alarm around it.

Perplexed, the fop leaned in closer. "She's afraid," she observed. "Why is she so afraid?"

It was such a bizarre statement that Annabelle Lee stopped trying to quiet her sister long enough to stare in disbelief at the fop. She opened her mouth to list the very large number of reasons why Nikki would be afraid, but Arzt, having finally closed the distance between her and the fop, chose that moment to strike.

Annabelle Lee had to give Arzt credit: as annoying as she and Nie were, the pointy-hatted witch knew her way around a sneak attack. All five needles sank into the fop's neck with perfect precision and the red fluid was injected in short order. The fop's eyes bulged wide, and she immediately pulled away.

"Whazzisthat!" she cried, her hand clapping over the point of entry. She whirled to face Arzt, who was watching her in smug satisfaction.

"Five," Arzt said.

"What?" the fop said in bewilderment. "Who are…Why did…"

"Four."

"Why are you saying numbers? What did you poke me with?"

"Three."

The fop's face turned red with anger. She spread her fingers, and those nasty hook-claws sprouted from the tips. "That's it, I'm going to open you up like a…"

"Two.

The fop stopped talking. She blinked in confusion, though the angry red didn't leave her face. In fact, it was growing deeper, more vibrant, like she was suffering from a bad fever. "Wait, I don't feel so…"

Then her head exploded. Nikki let out a cry of terror and tried to burrow into Annabelle Lee's side. For her part, Annabelle was so shocked that she could only sit and stare at the fop's body fell to its knees and flopped over on its side, citrine vapor issuing from its neck like a smokestack.

Arzt smirked down at her fallen foe. "One," she said.

Then her eyes fell on the still-motionless form of her lover, and the smugness dissipated, replaced with alarm. "Darling!" she cried as she rushed Nie's aide. Fortunately for her, the chains weren't locked to anything, but simply wrapped around Nie in such a way as to prevent her from gaining any leverage, and Arzt was able to free her in short order.

Arzt drew Nie away from the post and gently cradled her head in her lap. "Oh Nie," she murmured, smoothing stray strands of hair away from Nie's face. "How could that…that beast do this to you?"

Nie's eyelids fluttered, and she looked up in confusion, which was soon replaced with joy when she saw Arzt's face. "Arzt," she breathed, reaching up to caress her savior's cheek. "You came back for me."

Oh, perfect. Just bloody perfect. There they went again. Reminding herself that Arzt had just saved all of their asses, Annabelle Lee clamped her jaw shut and mentally recited the alphabet backwards. Nikki's approach was more direct: squeezing her eyes shut, hunching down into a ball, and stuffing her fingers into her ears.

Meanwhile, the cheese continued. "I never left," Arzt said, beaming. She drew Nie up and held her head against her breast. "No matter what fate might have in store for us, no matter what new level of Hell we might descend to, I will always be by your side. God Himself could not tear us apart. What chance did this joker have?"

Annabelle Lee sighed. All right, enough was enough. There was a time and a place for melodramatics, and this was most certainly neither. She cleared her throat and said, "Hey. Arzt."

"How could I ever have doubted you?" Nie whispered, a small sob in her voice. She buried her face againt Arzt's chest and wept. "Forgive me, my love. Forgive me."

Nearby, the vapor issuing out of the hole where the fop's head used to be had hardened into a dark yellow lump, stopping the flow. Keeping a wary eye on the body, Annabelle Lee raised her voice and again said, "Arzt."

Smiling, Arzt placed a finger under Nei's chin and drew her face up. "There is nothing to forgive, my darling. There is nothing to forgive."

Ticky Nikki, who was now in visible distress, let out a strangled whimper and cried, "Annabelly, they're gonna start kissing and stuff! Make them stop!"

That jolted The Twins out of what had to be a well-rehearsed routine. They turned their heads in unison to stare at their still-bound companions, looking as if they had quite forgotten that they were there.

"Hi," Annabelle Lee in a short tone. "Look, sorry to kill the mood and all, but you wanna get us out of this first?"

Further cementing Annabelle Lee's belief that The Twins either practiced that synchronization thing in secret or shared some kind of joined mind, Arzt and Nie glowered at her with identical looks of contempt. Then, as one, they silently rose and went over to free Ticky Nikki from her chains. For her part, Nikki didn't seem all that thrilled over being rescued, if the way she was hissing and pulling away from their fingers was any indication.

"There you are, sweet little Nikki," Nie said, loosening the last of the chains. "Don't say your aunties never did anything for you."

Rather than being grateful, Nikki kicked herself free and fled to the relative safety of the other side of her sister and snarled in warning.

"Good job," Annabelle Lee said. "Now me."

Instead of doing as they were told, The Twins again looked at her in disgust and walked off. Surprised by such blatant insubordination, Annabelle Lee gaped after them. "Hey!" she shouted. "Are you forgetting who's in charge here? Cut me loose!"

Arzt snorted in disdain. Then she said to Nie, "I think that idiot threw your pistols somewhere over here."

Furious, Annabelle Lee strained at her bonds. This was the last straw. She had suffered defeat, dismemberment, humiliation, exile, multiple impalements, and now betrayal and abandonment. Screw it all, she was going to break free and show those two exactly what the price of turning their backs on Annabelle Lee was.

After nearly a full minute, she collapsed in exhaustion, still no closer to freeing herself. Sighing, she turned to her sister, who was staring up at her in bewilderment.

"Hey," she said. "A little help?"

Soon she was sitting in a pile of loosed chains, rubbing her sore wrists. Okay, first step was to find wherever the fop had tossed her wrist-blades. Second was to introduce a certain pair of selfsexual airheads to the business side of-

Her wrist-blades landed with a rattle on the wooden planks in front of her. Startled, she looked up to see The Twins standing over her.

"Found them down that way," Nie said, tilting her head. "My pistols were right next to them. Guess she just disarmed us and tossed them away, the idiot."

Blinking in surprise, Annabelle Lee retrieved the blades and began strapping them back in place. She said nothing.

"So, what you want to do with her?" Arzt asked, sticking her thumb, the syringe one, over her shoulder at the still-headless fop. "I personally suggest tossing her into the drink and seeing how well she swims without a head."

Careful to hide the relief from her face, Annabelle Lee finished tightening the last cord and floated upright. "Get her up and tie her down."

"Sounds good," Nie said. She and Arzt grabbed the fop by the arms and dragged her to the pile of rusted chains that had previously held Annabelle Lee. "Then what? Let Nikki have her fun?"

Nikki's face lit up immediately, but as tempting as it might be to let her indulge in her hobbies, they still had a job to do.

"Not just yet," she said. "Turn out her pockets, will you?"

Doing so turned up some very interesting odds and ends, including but not limited to seven screws; a great deal of dental floss; a large silver pocketwatch that didn't work; an entire bag of squished toffees (Nikki immediately swiped this); several strangely worded love poems directed to some unknown "Savior;" a wallet full of cash (Annabelle Lee had to prevent all three of the others from stashing that away); six tubes of lipstick; four small oval jewels, each of a different color (Annabelle Lee had an uncomfortable feeling that she knew exactly what those were); two incredibly ugly plush toys; and a business card. The card identified her simply as "Margot," no title. On the back was a logo of a melting heart over a pair of crossed assault rifles.

Annabelle Lee's heart fell when she saw the insignia. "It's her," she said.

"What?" Arzt said. "Who?"

Annabelle Lee showed them the card. "Our contact. This is the Brothel's logo."

The others fell into an uncomfortable silence. "So…we just attacked one of the Madam's people?" Nie ventured at last. "In Bertha's Brothel?"

Nikki scratched her head. "This is a bad?"

"Yes, Nikki, it is," Annabelle Lee said as she started to replace the fop's belongings. "The Madam isn't known for thinking kindly of anyone who hurts her people."

"Then let's run," Arzt suggested. She pointed down to the body now lashed to the cargo container. There was now a lump of yellow gunk on her neck that was growing ever larger. "Before Margot here wakes up."

Annabelle Lee gave that option serious consideration. Running might be best. When it came to vengeance, the Madam had a certain reputation, one that probably explained why she worked so well with Reibey. If they took off now, they could probably be well clear of Bertha's Brothel before Margo regained consciousness.

Except…where would they go? Bertha's Brothel was the last bit of real civilization (even if the word was used very loosely) to the north, and fleeing into the Fezzinigo Swamp all but guaranteed them a fate on par with anything the Madam could cook up. And with her, Reibey, and possibly even the Alliance after them, they wouldn't last long anyway.

No, there was only one way to save their skins. It was a tremendous risk, but they had nothing else. "No, we wouldn't make it," Annabelle Lee said at last. "Just…keep her tied tight, and stay on your guard when she finally comes around."

Naturally, this didn't earn her a vote of confidence from The Twins. "What?" Nie said, grasping Arzt's hand tightly. "But…what are you planning to do?"

"Something I fortunately have a lot of experience with." Annabelle Lee glanced over to Ticky Nikki, who had gotten bored and was now amusing herself by squishing toffees together in the shape of a butt. "I'm going to talk some sense into a lunatic."

…

Windriding had been one of the greatest experiences of Kyoko's life, no irony intended. She had always enjoyed the adrenaline rush that came from leaping across rooftops, but even that paled in comparison to clinging to the back of a golden, mechanical dragon as it soared and in some cases swooped through a myriad of alien worlds.

Unfortunately, while her strength and endurance were quite literally superhuman, even she was not without limits, and it was a long trip. And so she found herself riding out the last few hours back inside the elysian. She was a little shaky from both exhaustion and exhilaration, but thanks to criminally good food (seriously, they had to be violating some kind of airline code of conduct with that stuff) and an exceedingly comfy chair, she was very comfortable.

Still, there was something bugging her, something she hadn't paid much attention to at first but was steadily niggling at her more and more. Gnawing on a chicken leg, she cast a dour look at the empty space next to Charlotte and finally piped up with, "Has she been down there the whole time?"

Charlotte gave her a look that said that they still weren't on friendly terms, but she put down her book (her third one of the flight) and answered, "More or less."

"She's come for meals a couple of times while you were up there," Mami said. The blonde was reclining back with her eyes closed and her hands folded over her stomach. Before she had spoken, Kyoko had thought her to be fast asleep. "But other than that, no."

Scowling, Kyoko went back to work emancipating chicken bone from fried flesh. "What's up with her, anyway? Girl gets to ride in a first-class golden dragon thingamajig, and she spends the whole time cramped up in a goddamn fishbowl."

Charlotte returned to her book. Turning a page, she said, "Kyoko, has anyone ever told you that you're kind of whiny?"

"No," Mami said, holding up a hand before Kyoko could retort. "You two are not going to go at it again. We have enough problems as it is without you going at it all the time. Kyoko? Leave Oktavia be. Charlotte? Please don't antagonize Kyoko."

Then Sayaka's voice piped in from Mami's armrest, "And by the way, I can hear you, jackass. Don't make fun of my fishbowl."

"The hell?" Kyoko lifted her arm to stare at the source of the tinny voice. "They've got microphones in your bathroom?"

"Strictly optional, of course," Mami said. "Operated from her end. We've been using them to have conversations."

"Like I said, leave my fishbowl alone," Sayaka said. "You wish you were riding in something half this nice!"

Kyoko had to laugh. "Since when were you such a delusional little fishstick? For your information, I got to fly around on the back of this beautiful baby! And let me tell you: you missed a helluva view!"

"Oooh, wow, I don't know how I'll live with myself," came the dry reply. "Hey, here's an idea: how about you get back up there and get the whole thing on video for me. And when you slip and fall off, you can tell the ground how much I miss it. With your face."

Cackling, Kyoko entwined her fingers behind her head and propped up her footrest. "Even if that were possible, like I'd be so dumb as to fall off. My sense of balance is godly."

"Famous last words," Sayaka said, audibly snickering. "Hey, tell you what: how about the next time we have to travel, we go by submarine, one of those real deep sea ones. Then we'll see how eager you are to get out and enjoy the view."

"You think a little water scares me?" Kyoko said with a snort. "Bring it on. I'll bring a fishing pole, see if I can't catch you a boyfriend. Oh, sorry, girlfriend. Forgot where I was."

"What did I just say?" Mami murmured, her eyes still closed. "Quit it."

"Sorry, Mami," Sayaka said, though she didn't sound it.

"I'm not," Kyoko said.

"And the award for the most redundant statement of the year goes to…" Charlotte muttered to herself. She glanced up. "Though hey, if you're so hung up on the view, you might want to head topside. We'll be nearing Cloudbreak soon, and believe me it's something you'll want to see for yourself."

Kyoko scowled. "You're just trying to get rid of me, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Heh. Well, good job."

With that, Kyoko shoveled the rest of her meal away and sent herself through the roof again.

Unlike her first outing, the elysian was not majestically soaring through a beautiful alien sky. Oh sure, it was still progressing through a sky, and this one was most likely alien. But it was now carefully navigating around several incredibly large stone pillars, and everything was covered in a thick, grey cloud, one that smelled like wet grass. What was more, it was freaking cold.

Kyoko's scowl returned. "She did this on purpose," she muttered, making a mental note to find some way to enact her revenge in the near future. She put her hood up, hugged her jacket tight against her body, and shivered.

Curiously though, there was a surprising number of other windriders up there with her, and as she watched, a couple more joined their ranks. One would think that given the lousy conditions, the ones that hadn't been tricked into exposing themselves to the smelly cold cloud would stay safely in the warm cabin. The weather sucked, the elysian was going too slow to catch any good thrills, and the view was non-existent. Okay, Kyoko had to admit that seeing those huge pillars suddenly loom out of the shroud of the cloud was pretty awe-inspiring, but it was hardly worth the wet clothing to come out and see.

And then, just as the thought was crossing her mind, the elysian broke free from the cloud into open sunlight. And then Kyoko got her first look at Cloudbreak.

Upon learning that the New Life Alliance's capital was literally a city in the sky, Kyoko had pictured it to be something like Angel Island: a floating piece of land with a flattened top on which a city had been built. As it turned out, she had the right idea, except Cloudbreak's architects had taken that idea, scaled it down, and then multiplied ad infinitum. Instead of a single large platform, there were hundreds of them arranged in three disks stacked on top of each other, two medium sized ones on the bottom and top and one double the size of the other two in the center. The platforms were tightly clustered near the center while spreading out more and more the further away they got, and were all making slow revolutions around a thin spire of white stone that acted as a stalk in this crazy pinwheel in the sky. And naturally, on the platforms was, well, a city.

Buildings, parks, monuments, arenas, all were arrayed on that lazily spinning fleet of platforms. And apparently people here liked their plants, because the whole place was covered with them, to the point where most of the platforms were practically hanging gardens. Connecting it all together was a weird looking network of twisting rails and tubes that enveloped the city like a web. As Kyoko watched in wide-eyed awe, she could pick out the city's residents literally swinging their way around on the smaller poles, while large vehicles that resembled trolleys slid under the larger ones. Extending from the city to the ground below were several tubes along the outer edge, while in the center was…

Kyoko squinted and peered in closer. Was that a waterfall? One that was going up? Further inspection revealed that it was a huge, clear tube that was sucking water up into the city. She looked down and saw that the tube reached down into giant spinning black sphere that sat on the surface of a sparkling lake, surrounded by what looked like a water purification facility, if all those pipes were any indication.

Okay, I get it, Kyoko thought to herself. That thing cleans up the lake water, and they send it up into the city. Neat. Then she frowned. How did they dispose of their waste then? After puzzling over it for a few seconds, she shrugged. Eh, whatever. She trusted the flying alien city to have solved the problem.

And really, was there any other way to describe it? Mami had told her that despite many of the buildings obviously designed to accommodate them, humans were actually something of a minority in Cloudbreak, with the majority of the population being calliopes and those glass spider things whose name Kyoko could not recall, save that it had too many apostrophes. Indeed, she could see several calliopes flitting to and fro around the city, like tiny crystals in a snowglobe. Furthermore, she could pick out several lanky forms moving over the rails that possessed far more limbs than their mammalian allies.

Kyoko had seen many strange things in the relatively short time since her death, and while many could definitely be called alien, this, along with the elysians, was one of the ones in which the adjective was spoken with a note of awe. Cloudbreak was gorgeous. There was no other way to describe it.

Her hands gripped the railing tightly. She leaned forward, as if that would get her there faster. If she was truly fated to spend the rest of her existence in this half-baked excuse for an afterlife, she now knew where she wanted to spend it.

…

When Margot finally started to stir, she was greeted by the sight of Annabelle Lee hovering right in front of her face, the feel of a pistol pressed against the side of her head and the point of a knife digging into her side, and the usual stench that came with waking up in Bertha's Brother. The last sensation went unnoticed. The first two weren't.

To her credit, as crazy as she was she apparently followed her own rules. After all, Arzt had taught her what happens when they were forgotten. So as soon as she grasped the situation she froze up immediately.

"Hi there," Annabelle Lee said. "Your name is Margot, right?"

"Yes," Margot said, barely moving her mouth and not taking her eyes away from Annabelle Lee's face.

Annabelle Lee nodded. "Good. And you were sent by the Madam to meet us, right?"

Anger darkened Margot's face. "When she finds out about-"

The tip of Annabelle Lee's right-hand blade pressed against the soft underside of her chin shut her right up. "Yeah, we know about her having some interesting ideas when it comes to revenge. And believe me, we really don't want to find out how true the stories are. The Madam's kind of scary, right?"

The risk of puncturing herself kept Margot from moving, but the way she moved her eyebrows indicated a nod.

"So yeah, making her mad is definitely something we don't want to do. But see, here's something else: you did technically start the whole thing."

Margot's brow furrowed.

"I know, I know," Annabelle Lee, holding up her free palm. "Misunderstanding. You were trying to keep us from breaking one of those rules, things got out of hand, right there with you. But still, given where we are, we were a little…jumpy, you know? And sneaking up on a bunch of complete strangers in a dangerous place isn't real smart. I don't have my own copy of that survival rulebook handy, but that's got to violate at least one of them, yeah?" Annabelle Lee leaned in closer. "So does attacking the Madam's invited clients."

Margot's eyes went wide.

"See, we were sent here to do business with the Madam. By…" Okay, time for a little white lie. "…Oblivion herself. She was going to help us get ready for a super-secret mission, for which she would be paid…" A brief hesitation, as Annabelle Lee realized that she had no idea what Reibey had promised in exchange for the Madam's help. "…quite a bit. If she finds out about this, sure, we're going to be screwed. Tortured, sold as slaves, what have you. But she's bound to be a little annoyed with you for starting this whole mess, isn't she?"

The look on Margot's face, coupled with its sudden lack of color, gave Annabelle Lee all the answer she needed.

"So let's make a deal," she said. "We pretend that fight never happened. You don't tell, we won't tell, nobody tells."

The corner of Margot's mouthed moved. "She'll find out," she mumbled the best she could.

Annabelle Lee considered this. Her and Nikki's attempted escape into the sky had to have been seen by somebody. And even if it hadn't, people like the Madam always found out. It was that deadly tendency to always know what people didn't want them to know that gave them power.

"All right," she said at last. "How about this: we tell her up front. Say you startled us by accident, things got out of hand, but we figured out that we were being stupid and stopped. Everyone apologized, sorry about fighting, no offense intended, everything's cool now. Would that work?"

Margot also took her time mulling over the question. Finally, she said, "Prob'ly."

"Okay." Annabelle Lee withdrew the blade and slowly backed away. "So, do you promise to not attack us or try to get the Madam mad at us?"

Another long silence. Then Margot said in a low growl, "Say you're sorry first."

Figures. Even when presented with a workable compromise, she was still going to be petty. Oh well. Annabelle Lee was used to the taste of crow. "I'm very sorry for any pain, discomfort, and inconvenience we have caused you," she said solemnly. "And for our part in this whole ugly misunderstanding."

"No," Margot said. "I want to hear it from her." Then she nodded toward someone who, until then, had been standing silently behind Annabelle Lee.

Specifically, Arzt.

Crap.

Surprising absolutely no one, Arzt did not care for this condition at all. Her lips curled back and her golden eyes narrowed with indignation. "Excuse me?" she seethed.

"Say you're sorry," Margot repeated primly. This earned her a growl from Nie, who was still holding a gun to her head and was no doubt still dwelling on how much it had hurt to be skewered. As for Nikki, she seemed confused by the whole proceedings. While she held the knife firmly in place, her attention kept wandering from her captive to her sister, as if silently asking her why everyone was getting so bent out of shape over apologies instead of chopping each other into fine little pieces.

Annabelle Lee waved her off. "Arzt, now is not the time to get huffy," she murmured out of the corner of her mouth.

"Shut up, Assabelle," Arzt hissed. "If you think I'm going lower myself to actually apologizing to this scum, you need to get your-"

"All right, come on." Annabelle Lee seized her by the arm and half-led, half-dragged her away from the group for a private discussion. She glanced at the bemused Nikki, amused Margot, and infuriated Nie. "'Scuse us for a moment, ladies. We'll be back once we get this sorted out. Nobody do anything violent while we're gone. Or aggressive. Or in any way offensive." She thought for a moment, considering the personalities involved. "Actually, come to think of it, nobody move. At all. Just…sit tight for a bit. Nikki, this means you."

With that, she pulled Arzt along until they were out of earshot, or so she hoped. Maybe Margot had super-hearing, but Annabelle Lee didn't have time to react to all eventualities.

"Look," she said in a low voice. "Just do it. You don't have to mean it or anything. Just say it so we can be rid of her as soon as possible."

Arzt angrily pulled her arm away from Annabelle Lee's grasp. "Like hell I am. You saw what that beast did to Nie!"

"And you saw what she did to me and Nikki," Annabelle Lee countered. "It kind of hurt. But I still did it."

Folding her arms, Arzt shook her head in disgust. "Yes, I saw your disgusting display of groveling. Well done, Annabelle Lee. You are truly an inspiration to us all."

"Not enough of one, apparently." Annabelle Lee was getting sick of this. "Look. Arzt. I know where we stand. Which is to say we can't stand each other. You think I'm a shameless barbarian, and if I have to see you and your, ahem, 'twin' tonsil wrestle one more time, I'll probably vomit." She reached over to jab at Arzt's sternum with her finger. "But like it or not, we're the closest thing we have to allies right now, and we do not have time for this dumbness. So just suck it up and apologize to the crazy person we can get moving already!"

"After what she did?" Arzt demanded. She swatted Annabelle Lee's hand away. "She hurt the one person in my life worth caring about!"

"Nie is fine! So will you please-"

"What if it were your sister?" Arzt challenged. "What if it were Nikki that she attacked? Would you still be able to suck it up and beg her pardon?"

Annabelle Lee stared at her in disbelief. Apparently, Arzt's short term memory had been given lower priority in favor of righteous indignation. "Yeah, I don't know how in the hell you forgot, but Nikki did get attacked! I did too! And we both got lanced the same way Nie did! So yes, I would and did suck it up and beg her pardon!"

Arzt's face went cold. "You are one ugly piece of work, Annabelle Lee. Do you even care for your sister at all?"

"Yes, I most certainly am," Annabelle Lee retorted without hesitation. "You're right about that. And as a matter of fact, I do care for Nikki. Enough to not let something as stupid as my pride keep me from saving her from being tortured horribly by the city's most notorious crime boss!"

The color left Arzt's face. She opened her mouth and closed it several times in succession, but no words came out. At least none that were intelligible. She did make several squeaky sounds, but none of them resembled actual words.

Then, without warning, she spun on her heel and marched back to where the others were waiting. Miraculously, the situation had not devolved into stomach-churning violence, a rarity whenever Ticky Nikki was involved. Maybe she and Margot had cancelled each other out.

In her most cloyingly sweet voice possible, Arzt said, "Margot, I truly do apologize for making your head explode. The suffering you must have endured must have been horrible, and the thought that I may have been accessory to it pains me more than you could imagine."

Ticky Nikki and Nie both gaped at her in surprise. However, Margot was not so taken back.

"Oh. Okay!" she said, cheering up immediately. "That's all right. Sorry about stabbing you guys and all." She glanced at the two stunned girls still pressing weapons against her and then down at her chains. "Can you let me go now? We're late enough as it is."

"No!" Nie shouted.

"Yes," Annabelle Lee countered.

"But we didn't blow her butt-half up yet!" Nikki whined.

"Don't care," Annabelle Lee said. "Let her go."

"But-" Nie started to say, but she saw the look Annabelle Lee was giving her and presumably decided that now was not the time to question orders.

Soon Margot was free and standing. Nikki and Nie both wearily watched for her to again take the offensive, but she seemed to have lost interest in all grudges. "Ah, so much better!" she declared, swinging her arms back and forth to ease out the kinks. "My back was starting to…Wait a minute."

Her hands went to her head and found it bare. The relief on her face gave way to confusion, which was quickly upgraded to panic.

"Hat," she said. "My hat! Where's-"

Annabelle Lee pointed to where Margot's ridiculous hat was still lying, having been blown aside when her head had popped.

"There!" Margot pounced, sweeping her hat up and plopping it on her head. Nodding in satisfaction, she turned to grin widely at the staring ex-Void Walkers.

"Thanks!" she turned around, facing toward the city. "Okay, let's go!"

With that, she marched forward. After a short hesitation, the others followed.

"See, that wasn't so bad," Annabelle Lee to Arzt, who was administrating comforting nuzzles to Nie and being administered to in turn.

"Shut up, Annabelly," The Twins said in unison.

…

I would like to take a short break from the narration in order to address you, the reader, personally. The reason being is that I wish to plead with you to remember that, despite what impressions the proceeding scene might leave, Kyoko Sakura is, in fact, a seasoned warrior. She has, both in partnership with her friend and mentor Mami Tomoe and by herself, battled and defeated monsters that would give Stephen King nightmares and make H. P. Lovecraft curl up into a ball and cry. And by doing so, she has honed her technique, disciplined her mind and body, and perfected her brutally efficient fighting style.

On top of that, she is a survivor. She has taken blows that would landed professional fighters in the emergency ward and kept right on fighting. Sure, the enhanced resilience gained from her contract had something to do with that, but those blows still had hurt. What's more, she has, in the space of only a few short years, endured emotional and, I dare say, spiritual traumas that would make grown men break.

But even with those aspects of her character in mind, it must not be forgotten that while she is both warrior and survivor, she is also, when it comes down to it, a fourteen-year-old girl, one that had just fulfilled her lifelong dream of riding a dragon and was now getting to visit an alien city in the clouds.

Needless to say, it did not take the others long to lose track of her. In fact, it took less than thirty seconds.

Though to be fair, they had little reason to keep an eye on her. After all, they were in Cloudbreak, which was theoretically the safest place in the world from Void Walkers (though, as Charlotte would dryly point out when they would discuss the subject later that day, it was the least safe place in the world from the Alliance, which would soon be counted among their enemies). Furthermore, it wasn't as if they were currently arguing about something, so it wasn't like she had any real reason to go running off by herself as she had in Freehaven.

Furthermore, though Mami and Charlotte had been there a couple of times before, those short trips hadn't been enough to get them accustomed to the sight, and this was Oktavia's first time there. And let's face it, given that skylines relied heavily on enchantments to keep their mechanical creatures in the air, their skyports pretty much had to be prettied up to keep the elysians from standing out too much. The one back at Freehaven bore more than a few similarities to hotels that cater to the rich and extravagant. This one was a little more original. It was built from dark yellow marble and seemed to borrow heavily from the temples of several ancient cultures, not all of them human. Furthermore, everything from the walls, ceiling, and floors to the columns to the furniture was webbed with a network of wide cracks, which were filled with ai'jurrik'kai glass that shifted from one color to the next, making it look like there was a vein of precious gems bursting right through the surface. Those unused to the sight were known to block hallways with their staring and run into things.

Funnily enough, it was the newcomer Oktavia that first noticed that Kyoko had wandered off. As Mami and Charlotte took turns taking in the sights and watching for their luggage to emerge, she came to realize that they their little party of conspirators was short one body. She snapped out of her tourist daze, looked around, and saw that their quartet was missing a member. The others were then alerted, and a search began.

"Damn it," Charlotte growled as she stalked through the baggage claim. "Out of all the times. Out of all the times!"

"Calm down," Mami said, though she had been thinking similar thoughts. "She probably just wanted to explore and forgot to tell us. Excuse me!" That last part was directed toward a purple calliope that had been bobbing around the area. "Have you seen a human with long, red hair wearing a green jacket?"

The calliope paused. "As a matter of fact, yes. She went sprinting down that hallway." The sparkling dots on her surface converged into a single point, facing the hallway in question.

Mami took a look. Sure enough, in the far waiting area, was Kyoko. The girl was standing slack-jawed in front of a sculpture made from liquid silver that twisted and morphed its shaped constantly into graceful patterns.

Mami opened her mouth to call out to her, but right then was when something outside must have captured Kyoko's attention, because the redhead suddenly turned around, went as stiff as a startled cat, exclaimed something that probably summed up her astonishment in a handful of obscenities, and bolted for the doors.

Oh dear.

"Stay with Oktavia!" Mami called to Charlotte, and she was off like a shot. Thankfully, most of the people between her and the lobby were ai'jurrik'kai, who preferred to lope across the walls, and calliopes, who were almost incapable of being an obstacle to anyone, unless they were trying to be.

Mami skidded on her heel, made a sharp right, and burst through the front doors, silently praying that whatever it was that had attracted Kyoko's attention, it was something solitary.

She needn't have worried. Immediately before her at the bottom of the steps was a wide, rectangular plaza made from the same ai'jurrik'kai glass-infused stoned of the skyport. All along its edge were towering Corinth pillars topped by hanging vines and flowers, with more exotic plants nestled along their bases. And in the center was a fountain, the centerpiece of which was a tall but delicate-looking three-dimensional webwork of spun glass, from which water was continually spraying from the hundreds of tiny spouts that covered its surface.

What was more, like the silver sculpture inside, the webwork was moving: curling up, unraveling, and undulating in lazy movements. During her first trip to Cloudbreak a few years back, Mami had also been stunned by the sight and had immediately assumed that the webwork was in fact some strange extraterrestrial being basking in the shallow waters. Of course that turned out not to be the case, and in retrospect Mami supposed that paying such a being to spend all day lying around being goggled at by tourist would end up being more expensive than just building a physics-defying piece of art, but it was no less impressive.

With that memory in mind, Mami found it hard to really blame Kyoko for running around like she was. The girl was barely over a week into her afterlife, and most of it had been spent unconscious. And even in the time she had been awake, most of the stuff she had experienced had either been reminiscent of her past life or horrific. Her ride on the elysian had been her first taste of the more wondrous side. This was her second, and it was turning out to be quite the helping.

Mami could let her gawk at the fountain. Sure, she could do that.

Fighting the small smile she felt forming and doing an utterly lousy job at it, she walked up to the fountain and waited for Kyoko to finish her lap. As the redhead started to move around her, apparently oblivious to her presence, Mami turned to face her and said, "Beautiful, isn't it?"

Now Mami had to admit, as much as she tried to act as peacemaker and advocate for civilized relations between the people she cared about, she was still only human, and thus had a bit of a vindictive streak in her. And watching the troublesome little rebel let out a tiny squeak of surprise and actually leap up in surprise pleased it greatly.

"Jesus, Mami!" Kyoko said, clutching at where her heart had once been. "The hell you thinking, scaring me like that?"

Mami bowed her head in apology. "Forgive me, but as you had startled us with your sudden disappearance, I wished to return the favor."

Kyoko blinked stupidly at her. Then she caught the jab and, to her credit, actually looked a little chagrined. "Well, yeah," she said, scratching the back of her head. "But come on! You've got that aluminum amoeba inside, and this…" she motioned helplessly at the webwork, "glass thingamajiggy here, and who knows how much kickass stuff right around the corner! Cut me some slack, you woulda run off too!"

Actually, back then Mami had been tempted to do just that, though she had exercised greater self-control than Kyoko was displaying. Charlotte however had gotten lost three times before they had even arrived at their hotel due to her having her attention grabbed by something interesting and needing to go check it out. But rather than share that piece of information with Kyoko, Mami simply went to go stand next to her and watch the fountain. "Perhaps. But it would behoove you to remember that we are unlikely to get anything accomplished if I have to go looking for you every five minutes," she chided gently.

"Yeah, yeah," Kyoko muttered as she shoved her hands into her pockets, though there didn't seem to be much in the way of actual rebellion. Maybe putting on an attitude when she was lectured was part of her contract. Either way, Mami decided to let the subject drop.

They watching the webwork as it squished in on itself like a sponge before spreading upward into a cone. Then Mami said, "And you're right, it is very impressive."

"How they do that, anyway?" Kyoko asked, scrunching up her face quizzically. "Enchantments?"

Mami shook her head. "No. Simple technology."

"Huh?"

"It's made from the same glass that they've filled those cracks with," Mami explained. "In fact, it's not even glass. The ai'jurrik'kai spin it to make their homes the same way a spider spins silk. They've since figured out a way to make their creations…hmmm, amorphous I suppose you'd call it. They mostly use it for things like doors, elevators, and easily constructed furniture. But as you can see, it has its artistic merits as well."

"No kidding," Kyoko said, sounding impressed. "And I guess that silver bubble thing works the same way?"

When Mami nodded, Kyoko just shook her head. "I don't get it, Mami. Why do these guys even hang out with us? I mean, we humans got Freehaven, and sure, it may be pretty and all, but it's kinda…ordinary. They've got a flying city that has cool shit like this. The hell do we got to offer them?"

Mami had to smile at that. "I think you underestimate our contributions. Freehaven looks the way it does because it was built before the Alliance came into being, but Cloudbreak was built after, and we had just as much to do with its creation as anyone else. An actual ai'jurrik'kai town actually looks much different. Besides, there is plenty of human technology that has amazed our neighbors as much as their mutable glass is amazing you."

"Yeah?" Kyoko said, sending her a sidelong glance. "Like what?"

"Air conditioners," Mami replied.

Kyoko said nothing. Her face said it all.

"It's true," Mam said. "Air conditioners are one of the principle reasons that we got along so well with the jotts. They're more accustomed to cooler temperatures, and so often ran into trouble when they found themselves outside of their natural environment. Furthermore, the ai'jurrik'kai love radio. They don't see the same way we do. So they've never really warmed up to anything visual. But they adore radio, and actually have a thriving radio drama scene in their communities."

Dumbfounded, Kyoko shook her head as she tried to process this. "Well, okay," she said at last. "That's…really weird."

Mami shrugged. "I don't see why it should be. We all have something to offer our neighbors. Cloudbreak is living testament to this."

Kyoko frowned at that, and Mami had a pretty good idea as to why she was troubled. During the ride over, Kyoko had confessed that that girl she had met in Freehaven had given her something of a wake-up call in the form of a history lesson. Coupled with the surprise possibility of being reunited with her sister, Kyoko was now thinking much more positively of her future in the afterlife.

However, she still had her reservations, and maybe she would never be able to settle fully in. In life she had been forcibly conditioned to be distrustful of anything good that she had not personally paid for. She wasn't the kind to respond well to handouts, as in her mind they always came with a hidden price. If something seemed too good to be true, that meant that it was; end of story.

Maybe that mindset contributed more to Kyoko's determination to get Momo back through brute force than she would admit. If she was going to find paradise, she was going to do it her way, on her terms. It was entirely possible that she saw the ordeal ahead of them as a sort of testing ground, a way to prove that once she was finally happy, she had damned well earned the right.

Or maybe Kyoko was just a natural hothead with little patience and Mami was reading too much into things.

At any rate, they had stood there long enough. "Come on," she said, albeit with some reluctance. "Charlotte and Oktavia are probably getting worried."

"Yeah, sure," Kyoko said. She started to turn away from the fountain.

Then she froze. Her eyes narrowed, and her lips curled in a predatory manner, baring one of her fangs. Mami was instantly on her guard.

"What is it?" she whispered, eyes searching for the threat.

"Her," Kyoko growled.

Mami followed Kyoko's gaze and saw, not a Void Walker or one of their allies, but a perfectly normal looking human girl. She was walking leisurely through the plaza, pulling a wheeled suitcase behind her and munching on a foot-long hotdog piled high with relish.

Confused, Mami was about to ask Kyoko why she was reacting so negatively to the girl, but when she saw the reason she actually groaned out loud. The girl had finished two-thirds of the hotdog and, judging that to be enough for lunch, wrapped the rest in a napkin and tossed it into a trash can.

Then she stopped and frowned in at the trash can in question. Her discarded meal had failed to enter the receptacle, courtesy of a maroon, diamond-shaped shield that had suddenly materialized to catch it.

Before she could stop her, Kyoko was already halfway across the plaza and storming the rest of the way with enraged purpose. "Hey!" she shouted at the bewildered girl. "The hell do you think you're doing?"

The poor girl. She had just wanted to throw some unwanted leftover away. Unbeknownst to her, Kyoko Sakura had been in the area, and now she was going to have to suffer for her indiscretion.

"Kyoko, this is not the time!" Mami pleaded as she ran after her. "Leave her alone!"

Naturally, her pleas fell on deaf ears. "You just gonna toss that and walk away?" Kyoko demanded, practically shoving herself in the girl's face. "You just don't waste food like that!"

The girl gaped at the strange, natty girl picking a fight with her and her bizarre reason for doing so. "I-if you want it, it's yours!" she said. "I don't mind!"

"This has nothing to do with me!" Kyoko shot back. "Pick up the damned hotdog and either eat it now or eat it later. But don't you fucking dare just throw it away like that!"

Mami reached her then and managed to at least drag Kyoko away from the girl's face. "Kyoko, control yourself," she hissed. To the girl, she said, "I'm so sorry about this. Wasting food is a trigger for her, please don't take it personally."

As she worked to defuse the situation, Mami suddenly became aware that the whole plaza had fallen silent. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. She did not need to spend one of her final days in the Alliance being made into a public spectacle.

But then she realized that despite the scene they were making, very few people were actually paying attention to them. It was difficult to tell at first, as only a few of those around had readable faces, but instead of the angry girl throwing a tantrum over a stranger's wasteful ways, they were instead staring toward the skyport's doors and the…person that had just emerged from them.

Mami saw the person, and her breath caught in her throat. "K-Kyoko," she stuttered. Her grip on Kyoko's elbow slipped, and she had to clamp down on the redhead's forearm to keep her hand from trembling.

Still oblivious to the danger she was now in, Kyoko continued to lecture the other girl on the error of her ways. "You think that just because you're dead that means you can just gobble up what you want and toss the rest like it's nothing? Hell no! If anything, you should be treating food with even more respect, seeing how it's how we fucking recharge our magic now!" However, the girl wasn't listening. She too had seen what matter of being they now shared the plaza with and had frozen in fear.

"Kyoko, let's go," Mami said, pulling insistently on Kyoko's arm. Unfortunately, all the commotion had attracted the creature's attention, and she was now wandering over to see what all the fuss was about.

Mami tried to get Kyoko out of there by force, but as the creature came to loom over them, she found all of her strength gone. Now she was praying for someone to show up and rescue both of them.

"So don't you go around acting so goddamned careless!" Kyoko continued on. "Trashcans are for trash, and food is never trash."

"I connncurrrrr," the creature buzzed in agreement. "Food izzzzz nezzzerrrr to be wazzzzzted."

"See, this girl's backing me up," Kyoko said. She turned to glance at her new advocate. "So you'd better-"

She stopped talking. The being that was now towering over her had to be nearly four meters tall, huge even for one of her kind. Her entire form was swathed in a heavy, crimson robe adorned with furs and the tanned hide of some kind of reptile. A concealing hood covered her head, which extended buzzard-like from her broad shoulders, and her arms hung almost to the ground.

Long ago, Mami had taken it upon herself to learn as much about her nonhuman neighbors as possible. She knew what was under robe. She knew what she looked like. She knew what sort of things her people did. As such, she was now terrified.

The creature first regarded Kyoko with amusement before focusing on the hapless girl that had started the whole thing. "Yooouuunnng laaadieeee," it said in a voice like a swarm of locusts. "Zzzheee izzz right. Youzzzz zzzzould not be zzzzo wazzzzefullll."

"Sure," the girl squeaked, her face now completely devoid of color. "Whatever you say."

The creature chuckled. Then it lifted one of its arms. Mami tensed up in anticipation of an attack. Instead, the creature merely reached over toward what was left of the hotdog. Six thin, black digits extended from her sleeves to spear the partially eaten treat and drew it back inside. A moment later, the shredded remains of the napkin drifted back out.

Then the creature turned back to Kyoko. Thanks to her position, she got a glimpse of what was under that hanging hood. The thing had no face, no eyes, nose, or mouth. But it certainly had…something. Exactly what it was, she couldn't tell. But it was moving. A lot.

"Not bad," buzzed the creature. With that, it turned and glided away.

Nobody dared move until at least a full minute after it had left the plaza. After that, people cleared out in a hurry. Ai'jurrik'kai scampered over the pillars, calliopes took the high road, and humans and the handful of jotts that were around retreated for the sanctuary of the skyport. The girl that Kyoko had been offended by was one of the latter.

Soon the two of them were more-or-less by themselves. Kyoko didn't exactly look frightened by her encounter, though she was definitely confused. She didn't know better, after all.

"Mami?" she said. "Mind telling me what the hell that big, creepy thing was, and everyone was scared shitless by it?"

Mami slowly released a breath that she hadn't even know she was holding. "That, Kyoko, was one of our…nastier neighbors. That was a dockengaut."

…

If the shipping dock of Bertha's Brothel had been bad, its slums were even worse. As the uneasy quartet of former Void Walkers followed their deranged guide through dimly lit streets; past dozens of suspicious looking storefronts, only half of which seemed to be in business (though Annabelle Lee suspected that none of them were closed); and through narrow alleys, Annabelle Lee once again found herself thanking the fates for removing her legs and gifting her with flight. The filth the others were trekking through were ruining their shoes and would probably soon be introducing their feet to a number of charming fungi. However, as something suspicious dripped onto her head from an overhanging drainpipe, she found herself envious of The Twins' hats.

But even with the muck, scum, and uncomfortable close spaces, the slums had something even worse, something that made the docks look positively homey by comparison: it had people.

Over the many years of the town's existence, girls who had been unable to adjust to their second life, fallen on incredibly hard times, or had just been bad to begin with had migrated to Bertha's Brothel. Some of them joined one of the many criminal enterprises that made their headquarters there. Others got jobs with the independent piratical, smuggling, and mercenary groups that passed through. There were even those who managed to find honest work. After all, even a haven of scum had to have some form of legitimacy in order to function.

But many were unable to even do that, and wound up in the slums. Once there, they became cannon fodder for vice pushers, brothel owners, kidnappers, and anyone in need of a body that would not be missed.

Annabelle Lee could see why. She passed people from every available species, and despite the wide variety of body types, number of limbs, and clades, there was something that nearly everyone she saw had in common: a lack of hope.

It was a city of predators, and this was where they kept their prey. Some shuffled along aimlessly, while others prowled around on the hunt for someone more unfortunate than they were. Annabelle Lee floated on and did her best not to make eye contact. She kept a tight grip on Nikki's hand while making sure the blades on the other were openly displayed. Fortunately, most of those they passed saw that they were being led by Margot, and judging by how they gave the group as wide of a berth as the streets would allow, Margot had something of a reputation. Annabelle Lee couldn't fathom how it must have been earned.

Not all were dissuaded, however. As they passed through a wide courtyard (well, wide for Bertha's Brothel, that is), a human girl with short, greasy hair and an outfit that consisted of little more than a fishnet approached them. Judging by her crooked smile and the way her hips swayed as she walked, she had concluded that these new faces could use a friendly local for company and had taken it upon herself to provide it (for a price, of course). At another time, Annabelle Lee would have been tempted to take the girl aside and convince her that Arzt and Nie's relationship was growing stale and they were interested in including a third party to spice things up, just so she would have the pleasure of watching their reactions. Today she did not have time for such games. However, she did have bared blades and a vicious glower. Once the girl caught sight of both, she quickly backed off.

Their next encounter was much more unsettling. As they passed through one alley, a rag-covered figure of indeterminable species shambled toward them. "Soul shards for the pretty ladies?" she squeaked, holding open a metal suitcase. Instead were a number of tiny glowing gems of the same make as the ones they had found in Margot's pockets. Annabelle felt a little sick seeing them. Ingesting another's soul vapors was well known to provide a strong burst of energy, and when mixed with the right substances, a heavy feeling of intoxication. As such, there was any number of "products" that used soul vapors as a primary ingredient, soul shards being one of the most common.

Of course, consuming another's soul vapors was heavily frowned upon, if not outright banned, in most civilizations that contained an ounce of civility, and those found using such products were harshly punished. Naturally this meant that the soul vapor business was thriving, and the harsh truth of the matter was that not all vapor donors were well compensated for their involvement. Or were, in fact, willing.

Annabelle Lee hated the whole business. She was not a good person by any stretch of the imagination, but damn it, there were limits. As such, she took one look at the suitcase, wondered which poor losers had been split open to provide the raw materials, and growled, "Back. The fuck. Off." The misguided merchant made a hasty exit.

Shaken by the experience, Annabelle Lee reevaluated her earlier opinion of Bertha's Brothel. She now hated the place. Sure, it was honest about its ugliness, but boy howdy, it sure had a lot of it on display. What was more, as she passed one hopeless shmuck after another, she came to a troubling realization: Reibey's mission was the only thing keeping her from becoming just like them. They only difference between them and herself was that she had a chance at an exit. Unless they were willing to endure the centuries of service and vicious competition as a Void Walker, they didn't even have that.

As Annabelle Lee mused over her dark thoughts, she realized that Margot had stopped leading them through the streets and was now purposefully heading for a tavern. That was odd. Annabelle Lee had expected the Madam's operations to be located in the town's higher levels, where the upper class made their homes. But this place was still in the slums. Maybe it had some kind of stairway access or something.

Margot threw the doors open like she owned the place (which was admittedly possible). As she entered, Annabelle Lee was surprised at what she saw. Sure, the place was small, barely larger than a lounge, and sure it was somewhat worn, but it could pass as a second-rate watering hole in a much nicer city. The carpets were red velvet, the bar clean and impressively stocked, and the walls paneled with expensive woods.

There was one thing in particular that drew Annabelle Lee's attention. In a shadowed alcove at the far end of the tavern, a trio of butontikos were taking long drafts from a bubbling hookah. The butontikos were an interesting race, in that their bodies were almost completely transparent: their skin, muscles, and organs being composed of a deceptively tough gelatinous substance that, under the right circumstances, made them nearly invisible. As such, when they drew in long breaths from their pipes, Annabelle Lee could literally see the red smoke traveling up through their narrow snouts and out again through their nasal cavities.

But that wasn't why she was staring. Butontikos were strange, yes, but she had known several. No, it wasn't the smokers that had drawn her attention, but the bong they were using. It was perfectly round and just as transparent as its users. Inside was something round, red, and…

Annabelle Lee couldn't say for certain, but she was fairly sure that what they were actually smoking were soul vapors, drawn directly from an imprisoned calliope.

Nausea welled up within her, and she had to turn away, free hand cupped over her mouth. Fortunately, The Twins were standing in front of her at this point, so they didn't notice. Nikki did though.

"Annabelly, are you sick?" she asked in concern. "Did you catch a germ? Was it when you got opened? Were Margot's knives dirty? Nikki always makes clean knives. It's polite, you know." This last bit was directed toward Margot in a scolding sort of way. For a moment, Annabelle Lee was terrified that Margot would take offense initiate violence. Instead, she merely blinked in surprise at the reproachful little girl, extended the blades from her fingers, and examined them for dirt. Birds of a feather…

"I'm fine," she mumbled to Nikki. "Just a little winded is all." She swallowed back her sickness and straightened up. As she did so, she stole a glance of the trio of Butontikos. They had noticed her reaction and were watching her with amusement. Seeing that she was looking at them, one slowly put her pipe to her lips and drew in a long, deliberate draft. The calliope visibly trembled as its very soul was sucked away.

Annabelle Lee forced herself to look away. This wasn't her business. That calliope meant nothing to her. She was just here to pick up whatever the Madam had for her and be on her way. Still, it was hard to keep from imagining Nikki or even her own self trapped in that glass bowl.

Apparently Margot's claws had passed inspection, as she shrugged, sheathed them away, and led them through a beaded curtain and through a stiflingly narrow series of hallways before stopping in front of what looked like a janitor's closet. Opening it, they found that no mops or cleaning chemicals, but instead a rather unsafe looking steel cart on a rail that descended down through a diagonal metal tube.

"Get in," Margot ordered. Swallowing back her rising discomfort, Annabelle Lee obeyed. As everyone crowded in around her, she gripped the rails tightly, partially so that the cart wouldn't leave her behind, but mostly because, in addition to the bad taste that had been steadily accumulating in her mouth, she did not do well in enclosed spaces, and Bertha's Brothel's lower levels had nothing but.

"Are you all right?" asked one of The Twins, she knew not which. "You're looking a little green around the gills."

Perhaps the concern had been sincere, but as Annabelle Lee could practically hear a smirk in her words, she truly doubted it. "Just…just leave me alone," she seethed through clenched teeth. The Twins snickered, and if she were not convinced that sudden movement on her part would make her vomit, she just might have tried to shut their mouths via impalement.

Then she felt a warm presence wrap its little arms around her waist and burrow into her side. Ticky Nikki, seeing how distressed her sister was, had decided that a little sisterly comfort was in order. It was strange, how someone with real empathy problems and a mean sadistic streak could show such affection without hesitation. But then, Annabelle Lee was all she had, and vice-versa. Annabelle Lee looped an arm around Nikki and held her close.

Margot pulled a lever, and the cart began its slow trek downward. Annabelle Lee squeezed her eyes shut and found herself missing the stormlines. Even when they went underground, it happened so fast that she never had time to feel the weight of the earth pressing down on her.

But this? This was a nightmare. It didn't take long for the rusty clanging of the cart to take on a strange echo, letting her know that they were now beneath the water level. She thought of all that water, separated from them by only a rusty, ill-maintained pipe.

Then the echoes changed. They had thankfully passed beyond the river's border and were now descending deep beneath the swamp itself. Annabelle Lee had heard tales of those who had been swallowed up by the deceitful patches of soft sand. Unable to free themselves, they had been doomed to an existence of eternal suffocation, or at least that was how the stories went. And while logically a Puella Magi or even a witch would be able to eventually free themselves, everything up until then had to be a living Hell, one that Annabelle Lee had no trouble envisioning.

They kept going down and down and down, deeper into the swamp. Annabelle Lee gritted her teeth and held Nikki closer to her side. The little lunatic also wasn't taking the oppressive descent well, and was now seeking comfort as much as she was giving it.

Then, when Annabelle Lee felt that she no longer could keep from screaming, the cart jolted to a stop. "We're here," Margot cheerfully announced. "Bottom floor." She mimed an elevator ding and broke out into a fit of giggles.

Annabelle Lee opened her eyes. The cart had left the pipe and was now in a small cave. Before her was a metal catwalk that led to a steel door, emblazoned with the Brothel's insignia. Humming happily to herself, Margot skipped down the catwalk and rapped her knuckles against the door. An exchange occurred with someone on the other side, and the door creaked open.

As the Void Walkers made their way toward the entrance, Nie took the opportunity to get in one more jab. "You know, if you need to vomit, this is probably your last chance," she muttered.

"Shut up," Annabelle Lee hissed, though she was considering doing just that. "Just shut up."

Strange though, that there weren't any guards present. Granted, having the Brothel's entrance buried so deep underground was a natural protection in of itself. But still, one would expect someone to be keeping watch.

Annabelle Lee noticed a spider clinging to the wall next to the door. It was about the size of her thumb, had no head or eyes, and was completely surrounded by at least a dozen sharp-jointed legs. Four more legs stuck out of the top of its disk-like body, which slowly waved in the air like antennae.

With a jolt, Annabelle Lee realized three things. Firstly, that was no spider. Secondly, she had been very wrong in her belief that the door was unguarded. Thirdly, she wanted to get away from that thing immediately. Pulling Nikki along, she hurried to catch up to Margot.

Now, given the city's reputation, it will probably come as no surprise that Bertha's Brothel contained many, well, brothels, from the cheap, seedy ones in the slums to those with higher class, standards, and rates nestled in the upper levels. They weren't exactly discriminating about who they hired or catered to either. Chances were, if you were in need of some form of sexual release, you would be able to find someone of your species and personal preferences (or not of your species, if that was what you were into).

However, the only connection those establishments had with the Brothel was the cut all businesses were required to pay. And while the Madam certainly had her hand in a great many sex industries, her name and that of her organization was not literal. If it was a night of depravity you were looking for, you should probably inquire elsewhere. But if you were looking to topple governments, eliminate rivals, or collapse local economies, the Brothel was the place to go.

In short, it was a weapons seller and mercenary organization, one that charged highly for its merchandise and the service of its girls. But with that hefty price tag came the promise of quality and increased chances of success. They were not a group of thugs looking to perform violence for whoever would pay them. If you needed a few extra hands backing you up in some kind of grudge match, there were plenty of other places to go. But if you were looking to stage a coup, you went to the Brothel. If you needed the head of a major corporation and all of her supporters removed and disgraced so you could take over, you went to the Brothel. If you found yourself in need of a high-profile terrorist attack but felt that your own people were not up to the task, the Brothel stood ready to get the job done.

As for the Madam herself, there had actually been six of them since the Brothel's founding. Bertha, the original, had retired more than four centuries ago and was either living like a queen in an opulent but unspecified location, atoning for her sins as a member of a monastic order, or captaining a pirate crew that was the terror of the Amphritos Sea, depending on who you talked to. Of her successors, two had managed to safely pass along their position to their apprentices and disappear of their own accord, one had forcibly passed along her position to her loudest dissenter and disappeared against her will, and no one was exactly certain what had happened to the fourth but given that she had tried to break relations off with the Withering Lands there was no shortage of theories.

The current one was fairly new, only having taken charge a little over a decade ago, making her virtually a rookie when compared to her predecessors. Plus, the fact that she was the one of the two Madams to take control via hostile takeover without the previous incumbent's blessing had rubbed many the wrong way. Still, that had been plenty of time to establish herself as someone not to be contended with. Annabelle Lee didn't know much about her, but the stories painted her as someone was fair, reasonable, trustworthy, and utterly ruthless. She was someone who was long-suffering and slow to anger, but you did not want to get on her bad side. She wasn't especially popular though. There was still a great deal of resentment over her method of ascension and her close ties to Oblivion. But she was feared, and she was respected. And that was all a Madam needed to be.

It was the "reasonable" part that Annabelle Lee was counting on to save their hides. If the Madam was willing to hear them out about the fight on the docks and decide that personal vengeance wasn't worth damaging her relationship with Reibey, than maybe they would get a pass. Otherwise, they were screwed.

The rocky passages that Margot led them through now were wider than they were upside (thank God), though Annabelle Lee was still aware of the tons of stone and earth pressing down on them. Along the left-hand wall, windows had been carved out and set with fiberglass. Beyond was a cavern that dwarfed most cathedrals. Within was contained a weapons factory.

There were catwalks. There were conveyer belts. There were mechanical arms putting together parts. There were sparks and there were vats of molten metal. And there were many, many guns, bombs, vehicles, stationary turrets, and their more barbaric cousins being assembled. The weapons being created were all of the highest quality: sleek, deadly, and efficient. Annabelle Lee was a melee person herself, but she had to admit the sight was making her feel tingly in places she didn't normally feel tingly. The thought of Kyoko Sakura on her knees with the muzzle of one of those lovely assault rifles pressed against her head didn't exactly help in that regard.

And then Margot open a door, leading them through the factory itself. Passing through was considerably less pleasant than viewing it from without, as the heat made Annabelle Lee feel dizzy and the sounds of the machines made Nikki cover her ears. Fortunately, they were there for less than a minute, as their path took them up a flight of steel steps and into an office that overlooked the factory.

All things considered, Annabelle Lee was rather surprised by how sparse the Madam's office was. Given her title, she expected something a little…flashier, rugs and painting and golden statues and the like. Instead, there was a single glass desk with a holographic computer screen, a low tea table surrounded by black plastic chairs, and a large window overlooking the factory floor. But then, maybe this was just the office she worked out of when she needed to oversee production, and her day-to-day office was in a different part of the facility.

As for the Madam herself, she sat at the desk, typing silently at a glowing keyboard superimposed over the desk's surface. Taller and older than most of the human girls that contracted with the Incubators, she was slight and frail looking, with something of a regal bearing. Her eyes were pale green, her hair was of silvery grey and tied into a neat ponytail that fell just beyond her shoulders, and she wore plain, but expensive, grey tailored pantsuit. The only decoration she wore was a small round jewel the color of her eyes inscribed with a vine imprint that was pinned through the center of her tie.

All in all, she didn't exactly look the part of a ruthless mercenary leader. Rather, she looked more like a favored intern at a prestigious company. But looks were often deceiving. After all, Annabelle Lee looked like a stiff breeze would knock her over, and Ticky Nikki looked like…well, Ticky Nikki.

As the girls entered, she glanced up from her work and nodded. No smile, but no frown. Annabelle Lee braced readied herself to begin pleading her case.

And then Margot went and threw everyone for a loop when, instead of announcing their presence, making introductions, or running off to procure refreshments, she instead cheerfully bounded across the room, landed in the Madam's lap, threw her arms around her torso, and started affectionately nuzzling her neck like a beloved family pet. What was more, the Madam did not seemed bothered or even surprised by her subordinate's familiar behavior. Instead, her mouth finally moved up in a small smile as she took off Margot's hat and patted her head

Annabelle Lee remained frozen in place, finger raised and mouth open to speak but no longer capable of fulfilling its purpose. If anything, The Twins seemed delighted by what they were seeing, as they immediately pressed themselves against each other and exclaimed, "Awwwww." As for Ticky Nikki, she seemed more repulsed than anything. She glowered first at the Madam and her loving underling before shooting a suspicious look toward The Twins, as if wondering if she now had to deal with two pairs of overly grabby lovers.

"Margot," the Madam said, replacing the hat. "Welcome back."

Still seated on the Madam's lap, Margot withdrew and smiled at her master. "I brought them like I said I would."

"That you did." Further increasing the family pet parallels, the Madam eased Margot to the floor, who then happily wrapped her arms around the Madam's leg and hugged it tight.

Annabelle Lee's face twisted up. This was proving to be a very interesting day. In no particular order, she had been surprised, shocked, terrified, impaled, disgusted, nauseated, and sent into a claustrophobic near-panic. Now she got to add incredibly creeped out to the list. Seriously, was there no one in this godforsaken afterlife capable of displaying any sort of affection without being so freaking weird about it?

As the Madam absently scratched behind Margot's ear, she looked up and nodded cordially at her guests. "Ladies. Good morning.

Annabelle Lee blinked. "Oh. Ah, hello."

"Close the door please. It's noisy and you'll let the air conditioning out."

"Oh. Right." Annabelle Lee turned around, but Nie had already nudged the door closed. The sounds and heat from the factory cut off immediately.

"Thank you. May I offer you something to drink? Tea, perhaps? Or coffee?"

Ticky Nikki's eyes perked up at the mention of a caffeinated drink, but Annabelle Lee was quick to cut her off. "Just green tea for my sister and me, please."

"Sugar?"

It would be polite to accept, but this was Ticky Nikki they were talking about. "No thank you."

"And we wouldn't say no to a cup of red wine," Nie put in.

The corner of the Madam's mouth dipped down. "I'm afraid I do not permit alcoholic beverages on my property."

"Oh." Nie looked quite beside herself. Inwardly flinching at her companion's faux pas, Annabelle Lee cleared her throat and said, "I think it'll be tea all around."

The Madam nodded. She gave Margot a gentle push, sending her off through a back door.

"Please, have a seat," the Madam said, indicating the chairs set around the coffee table. The Twins immediately sat down in two, adopting identical poses with her hands on their knees and heads bowed, body language conveying that they were in no way important and thus no attention should be paid to them. Nikki claimed the chair farthest from them and sat with her legs crossed and eyes narrowed at her nemeses, as if daring them to make a move.

Annabelle Lee moved to follow, but then she hesitated. "Uh…I'm sorry, ma'am, but…"

"Madam, please," the Madam said evenly.

"Right. I'm sorry, Madam, but there is something…you should know about."

The Madam quirked an eyebrow. "Would this be about that altercation between Margot and the four of you on the docks, that one that resulted all but one of you being stabbed through, Margot's head exploding, and then her being chained to a shipping contained and threatened with bodily harm?"

Shit, Margot was right. The Madam did know everything. For all they knew, maybe that dumb eyeball plushie on the nutcase's hat was some kind of camera. "Er, yeah. That would be it."

"I see." The Madam gestured toward her. "Well, do explain."

Doing her best not to trip over her words and sound like an idiot, Annabelle Lee quickly summarized what had happened, from their surprise at Margot's sudden entrance to the flaring of tempers to the actual violence before finally ending with the truce and round of apologies. "And I just wanted to let you know, no, uh, offense was intended toward you or your, uh…" She had to stop her mouth from saying the word "pet." "Associate. It was a very unfortunate misunderstanding that devolved in a very unfortunate manner, for which you, uh, have our…Well, I'm saying we apologize. No offense intended."

"Please don't bake us," Ticky Nikki added suddenly, making Annabelle Lee moan internally. Nikki, please, shut up, she thought.

"I…see," the Madam said again. She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. Then, her expression unreadable, she stood up and walked toward Annabelle Lee.

The amethyst-haired witch stiffened as she approached, but the Madam walked right past her to sit down in the chair at the head of the table. The back door opened, and Margot reentered, this time bearing a silver tray holding five steaming china cups.

"Margot, did you get into a fight with our guests?" the Madam asked as Margot set the tray down.

Margot's face fell. "Yes," she mumbled.

"Was it an accident?"

"Yes."

"Did everyone say they were sorry?"

"Yes."

"Did you say you were sorry?"

Margot winced at that. She shot a glance at the staring ex-Void Walkers and shot off a muttered, "Sorry."

"Very good." The Madam picked up her cup and took a sip. "You're excused."

Margot hastily exited the room. Once she was gone, the Madam said to Annabelle Lee, "Please, sit down. We can hardly do business with you standing there with your back to me."

Annabelle Lee sat.

"And thank you for volunteering that information," the Madam said. "It is rare to experience such honesty."

Annabelle Lee wasn't sure how to respond, so she played it safe and just nodded her head.

"After all, had you remained silent and tried to cover it up, I would have vanished the lot of you and had my own people secure the prize for Reibey. Based on what he's told me about you and your mission, I doubt he would mind much."

Nikki let out a small squeak, and The Twins both started trembling. Annabelle Lee couldn't blame them, as she was experiencing the adrenaline high that often came from a near-miss from a bullet: intense relief coupled with equally intense fear.

"But the matter is settled, so I see no reason to dwell on it." The Madam set her cup back down. "Now, as I understand it, you four are about to engage in a highly dangerous operation: the acquisition of two humans, one Puella Magi and one witch, who are currently under the Alliance's protection. Current data puts them as heading toward Cloudbreak, which further complicates things. You four have been stripped of your Void Walker status so as to lessen the chances of Compact violations, but still need my help and equipment in order to get in, fulfill your task, and return safely with your prize in hand. Can that be judged as an accurate summary of the situation?"

Well, that was one thing the Madam had over Reibey: she didn't play games. "Yes, it is," Annabelle Lee told her.

"I see." The Madam leaned back and crossed her legs. "Why?"

Annabelle Lee blanched. Where was this question coming from? "I, uh, Reibey didn't say-"

"I do not ask why he is willing to spend such a sum in order to acquire two girls. That is his business. What I ask is why you four are so willing to throw yourselves into such a dangerous position. After all, you have been exiled. You owe him nothing." She looked to The Twins. "What of you two, Arzt Kochen and Nie Blühen Herzen? Can you answer my question?"

Nie and Arzt exchanged a long look. Then Nie coughed into her fist and said, "Where else would we go?"

"Plenty of places, but I suppose that's beside the point." She turned to Nikki. "What of you, Nikki Cynthia Moffat? What are your reasons?"

Nikki flushed red at the mention of her full name. Annabelle Lee herself was surprised to hear it. In fact, she had almost forgotten it, it had been so many years since she had last heard it uttered out loud.

Fortunately, Nikki managed enough self-control to simply say, "I got where Annabelly…Annabelle Lee goes."

"How touching." Then the Madam turned her focus to the group's increasingly uncomfortable leader. "What of you, Annabelle Lee? Why put yourself through this?"

Annabelle Lee racked her brain for a satisfactorily articulate answer, her mouth moving up and down as she did. Finally, she settled on, "It's my only chance."

"I see," the Madam mused. She then rested her chin on her hand, closed her eyes, and thought.

Annabelle Lee exchanged bewildered looks with her comrades. Where in the hell was this line of questioning coming from? She had thought the Madam was the sort to do what she was paid for without delving into the reasons.

Then the Madam opened her eyes. "Nikki? Arzt? Nie? Would you excuse us for a moment?"

"What?" Arzt said, with similar sentiments being expressed by the others.

The Madam tilted her head toward the back door. "You'll find a comfortable parlor beyond. I would like to have a few words with your leader in private."

Nikki whined, "But I don't wanna-"

The Madam looked at her.

Nikki quailed. "Okay," she mumbled.

Annabelle Lee watched in confusion as the others filed out of the room. When they were gone, she slowly turned her head to stare at the Madam.

The Madam clasped her hands over her knees. "Tell me something, Annabelle Lee. Exactly what kind of person are you?"

…

Most of this is copied and pasted from the recent RoSD chapter. So if you've already read it, feel free to skip.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, the "Taker" part of my screen name comes from my being a huge fan of professional wrestler the Undertaker. And you know what? I think it was well chosen, because I feel like the Undertaker sometimes, in that I regularly disappear without warning for several weeks/months, make a triumphant return in which I stir things up for a short while and make it look like I'll be sticking around this time, only to vanish again. But I had good reason this time. Er, not to say all the other times didn't have good reasons, but…anyway.

See, I have this other story called Rhapsody of Subconscious Desire going, and for various reasons I needed it to be wrapped up. Like, immediately. But as I still had some work to do, I decided to get it all done in one go. At the time, I predicted it would take about two chapters to finish things up.

I was wrong. But then, I usually am.

So what was supposed to be two chapters ended up being five. So yeah, next time I make a prediction for how long something will take, just multiply it by three.

Roughly around the same time, I started coaching angel0wonder (the author of A Happy Dream, Resonance Days' sister fic) in how to write faster (yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Breathe in the irony). And to motivate her, I promised that if she finished her chapter by the end of that month, I would write another romance-themed RD spinoff. She kept her promise, so I kept mine. And my end of the bargain ended up being three chapters long, which I wrote in concurrence with the remaining RoSD chapters. As such, I figured that since I'll have eight chapters worth of material, why not release it all over the space of a month? And just to remind the spinoffs who's boss, I decided to throw an IM and a RD chapter in there as well.

So yeah, that's ten story updates that'll be going up over the course of October, the full schedule of which is on my profile. The rest of RoSD is all done and ready to roll out, the RD spinoff (First Time) just needs a few finishing touches on the individual chapters, and while I haven't started the IM chapter yet, I'm going to make damned sure it's ready to go when it's time comes. As such, I hereby declare of October to be the Month of Taker! Yeah, I know it's narcissistic, but I'm releasing ten freaking chapters! I get to call it whatever I want!

Oh, and if you're wondering, yes First Time is going to be exactly what it sounds like. Full explanation will be posted when it goes up.

You also may notice a new link on my profile. Yup, I finally got with the times and started a Tumblr. It'll mainly be a place for me to babble about whatever I feel like, and that mainly will be story business: progress reports, commentary, reflections, that sort of thing. As such, after it gets rolling, I'm going to be posting most of my post-chapter thoughts there, and mainly leave the author's notes for current news. Those will be going up about a day after the chapter's been posted, and the added space will let me go into greater detail about the chapters in question. I'm thinking of eventually doing a look-back on IM and RD's older chapters, but that's something for the future. So yeah, feel free to drop by, ask questions, offer suggestions, or whatever you please.

But I might as well do one more chapter reflection before then. So, this chapter was a hell of a lot of fun to write. I admit, it's mostly focused on world-building, and there's not a whole lot of plot or character development happening. Sorry about that. This was just the next chapter to come up in the queue is all. But even with the two Kyoko and Mami scenes (poor Oktavia got the shaft again), this really was the bad guys' chapter. I really enjoyed showing Annabelle Lee's more human side, though I do with the I had thought to introduce her claustrophobia earlier, as it only makes sense. I also wish I had more room for Nikki, but it seems she and Margot really do cancel each other out.

Speaking of worldbuilding, the title refers to how here we pretty much see the afterlife at its best and at its worse. Cloudbreak shows what happens if all these girls from different species are able to come together and build something wonderful, and Bertha's Brothel is when they..can't. And if you still need a visual of Cloudbreak, just picture Columbia from Bioshock Infinite (minus the racism and creepy cultism) mixed with Sky Sanctuary Zone from Sonic Generations with a little bit of the Jetsons thrown in. For Bertha's Brothel, combine Donkey Kong Country with Hook (the movie) with Pirates of the Caribbean with Dr. Suess and a little bit of Oliver Twist.

Eh, I think that's everything. Until next time, everyone! Subscribe to my Tumblr!