glint

There's no transformation sequence, when Mythra decides she's had enough. When she goes from being Mythra, the Aegis, to the Aegis, Mythra. When she abandons trying to be human and returns to what forged her.

No warning. No gentle easing. No asking pretty please.

It's what the Aegis is here for, right? What the Aegis was made for.

Because the Aegis wasn't born. The Aegis was made.

Every bone in Mythra's synthetic cyber-angel body goes rigid with articulation when she calls down a strike from Siren. Perfect performance. Full marks for difficulty and skill. No johns. No notes.

It feels good. Scratch that, it feels amazing. It feels right. It feels true. If anyone's gonna pick a bone with Mythra's brand of on-kilter justice, well, they've got another orbital laser coming.

Literally. Because she's a little itchy-trigger herself.

It doesn't feel good, if Mythra's honest, to shut herself up inside the accuracy. To be only the tool, the machine. It's only one part of the many, only one ray of the multitudes that she contains. And boy does she contain them.

But she can hear the humans, once they've seen it for the first time, start to suck in air between their teeth. Ooh, that's gonna hurt, isn't it? I wouldn't do that if I were you. Aw, shit, this again?

Not this shit again.

And she's told them - she has! Not what you expected? Well I'm cute as hell, so who cares?

She'll tell them a hundred million times more, because it's in her programming to try to correct fundamental misunderstanding. She's not any more attuned to the "right thing" than anyone else, human or Blade, but she's a hell of a lot more obstinate about getting down to it than most.

Than anyone. She's all alone, up here.

Everyone cares. Mythra cares.

Be not afraid.

Her wings, those floaty golden things, aren't half long enough, broad enough, to wrap up her furiously burning face, hot with human rage and not with light, searing light.

Light, that pierces through all, the most powerful force, untethered by gravity and air resistance.

Light. Mythra is infinitesimal. Mythra is chained by gravity. Mythra is light.

Eyes all over her back see what she'd rather not. Too many sensors. Too many senses. Too much, too quick, too soon.

She'd like to abandon what forged her, maybe. She'd like to just be human. But that's not really an option.

And so, surely, Siren is the answer. Siren is what any self-respecting magical girl with a cunty side needs.

Siren is immunity. Siren is immortality.

Siren is not just up there. Siren is down here, with Mythra.

And Siren is powered by the same thing that powers Mythra, which means that when she's in it, she's screaming and crying and dying of raw wounds, of saliva running down her throat, of misunderstandings, of impossibility.

Of air rushing past her teeth and soreing the enameled nerve endings, driving her numb and whited-out while Siren still swings.

Spinning. Mythra is always spinning.

On heel. Her wheels. A single plate. An elaborate web of lies to entrap herself. Like a top. Like she'd like to make her fucking "father" take a roll, in his space-station grave that should have been.

Spinning. Endless circles, loops, whorls.

And it never amounts to anything. Each spin cancels into the next, seamlessly, with only the tiniest judder continually discarded.

The Aegis, Mythra, cannot tear her eyes from what goes on below, until she shuts down, and the perfect solution of Siren ceases to do anything for her at all. Mythra, the Aegis, is powerless under her own power, until she realizes that Siren holds nothing for her, not even the power to protect these people she might almost have considered friends.

There's no transition away, either. Siren stands behind her, silent and impassive, as she awaits the judgement that someone, surely, must pass upon her head. Won't anyone? Won't someone who deserves? Isn't there anyone, above?

Will Siren not do it? Will Siren not strike her down where she stands, separate from it?

Maybe she was never meant to be separate from it. Maybe in there is where she belongs.

After all, it doesn't shield her from herself. It might as well shield her from everyone else.

But Mythra, so human, is a fool as well as she is an angel, and she, like all the rest, fears to tread where she herself has walked.