Saturday nods. Her shoulders heave, once, like she's bracing herself, then she continues.
"So Solomon left, deciding that he was gonna find the fix for what happened to me and come back and show Pops and save the day and blah blah blah I'm nineteen and I didn't think it fucking through." She makes a dismissive gesture, but it curdles; there's a curious inward slant to her bitterness, as though she sees herself in the story she's telling. "Didn't work out that way. He got in deep, then deeper, and eventually found himself thinking there was no way out except through, which is where he was mentally when he came back."
She looks around, clearing her throat. "Wish there was some water - oh, hey." A glass appears out of nowhere, or possibly was there all along. She picks it up, shrugs, and downs half. Her eyes seem oddly bright, a little watery.
"He came back, and he had this very clever notion that he was gonna take over running the neighborhood from Pops, by playing a bunch of gangs against each other... and he was gonna use me to do it. Not tell me the truth, no - he was gonna protect me. By using me. Move me around like a pawn, because he loved me too much to tell me the fucking truth, him and Pops both - "
Her metal hand clenches.
" - I didn't remember him, but my best friend did. She told me, and Pops told me there'd been an accident that hurt my memory, an' I figured hell, if he wants to be my brother again, why not work with him? An' if this is a con I'll just fuck him up, right?" She snorts. "Pops missed him. I could tell. I thought - we could maybe be a family again, even if I'd have to work a little harder. I wanted to be family again. Nothing wrong with more family, right?"
She takes another sip of the water, to hide her hand trembling.
"So he needs me to do this run, right? There's a new group making and selling a kind of drug called a BTL, which is - it's a chip you slot into a plugin in your brain that lets you live another life. Full-sim fantasy, dig? Except these were way, way powerful, could fry your entire brain powerful - more likely to kill the user than addict them. Sol wanted to know what was up and so did I. Turned out the whole thing was a front for a cult of bug spirits. Which, to summarize a lot very quickly, are beings from outside reality who enjoy eating people's minds and souls and wearing their bodies as skin suits in order to pave the way for their even nastier bosses. The BTLs were designed to kill so they could manufacture enough soulless bodies for a serious incursion.
"I tried to do it right. I did." Her hand has not unclenched. "Reached out to contacts, explained the situation, gave them proof. But - Sol - stupid bastard was outclassed. It was all a setup, though at the time all I saw was someone blocking my moves, cutting me out of my circles, couldn’t tell who. It was Sol's boss, taking me out to fuck with Sol - he didn't believe the situation was as serious as it was. Just saw a chance to ruin Sol's life and punish him by hurting me.
"This next part's on me. I shoulda stopped there. Gone to Pops, explained things all the way, everything I knew. But he was trusting me, you know? My first real job, all my own. I didn't - want to need his help so fast."
Stupid, she just barely manages not to call herself, and drinks the rest of the water very quickly instead.
"We did the run. It went to hell, fast. Maggie - they made me watch, the bugs. While they slit her throat. As a sacrifice. Choice ended up being, blow the hive with us inside or let the buggy bastards win. We made the obvious one. It - should have killed us, but it didn't. Maggie either, thank god. That's yet another story. Got thrown into the spirit realm instead, bodily. And the last thing I saw was Sol breaking in - stupid tit figured out the screw just a second too late - with a goddamn army and shooting the cult leader in the head but - too late. Too fucking late."
She shakes her head.
"This next part I found out after. Once the dust settled and everyone figured out we weren't dead, just missing, Sol, apparently - just fucking yeeted himself through the rift left behind. No plan, no friggin' backup, just 'I fucked it up I gotta get them back.' Nice sentiment, didn't work. He found us, sure, but - we were stuck in a bad place, an' he got stuck there with us. Really don't wanna go into detail on that, if you don't mind. Quick version that it was a realm designed to teach you about your limitations by forcing your best instincts to lead you to become your worst self. For us, sent there by accident with no preparation - it wasn't a good time."
Putting it mildly. But Ronan isn’t entitled to that; she’s surely sharing more than enough to please the drones.
"We got out, got bounced somewhere else, an' that place turned out to be close enough to home that we could get there if we did a whole bunch of other shit first that ain’t part of this story. The part that matters is that apparently my family's been interacting with that place for ages, an' Sol has a friggin' ex-wife and kid there, which is how I found him again, after all that. His ex was part of the same military outfit we fell in with, see. God, first time I saw him again I almost fucking broke his jaw - "
She shakes her head.
"But, long emotional story short - it only took getting his little sister killed to make him realize he'd been a shitty brother and a worse son and an equally terrible father. So he's - trying to change. Part of that is, he gave some of his memories to 'Ni-chan, here."
She extends her metal arm, rotating it to expose the underside. There, on her forearm, among the other engravings of great deeds - a stylized image of an elven boy holding a little elven girl's hand, pointing at something he wants her to see.
"Still not sure why. I guess - he figured 'Ni-chan earned it. See, the whole reason I got this metal arm in the first place is that while we were escaping the bad place, I lost the original. Friend wandered into a ceiling turret, I could survive the hit but she couldn't. Got me right at the shoulder, nice and clean."
She pulls her collar away to show the seam where metal meets flesh.
"Normally the sword would abandon its user after something like that. But because of my memories, and my, I guess, purity of intent? It didn't want to. And it could decide not to. So it made a choice to become a person, to piece a personality together from my memories of love and family, an' it made itself my new right arm. He made himself, I should say," she finishes.
"And that's the story. Sol is still around, trying to figure out how to not be such a shithead. Mostly I'm over it, though I ain't sure if I've forgiven him for any of it yet. Helps that my niece is so darn cute.”
She shrugs.
"So that’s the end of that. I got two brothers, one's a sword, the other's an idiot, and they're kind of the same person. ....the fun part is, that's just the weirdest thing about me, personally. I ain't even getting into the other shit."
no subject
"So Solomon left, deciding that he was gonna find the fix for what happened to me and come back and show Pops and save the day and blah blah blah I'm nineteen and I didn't think it fucking through." She makes a dismissive gesture, but it curdles; there's a curious inward slant to her bitterness, as though she sees herself in the story she's telling. "Didn't work out that way. He got in deep, then deeper, and eventually found himself thinking there was no way out except through, which is where he was mentally when he came back."
She looks around, clearing her throat. "Wish there was some water - oh, hey." A glass appears out of nowhere, or possibly was there all along. She picks it up, shrugs, and downs half. Her eyes seem oddly bright, a little watery.
"He came back, and he had this very clever notion that he was gonna take over running the neighborhood from Pops, by playing a bunch of gangs against each other... and he was gonna use me to do it. Not tell me the truth, no - he was gonna protect me. By using me. Move me around like a pawn, because he loved me too much to tell me the fucking truth, him and Pops both - "
Her metal hand clenches.
" - I didn't remember him, but my best friend did. She told me, and Pops told me there'd been an accident that hurt my memory, an' I figured hell, if he wants to be my brother again, why not work with him? An' if this is a con I'll just fuck him up, right?" She snorts. "Pops missed him. I could tell. I thought - we could maybe be a family again, even if I'd have to work a little harder. I wanted to be family again. Nothing wrong with more family, right?"
She takes another sip of the water, to hide her hand trembling.
"So he needs me to do this run, right? There's a new group making and selling a kind of drug called a BTL, which is - it's a chip you slot into a plugin in your brain that lets you live another life. Full-sim fantasy, dig? Except these were way, way powerful, could fry your entire brain powerful - more likely to kill the user than addict them. Sol wanted to know what was up and so did I. Turned out the whole thing was a front for a cult of bug spirits. Which, to summarize a lot very quickly, are beings from outside reality who enjoy eating people's minds and souls and wearing their bodies as skin suits in order to pave the way for their even nastier bosses. The BTLs were designed to kill so they could manufacture enough soulless bodies for a serious incursion.
"I tried to do it right. I did." Her hand has not unclenched. "Reached out to contacts, explained the situation, gave them proof. But - Sol - stupid bastard was outclassed. It was all a setup, though at the time all I saw was someone blocking my moves, cutting me out of my circles, couldn’t tell who. It was Sol's boss, taking me out to fuck with Sol - he didn't believe the situation was as serious as it was. Just saw a chance to ruin Sol's life and punish him by hurting me.
"This next part's on me. I shoulda stopped there. Gone to Pops, explained things all the way, everything I knew. But he was trusting me, you know? My first real job, all my own. I didn't - want to need his help so fast."
Stupid, she just barely manages not to call herself, and drinks the rest of the water very quickly instead.
"We did the run. It went to hell, fast. Maggie - they made me watch, the bugs. While they slit her throat. As a sacrifice. Choice ended up being, blow the hive with us inside or let the buggy bastards win. We made the obvious one. It - should have killed us, but it didn't. Maggie either, thank god. That's yet another story. Got thrown into the spirit realm instead, bodily. And the last thing I saw was Sol breaking in - stupid tit figured out the screw just a second too late - with a goddamn army and shooting the cult leader in the head but - too late. Too fucking late."
She shakes her head.
"This next part I found out after. Once the dust settled and everyone figured out we weren't dead, just missing, Sol, apparently - just fucking yeeted himself through the rift left behind. No plan, no friggin' backup, just 'I fucked it up I gotta get them back.' Nice sentiment, didn't work. He found us, sure, but - we were stuck in a bad place, an' he got stuck there with us. Really don't wanna go into detail on that, if you don't mind. Quick version that it was a realm designed to teach you about your limitations by forcing your best instincts to lead you to become your worst self. For us, sent there by accident with no preparation - it wasn't a good time."
Putting it mildly. But Ronan isn’t entitled to that; she’s surely sharing more than enough to please the drones.
"We got out, got bounced somewhere else, an' that place turned out to be close enough to home that we could get there if we did a whole bunch of other shit first that ain’t part of this story. The part that matters is that apparently my family's been interacting with that place for ages, an' Sol has a friggin' ex-wife and kid there, which is how I found him again, after all that. His ex was part of the same military outfit we fell in with, see. God, first time I saw him again I almost fucking broke his jaw - "
She shakes her head.
"But, long emotional story short - it only took getting his little sister killed to make him realize he'd been a shitty brother and a worse son and an equally terrible father. So he's - trying to change. Part of that is, he gave some of his memories to 'Ni-chan, here."
She extends her metal arm, rotating it to expose the underside. There, on her forearm, among the other engravings of great deeds - a stylized image of an elven boy holding a little elven girl's hand, pointing at something he wants her to see.
"Still not sure why. I guess - he figured 'Ni-chan earned it. See, the whole reason I got this metal arm in the first place is that while we were escaping the bad place, I lost the original. Friend wandered into a ceiling turret, I could survive the hit but she couldn't. Got me right at the shoulder, nice and clean."
She pulls her collar away to show the seam where metal meets flesh.
"Normally the sword would abandon its user after something like that. But because of my memories, and my, I guess, purity of intent? It didn't want to. And it could decide not to. So it made a choice to become a person, to piece a personality together from my memories of love and family, an' it made itself my new right arm. He made himself, I should say," she finishes.
"And that's the story. Sol is still around, trying to figure out how to not be such a shithead. Mostly I'm over it, though I ain't sure if I've forgiven him for any of it yet. Helps that my niece is so darn cute.”
She shrugs.
"So that’s the end of that. I got two brothers, one's a sword, the other's an idiot, and they're kind of the same person. ....the fun part is, that's just the weirdest thing about me, personally. I ain't even getting into the other shit."