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.
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.
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