Ninth Light

[curseu_reflexes]

[In the wake of the most recent mission, you'll find a disheartening sight if you enter the hangar.  The HK-1138' Corona lies in a crumpled, ruined heap off in a side designated for unsalvagable wrecks, the entire machine nearly split in twain height-wise, a huge chunk of it just fucking gone.  Those parts from before?  Yeah, phoney.  All of them

Comments

[crystal_energy]

[Arika's been distracted for the past few weeks, but she snuck into the hangar to see what people were up to]

Julia?

[She'd never seen Julia upset over something]

[curseu_reflexes]

A... rika?

[She's more than a touched confused, but she just tries to look away.]

I just... I was trying to see if I could use another machine now... the Corona's gone and... and I can't use anything

[crystal_energy]

Can't you just fix it? I'll help!

[curseu_reflexes]

That... that won't work!

Too much of it's damaged, important parts... parts we can't just replace with any old piece of scrap!

It's gone. Over. Without the Corona I can't fight, and the people with the means to repair the Corona would probably rather see me dead.

[crystal_energy]

Can't you just get a new one? When I, ah... lost my GEM, I was able to get a new one.

[curseu_reflexes]

N-no...

My Corona was the only one left... the only relic left of a planned line of machines that was scrapped when Herrera Futuristics was taken over.

[crystal_energy]

I'm sure we can figure out something, if you don't give up! Grandma said that the only time you truly lose is if you give up hope!

[curseu_reflexes]

What's there to figure out? The Corona's gone!

Arika, please. I-I need to know when to call it quits. My father would have died; no, the whole of the Irgelion armada would have died if he didn't order a surrender at the end of the conflict!

[crystal_energy]

Grandma said that if you quit once, you'll quit everything. And that knowing when not to fight isn't quitting.

[Guess who didn't care for bully boys in their village?]

We're trying to stop people from fighting, right? We can't quit!

[curseu_reflexes]

[She shook her head at that.]

I didn't come here for any noble reason, just because I didn't have anywhere else to go.

And it was wrong for me to go out fighting... I'm no soldier.

[crystal_energy]

But weren't you fighting to protect the rest of us?

[curseu_reflexes]

Yes... I-I mean no -- it's-

[She buried her face in her hands.]

This place became my home. I was just trying... to pull my weight...

[In Julia's eyes right now, that might as well be the truth, even if she wouldn't agree with that in a better state of mind.]

[crystal_energy]

Grandma always said that if you care about what you're doing and who you're doing it for, there's no such thing as it not being enough!