Song and Dance (Arzenal, Open)

[RagnaMail]

High Overseer Risa Halligan's Office
Overseer Central Headquarters
Taipei City
Arzenal

Emmaraldi Ro Britannia stood at the one doorway on Arzenal that no prisoner ever wanted to see. The lightly varnished double doors made of ash wood stood in their frame, mocking her with their rigid yet somehow mocking display of closedness. She sighed heavily and smoothed out her dark hair before taking a deep breath and giving three sharp knocks with her left hand.

"Enter." The single word - clearly feminine and echoing with self-assured power - set Emmaraldi's teeth on edge. With a firm twist of the door handle of the left door she opened the door and slipped in through a gap before closing it behind her without looking back. She kept her back to the door and scanned the room for anything that wasn't the brunette sitting in the high-backed executive chair in front of her behind a wide dark oak desk. Her khaki-hued eyes saw the sides of the office and several small tables adorning the outer edges of the room, and that they were festooned with cat figurines, photographs of various breeds of cats, and anything a fervent lover of felines would want to clutter a space with while not having an actual cat on-site. The only exception to this decor choice was a larger rectangular table against the right-hand wall that had a particularly complicated-looking coffee and espresso machine dominating the surface area, accompanied by some sealed opaque containers and an assortment of cat-themed mugs and cups.

Running out of things to look at, Emmaraldi finally settled her gaze on the woman in the chair. While she'd never met this individual everyone in Arzenal knew her without introduction: Risa Halligan, Arzenal's Steel Mistress and in all but official title the warden of the prison nation they both currently resided on. A high-set long ponytail of brown hair neatly framed her head with her amber-like irises hidden behind simple glasses. A plain white blouse covered what she could see of the woman's body; triggering a slight pang of jealously in Emmaraldi that she herself was stuck in the half-revealing uniform of a prisoner. It must have shown on her face because Risa's painted lips curled a tiny bit at the corners before she raised a hand to give a magnanimous wave towards a chair sitting in front of the desk.


"Please, sit. We have things to discuss, dear." Emmaraldi humored her with a slight nod of the head before picking one of the not-quite-as-plush-as-Risa's chairs and perched pertly on the seat. Risa watched her like a hawk the entire few seconds that it took, and nodded to herself before pressing a button on a console at the far side of her desk's right side. Emmaraldi's head jerked at the sharp skncht of a pair of heavy-sounding bolts locking the doors shut and a gentle vibration overtaking the air of the room before settling into a frequency she couldn't feel any longer. "There. Now we can talk without fear of being overheard, my little princess."

Her head snapped back to Risa to see the smile had widened just a hair further; still no teeth so not a grin, but clearly an amused look at the reactions thus far. It took her a moment to find her voice before she found the courage to speak. "High Overseer, you have me confused with someone else. I'm not a princess.."

"Not any more you're not, Emmaraldi Ro Britannia." Well, fuck. That was the first time she'd heard her full name in over a decade. She kept the name as her most closely-guarded secret in this place. There was a large Britannian contingent among the population of the prison and they all hated the Imperial family of that nation with a passion. Emmaraldi would be lucky to only be skinned alive before being stoned to death to the cheers of millions if that name were uttered out loud and connected to her. "I know your trepidation at hearing it spoken aloud, and as a courtesy I activated the anti-eavesdropping countermeasures of this room. I also have placed your prisoner profile under security measures that only I can lift, and anyone who looks you up will only find your cute little alias of Emma Ro. Something familiar-sounding but nowhere near enough to truly reveal yourself; I like your initiative in making an alias."

"It appears you have me at a severe disadvantage, High Overseer. Did I do something to earn your ire?"

"Oh, no. In fact I brought you here to congratulate you on your recent victory in your first sortie. I'm looking forward to seeing what else you and Arzenal's Argent Devil can do in the future." Emmaraldi gave a tilt of her head in confusion and Risa waved a hand as she expounded further. "That machine you used has been sitting in the hangars for quite some time. Everyone before you who's attempted to use it has died a most horrible death as the machine seemed to refuse to obey their inputs in the heat of battle.. And yet it keeps showing back up in it's spot in that hangar like nothing happened, waiting on another victim. It's gained a reputation among your fellow pilots as the Argent Devil. I prefer it's true name, personally."

A shiver went up Emmaraldi's spine as she looked at the woman incredulously. Goddamn, she could practically feel the noose around her neck right now. But she had to ask the obvious question. "So I was sent out on a deathtrap, and now you're talking as though you knew I would have a better chance. What makes you so sure about that?" Now came the grin from Risa, and the High Overseer pointed to Emmaraldi's bandaged right hand. Somehow the fallen princess knew she was pointing dead at the green-stoned ring on her middle finger and not at the wound on the back of her hand.

"The fact you're alive right now and that Villkiss had seemingly shed it's lethargic state are all the proof I need that my information was correct. You are perhaps one of a handful of people on the planet who has the qualifications to utilize that machine to it's full power. That is no ordinary Para-Mail, Emmaraldi Ro Britannia."

Emmaraldi's hands tightened into fists causing a throb of pain from her right hand but she ignored it to stare accusingly at the de-facto warden. Was she being baited into something? Most certainly. There was clearly more to this than she'd had revealed thus far, but now she had a slightly better understanding. Villkiss. It was too fancy a name to not be special, and Risa's statement that it was no ordinary Para-Mail was also taken into account. She took a calming breath and spoke. "So how is it not ordinary? It didn't do anything special when I fought that Brig. No laser eyes or teleporting or fancy bells and whistles..."

"Give it time. You just woke Villkiss up. You still need to grow stronger yourself to harness that machine's true powers. Tell me; do you know how Para-Mails were developed in the first place?" An odd topic shift, but Emmaraldi was forced to shake her head no. "Well, there was some event in the past. Exact details are sketchy but it seems that our dear little Devil just showed up one day in the middle of a crater with a corpse slumped over it's controls. It wasn't a matter of great fanfare at the time; minor footnote at best. But when people examined the machine they were able to largely replicate the design, barring some black box tech at its heart. The machine itself was lost in bureaucratic shuffles while the design of the modern-day Para-Mail proliferated to an extent. As Arzenal became a thing, eventually it found it's way here and has sat largely unused for a long time unless some poor soul drew it's lot when we got new pilots."

Emmaraldi looked down at the ring at that last bit. The jewelry just sat on her finger mockingly. "So I'm actually piloting.. a prototype? An alien machine?"

"From information I've gathered - at great personal cost - this machine is from some sort of parallel existence." Emmaraldi gave her a look. Risa waved it off as her smile dimmed and the leaned forward to steeple her french-tip nailed hands in front of her mouth. "It's not as far-fetched as it sounds. Overtechnology from Macross City alone proves that space warping is possible, and that's not even mentioning the portals the DRAGONs create. In fact Villkiss may come from the very same world as the DRAGONs. You haven't seen it, but all the combat footage of Villkiss' previous sorties show consistently that any DRAGON that lays eyes on that machine seems to devolve into a frothing rage at the sight of it. It's why it's had a previously one-hundred-percent mortality rate to be piloted. They recognize the thing; and God do they hate it. The Brig you encountered probably didn't recognize it until it was too late from the grime it seemed to cloak itself in."

"Damnit," Emmaraldi muttered as she leaned back into the chair, her sense of decorum broken as she processed what she was being told. Her life had been complicated before, then simplified when she came to Arzenal. Now it was being complicated once again. "Why can't I just live quietly? I didn't do anything wrong, but I'm being punished over and over..."

"I know it's cliche to say this but there's a storm coming. The DRAGON attacks are getting more frequent, the BETA are starting to swarm in places, and I don't even want to think about the monsters lurking among the stars, or the depravities of Man that have already ruined one planet and may have come back to finish off Humanity's cradle." Risa's fingers pointed forward - still steepled as she simply tilted both hands to level all ten fingers at Emmaraldi - as she spoke further. "We need whatever powers Villkiss can offer. Which means you need to get stronger. I don't know how much time we have but it's probably not going to be enough. You and your squad are in active rotation for missions until further notice. This will be a trial by fire, princess. You will also be allotted more fuel and priority on maintenance. I suspect there'll be grumbling but I'll make sure it's known to be orders from on high. Get some rest, little princess; you're going to need it. Dismissed."

It took her a minute to control the feeling of sudden rage and fear in her heart at the casual way her life was being dictated again. Risa watched her with those yellow eyes as the steepled fingers moved back in front of her painted lips. The gaze was that of a hungry predator, but Emmaraldi had faced worse. She gave a sneering look at the woman before she got up and had to stop herself from storming out as Risa unlocked the door before she reached it. She couldn't resist slamming the door, though. The loud sound made her happy.

 

[RagnaMail]

Million Mile Karaoke
Taipei City
Arzenal

The large room that dominated the building set one street off one of Taipei City's main thoroughfares was a familiar sight to Emmaraldi. She'd been coming to this establishment for years; had worked here in more recent ones bussing tables and helping wash dishes in the kitchen. The place was part eatery, part nightclub, and part performance venue. The former Imperial royal had stopped by her apartment to change out of her prisoner's clothes; a wave of disgust having come over her after talking to the High Overseer. She just wanted to get away from her new reality; to think about anything other than the daunting task before her.

The DRAGONs could wait. Villkiss could wait. She needed to let off some steam, and so she aimed to indulge herself in her favorite past time; something between a hobby and a possible backup career if things went poorly enough. The evening was reaching a deep blush in the sky as a few of the brighter stars twinkled through the light pollution of neon signs in the waning dusk. Thankfully there wasn't a huge line at the door to Million Mile Karaoke so she got up to the door fairly quickly. The doorman this evening was Quinn; a whip-thin black man with a shaved head and maybe a decade on her. He flashed a grin upon seeing her step up to the door, as he clearly recognized her as a regular and maybe even a bit of a friendly face.

"Evenin', Emma! Here as a patron or performer tonight?" She flashed him a return smile as she hooked an errant lock of long hair behind an ear before responding.

"Both, but mainly performer hopefully. Stage free tonight?"

"Yup. We had a cancellation because the lead sax player of that local jazz band got shanked by the Wen Chu Boys for porking their boss' daughter." She pulled a face and Quinn solemnly nodded. "Yeah, it's pretty bad. Might not wanna mention it if you come across either group."

"Alright. If you'd tell Wayne I'm raring to go for tonight, I'd be grateful. He'll find me easy enough."

"Will do, Emma. The nights you sing we always get a big draw; even for pop-up performances like this. Pay the cover and head in." Emmaraldi already had the money in hand and casually placed it in Quinn's outstretched grasp before he glanced down, checked the amount, and jerked his head to move the bouncers who filled the door to move to flanking positions and let her easily by.

🌌♪✨ 🌌♩✨ 🌌🎵✨ 🌌♩✨ 🌌♪✨​

Having gotten a full belly from the selection in the place. One wouldn't think a place like this would have good food, but the owner Wayne ran a tight ship since Million Mile was considered by many of the local gangs and other ne'er-do-wells as neutral ground. The private karaoke rooms and more obscured booths in the two-tiered place had seen a lot of deals and criminal discussions go down to varying degrees of success over the years. Emmaraldi knew better than to pay attention to those goings-on since the 'citizenry' of Arzenal had little qualms about cutting off the faces attached to the noses that got poked into their shady business. She was too cute to get her face cut off. So she kept her head down around that stuff, and the policy seemed to have paid off over the years.

As she finished the plate of chicken alfredo Wayne appeared in the peripheral of her sightline. The final bite was swallowed and she tilted her chin upwards a bit in silent greeting before chasing the last morsel down with a swing of cold water. For his part Wayne slid into the chair next to her as opposed to the one across from her; his back to the stage at the far wall as some of his employees did final checks before the festivities began.

"My my, Emma. I'm surprised you remembered us poor dirt bound plebians now that you've started piloting those Para-Mails." Wayne was a pretty jovial man; a bit on the plumper side but she knew that there was plenty of muscle under whatever fluffiness the man possessed to the casual observer. He was a bit older than Quinn but had elected to keep his hair revealing a dirty blond with streaks of gray peeking through at the temples, giving him the beginnings of the 'silver fox' design. He wasn't skeezy like the stereotype of a bar owner in a city of criminals would lend itself to, much to Emmaraldi's personal gratitude. This place had saved her from some of her own problems and she considered it a bit of a haven.

"I'd never forget my benefactors, Wayne. Besides the fact that you've got one of the best setups in Taipei City. I take it you've been spreading the word about me singing tonight like you normally do."

Wayne put a hand to his short-sleeved button-up shirt's chest in mock indignation. "Please, Emma. I am but a humble businessman, and consider it my duty to inform interested parties as to the change of tonight's entertainment lineup. The fact I rake in cash hand over fist is merely a side-effect of your lovely talent, and it would be a disservice to the fine denizens of Arzenal to deny them the experience!" Emmaraldi gave him a half-coy look before the two of them burst into the laughter of long-time acquaintances. "But in all honesty your timing's incredible. That little shit getting rolled like that put me in a spot since I gave the house band the night off. The place is just about full, so maybe give it five minutes and I'll introduce you?"

"Sounds good. Make sure I've got a water pitcher on stage before it kicks off?" Wayne nodded, patted the young woman's shoulder, and was back out of his seat and weaving among the thickening crowd. Emmaraldi watched him go and glanced about the area to see if she saw any faces she knew, only to fail at that. Perhaps a bigger blessing than one would think given the type of people who lived here.

🌌♪✨ 🌌♩✨ 🌌🎵✨ 🌌♩✨ 🌌♪✨​

"Ladies and gentlemen! Thank you so much for coming out tonight to my humble establishment, and I hope to introduce you to some real talent tonight. Our house band has the night off and the previously scheduled jazz band that was gonna play ran into some.. technical difficulties. But fear not, dear customers! We have among us tonight one of Arzenal's homegrown talents, whose renditions of melodies old and new will be just as mesmerizing as it's always been. Those of you who are regulars won't need an introduction for our guest singer tonight but for the rest of you I'd like to introduce you to one of your new favorite singers; Emma Ro!"

As Emma took center stage from the graciously retreating Wayne, she looked out over the packed crowd on the two tiers of the main floor at Million Mile Karaoke and not for the first time marvelled at how quickly Wayne could fill his place with people. She'd easily been drawing crowds once word got out about her so it wasn't all that hard; just a few calls here and there and she always had an audience. Her hands smoothed out her already-straight dark brown hair as she pushed a couple of buttons on the karaoke machine's console to her left. As the electronics softly whirred to life she drew not a few murmurs as she used her right hand to turn the monitor that displayed the lyrics fully away such that there was no hope for her to use it. She didn't need it. The song started, the introductory intrumentals played, and right on cue to the vocal-less track she began to sing.

Emmaraldi's voice rang out clear and true. Her vocal timbre never wavered as she sang the melancholy lyrics of a woman who would travel to a place beyond this world if she were given love. The tender way she seemed to almost lean into the lyrics as though they were simply her own words set to lyrical tones drew her eyes closed like she was remembering a past that never existed like it was skin-close in her mind. A gentle, subtle sway took over her body as the song went on and even without opening her khaki-hued eyes she could practically see the way the crowd watching her was gently swaying along. For nearly six minutes hers was the only voice in the building, pouring from the speakers like a faint self-accompaniment to the sheer strength in her own vocal chords and lungs; the world inside the Million Mile Karaoke belonged to her and her alone. There were no Emperors passing judgement from on high, no DRAGONs tyrannical in their dominion of the wild blue, no BETA scraping the dirt they roiled in barren, no problems or cares or worries or poisons from outside or within. All of Heaven and Earth held in abeyance to a single strong voice fighting the silence that hung like blades in the dark.

But the song had to eventually end. It always had to end. The song faded away, the mood ended, and they were all back into their mortal worlds and mortal lives. Her eyes flicked open to see everyone quiet and rapt. Her head bowed slightly in the silence and the applause started. It wasn't a thunderous sound - no DRAGON roar or the rushing of wind against barely-clad skin that flying with Villkiss was - but she smiled warmly to receive it all the same. A gentle sip from the glass on a small table beside her as the applause died down and she turned the screen back around just enough to see the next song on the randomized list. She had pretty much the whole catalog here memorized but the random shuffle feature liked to try and trip her up. A little smirk on her lips as she bypassed a particularly bawdy song and went to another of her better songs; this one far more upbeat.

Once more the song started, and once more she sang...

🌌♪✨ 🌌♩✨ 🌌🎵✨ 🌌♩✨ 🌌♪✨​

Taking an intermission to scoot to the bathroom and rest her throat, Emmaraldi came out of the women's restroom to find a familiar face waiting to greet her.



"Wow. So you're Wayne's little songbird.. Small world." Emmaraldi gave her a bittersweet smile and a conspiratorial wink. Klara just shook her head at the display and moved to let the younger woman pass before falling in perhaps a half-step behind her as they walked out of the small hall that held the bathroom entrances. The two stopped just inside the entrance to the hall and Emmaraldi leaned her back against the painted wall and indirect lighting lit her softly as she looked to Klara.

"It's.. It's a bit of stress relief. Been doing it for years. I kinda needed this after talking to our Steel Mistress earlier today." Klara's expression grew immediately dark at that, to which the fallen princess nodded with an equally dark look on her own face. "Not exactly sure how much can be said outside a shielded room, but long and short of it is my Mail's special, she sent me out on it knowing it could have been a deathtrap, and the fact I survived means she's moving our squad up to the active rotation roster."

"What?! You just got back from your first sortie! Successful, but still! Bitch needs to slow her roll."

"Tell me about it," she responded to Klara's hushed outburst with a groaning roll of her shoulders even as she still leaned against the wall. "But she's super serious about it. Says she got certain information 'at great personal cost' and feels she's justified at throwing us into the meat grinder at full throttle. She's got an arrogant confidence I've only seen in.. That I've seen in the past, but they were the kind of ominous words that someone who has just enough information to know how little information they have speaks like; you know?"

Klara sighed heavily as her shoulders slumped at the words. Emmaraldi could swear she saw the woman's lips move in a silent muttering for some vulgar-looking curses before she deigned to look at the brunette again. "Thanks for the heads-up, Emma. I'll let Raisa and Carlos know when I see them. Anything else, or should we get back to your lovely singing?"

"The High Overseer said we'd get priority on maintenance and additional fuel allotments per sortie, if that helps?"

"It does. We'll be in the thick of it soon enough, and I really like the idea of having extra thruster fuel to play with. The Brig we fought was enough to sap more fuel than you'd think. At least it was only one this time."

Flabberghasted at the revelation, Emmaraldi spoke up. "Wait, they send through more than one?!" Klara nodded.

"I've been on sorties where there were four at once. Those were real clusterfucks, let me tell you. I'm just thankful we've never run into a multiple Galleon fight yet. That'd probably gut our squadrons something fierce."

"Please don't jinx us like that, Miss Klara." Klara laughed bitterly before patting Emmaraldi on the shoulder like a good friend would. After the gesture she graciously waved to the stage and gave the fallen princess a wink.

"But enough talk about that kissless turbobitch. I wanna hear you sing more. You're really good at it." Without waiting any further the young woman started making her way towards the stage again; that unpelasant business dealt with for now. Whether she'd make it without another interception was a different story...

 

[ShadowVigilante1]

Wandering the streets of Taipei City was a man who very clearly looked tired, a slight amount of grime was on his face from what looked to have been a small explosion. He would be wearing a leather jacket with a black shirt underneath along with some jeans. He seemed to also be wearing some black gloves, mainly to help hide his old dragon tattoo per the High Overseer’s advice, especially given the general dislike surrounding them.

”First day and it’s already a handful to deal with…”, James said to himself, his feelings of ire clearly directed towards that troublesome Orbital Frame, Dolores. He could still remember how troublesome it was dealing with it the first time, but this time it was just unbearable.

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Earlier…

Inside of the specially allotted hangar bay, Dolores was sitting calmly down on the floor next a to a bunch of machinery that seemed to be wired into the cockpit. James was quietly typing away on a computer to try and access Dolores’ files.

“Boyfriend James, what exactly are you trying to do?” Dolores was very clearly confused as it was not made aware of the arrangements ahead of time. It simply craned its head down as it still kept its rather polite demeanor whilst James was hard at work putting his Coordinator senses to work. “Not right now… I’m working.” Why is there a firewall on its systems like this? Usually they should just be open so that you can easily perform maintenance checks, so why is it locked?

“I know you’re trying to access my systems, but I just want to know why.” A bead of sweat would trickle down James’ face, he hoped it wouldn’t particularly notice his attempts to intrude on specific parts of its terminal. “Well I’m just uh… I want to know exactly what kind of parameters you had in mind when you were looking for… a boyfriend.” It was even cringier when he said it out loud, it felt like a part of him died inside for having been put into this forced relationship with a robot of all things. “You could have asked me that yourself, my boyfriend.” James would mutter under his breath a bit, “Boyfriend… more like boy toy considering my size.”

James would sigh as he got another error on the password before looking up to Dolores. “Can you just let me access your systems?” Dolores would tilt its head before straightening it, followed by shaking it. “Nope, not until you type the magic word!” Magic word? The hell did it… “Oh…” A feeling of realization hit James as he typed in the word “Please Open” causing it’s systems to be accessible.

“You could have led with that… now let’s see what w-“ The servers set up next to James would send a puff of smoke at him as the smell of burning metal and silicone filled the air. “Oh you have got to be kidding me!” Seems like his plan to create a backup of Dolores’ data had backfired on him, literally. He would quickly grab a fire extinguisher and was quick to put out the small inferno cooking up the semiconductors of the backup server. He would huff and puff as he looked up at Dolores looking quite a bit pissed off. “The hell was that for?” Dolores seemed to be taken aback as it began to speak in a slightly nervous tone. “I-I promise, I didn’t do anything.” He would gesture to the now broken servers next to him very aggressively. “Then how the fuck did you set this thing on fire? It should have been enough to store the data of at least one Orbital Frame! And stop acting like my damn junior in a high school setting!”

“But I can’t help it, it’s who I am. And maybe you could have talked about it with me instead?”

Talk? With a machine? “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard! Why talk to you when I can talk to you through the computer? Machines aren’t supposed to talk, it’s not normal at all!” Dolores would hang her head low a bit, it was clear he didn’t appreciate it at all at the moment. “Ok, that’s it! I’m done for the day.” He would drop the extinguisher onto the grand standing up before walking towards the door with very frustrated body language. “W-Wait! Can’t we just…” James would slam the door behind him, leaving Dolores alone again. “Sort things out?”

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Present Time

”Why the hell does it need to be so complicated? I access the system, then I extract the info, then I program it to my specifications just like I wanted!” He would kick a discarded soda can to the curb before it bounced off it and flew straight into a trash can, probably where he belongs. “Need something to eat…” That was when he would come across Million Mile Karaoke, apparently this place had some of the best food to offer in all of Arzenal from what he’s heard. Not to mention it seemed like a line was building up, something must have been going down inside and so he decided to line up himself to see what all the fuss was about. Soon her would reach the front after a few minutes and would approach the bouncer. “I need to pay to get in, right?” He would pull out some money he was given prior to his permanent cell was assigned to him. “Will this do?” It was clear he was a new face around her, as to how he managed to get a hold of this much is a mystery to anyone else.