The gray woman rolled her eyes at the questions put to her. "Sword, she'll run the analyzer just fine," Steel said, "though that body just screams kitten, doesn't it?" She steepled her fingers and smiled darkly at the distressed student.

Miko couldn't really process what she was seeing. Some animal part of her mind was panicking so badly that she couldn't decide between fight or flight. So, instead, she stood rooted in the spot as the strange, naked, scarred woman felt along her bare body. The hand holding the cocoa began slowly to tremble. The warm chocolate started to flow down over the edges of the white mug, and her eyes grew slowly wider as her body was examined like a piece of meat on a butcher's counter.

"Do you really care what brought her down here in the first place?" Miss Steel said, folding her arms over her chest. She stared sternly at Kite's back, frustrated, and was about to say more when the object of their attention let the mug slip from her grasp. A small, mechanical spider skittered out from a shadow and snapped a collection of thin tendrils up to catch the mug, carrying it back into the other room just before the door swung shut.

"I promise I'll learn how to tie it properly!" Miko stammered, shaking and staring at Steel again. "I'll do it right from now on," she pleaded, shaking harder and harder.

"Sword, do what you're meant to do. She tastes awful," the gray woman grumbled, looking away disgustedly, "and I refuse to believe she'll ever learn a half-windsor."

A horrible little croak escaped the blue-haired woman's throat. Steel hid the shudder of bliss that was the flavor of despair from Kite.

"Hmph, if you think this thing suits gatita then i know you've got no understanding of her. Perhaps someday, somewhere, but here? Putting her in that would be a waste of both and you know it. She hasn't got enough rattling around to put out what you like eating anyway." At least the disgust at that suggestion was entirely genuine.

"No, there's no place for her in your game." No need to tell Steel it was her mother who proved that. " 'Cept maybe a cameo if we live to the epilogue."

Analyzer cut back in, hoping the entirely honest tensions of she and Sword being all too prone to butting heads might conceal that they were shamming, looking for some avenue of changing the rules, perhaps this other girl could be the fulcrum, but they NEED a lever! "A learning deficiency? That is entirely unacceptable! i would have expected of your grandfather to not understand, but surely there's enough meat in the bloodline by now that you know that the hardware matters!"

"What i'm MEANT to do, Staloj?!" Well, so much for containment, the fury and hate was held in check, but there was no hiding that right now Sword was ready to blow. "What i'm meant to do as defined by WHO, exactly? You? The Labs? Cesigo to the lot of you! We've had a handle sticking out for years, and until mia regina, nobody's bothered to take hold!" Certainly Analyzer was trying to retake some sort of hold on the conversation, but it wasn't happening. Sword was holding herself back from violence, but only by the barest grasp.

The gray woman scrubbed at her face and sighed in exasperation. "Are you being willfully obtuse, Kite, or are you dumber than I remember?" Steel grumbled with a soft sigh. "The hardware's fine, and it's been kept in good working order because its current owner hasn't made the most use of it, nor done anything to intentionally damage it!" She stepped up to the trembling, naked woman and gestured to her like a gameshow prize. "And I haven't even told you the best part!"

"Please, stop," the student whimpered, her eyes growing damp again. She balled her hands into fists and looked up defiantly at the gray woman. "I'll never tie it like that again, I promise. Just let me wake up. Please." She shook like she'd been thrust out into knee-deep snow. Her eyes kept darting between the gray woman and the scarred one, wondering which she should be more afraid of.

"The best part is why she hasn't been jostled!" the gray woman said, just ignoring the pleas of the blue-haired student. "She's not part of the game! I'm the first monster to get a hold of her, and I've got a permission slip to put her back where she came from! Whoever takes this body gets free of the whole game, if they want to." Steel wrapped an arm around the student's shoulders and leaned slightly into her. "So, which of you wants it?"

Miko chewed her lip and looked back and forth. She knew she was being threatened, but she was starting to think maybe it was just a dream. It certainly didn't make any damned sense.

"Oh, she's not part of the game, is she?" Kite grinned in pure, feral glee, "Gets to wake up and it was all a dream, finish her degree believing she just shouldn't have had the enchillada salad in the cafeteria?" Kite reached forward with the hand away from Steel to caress Miko's cheek. "That changes everything, doesn't it? Like it's just you and us here, hmm?"

Whether Steel caught the change in Kite's intentions or not, it was too late, the hand stroking Miko let go, and came the rest of the way around in a sudden tackle, Kite punching Steel as many times as she could before the grey woman recovered, shouting "Run, kid, while she's distracted! And if you remember anything from tonight, don't eat the fucking enchilada salad!"

Whether Miko had the coherency or capacity to take the advice, Kite snarled as she kept up her assault, "An escape? An innocent life? What would filth like us do with that other than get bored?"

The gray woman went down under the assault, her head cracking against the concrete floor. Yellow bloomed under Kite's fists as they crushed skin against bone, rapidly adding a layer of distortion to Miss Steel's inhuman face. Miko didn't need to be told twice. She ran back through the door she'd stumbled through. It slammed shut with a resounding click. Miss Steel cast her mind into the next room, reworking it as her body took its beating, and finally returned her attention to Kite.

Laughter bubbled forth through lips cracked and bleeding yellow blood. Acid green eyes stared hungrily up at the student with an insane glee. As the beating continued, so did the laughter, ringing on and on under each blow and echoing in the chamber.

"You," Steel started, pausing to take a fist on her cheek and laugh again, "you're the worst hero ever!" She giggled and turned to look up at the purple-haired student. Suddenly, the gray woman wasn't yielding under the assault, and hitting her was akin to punching a jagged pile of scrap metal. "You didn't just fail to save her, you just doomed her! How can I wipe her memory now that she's escaped?" Another piercing, insane laugh ripped its way through Steel's throat. "Oh gods, Kite, you just doomed her!" The laughter kept flowing from Steel as she lay on the floor, bleeding in a small yellow pool.

"i've never been a hero." Kite kept attacking, as Steel knew she would. Even as Kite starts bruising her fists on Steel's re-hardened visage, she keeps punching. After all, she's never known how to stop. "If she's really one of the protected, the Labs will wipe her like they do the other 'accidental witnesses.' If she wasn't, well, when have we ever trusted you?"

Kite's snarls mixed with Steel's laughter, and both covered the pop of dislocating knuckles as Kite refused to stop punching. "i've never been a hero. i'm only a weapon. It's not your hand on my hilt."

"Perceptive!" the gray woman said between laughs. "And what a weapon you are, blunting your edge on me!" One hand rose slowly from the floor, shaking as Miss Steel tried to not let the blissful pain override her brain just yet. "Instead of honing yourself on fresh meat. Alas, alack, anon, another apocryphal armament assaulting an antagonist of agony and avarice as acrid acid amalgamates in agape afflictions." The gray woman laughed at her own joke as the yellow blood covering Kite's damaged knuckles seemed to snap into its own life. It curled inward, forcing its way into the small cuts and wounds over the student's fists, worming its way under her skin. It burned like fire in her veins and itched horribly under her skin as it devoured the red within the mad woman.

Steel lay back and laughed longer and harder, her body convulsing. The hand she'd lifted clutched into a fist for a moment, then opened again. It reached for Kite's chest and passed through the student as if she weren't there. Intangible fingers closed over the student's heart, making it cold but doing nothing to hinder its function.

"Let me show you how you kill someone. It'll be a useful lesson for when your wielder wants to put you to use! First, you aim for something vital." The burning and itching were dragging their ways higher up Kite's arms and through her shoulders. Something thumped within her chest other than her heart. The burning vanished for a moment. "Then you destroy it." The cold went away for a moment, then was replaced by the burning as acid ate at Kite's heart. Pain ripped a hole in her chest. Blood stopped reaching her brain, her feet, her fingers, all of them going cold swiftly. Darkness dragged at Kite's vision, and the chill worked its way into her whole body.

The gray woman was standing over Kite where she knelt on the floor over a body that wasn't there any more. The pain was gone, and her heart was thudding fine in her chest.

"You keep calling it a game," Steel said calmly, brushing off her shoulder with an errant hand. "Games have competition. This is just work."

The acidic blood twisting and burning in her arms was a pain she welcomed, certainly more than she did the words grating upon her ears. When had Steel developed an alliteration fetish?

Whatever pithiness she intended to spew back about how there's only honing to be had in fighting hard-meat, seeing Steel's arm protruding from her chest that way brought it to a choking halt. Gasping for breath that won't come, scrabbling at Steel's wrist with broken fingers, thought is gone and the rage is blind. But even in the cold embrace of death, there is no fear. After all, the reaper is the only man worth trusting. And the tiniest spark of curiosity, of if this time, perhaps it is the end, and she'll see if there's an 'other side'.

Evidently not. Her body is wracked with coughing for several long moments, trying to expel what her mind knows is already gone. If it was ever there and not just a trick played upon her nerves. As she recovers, she pushes Steel's hand off her shoulder contemptuously, though it takes a couple of tries for her to stand.

"It is a game, because you interrupted your work and mine alike to play it. You must know by now that the only way killing us will change anything is if one of you actually makes us stay dead. We are damned, and our flower blooms brightest in hell."

"It's a game, because when the time for games is over, when every rule lies sundered, you will find me far sharper than this, Staloj."

Rage. Delicious, sweet, delectable rage. Oh how Steel loved its taste. Even as her hand was knocked away, she was savoring the flavor on her tongue.

"Is that a threat, Sword?" Steel said, smirking down at the scarred student. "Oh, I'm sorry, a promise? Will you cut me, some day? I look forward to it." The gray woman stepped slowly around Kite. "You seem to be of the impression I wasn't done with her when you came in, that I wasn't expanding work to fill the available time." Gray feet continued to pad in a circle, keeping the voice moving as it taunted. "You say the rules hold you back. The rules of your, 'game.' Sword, I could drop the influence of the inhibitors in here, give you a magic sword and a princess to rescue, and you'd still be unable to defeat me." A foot pressed at Kite's back for a moment as the gray woman pressed her down towards the floor. "As you said, you're no hero. Heroes don't play. Heroes are free." Steel stepped back again and quickly strode around until she was in front of Kite. A thick chain hit the floor, its other end grasped in gray fingers. "There are no heroes in this place any more. Thank you for showing me that. Now let me show you what it means to be owned, to not even have the freedom to choose a master." The chain sprang to life, striking like an asp in an attempt to coil possessively at Kite's throat.

"Especially when the one you want can't protect you."

Laying gasping on the floor is not the best place for retorts. And besides, Steel not only knows exactly what sort of blood is on Kite's hands, she knows how it got there.

Kite does get her hands into the chain as it moves, keeping it from strangling her, at least for now. "You gonna teach me something else we already know, Staloj? We been there already. He's dead, now." She struggles, pulling at the chain as it continues to tighten, crushing her fingers.... but with Steel in front of her, Kite's starting to get her feet back under her as well.

"And besides... i don't remember ever asking mia regina for protection!" She snarls as she lunges, intending to drive her shoulders into Steel's knees.

"Oh, you do know that lesson!" Steel said, laughing as the student bounced ineffectually off legs hard as cast iron. "And you finally remembered how to be a good whore!" The chain, closed around Kite's neck tight enough it wouldn't slip over her head, stopped trying to press inward and cut off her air. "Keep fighting me, little plaything. Don't give up. Never admit defeat. Roil in hate and frustration." The gray woman pulled on the chain in her grasp, forcing it against the back of the purple-haired student's neck and under her chin. "Be a good little meal. Show me your training's working."

Kite fell after the impact, it would have been to the floor, save the chain leash kept her from getting there, a brief paroxysm of sputtering and flailing to keep from strangling. Sword seethed with hate, yes... but not frustration. She knew she couldn't win, here, now, like this. She knew there was no chance of defeating Steel in simple combat, or any of the other monsters she fought back against on the island. She had won, once, knowing it to be impossible, because of luck, gravity, and fire. A second time when information had allowed a trap beyond what could have been believed.

Sword could not fight to win until being wielded. Since her birth, she fought, simply to fight. Simply to give voice in violence to the seemingly bottomless hate. The only defeat is when you give up. Sword would never give up, snarling as she attacked again and again, throwing herself against Steel with all the violence she could muster.

Perhaps a bit disconcerting to most for Analyzer's dry words to emerge from between Kite's lips while Sword attacked in such a furor, but much as she might want otherwise, to restrain Sword from within once the mist descended was beyond her. But Sword had no interest in voice right now. "The pride in your voice, if nothing else, is rather misplaced. i believe you are well aware that you have had precious little to do with 'training' us to be as we are." The accuracy of the point itself was debatable, but its thrust was the same as that of Sword's fury. Analyzer was attempting to taint Steel's buffet of Sword's fury with the sterility she found unpleasant upon the palate. "After all, you wouldn't exist if we had needed such 'training' to be what we are. We know all too well the tastes of your lineage."

That flavor again. It was like paper. This time, at least, it was wrapped around one of the most succulent steaks of hate Steel had ever had the pleasure to savor. The spiders would be well fed tonight.

Still, she sighed. Analyzer deserved her little head games, Steel supposed. "Of course not. Mother didn't make me for you. You were always you, in your way. I'm not sure why they washed you through here, to be honest," the gray woman said, her body shuddering just slightly under a harder blow. Her flesh was still pliable, but her bones seemed to have become anchored in place and made of lead. "Everyone seems to have their little theories about this place, but you and I both know I'm just tending the flock before they're lead off to the slaughter, in my own little way. No little lambs come down here except those that need some sort of lesson to get them back in with the herd properly. But you, you were baptized in fire before we got you. You came to us nearly ready for slaughter. I honestly don't know why they didn't skip you right to market. Perhaps you're still imperfect." A hand reached down an patted Kite softly on the head between rough blows against unyielding skin. "Little lamb, your mistress thought you needed a lesson, but she failed to give me a note. Let's see if we can't figure out what her pet needs to learn to truly get that blue ribbon. It's clearly not how to be a good meal." Steel laughed softly and gestured broadly. "It may have been that test of faith, but we both know you broke your rules when you hit first. I wonder how she'll respond to that?"

The spiders clattering softly in the shadows started to press in as a swarm, their long, chromed legs tapping an erratic staccato on the concrete floor. Thousands of tiny red eyes watched the two. The floor vanished under their bodies as they pressed further and further inward. Something like hunger gleamed in the unfeeling, mechanical creatures.

Analyzer giggled, traces of smugness and pride creeping into her sterility. She wasn't very good at it, though that might have been Sword still having primacy over respiration. "We broke the rules, did we? No, my suspicion is Miss Matsumoto will in fact be quite pleased Sword held back as long as she did. You struck twice against the prohobition before we even moved." Analyzer was briefly silenced by Sword unleashing a bestial scream along with a storm of repeated kicking at Steel's midsection.

"We did not agress," she resumed, "we offered to refrain from interfering in your work so long as you did not disrupt my task. You made the choice to attack. Second, you threatened kitten. Wanting the other girl out of the way first was my choice. There was no need for me to restrain Sword until then, she did it herself, her loyalty to Miss Matsumoto is perhaps stronger even than kitten's. But transfinite ethical calculus is too pretentious to be worth discussing. No...if Miss Matsumoto sent us to you for a test, then so long as my task is complete before we leave, then we passed it."

As the spiders gathered, Kite did not appear to respond to them, all of Sword's focus on Steel herself, on driving her fury and hate into the grey woman with every blow. She knew full well Steel was feeding on it, but that didn't matter. Just to keep fighting. "Certainly, i didn't expect keeping you focussed on how we reacted to the other girl to actually work."

"Your task was inane and beneath you and we both know it. Here, let me finish it for you!" the gray woman said. With a sweep of her hand, a clump of spiders clattered over their companions, heading for the crack under the door and out to the rest of the basement. "They'll scan the equipment on the shelves looking for infected materials, sterilize them, and produce a lovely little stack of data for the one who holds your leash. Well, your actual leash, not this," Steel said, holding up the other end of the chain wrapped loosely around Kite's throat.

"She doesn't need you to do these things. There are proper servants for the truly dull things. No," Steel continued, smiling down at the woman still beating herself raw against gray skin, "she wanted something else. You've definitely been faithful to her. It's somewhat touching, in its own disgusting way." A gray finger tapped thoughtfully at gray lips. "So we've proven that. But she could prove that anywhere. What can we only do down here, I wonder." Yellow-green eyes lit up suddenly as they realized what they were watching.

"I know!" The spiders surged forward as the gray woman tightened her grip on the chain and lifted hard until Kite's feet were barely able to reach the ground. "I can break you! Let's see, what did Mother already try? I'll have to do worse if I want to see you despair properly." Tiny clawing feet swept over Kite's, biting at her skin as they moved and turning the floor into a thousand shifting pinpricks.