agogelogs | my oath shall be sped;

Entry tags:

my oath shall be sped;

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? The January TDM.
WHEN? The mythic dimension of Vorspiel.
ANYTHING ELSE? Violence, as always. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence, and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

JANUARY TEST DRIVE MEME;

Vorspiel; a land of song.

arrival for new recruits

You wake up in a patch of verdant forest, with the birds chirping all around you. You're not in a clearing; your body lies between the trees. Near you, a frail woman with tired eyes rocks back and forth. You have none of your clothing, just black military-issued underwear, and none of your previous possessions beyond the one you chose (if you remember choosing) to bring with you.

When the tired woman notices you've come to, she speaks in a tongue you won't recognize, but somehow understand, in tilting tones that somehow always rhyme. Tired and sorrowful though she is, if you have questions as to what's going on, she'll answer: you are a member of COST, a paramilitary organization of time travelers fighting against the Regency, a tyrannous kingdom of the future who are trying to stamp out freedom and individuality in the name of peace.

She will provide you with the clothing necessary to fit in, and show you how to use your BCE implant to look up information on this dimension and its social and political mores. She won't let you leave until you're properly dressed to fit in, but once you are, she'll wish you luck. She thinks you'll need it.

And, she says as you depart, if you see the Gods, spit on them. They will do you no favors here.

ARRIVAL FOR VETERANS

While on BASE, you'll receive a message on your BCE.

URGENT MISSION: VORSPIEL UNDER MAJOR ATTACK. ALL POSSIBLE VOLUNTEERS NEEDED TO PROVIDE AID.

ACCEPT: Y / N ?

Selecting 'Y' will instantly teleport you to Vorspiel. Or maybe you're not the volunteering type, but your BCE glitches and signs you up anyway. Them's the breaks.

When you appear in Vorspiel, you'll find yourself in that same forest with the same woman who is ushering new recruits. She will give you clothes and wish you luck-- though luck, she says, is something true heroes have in short supply.

VORSPIEL

Regardless of how you got here, your BCE will have a short rundown of the situation once you arrive.

Vorspiel is a mythical, magical dimension rich in rare and precious resources. During the course of the war, it's been fought over by both sides. The Regency has recently allied with the leader of the misty country of Nibelheim to issue what is known as a Time Break; a sort of spell only possible in ancient dimensions such as these. Essentially, linear time has been destroyed in this dimension. Everything is happening at once, simultaneously and perpetually, a never ending cycle of lives and deaths and battles. While Vorspiel is a vast dimension, its borders have become warped; it is possible to walk from one country to another across the sea in a matter of moments, by accident. While the BCE is trying to send people to Nibelheim, it's entirely possible it misses the mark completely, or sends them to several places before they reach Nibelheim.

This chaos is meant to be a punishment: bow down before the Regency, or nothing will ever be the same again.

There is good news, though. Vorspiel is a dimension of inherent magic; singing or humming or whistling certain magical tunes will have an inherent effect upon one's surroundings. The BCE lists all the spells, though it notes that some have varying results (AKA go wild, guys, have fun), and the ones named after people will do little unless the person in question is present (a statistical unlikelihood).

As you enter different parts of Vorspiel, the BCE will sometimes give you different assignments, prompting you to take this action or that. If you have any questions about how this setting works, feel free to ask!

THE RHEIN

You come upon a giant river with clear and beautiful water. The sun shines down upon it in yellow light, and wherever the light touches it, gold floats to the surface of the water. The BCE will prompt you to fetch as much of this gold as you can-- it is an extremely powerful magical resource, rheingold-- but it will not warn you about the Rheinmaidens.

The rheinmaidens are mermaids, essentially, and at first, they are very friendly and gentle, singing nonsense songs and welcoming you to their home. But as soon as you begin to make any moves toward the gold, they will curse you, dive for you with surprising speed, and attempt to drown you. They will be vicious, and their natural element is water. You're in their territory, taking their things, as far as they are concerned. They have every right to kill you.

Killing the rhienmaidens will work... for a minute or so. And then they will rise again. Wounds will undo themselves-- whether they're inflicted by the rheinmaidens or you. Drowning doesn't seem permanent either-- you're pulled under, and all air escapes you, death befalls you... and then you wake up a moment later, standing on the shore.

Time has been fundamentally broken. Nothing done here is permanent.

WALHALL

You stand outside a fortress bathed in rainbow light atop a glorious mountain. Around you, the air is cool and still, and the roof of the sky seems terribly close. No matter how far toward the fortress you run, you can never make it inside. And thundering footsteps are coming just around the mountain pass, coming for you.

Lumbering giants wander around the fortress, searching for something they mutter and murmur is theirs. If they see anyone around, they will attempt to carry them off, kidnapping them for unknown purposes. They do not seem interested in eating their catch; they seem more interested in kidnapping it. Still, they are dangerous, brutish and sloppy with their strength. It is best to avoid them if possible, hiding in the trees.

Or perhaps you'd rather fight these fifteen-foot monstrosities on your own?

Of course, if you kill them, they just... come back. Death cannot be permanent in a place where time has been caught in an endless loop.

NIBELHEIM

The misty country of Nibelheim is located within a network of caverns dug into the side of a great mountain. It's a foggy, polluted place that brings to mind a city on the brink of the industrial revolution, not unlike Victorian London, though Nibelheim is entirely underground. There is smoke and smog everywhere, and living conditions are generally poor. The rich class is one family, ruled by a Nibelung named Alberich. He has various objects of great power that keep him enslaving his fellow Nibelung, working constantly in factories of his making. He has allied with the Regency to achieve this goal, and the time break within his home dimension is due in large part to his planning and plotting.

Human visitors to Nibelheim aren't unheard of, due to trade, though they are in a minority. Nibelungs, for the record, look and feel and act completely human, but they are ultimately alien, averaging a foot shorter in height at least, having naturally sallow skin, large eyes, hairless regardless of gender, and long, nimble fingers. They are a race of people made to live underground, and it shows; most can see in the dark, and climb nearly any surface. They are famed as smiths and metalworkers. Most just want to make a living and feed their families, though Alberich's clan keeps them in line.

Your duty here, the BCE says, is to try and befriend these people, the average Nibelung, and spark some kind of revolt. There are Regency spies everywhere, however, so be careful; you cannot call for rebellion in an open voice on every street corner. No, it's better, safer, to be subtle about it. Win the trust of a local businessman, seek out influential Nibelungs and figure out their opinions. Be tactical, be clever, be quick.

And avoid Alberich and his family at any cost.

But if you can, try and save some of the Nibelungs. Due to Alberich's machinations, Nibelheim is the only part of Vorspiel that has been untouched by the time break, but that will only stay true for so long. If you can convince any Nibelungs to join COST, they will do so willingly; you'll just have to escort them to safe places in hidden back rooms within dingy bars and forgotten libraries, the places where COST cells have been fermenting under the nose of the Regency. Don't get caught, and be careful; save as many as you can.

AT THE BASE OF A GREAT TREE

A man lays dying. He looks very much like the woman who introduced you to this place. Regardless, he lies in a pool of his own blood, a stab wound through his heart. The time break keeps him from ever truly passing into the next life; as soon as he dies, his eyes open, and he begins the process of his last painful moments once again.

Each time, he begs you to avenge him and find his love (or sometimes his sister; he seems very confused), and if you ask him his name, he will only respond that he is, "the woeful one". And then he will die again, for the hundredth time.

In the trees, warriors watch, poised to attack. They see you communing with their enemy, and they wish to defeat you as well. These warriors care little for your protest; they are locked in an endless battle that they cannot free themselves from, and you have just joined it.

IN THE FOREST

There is a serpent, larger than anything you have ever seen, sitting at the mouth of a cave. It sits upon a hoard of gold that may be familiar to you. It may not, but the BCE will inform you of what it is: rheingold, an incredibly potent and valuable magical resource.

Regardless, the serpent will attack anyone that comes near it or its hoard, even by accident. It, too, is caught in an endless loop of battle long over, for it calls you boy and foolish young man regardless of who or what you are. It speaks in a deep and sonorous voice, and will not stop until its head is cut off. The creature is obnoxiously large and highly dangerous, and battle with it will be long and painful, not least because, like everything in this place where time has been so fundamentally broken, it is very bad at staying dead.

Be careful when you fight it -- if you accidentally get some of its blood in your mouth, you will be suddenly and temporarily able to understand the language of birds. Which is cool, but also, you know, distracting.

The birds will tell you to find the Valkyries, who will bring you great fame and glory. They will also tell you to run, for Fafnir does not die so easy.

AT THE END OF THE WORLD

You are at a funeral. A golden-haired woman stands upon an unlit pyre, standing next to the man who, she sings, is her dead husband. Her song is beautiful and loud and incomprehensible, and when the pyre is lit, the fire swallows her whole. But the burning doesn't stop there; it begins to destroy the assembled mourners, the forest around it, the castle, the very river burns. The fabric of the world crackles and sets to flame.

Run from the flame all you like, but it always licks at your heels.

There is a trick, though, to saving your life. If one is truly unafraid of death, the fire cannot harm you, or anyone you touch. The BCE won't warn you of this; it doesn't know. But if you are unafraid, you can simply walk through the flames unharmed.

It will bring you to a wide field atop a mountain, where a woman lies sleeping. It's the same woman at the funeral, peaceful in sleep, unmoving, unsinged. She can be awoken by a kiss.

Of course, awakening her will begin the cycle again: the pyre, the fire, the fearlessness, the clearing. Over and over again, endlessly, until the BCE manages to pull you out.

This is the will of the Regency.

As a final note: This will not be the main mission for January. This TDM is meant as a one-off to dump characters into a setting they don't have to read a ton of infopages for, while still getting a sense of what Agoge could be (and as always, this TDM is game canon).

The main mission for January will be the Gallipoli campaign, as detailed here. Future missions for Agoge are always listed here months in advance.

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC MEMES PLURK

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"M."

Watches the rheinmaiden's wrist bend at an impossible angle and pauses in his determined stride to the water, just out of reach of grabbing hands. Examines the outfit and decides that it's rather practical, a mental nod at the sleeve-blades. Kind of jealous he has sleeve-blades.

"Don't complain so much. Noctis and I were planning a siege." And again, with some concern, "Get away from the water."

Resumes his descent in his mud-encrusted tunic — him, the Black Reaper, forced to look less impressive than his comrade — and splashes into the water with a hard look at the rheingold beneath the surface that glitters like little sparks. The second the women wrap thin arms around his calves to try and drag him under, his balance wins out with a downward cast of red eyes and so does the electricity channeled through their home's medium.

It easily fills the section of river, catching the mermaids with a brain-frying voltage under, above, and halfway out of the water.

"I'm just kidding, lighten up." But a flash of memory, something caught in a dream-- he steps back from the water. The fish women cling to him the whole while, and he smacks their hands away without any difficulty. They slink back into the water, hissing curses.

"And I'm gonna be fucking offended if you planned a siege and didn't save me an invitation."

"Ah, yeah, yeah, I'm taking that as a 'yes'... Obviously there's room for your skillset, it's just hard to plan for you when you're missing. Hiding in plain sight, apparently."

But any further catching up is put abruptly on hold as Hei decides to electrocute a large swath of the river itself, immediately shifting his attention. If he hadn't already encountered these women earlier then he might have a few admonishments that were more... morally-based regarding killing them, but he's fully aware it'll be temporary.

"Oi-- that's not going to mess up the gold or anything, right?"

He has a job to do and he's going to do it, nothing exactly stopping him from crouching in the water while mermaids float dead on the surface. Bumps one aside as his fingers dig into silt, pulling up handfuls of rheingold.

"No. It doesn't look that way." To the naked eye, at least, holding a piece aloft. "It's rheingold, not the metal we know. It could be far different."

"Remind me not to piss you off," Midnighter says, like he needs a reminder. He's obviously impressed, though, and it shows in his bearing, the sharp smile. "You want the gold, you earned your gold."

In one fluid motion, he throws off the trench coat, throwing it toward Noctis. "Hold this, princess." He begins wading into the water, idly whistling the tune the dead mermaids were singing before they got pissed off and eventually fried.

Yes, if you were wondering, being in uniform does make him more cocky.

He catches the coat, eyeing the bits of blood still on it before looking back over at them. That annoying nickname again... Noctis clicks his tongue in irritation at his reduction to coat hanger, doing his best to swallow that annoyance for the team.

"You've got maybe forty seconds before they start reviving so you might wanna' hurry. If time's still acting weird, anyway, which it should be."

"Thanks, but I've got no use for this. COST, on the other hand..." Well-- "I can't imagine what they're liable to do with it. Fuel?"

He slings his handfuls of the gold up onto the shore before sloshing around for more, lifting his chin with a squint of his eyes. The window of time they have is rather narrow, regrettably, but Noctis' warning should keep him and M alert enough to get out before anything bad happens.

Should.

"If you come over with one of those coats, Noctis, we can gather what we dredge up. Here," a point to a spot nearby, maybe a bit too close to the Rhein but nothing ventured, nothing gained. "Unless you want to swap positions."

Edited 2018-01-01 06:15 (UTC)

If Midnighter knew a fucking thing about magic, he'd know that whistling the tune the fish women were singing in this dimension would just make them revive faster. Wading into the water, the ash of the rheinmaidens charred skin flakes off, revealing living women with revivified anger, and they grab onto M, attempting to pull him into the water once more. Now that he's waist deep, they make him budge just slightly from the bank of the river.

He sighs, and turns back to Noctis, who is clearly a coat-hanger, but also the tactical mind of this enterprise.

"Hold that thought." And he dives in. He lets himself sink like a stone, hitting a shallow bank, and begins methodically snapping the fish women's necks as they dive for him. It's a good move, except he just sits there at the bottom without letting anyone know. He stays under there for well over a minute as red fish lady blood slowly ekes to the surface.

An idea occurs to him as he watches, slowly working out a potentially faster and more efficient way to sort through the bounty that that river has to offer, but still he doesn't especially relish the idea of having to cut off a few heads. Again. Of minimally clad women. All the same he starts moving closer, and just in time to see those women molt back into angry, living beings.

And then M goes under.

"Whoa, oi--!" He immediately drops that coat as he moves closer, trying to peer into the now murky water below. Which is only getting murkier. Noctis shoots a quick look over at Hei... before he's wordlessly withdrawing his dagger, not exactly the most proficient swimmer in the world but he'd face this threat many times over to help out a friend.

The dive's imperfect, eyes squinting through river water in an attempt to make out what's happening below... and he's predictably forced to slash at a groping hand that grasps at his ankle almost immediately. Get off...

Should've smacked him in the face for whistling that tune, but how could they've known? The rheinmaidens stir and the ones near to him in his crouch reach for him and his own dagger is flipped in a wet hand and shunted into hard skull. Blood blooms and with a jerk at another hand grabbing at his leg, Hei prepares his ability and quickly realized he can't. It'd mean killing the both of them and he can't.

Eyes dim and dart to Noctis', before searching the surface of the water with a sink sense of dread he can't swallow. "Wait, don't—"

Now he's forced to watch for his comrades whose bubbles stop and leave him the only source of ripples in the slow-running river, finding his feet in the mud and pebbles and gold. He can, at the very least, stay in the general area of where they ducked under and move with a practiced ease in waist-deep water, keeping the fish women near the shore well away from them, but that's not enough and the creeping anxiety makes him need reassurances.

"Noctis? M?" He staggers at a rheinmaiden getting a strong hold on his shoulder, collar of his shirt wrenched, forcing him to slash at her. "Damn it...!"

Midnighter hears more than sees Noctis moving toward him in the water, fucking idiot kid. If he's swimming, who's watching Midnighter's coat? Fuck.

Midnighter hurries up breaking the fish women's neck, and swims toward Noctis before the twitching corpses he's leaving behind can revivify. They begin to float to the surface as he swims away. He considers sending Noctis a text, GET BACK UP THERE, except it'd probably just confuse the kid. REM texting is great, except not many other people can manage it at his speed.

So he just pushes the kid to the surface with his own overwhelming strength, making sure both their heads hit the surface of the water simultaneously. "What part of 'hold on' communicated 'follow me', exactly?"

He's a millennial, don't underestimate his texting abilities.

But he manages to confirm that Midnighter is in fact alive and well -- not that it much matters in a looped timeline like this one -- seconds before he's colliding with him and shoving him upward. He wipes pink-tinged water away from his eyes after a rushed inhale, already ready with a response.

"'Hold that thought' isn't even the same... Detail your plans next time; all we saw was blood and you not coming back up." He turns his head, yelling out for Hei's sanity a quick, "we're okay!"

"I actually have a plan, anyway... There's probably the most gold concentrated at the bottom, right? I can-- get off me," he interjects into his own exposition, another rheinmaiden meeting the sharp edge of his own dagger. "I can warp down there pretty easy if I let my dagger sink, then I can freeze chunks of it and let it float up. That's way easier than trying to sieve it out of water..."

Turning a shoulder with wide-eyed frustration when Noctis calls out to him with M in tow.

"Stop fucking around," snipped as he grabs and digs the tips of his fingers into the soft face of the nearest mermaid who doesn't deserve the shock that takes a few seconds too long to kill her.

A prelude to him wading out of the water, hair sticking to his face as he flips the edges of M's coat and drags it away from the embankment to leave with the cloak. He'll be ready to leave the second they get ahold of more rheingold, already sick to death of fish. He can't keep losing composure like that, hurriedly returning to the edge of the river and splashing back in to wrench a fistful of a woman's hair back in a drag away from his comrades.

"It'll work as well as the next plan. Make it quick and if you have any trouble—" takes a moment to think on a signal, before, "loose one of those bombs you used on me."

"Both of you are fucking killjoys," Midnighter says, trudging out of the water and the mud and the gold flecks caught within. Directed at Noctis, "I don't need to breathe, you idiot. Your concern's fucking adorable, though."

He continues to drag Noctis along until they're on the dry banks; the mermaids hiss and curse at the edges.

"If we're gonna go with that plan, Hei should fry the water again." And Midnighter... will be useless in this plan, honestly, unless... "I'll be support; my eyes are good enough to see how you're doing down there."

"Hah? Bombs...?" The question isn't held back before he realizes what Hei must be referring to, deciding to save an explanation for later. Now is decidedly not the time. Especially when he's getting hauled around like a rag doll, expression twisted in irritation but it's not like he hasn't lived through this before with Gladio many times.

"Get off--" he mutters as soon as they reach dry land, extricating himself with a sharp pull away but his worry was obvious; the damage is done. Damn.

"Yeah... fine, that works. Seems like the easiest solution, anyway." As long as it doesn't wear Hei out, which he wisely doesn't add. He doesn't know the kind of toll that magic like that must take on him but every time he witnesses it it seems like it must be a lot. "I'm ready when you guys are."

Doesn't need to breathe underwater? What kind of experimentation made that a necessary ability? The first thing he thinks when Midnighter steps out of the water and Noctis follows suit, leaving him to check them both over for superficial wounds. Nothing that he can spot, which keeps him calm as he wipes his face and nods his understanding.

"I'll take care of it. Wait for me to raise a hand from the water," meant for Noctis, but they're both smart enough to know why, "then move swiftly. You'll save us a lot of time and effort."

His belief in Noctis' ability to cope with whatever he comes across down there is a strong one, though he has his reservations despite it. There's always something to worry about, even if he's only known them a month. It's long enough and it was plenty of time for him to fixate and now there's no real way to stop himself, none that he knows of. So he'll blaze a path for them and make sure it stays clear, stepping back into the water with a glow of radiation that makes gold glitter. M will help him with that, as he has time and time again.

Doesn't have to wait or chant or whistle, threads of electricity dunked into the water as he reaches his hips. It's not all that dramatic, near silent when mermaids float to the surface of the water, current combing the riverbed.

And he raises a hand moments later, a simple gesture for Noctis to make his move.

Bombs is also something Midnighter mentally tabs for later. He'll ask when they're not obstensibly trying to work as a team. He takes back his earlier sentiment that they'd work well together, though. They clearly fucking suck at it.

He stands on the bank, staring through the clear water, and counts five fish corpses rising to the top. Where do these fuckers keep coming from?

"Yeah, all clear from here. Just a lotta fishsticks." Midnighter turns to Hei with a grin. "You really are a cook."

Noctis keeps a keen eye on the water, both for enemies and for traces of Hei's ability as it webs out to fan granules of magicked gold, honing his focus--

Which is hard when Midnighter is insisting on delivering the pithy agonizing one-liners that make him so badly want to slowly turn his head towards him and just stare him into what would be a sense of shame for a normal person. So into nothing. Probably into more one-liners.

"Nice one, Hei. Thanks." The second he's given the go ahead he's throwing that dagger, blade cutting through the surface of the water between bodies and sinking fast. It'll just be a few seconds before it's near the bottom, he figures, waiting it out so he has less time to be forced to hold his breath. "... I haven't really tried anything like this in a while. Ah, usually I just warp a short distance after a throw."

But he's certainly willing to try, honing his focus in on that dagger and imagining its form... before he's suddenly blinking out of sight in a wash of fractured crystals, reappearing all too abruptly in the chill of the river bed. Time to make it colder; the first block of gold-rich ice will float to the surface within the minute.

Every time he sees it, it's startling. Noctis disappears in the blink of an eye and all that's left is a crystal silhouette. It makes him feel like he's back in a dream — a nightmare? — and struggling with how lacking he was compared to him. There's nothing he can do about that, now, but it leaves him stewing in nostalgia.

"Ah. Sure..." Trailing off, staring at the surface of the river.

He doesn't move in the hip-deep water, simply turns his head towards the bank, glancing over at Midnighter. Ignores the comment on his cooking, a low-lidded stare raising from the grin to the black mask.

"Lucas Trent. That was you, wasn't it." No room for disagreement, he's pieced it together. He isn't foolish, he isn't blind despite the fact that the two look nothing alike. He's sharp, analytical, and these are the three things he needed. "Your username, the experimentation, the fact that you can breathe underwater. That boy was you."

Midnighter reacts like he was slapped. Lucas Trent. He was expecting a thousand things, but not this.

His first response to any change, any challenge like this, is defense. "Don't fucking call me that." It's not his usual idle calm. It's the voice he uses for threats. People tell him it's not a comforting voice. At the moment, surrounded on all sides by friends, he doesn't give a shit.

It takes him a second to deflate. He's not going to fight Hei. Hei's not going to fight him. He's asking a question, a fair one.

"...Yeah, that was me." And, "keep it the fuck to yourself."

This reaction's exactly the one he wanted. It tells him the information he needs far faster and far better than any follow-up verbal cue that forces him out of the Rhein. No, it isn't a comforting voice; Hei is more than ready for a backlash that doesn't come.

On the shore, silently dripping and weighing options, he can't come up with anything better than a clipped: "Understood. I needed to know who was in my head, I have no intention of discussing it."

Finding out who to speak to about his dreams was a challenge, there still exist so many loose ends he needs to sloppily tie up in an effort to keep his own past from surfacing, but — Midnighter doesn't want to discuss himself and neither does Hei.

"I can't electrocute the river with you two in it, so my hands are tied. You're stronger in water than I am." A jerk of his head towards the water, reassessing a threat in M that he'd rather place somewhere he can fight it. "So, logically you're more capable of getting the ice blocks Noctis is floating up."

"Whatever," Midnighter grumbles through clenched teeth. He can't afford to get distracted with Noctis underwater, and of course that means he's doing a terrible fucking job of it. Thanks, Hei. "Just don't ever fucking call me by that name."

And with that, he begins to trudge forward the banks, toward the chill the ice is making. Fucking golden icecubes. This is ridiculous.

No reply from Hei, knowing full well it'd mean an unnecessary argument. He understands and it's got Midnighter's hackles raised, steers clear of the topic like he's ordered the other man to, and waits on the shore for any tossed ice blocks.

"... He's been down for too long. The women are reviving."

He has been under the water for a generous amount of time, putting his all into his work as he intentionally rustles up flecks of gold before freezing them piecemeal into the larger blocks. The denser they are in gold, the better. His lungs are burning by the time he floats up the sixth block, deciding that now would be a good time to kick back up towards the surface... or it would be if there weren't suddenly hands grasping for his hands and ankles.

All that will be seen topside is a dull blueish glow from deep underwater, brief and seemingly effective, before the last block, Noctis, and a few more pinkish trails of blood start to make their way up through the water.

He breaks the surface with an immediate gasp for air, frustratedly chucking that block towards the shore before he's swimming after it and hauling himself out with less dignity than usual. So none.

"I'm... really sick of the fish women..." A pause, then a glance over his shoulder. "You guys didn't grab 'em all yet?"

So Midnighter begins wordlessly volleying the ice blocks from the surface of the water, taking his frustration out on that. So they might careen toward Hei with a little more force than necessary. Fuck it.

When he senses Noctis coming up, Midnighter reaches over for the kid, hefting him toward the bank with a grip at his shoulder. Nobody's getting pulled under, here, even if he can feel the fish women coming, sense their movements in the current.

"We got the biggest ones. Let's go."

my oath shall be sped;

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