CAPITAL CRISIS & THE AWAKENINGThe ceiling was the first thing she saw.Stone. Old, water-stained, the kind of ceiling that had been above this room since before anyone currently living had been born. Rita stared at it for a long moment, the specific disoriented stillness of someone whose consciousness had returned before the rest of them had caught up, the ceiling real and solid above her, and everything else still assembling itself from whatever fog it had been scattered into.She breathed.The air was cold and tasted faintly of the medical bay's preservation flame, the antiseptic, chemical quality of it that she'd always found slightly unpleasant and had never been more grateful for in her life.She breathed again.Her chest ached. A deep, structural ache, the kind that didn't come from a wound but from depletion, from having poured everything available into something and found the bottom of the reservoir faster than expected. Her left hand was wrapped in bandaging; she didn't reme

The altar moved.Not shook, moved, the distinction important, a single deliberate inward pulse that traveled outward from Jabber's body rather than toward it, as though something inside the unconscious form had registered the chant and had decided, on its own terms, to respond.And then the geyser erupted.………There was no transition.One moment the altar was still and the room was the room and the chant was building toward something.The next moment, purple.A column of purple flame tore upward from the altar with the specific catastrophic force of something that had been contained for a very long time,not contained by anything physical, contained by its own choice to remain contained, and that choice having just been rescinded. It went through the altar. It went through the floor. It went through the ceiling as though the stone were not there, the obsidian above them opening up in a clean, circular rupture that exposed the dark realm sky above.The force of it moved the room.Not an

He knew he was staring.He couldn't reallocate the processing power needed to stop staring toward anything else right now."The gap." He said, under his breath. More to himself than to anyone. He was trying to do the mathematics of it, trying to take what he knew of the upper limits of flame aura output, the outer edges of what the most powerful people he'd encountered in his life had been able to produce, and scale it upward to find where this landed on the same axis.He couldn't find it on the same axis.It wasn't on the same axis."This isn't…" He shook his head slightly. "This isn't the same category of thing."He left the sentence there, because there wasn't anywhere useful to take it.…..Gull stood three feet from the circle's boundary, closer than anyone else in the room had chosen to stand, and he was shaking.He knew he was shaking. He could feel it in his hands specifically, the fine, rapid tremor of both hands, the specific physical response of a body that had been in th

"I'm just telling you as a friend, Web. Forewarned is forearmed. I'm being ‘supportive’ here.""You are being the opposite of supportive…""I'm supporting your survival prospects…""’Both of you.’" Kyx said.One sentence. No raised voice. The specific flat command of someone whose patience had run its full course and was communicating the completion of that course through tone alone.Both of them closed their mouths.…..They turned back to the room.Loki and Dero were separating, slowly, the specific gradual separation of two people who had been together and were returning to the world's demands without any hurry about it.Loki kept hold of her hand for a moment longer than the separation strictly required."I've missed you." He said. Quieter. Just for her. "Mi amor."Dero's expression did the specific thing it did, the thing none of the people in this room except possibly Gabimaru and Benimaru had ever had occasion to see it do,the thing that was not performance and was not comp

"I am just telling you as a friend, Web. As someone who cares about your continued existence and the condition of your general wellbeing going forward.""Shut up." Web hissed."I'm genuinely trying to help…""Gull.""...look out for you…""I will remove your ability to speak and the method I use will not be subtle…"Kyx looked at both of them."Shut up.” She said.She said it at the same volume as the rest of the conversation, but with the specific flat quality that made volume irrelevant. Both of them went silent with the specific simultaneous stoppage of two people who had received a clear signal and had the collective sense to act on it.…….Loki and Dero had drawn apart.Not completely,his hands were still loosely holding hers, and she was still close enough that when he spoke again it was for her rather than for the room."I've missed you."He said. Low, private, in the smooth serpentine register that his voice had settled into since the moment of awakening. "Mi amor."Dero's