"It was a good time, wasn't it?" Lila grinned smugly, staring at Lunae and Sonera as she held on tightly to Ivy's hand. "Ye?"
Lunae smiled back with pride. "It was...good...yes."
Sonera simply gave a thumbs up, her expression as cold as ever.
"Pssh." Ivy pouted. "Right."
The girls crowded around each other, relaxing in the bedchamber after the date was concluded. Such was their bond that they began displacing the bunks, drifting them closer togethor. They felt safe in their own company, as if they were a family that was always meant to be.
Ivy, above all, insisted on the idea, her heart at peace whenever close to Lunae and Sonera. She never truly felt like she had a real family until then.
"Well then." Lila yawned. "I'm beat."
Sonera agreed with a silent nod, her step labored as she climbed her bunk. Ivy observed such details with a bashful gawk, well aware of what it all meant. She knew Lunae was up front, yet still remained suprised to see how far she would really go.
"You didn't." Ivy gasped into Lunae's mind.
"Not as far as you think. Almost. It was fun." Lunae giggled, taking her place in the lower bunk as she kicked her legs up.
"You're a freak."
"Says the one getting her bottom thrashed, I could hear you from all the way over there."
"Ah!" Ivy blushed. "Excuse you!"
Lunae smirked. "I guess Lila's the real freak for doing all that to you."
The heiress nearly boasted as she spoke. "She's a bold one."
"Seems we have common tastes."
Lila squinted at Ivy from the lower bunk, seemingly aware of the private conversation that ensued. She had noticed quite a bit ago how close the two had become, and was almost as proud as she was skeptical. Her mind raced with endless possibilities as to what Ivy could be spilling.
"You did well." Sonera chimed in, speaking to Lila with her Psionic voice. "I'm glad."
"Y-yea." Lila rubbed the back of her head. "It was good. I think we're a thing now. Kind of hard to beleive. She's just so perfect and I'm...some girl."
"We have that in common."
"You with the exotic alien beauty girl." Lila giggled. "She doing right by you?"
Sonera blushed, a bit of frailty showing through her posture. "Well..."
"You good?" Lila cocked her head.
"I..."
"She railed you didn't, she."
Sonera shook her head, allowing more of that satisfying femininity to seep through. "N-no."
"Some freaky shit then?"
The assasin nodded, picking at the frills of her nightgown. Lila had noticed the new attire when the girl walked out from the basement, but didn't think much of it. Only then did she realize Lunae had something more to do with it.
"Well, I think Lunae has taste. You look adorable in that." Lila cheered.
"Thank you." Sonera breathed deeply.
She seemed more satisfied than ever before. In that brief moment, it was hard to even beleive Sonera was the vengeful killer. That made it all the sweeter, however.
Lila felt proud of her achievement.
"Hey," Ivy muttered, her real voice reaching Lila's ears. "When I dream tonight-."
"Say hi to them for me." Lila giggled.
The heiress smiled. "Right."
Ivy's arm drifted downwards, her hand reaching the Earthling's as they drifted off to sleep. Likewise, Sonera and Lunae lay still, their minds and hearts at peace despite the conflict brewing within them.
Gods nor Queens could stop their bond.
Four Psions.
Togethor.
A Euphony of Voices.
- - - - - - - - - -
Yrix stood pensively in her office, expecting something to go awry. She always had that sort of clairvoyance, much to her own dismay. And given the reports she had been reading for the past few nights, she had much reason to be on edge.
The lights of the Aerie flickered, and the Arch-Flayer looked up. She searched far and wide with her Psionic gaze, but found nothing. If there were an orbital insertion, she would have detected it by then.
"Interesting." She narrowed her gaze.
Suddenly, the power in her office went out, leaving her in darkness. Her students failed to notice, their bechamber had already gone dark. But Yrix knew better.
It was the entire Aerie.
The backup generators didn't take long, restoring power to the room after a few seconds. She was careful like that, hiding her failsafes in various corners of the Aerie. Yet still, there was a grave danger.
"Sabotage." Yrix hissed. "The hanger."
The primary generator was well secured, and her students were all accounted for. As far as Yrix was concerned, there was something in the base. Her mind had already concluded it to be Infestare.
Not that it mattered.
She bolted, her feet carrying her weight with enough grace to mitigate the noise her efforts produced. Yrix didn't want them to know she was coming, whoever cut the power. And if she found them, their life would be ended.
"Wait-." She thought to herself, rounding the corner as she reached the hangar.
There were bodies strewn across the room, each missing its head and various limbs. The carnage was uncharacteristic for the Infestare. Even from what she knew of their assassins, it felt wrong.
"It's not them," Yrix concluded. "I would have felt it. Their hunger."
The Arch-Flayer continued to search, keeping her Psionic gaze fixated on the girls. Yet still she found nothing but bodies and blood, trailing out towards the edge of the base. She had all the pieces fit togethor, yet still none of it made sense.
The frigate that crashed into the planet.
No sign of Infestare.
No life signs detected.
"Curious." Yrix mused. "A new threat?"
- - - - - - -
"We Love-Buncle Ivy." Ginjou boy raised a mitten as he patted the heiress on her nose.
"It's Buncle now?" Ivy giggled, holding all three Ginjous in her arms.
"Buncle Buncle Buncle!" The plushies rocked their heads back and forth as they spoke in unison.
The heiress sighed with a smile. "Keep causing such a ruckus, and I'll tell your mom."
"I'm Mommy's favorite." Ginjou girl huffed, placing her mittens on her fuzzy hips. "She wouldn't."
"Mommy Lila." Bobo nodded. "We miss her."
"I saw her just today." Ivy smiled. "She's doing well."
"Actually." The heiress continued. "We went on a-."
Suddenly, the dream went blank. The ginjous were gone. Ivy was left alone in silence and cold.
"What?" She gasped, her breath escaping her mouth as a warm mist.
A face flashed before her eyes, causing her to rouse from her sleep. It was the same dread that she had escaped a week ago. The visage of the endoskeleton.
Her Mother.
"Ivy...Ivy." A feminine voice called out to the Heiress from the shadows.
The heiress shivered in fear, her eyes darting around in a desperate bid to locate the sound. Her friends were alright, safe in their sleep. Lila was at her side, warm as ever.
Yet still she was afraid.
"Ivy." The voice spoke again, this time from behind the lockers and the bathroom. "Come here."
Ivy hopped out of bed with a silent step, pursuing the sound. Part of her was hoping to find her mother and escape the conflict without alerting Lila. The Earthling didn't need to see what lay beneath the fringes of Ivy's mind.
She didn't deserve it.
That pain.
The heiress crept through the halls, following the voice as it called out to her. The warm lights of the Aerie flickered in her presence, allowing the shadow to escape her sight at every turn. Yet when she entered the locker room, she could feel a presence. A chill in her spine.
"Come closer. Daughter."
"Mother?" Ivy whispered. "Is that...you? Why are you here? Mother?"
Ivy rounded the bend, peering through the lockers in search of the phantom. Yet when she heard a footstep and a mechanical chink, she froze in place. The heiress reached out with one hand, projecting a Psionic light at the end of the hallway.
There she saw a bony hand clenching the edge of a locker, no doubt belonging to the familiar endoskeleton. Still, some doubt lingered in her mind. Her mother was that same model, yet she was never known to creep in the shadows.
The hand pulled back, allowing for a ghastly face to come into view. It stared at her with its dead smile, its pupils narrow and red. In them, she saw a voiceless determination and read its intent.
That was not her mother.
Ivy wanted to scream, her voice trapped inside her throat. And as the endoskeleton crept towards her, her eyes trembled in fear. It reached out to her with its hand, the edges of its sharp finger looming closer towards her eye.
"Come home." The mimic whispered.
Finally, the heiress found the strength to scream, backing away from the machine as she reached for her baton. Yet she was too slow, as the mimic grabbed her by the leg and threw her against the side of the locker with immense strength. Her Psionic ambience splintered, and her dress ripped.
It hurt more than anything she had felt before.
Her assailant was swift in picking her off the floor by her neck, slamming her against the locker once more as its second hand reached for her face. Ivy's flailing hands found her staff, having called to it with a Psionic grasp from afar. Yet when she struck the creature, it barely even shifted.
"Help!" Ivy screamed.
Lila spun around the corner, sliding across the floor as she pointed her weapon. Lunae and Sonera weren't far behind. But what the Earthling saw froze her in place.
She was terrified.
"I-Ivy-." Lila stammered, unable to process the freakish horror that smiled at her as its neck snapped in place.