Ancient Allure

The ways in which cyborgs and demi-humans process ether are naturally different, both literally and figuratively; both in practice and in theory; both in reality and in the abstract.

One's ether response is both a product of and an irrelevant factor alongside one's race and body composition. Those who don't battle (who aren't strong enough to bring their struggles that far) might never notice it consciously, in daily activities.

You might use AERODS, like Elly and Dominia. You might just use plain-mechanism guns, like that strange boy who accused the Elements of having too much free time and then proceeded to try to steal their Omnigear as if he'd nothing better to do himself. Beyond that, you might use your fists, and with an infinite ether response, it's difficult to tell where strength ends and magic begins.

However, despite the marvelous diversity of so many types of life apparent in the world, from Lambs to Wels, it remains a fact that ether is what binds them all together, as a life force and force of strength in one.

Seraphita gleefully saps ether points from her opponents, and everyone knows it, but what she does with those points? More likely to be anyone's guess. It really could be almost anything, and she's much better at keeping the points than she is at keeping secrets.

Tolone practices her woefully underutilized laughter by quizzing her faithful, bouncy bunny on the intended outcome, in fact. Her screw freckles whir, she considers the moment, and then she offers her amusement more freely for Sera to see. It's an awkward laugh, but it does come, eventually. Even those with a minimal ether response do produce a reaction, given enough time.

It's not the biological differences, the percentage of her that is or isn't human, that make Tolone awkward. After all, it's hard to be a misfit when the current - and former! - generation of Elements is what you have to work against.

But sometimes there's just something off, nonetheless. The fact that she can successfully communicate with Seraphita at all about their intentions and next plans of attack feels like a miracle, sometimes. Even Solarian superiority isn't enough to replace the simple feeling of camaraderie and connection.

Make no mistake, the flippant obfuscation of the proper descriptions for Tolone's specially designed combat capabilities does legitimately annoy her, and she's done worse than just snap at Sera when she messes up the psychological imposition of Positronic Photon Brain in a particularly crucial scenario. But she does love Sera's silly way, regardless.

She just doesn't know how to show it, and Sera, being a bit of a bimbo, doesn't usually know how to tell.

(Tolone won't apologize. It's not even affectionate; it's just true.)

She wonders sometimes if those spare ether points could be donated or otherwise redistributed. Put another way, Tolone's consideration of the situation, via many a flip-flopping photon, is this: just how differently aligned were she and Seraphita originally, before Ramsus and the life of supersoldiers came for each of them?

In her database of references, Star Trek aside, Tolone finds the concept of the four humors compelling and applicable to certain people she knows...

Friendly red blood. Bitter yellow bile. Fearful black bile. Forgetful phlegm.

Of course, yellow is the odd one out. So maybe Ramsus can just...get her rebalanced. Maybe then she'll be able to connect with Sera, at last.