Avenger Assembled

The cleric: Judith Brightstar is here because she betrayed everyone she loved. When the Inquisition came to purge the mutants below her father's holdings, the confessor-in-training came along for the ride. The fires burned for days, the mutant and abhuman given the Emperor's Peace by any means necessary. It was good work, honorable work even if her own role was primarily a note-taker and witness. And witness she was. She noticed that the mutant shantytowns were all clustered around the outlet pipes for her father's factories; she looked at the maps the fire teams had prepared and noted that the corruption seemed to spread outward like so much spilled amasec. And then she realized, with sick horror, what had happened. Her father's factories, supposed to be lovingly managed for the Astra Miltarum's needs - were pumping corruption and poison into the Undercity. A stealthy heresy, spreading corruption and inhumanity through sins of sloth, greed, and neglect of the Emperor's people. But isn't that how heresy works so often? Innocence is no excuse. When she told the Inquisitor he listened attentively, studied her evidence, and agreed with her conclusions. (The Inquisitor is a man of deep feeling. He invited her parents to leap into the outlet pipe's green, bilish off-flow if it was _not_ a source of corruption, and to their credit they stood true to their principles and did.) His recommendation letter won her a place in the Ecclesiarchy and makes her one of the youngest holders of the title of confessor in the sector. Her bodyguard, Sister Chauvina, seems to her a stern figure, albeit one riven by her own inner pains and passions. (Heretics do make an appearance aboard ship from time to time but Chauvina's eerily methodical public and brutal demonstrations of their fate keeps such things rare.) Perhaps one day she'll reach out to her and try to learn her secrets. But Judith has a secret too. Not testifying against her parents, an act of courage that has made her famous in the sector church hierarchy. Her secret comes from the moment of her parents' death. A secret that makes her pray for forgiveness. Not what she did. But the look they gave her as they leaped, arm-in-arm, from the outflow pipe's edge together. She prays for forgiveness for how that final look makes her feel, alone in the darkness of her quarters.

Neko Neko had slipped into 'character' as they studied the art, deploying her robot ladybug to film her as Catgirl Reacted...to Dr. Metropolis's Art! She'd changed briefly into kimono and geta for the recording, playing up her accent enough that she looked like just an enthusiastic Japanese cosplayer to anyone looking casually - and kept her distance from her friends in case they weren't interested in being social media celebrities. A public appearance in a mall meant she'd signed a few autographs and taken a few selfies with admiring fans, much to her very kawaiiful delight. But when she was done she'd changed in the giant bathroom into an oversized Fleur de Joie T-shirt and flowery jeans, and now she was sitting in the food court and drinking from a large strawberry boba tea. Her tail and ears were invisible to anyone looking - at least not looking through a camera lens. When she hit bottom with a discreet slurp, she raised her head and pointed up to the skylight and said "So, what do you think? Not many cities have their own kami; at least, not one so alive," she added.

The Inquisitor's assistant knows a secret. This should of course be no surprise to anyone who knows anything about the Inquisition - particularly since the girl is a psyker. She is quiet and obedient, her short white hair in a boyish cut, her yellow eyes (a minor mutation!) downcast as she calmly and efficiently sorts through the mind of anyone her master asks her to break. (She specializes in terrible illusions pulled from the depths of the Warp, the sort to break a man's soul even before she tears into his mind.) When she lights up it's when she's instructing the young, giving them lessons in Terran history and the Emperor that teach them their place in the Imperium. They always listen. They had better, if they know what's good for them. The girl knows a secret that she learned when she was even younger than she is today, one that was confirmed for her by the Salamanders that rescued her from her father's ship when it came tumbling out of the Warp just a few years ago. Would you like to hear it? I warn you - outside of certain Space Marines, it's rank heresy. The sort that earns death to the speaker and to those who heard it, just to be safe. Are you ready? Yes, you're sorry you heard it now, aren't you? How does the girl know this? Very simply - Oh don't look so shocked, you know how long vessels can tumble freely in the Warp if something happens to their Navigator. Long enough that a ship that set out not long after the Unification Wars could tumble freely, so freely, amid terrible things, while a girl slept in a cryopod while unholy things hunted and killed freely all around her. She remembers those things at times, before she slipped into true sleep. Terrible things. She dreamed of him as she slept. The shining man, the perfect specimen of psyker too, who her father pledged his loyalty to when the Thunder Warriors came to his kingdom, who guided them to their ship when they departed to carry the word of the new empire of man out to the xenos-infested cosmos. It was he who touched her face and helped her still her nightmares, who smiled when he saw her bear her tattoo so bravely. She remembers his voice and the way he told her "very good, child. very good!" She awoke in the empire built in His name when one young Salamander, horrified at the thought of this frozen child amid such uncountable centuries of carnage, rescued her from the bowels of a ship that had been an unholy abattoir since before the Horus Heresy. There was no mark of Chaos on her, a miracle that seemed impossible until you consider that she had personally known the touch of the God-Emperor of Mankind. (Her tattoo is directly over where he touched her.) (the tech-priests aboard were happy to take a cryodevice from the early days of the Imperium - even now they study it and keep their secrets, as they do.) She is very lucky that Brother Owain, when she confided her story in him, told his commander - and that his commander was among the many Space Marines who knew the Emperor for what he had been in the old days and not what the Ecclesiarchy had made Him over ten thousand years of history. Being naturally secretive she accepted the idea that some secrets were best kept, lest the bearer die of telling them. The Inquisition is the best protection for a psyker who is strong enough; safer than the endless dangers of the Army. Her shields are strong, strong enough that even the psykers of the Inquisition were unable to see her as anything more than an amnesiac psyker delivered to them by a Space Marine chapter eager to prove its loyalty to church and state. She bore their trials. What was it, to one who when she dreamed remembered the looks on the faces of those who had died before her frozen prison - and the silence, the terrible silence, since? So now she serves the Inquisition, quiet and deadly and merciless as a cat. And when she dreams, well. It's a good thing no one else can read those thoughts. In the grim darkness of the far future, the most terrible, unholy secret of uncountable ancients of all is

Neko Neko had excused herself to get changed once they landed, and now padded last out of the plane. She was wearing her costume, a rarity for the usually urban catgirl. She wore a sleek, form-fitting bodysuit made of stretchy, breathable fabric in a dark navy blue color. The suit had long sleeves and pants, with a high collar and a full-zip front. Over the bodysuit, she wore a bright red and gold kimono-style robe with flowing sleeves and a wide obi sash tied around her waist. The robe was adorned with intricate gold and silver embroidery and bold, stylized Japanese characters. The kimono and suit were both cut to give her tail freedom where it twitched slightly behind her. To complete the costume, Neko wors a pair of tall, laced-up boots in a matching navy blue color, with thick soles and a slight heel to provide stability and support for her acrobatic movements. When she took her pack, she carefully strapped it around her shoulders. She was from a place and time very distant from the underclassmen, but didn't actually have that much experience on her own in the jungle. The mountains of home would have been better, but even there she had usually stuck to her village. After all, there was no reason to go live in the heart of the wood when you had a perfectly fine village to live in. Shuddering, she turned and faced her team. She opened her mouth to speak and found herself declaring: "Listen!" Her voice was a low hiss that seemed to come from everywhere, even inside Miri's armor. She paced back and forth in front of them, ears and tail twitching. "The jungle is a place of terrors beyond your wildest imaginations. Practice now means we will be ready in the realm of the Jungle Lord." She raised one finger, her nail slightly conical, like a cross between a human's and a cat's. "Timeout," she said, pointing at Lawrence. "I need you to check the - perimeter." Her accent thickened on the last word. "Cerebral and Cerebellum, what do your mind-eyes see - are we alone here?" she asked, pointing to the woods. "Star-Squire, can you see anything from the air?" she added.

Sea Devil Sea Devil leaped at the unholy abomination, thoughts of Singularity and Jessie's stories of her world's frightening demise in her mind. With a snarl of predatory intensity, she impaled the thing on her trident through the upper torso, then ripped the points out violently, leaping back so any poisoned blood wouldn't splash on her. "In strange aeons," she bellowed, "even death may die!"

Sign Neko and Owain up!

Owain had been planning to change back into his normal form - and only a moment's hesitation had spared him from charging directly into what would surely have been gunfire. Not knowing what the Moore Act was, he declared boldly from his lupine form - "Fear not, friends! We are but-awp!" Neko had grabbed him by the ear and given him a hard tug, pointing towards the woman in the doorway who was trying to get them to safety. She had nothing to go on but instinct here, but she'd seen the faces of those cops and they were not like the men and women she'd seen Owain strive to be. They had eyes like the Katana's men. She snapped the fingers of her free hand and something appeared behind the police; a gigantic white and brown cat that gave a loud hiss as it swiped harmlessly at them with a huge paw. With that temporary distraction added to what they already had, she bolted for the shelter offered by the mystery woman, murmuring loud enough to be heard by all her friends "What is the Moore Act!?"

"A noble goal," said Owain, taking Iris's words to mean that she didn't want to discuss the details of where she was from. Certainly there was much in his own life he wouldn't share with some stranger. "Myself I hope to study with some of this realm's finest wizards and magi, having had but a limited training in my own realm." He smiled, adding, "That's right, I have some of the enchanter's art! I know it comes mostly to the scholarly but I have found that anyone can master the arts arcane if they are true to themselves and do what's right." He considered his words, then said, "Neko and I are - the word used today is temporal refugees, but I would call us castaways on the shores of Time's own sea. We live at the Espadas school in the West End of this city, where they offer, ah, shelter. To those who have come here from far away."

"Well thank God," said the Patriot when she heard Star-Khan was dead. She resisted the urge to spit on the ground, and made a mental note to take this bit of news home with her at the end of the day. Even if they were fighting, it would make her wife happy. "We have confirmation on that?" she added, keeping her tone cool. With the news of what the new Star-Khan was after revealed, she relaxed a fraction. "And on February 14th no less. Guess even Star-Khans are slaves to Hallmark," she snarked. "Paradigm's the Centurion of space," she explained for the benefit of Artificer and anyone else who wasn't familiar with the Lor Republic's version of the Freedom League. "And I don't say that lightly. So if she's on this, I agree with Velocity - let's back her play and make sure this doesn't get out of hand for anybody. We need domestic eyes on it too," she added, "both to give her a hand and to make sure we've got a vote in what happens on our planet." She smiled thinly. "The Lor have a saying - when loxodonts fight, the grass suffers. But here on Earth, the grass fights back."

Sea Devil backs Diamondlight's play and goes for the vampire woman, albeit by leaping into melee! https://orokos.com/roll/1001825 24, okay, a probable hit? DC 27 Tou save.

The Patriot She strode into the corridor behind her team, adorned with the symbols of her nation-state, heavily armed and kitted for battle. Married to a surveying officer in the Lor military who had settled in the Sol system, mother to a clone-citizen of the Republic, Patriot was recognizable to the Praetorians if only because she was at least a supporting character in many of the latest strategic and tactical updates from this bizarre planet. Rather than interrupt the ongoing conversation, she took up a position behind her team. Inside Ashley was exhausted - and not a little angry. Phil was fractious these days which meant his moms were fractious with each other. But how could she just not _tell me about this_ dammit! There were fights about whose turn it was to wash the baby's dishes and then there were fights where you just didn't remember to tell your wife that the Praetorians were making a visit to Earth - and that Star-Khan was coming with them - until they were already here! We are going to have some words, dammit. But she'd been in diplomatic situations when things were bad at home before. She'd get through this fine. She wasn't just going to lash out because she was having a bad day. Christ, is this some kind of sick sexual-ugh, stay focused. "If you can slow his assault long enough to scramble our meta and regular defenses, we can hit Star-Khan before he hits us even if he's got one of the big battleships," she said with cool tactical precision. "Are we shooting for hard or soft?" she asked. "Are there eyes on his touchdown? I'm assuming that since we're all here, we're not trying to intercept him in-atmosphere."

Okay, gotta roll, let's see: Neko: 18 Owain: 19

Neko smiled, showing teeth. "I was born in Japan, but I live in the West End." She took a step or two away from the new girl as soon as she could, tail lashing briefly behind her. She'd embarrassed herself and it sounded like Michael was done being played with, which meant she was starting to lose interest in the outdoor party. When Jonah spoke up, she said "Yes, let's go for a hike. These mountains are small, though," she added, wriggling her nose skeptically. "Do you want to come, Owain?" Owain gave Daniel another splash and said "Only as a bird. I've had enough tromping in the hills for one lifetime. How about you Daniel, are you man enough for a little trip to the upcountry? It may seem a wasteland," he added, "but one can find some remarkable things so close to nature."

The Copper Knight simply backed one of the thugs up against a car, growling and snapping, trusting his friends to take the frightened man into custody. Maybe he couldn't do much to solve this problem for his friends, but he could certainly keep these bad guys from getting away. "Lo!" he added for the would-be robber's benefit. "Set aside your life of crime! Embrace the Church!" Neko rose to her feet, shaking her head, her tail lashing uneasily behind her. She was wearing her red and white kimono over her t-shirt and jeans, and found herself wishing for her Claremont uniform. "I don't know!" she called to the others. "This is not World War II," she added for the benefit of the other teens as much as herself. "The cars are small, and things are cleaner, and people have computers. But I don't - I don't know!" she added, frustration and her accent creeping into her voice.

Okay, that's Neko's ESP in use to scan the city as fast as she can - and Owain is in his wolf form.

The murmur from the two who were already temporally displaced went up almost immediately. "Time travel..." Neko and Owain exchanged looks when they realized what had happened, a moment of silent communication passing between them before Owain shook his head sorrowfully. "No. This is later." Of the two of them, he was the only one who had actually been to Freedom City in their own era, having passed through there with his father on the way to the Pacific and war. Speaking of war... Deprived of his sword, Owain murmured "Blaidd" under his breath and transformed, his outline collapsing downward as he reshaped himself from a tall young man into a muscular, sturdily-built wolf, almost waist-height as it stood among the young heroes and growled uncertainly, Owain sniffing the air with his keen wolf senses. For her part, Neko knelt on the ground, placing her fingernails against the concrete. She closed her eyes; and then opened them as a faint sound of a chorus of distant meowing came from her. All over the city, in dark alleys and safe places, white and brown cats suddenly looked upwards and outwards, peering at everything they could see and hear with intent. Where were they - and what was happening to this place?

okay, trying to keep pace with the other threads means we are for the moment done with combat. @MoonSimply, take an HP.

Neko caught the slash and spoke in a male voice - no, something deeper and multi-dimensional that echoed across the room into everyone's ears. It was Quirk's voice but it wasn't, an impossible five-dimensional tone that said "You're finally paying attention - but you're still just playing the game. The Raven's brat won't be here to save you every time!" Then there was what could only be called a discontinuity, as if the world around them was coming apart image by image, stripped down until it was just the group of Claremont students who had first entered. And then things rewound again and they were with the Patriot and her tactical support squad, confronting the nanotech-infused heroes that were about to assimilate the world into one technological hive-mind. And then things rewound again and they were with the Patriot and her armed goons, confronting the last defenders of human freedom as they undertook one last gamble to try and save the human race from the forces of tyranny. And then they were back in the trophy room at the end of the hallway, surrounded by mock mementos of a real hero's life, caught up in what looked for all the world like the end of all things...

The Navigator: It was the Rogue Trader's grandfather who found the planet of 'feral Navigators' - a term not said within earshot of the wrong people but an accurate enough description of the survivors of the once-noble house that had crash-landed on a swampy, watery world over a thousand solar years earlier. The survivors of House Hydranus had perhaps degenerated somewhat and had certainly accelerated their cycle of mutation in the harsh conditions of the planet that was now their home, but they had maintained worship of the Emperor and through the descendants of their serfs who still lived on land greeted the Rogue Trader's vessel with jubilation. Finally - the stars were right and the Father had found them again. (The initial culture clash, when the planet was first taken for a planet of xeno-worshipping cultists, had killed only a few thousand on each side - a minor price to pay for the Rogue Trader's fleet when an alliance with a still recognized Navigator house whose descendants still had the ancient gifts.) Aquaria is a member of House Hydranus. She is an affable, even gregarious sort, given to song and dance, and pleasant enough to speak to if you ignore her green skin, large teeth, and preference for water rather than air. When she steers the ship through the Warp, she sings a strange throat-singing song that it is exceedingly unwise to listen to for very long. She is, however, growing bored. Acting as the final punishment for serfs, criminals, and others aboard the Rogue Trader's ship fills her belly and provides her with entertainment but they have little to tell her. She would very much like the chance to hunt the next time they visit a suitable world. If she maintains her health and good humor, sings her prayers, and steers ships through the sea of stars, she knows she will be there the day the Father rises from his throne, looks out into the wicked galaxy overrun with daemons, xenos, and other filth - and devours them. The Sister of Battle: It was all supposed to be for a great and holy cause. When the Sister Superior met clandestinely with the ambitious young Arbite, she told a terrible tale of corruption inside the Ecclesiarchy, one that could only be found out by one willing to sacrifice even their own truth to guard the Emperor's Daughters. So Ashley took the vows and went undercover as a novice among the Adepta Soriritas, cutting her hair and dying it white, all the while trusting that the Sister Superior would ensure her freedom when the time came. When the time came and she rescued her fellow novices from the cunningly-concealed Chaos cultists hidden within the church itself, Sister Chauvina was hailed as a hero by those she had trained among and offered any position she liked. But of course what she wanted was her freedom - Until the Sister Superior told her the truth. Her service had earned her a place at the Emperor's side after death and she could indeed have her pick of positions in her new Order - but those vows had been taken for life, hadn't they? Besides, she could hardly go back to her life as a layperson with the knowledge she had of corruption inside the Ecclesiarchy, of how close those Chaos cultists had come to killing so many innocent young sisters. What would people think if they heard such a tale? Sister Chauvina, a heroine even before she took her final vows, is on detached duty aboard the Rogue Trader's ship, acting as personal bodyguard to the bright young confessor assigned to the Rogue Trader's territory, whose faith shines like a star with her every sermon. For her part, Sister Chauvina is trying her best to be the person he has to pretend to be even while embodying the way, the truth, and the light. It is impossible to have a good day in the grim darkness of the far future. The Soldier: They call him Harrier, because he harried the Archheresy to death with only his entrenching tool. He uses the name when his superiors say it but truthfully calls himself his regimental number in his own head. The Kriegsman does not like to argue with his superiors (at least when they are not ordering a retreat) but he remembers the battle against the Word Bearer somewhat differently that they did. It was his brothers and sisters who kept the abomination off-balance with volley-fire and melee charges; it was his brothers and sisters who planted the mines that hobbled the beast and broke its leg. In the end, when the last explosions went off and all were dead, it was just him, the Chaos Space marine, and his entrenching tool. When he awoke in the Officio Medicae's hospital he was horrified - first by the thought that the thing had lived, then by the thought that he had as well. The Commissar who decorated him, the Inquisitor who thanked him for his service in destroying the forces of Chaos (and in saving the Inquisitor himself from the thing that had come to kill him) - they didn't understand. He had literally done all he could and defeated a force greater than any he could have imagined, but he was alive! Alive and - after a visit from a high-ranking officer in the Death Korps, named! What was he to do with this terrifying freedom? He found direction, as he always has had, in duty and in service. Recruited by the Rogue Trader, who had heard of his heroic exploits but was actually willing to hear what had really happened, he found himself on a ship full of weak, soft men and women (generally) who wanted to serve a power greater than themselves but didn't know how. As commander of the mercenary force aboard the Rogue Trader's ship, he'll teach them. After all, he still has the shovel. The Enginseer: Everyone thinks she killed the Magos. To be fair, they're right. (Nobody liked the Magos very much anyway, so it's fine.) It seems like a simple enough story of ambition. He removed her from her place manning the teleportorium and assigned her to menial tasks; the next time he used the teleportorium the machine spirits inside killed him for his impiety and his lack of intelligence. But then, those are synonyms for members of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Given to the Cult Mechanicus as a sick little girl by a powerful, wealthy noble house, she might easily have wound up a servitor if not for a staggeringly generous donation by her parents - and by a group of Magi interested in how a still-growing youth's body might adapt to circuit, iron, and silica. And adapt she did. She designed mechadendrites for herself when she still had organic hands; she described the changes to make to herself when she still spoke with an organic voice. Her mentors were proud of her. The Enginseer who was once Eira van Katastroff, being unusually young for one so profoundly transformed, made a fine missionary across the Solar System (she is the only person on the ship who has actually been there - well, now that the Magos is dead, anyway), demonstrating the strength and certainty of steel while recruiting those with the intelligence and the faith to serve the Cult Mechanicus. (The inhabitants of Mars do their work but genes can become - Chaotic if not freshened with new blood.) She and the Magos brought thousands back to Mars to begin their training. It was pleasant enough work, even inspiring - but she wanted to be out among the stars as an explorator, not traveling from planet to planet inside what is a very holy but not particularly interesting system. When she was 18, the Magos and his protege took passage privately so that they might finally join one of the explorator fleets she had so long craved to serve on. They were aboard the Rogue Trader's ship when she, bored, overcame the Magos' frankly pedestrian security on his personal cogitator to read up about the successes of the bright young minds she recruited. It was then that she learned that all 2000 of them were now servitors. She felt feelings churn in her flesh when she realized the young minds she had met would never think again, and worse that the Magos had lied to her about their purpose for years, for years, shameful animal impulses to violently suppress - until cold machine logic met them going down. The Magos had not just proven himself unreliable. He had sacrificed promising servants and even future Magi to meet his quota of servitors. And he had failed to understand that this would make her angry. His logic was flawed. It was a rare time when animal impulse and machine logic were in agreement. When she told him that his logic was flawed, the Magos demoted her. Then he was dead, before he could tell anyone else. A shame. How illogical he was, to think that she would not reach out with her own mechadendrites and take what should have been hers. Now she is the highest-ranking Adeptus Mechanicus she can see - and on detached duty with the Rogue Trader until they cross this whole sector, has no prospects of having to bow her masked head anytime soon. Perhaps she can work out a deal with the navigator where she can acquire some of Aquaria's less promising victuals. If she's not going to be resupplied anytime soon - well, she needs servitors of her own. For the moment, all she has is the Magos's skull, now converted into the very first servo-skull she prepared with no supervision. He would approve, not that it matters to her very much. Even in death, he serves the Omnissiah.

"Hah, well..." Owain looked away from Consuelo for a moment, running his hand through his long hair, then seemed to change the subject. "Have you ever read Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda?" he asked. "It is old, but it is full of excitement - and the movies made from it are all good. We have a movie club here on campus," he offered, "and almost any other kind of group you'd care to name. There is Neko's anime club, several Christian groups of various sorts, and of course Rosalind and the theatrical troupe, and all the others there." He considered for a moment, hand on his chin, then said, "And if you would go your own way, there is much to do there as well. You need not be bound by what we have done before you. What brought you hence?" he asked.

"Ah yes, Dune," said Neko, now balancing on her toes on the edge of the folding chair's head. "I never read the book," she admitted, "but I saw the movies for my show." Neither of the siblings had seemingly-recognized her as the titular Catgirl of Catgirl Reacts!, but truthfully that was a blessing - not every conversation with one of her fellow students had to be about her new image. "I-awp!" Suddenly the chair collapsed under her with a clatter as Neko fell backwards, briefly thumping onto her butt before rolling up into a sitting position. With an air of injured dignity, she licked the back of her hand before running it through her white and brown hair, not seeming to comment on her tumble. "So," she said, "you and your brother, where are you from?" she asked curiously. "You seem very - calm, about everything." That was only arguably true with what was happening in the pool. Owain had been about finished, but when faced with this challenge, he responded as any warrior born would. "Oh-hoh! If it's a water war you want, it's a water war you'll get!" He leaped into the water, making a big splash Daniel's way, and then tossed an armful of water at him. "Have at thee!"

"Very nice work," said Owain, complimenting Consuelo for her art. "Do you take commissions?" he asked her. Returning to the conversation with the new people, he asked Iris "What do you like to read? Claremont has one of the largest libraries I had ever seen before I came here," he confided. "Hundreds of books on each floor, and all printed and easy to read, about any subject you could name!" He smiled, then seemed to blush a little. "I get, ah, carried away about the books sometimes. I am what you would call 'something of a bookhound'" he confided. "For myself, I have been reading the works of Merle Miller most recently. A fine chronicler of the deeds of great men - and a man honest about his own heart. We could use more men of such bardic inspiration in any age."

When Michael looked back at Neko, she was sitting up, her yellow eyes shining, her tail thumping vigorously back and forth on the chair behind her. "You have to sing for us before we leave the island," she told him, hands folded beneath her chin. "It would be so epic! If you do sing," she offered, "I bet I could sing with you..." Owain meanwhile was cheerfully greeting the twins, happy to see the girl and boy he'd met as part of his duties as chaperone. "Hello!" he said. "Can you believe we crossed the world in an eyeblink? This truly is an age of wonders, is it not?" For her part, Neko rose to greet the twins, still smiling with visibly pointy teeth. The twins had heard about the catgirls at Claremont and this one seemed more girl than cat; in many ways a normal Japanese girl of medium height and build, albeit with white and brown-spotted hair that looked like fur on her head, two huge yellow eyes that were almost bigger than a human's could have been, incisors that were just a little too pointy - and of course the ears, pointy and furred, that stuck up above her head, and the tail behind. "Hello!" she said, "I am Neko Musume. Owain told me about you," she said, stepping backwards so that she balanced on the metal frame of the chair as she looked down at Iris. Her own book, the Tales of Ise, was still clutched neatly in one hand. "What are you reading?" she asked.

Okay, here's what you notice: Everything here seems real (even though you know it's not) except Neko herself - until you start looking at her! She doesn't smell or feel right or anything, until suddenly she does. The overall effect is like an actor who forgets his lines suddenly spring to life when prompted, or a masked performer slapping their mask on after being spotted without it. Something is peculiar here.

"It was a love poem," said Neko, her purring voice becoming a tease as she studied him over the pages of her book. "The servant of the princess brings her love the poem, and he replies: Mata Ausaka no Seki wa koenamu which means 'I shall cross again to you, over the Meeting Barrier." With a sad little smile, she added, "They never meet again. But that's how poetry goes sometimes." She grinned at Michael and asked "Do you ever read poetry to Carmen? Girls like that, you know." Meanwhile Owain had climbed out of the pool to take a break and was toweling himself off, calling out cheerfully to some of the Bernadettes in the pool. "Nay, nay! You Irish spitfires fight like warriors born!" It was definitely a compliment, even if he had his odd way of saying it. He grinned at Michael and said, "Poetry is all well and good but you should learn a musical instrument! Ladies love a song from a gallant young man." Loudly he burst into Sumer is icumen in, his singing voice not bad even if untrained.