trans_9 | Last Straw

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Last Straw

She went straight to the Sensoriums. Her feelings were all over the place, and she had to get away from people right now. She remembered all too well what happened to Alex when he lost Luna: she knew she had to find a way to take her aggression out. There was pain and self loathing and unspeakable things she was sorting through, but right now it was nothing but anger she was feeding on. She closed her eyes when she entered, concentrating on the enemies she;s fought while she'd been on the ship.

The Terminators. The T-Rex. The Nightmare King's monster minions. The traps Hal had laid for them. They came one at a time but Katara was ready, steeling herself to calmly maneuver out of the traps, to find a way to take down the terminator most efficiently, and those alone took more than a few hours. It was when she got to the nightmare King's minions, however, that Katara stopped being cautious. Now she ripped into them, stabbing at them with ice shards and freezing them on the spot before blowing through them, and slowly her determined face gave away to that of rage. As she started to remember their fights, their hugs, their talks, she switched to the Bene Gesserit fighting style, her hits were starting to get more serious, leaving many injured in her wake, though she received a few cuts herself. When she was done an hour later, it faded, all of it, and she was left in water, where she had heard Sokka once talk to Toph about how she'd been like a mother to her, and she couldn't stand it anymore. She let out a scream, primal and pained.

"WHY?! WHY BRING HIM HERE JUST TO TAKE HIM AWAY?! ALL THIS TIME, JUST TO TAKE HIM AND NOT HAVE AANG HERE AND MAKE ZUKO FORGET WHAT WE ALL DID?? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!?"

And she dissolved into tears here, the sun sinking into the clouds and leaving a dark, lonely pond.

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She rolled her eyes. She really was going to have to get used to the arrogance in his speech, as it was something that Azula had employed quite a bit, although the ways he spoke had been in a way that Nanashi would have boasted more. Still, it had to come out of somewhere, and the fight she saw before her was more than proof.

Also, it was a good insight to how strong her teacher was too. Zetta had been stronger (no doubt worse if he hadn't been a book) but Nanashi had been so slouch either, and could see points where she even surprised Zetta. Evangeline, who had surfaced by surprise, had even chilled her. She was beginning to see, more than ever, exactly how strong magic was.

"That was a good fight," she said, shaking her head. "I liked seeing my teacher in action too."

Magic. Ha. Zetta hadn't used any magic, at least, not as he would term it. That got into the fine distinctions of mana vs. magic that he had difficulty explaining to other people property, though.

"She's good," Zetta said, quite truthfully. "To be honest, I'd rate her on the level of some of the strongest Overlords I know. She's certainly the closest thing I have to a peer on the ship."

See, Zetta could occasionally admit to the strengths of others.

She nodded. "I've never seen her quite like that before, to be honest. She's usually just teaching me and Ed to sword fight. I never saw her use alchemy before though, that's new. It's a little different from the way Ed does it though. I've seen him do it with just his hands."

She thought a minute. "What about Evangeline?"

She was still trying to learn all she could about Negi's teacher.

"Yeah, what's-his-name, Ed... didn't believe she could manage that much. He was underestimating her." Zetta, for all his blindness and arrogance, hadn't done that. "I think she just wanted to prove where she stood with me, so she couldn't hold back... but hey, I don't know. I don't understand her at all." He could freely admit to this.

"Evangeline... reminds me a LOT of Pram the Oracle," Zetta said with something of a shudder. "And except for me, there's no one stronger than Pram."

Pram would never let him live that down if she heard him say that.

How could he call Ed what's his name? Ed's name barely had a syllable. Oh well.

"Well of course she could learn it, she's a centuries old vampire," Katara said, shaking her head, "She was bound to have seen a lot of things in her lifetime. I don't underestimate my teacher, I just doubt certain methods. But then, I wouldn't be a very good pupil if I didn't."

Not that she hadn't made THAT mistake before.

"I thought she was strong," Katara said, half to herself. "She teaches Negi, so I figured she would be very powerful. She's kind of evil though...I wonder how that will work out."

Because Zetta kept meeting new people and Ed hadn't done anything terrifically impressive in Zetta's eyes.

The book made a weird motion, frowned with irritation, muttered something about missing shoulders, then said, "Like I said, she reminds me of Pram. She doesn't seem any more evil than me... which isn't saying much, mind," he added with a glare to remind Katara that Zetta himself is EVIL EVIL EVIL. Right? EVIL.

Katara laughed. "I wasn't saying you weren't evil, Overlord Zetta. I just identify her as something more evil because I know Negi. He's ten years old, and Eva always seemed like she was going to drop him on his head at any minute. I'm kind of protective over him."

Yes, she knows you're evil Overlord: you won't stop reminding her.

Someone has to! People seemed to keep forgetting for some reason!

"Okay," Zetta said. "Uh, maybe I shoulda asked this earlier, but who exactly is this guy you keep talking about?"

"Guy?" Katara was confused, then figured he was talking about Negi. "Oh! That's Evangeline's pupil, she usually calls him 'boya' I think. He's a wizard on the ship! He's fought a lot of monsters and stuff and come back unscathed! I haven't seen him in a little while, but trust me, you;re bound to run into him sometime!"

Especially if Overlord Zetta knew Evangeline.

"Huh. I was beginning to think this ship consisted entirely of girls aged ten to twenty-one," Zetta said, almost teasingly. "It's nice to know there's the occasional other male out there."

"There's plenty of males out there!" Katara answered back. "Half the time, I tend to make more male friends than female ones! Well, I tend to be closer with my male ones anyway."

Not that she needed to tell HIM that, after he'd seen her, Billy and Renne curled up together.

"Well, I haven't met many of them," Zetta grumbled. Seriously, for some reason the Overlord just seemed to surround himself with adolescent girls. It was really weird and he didn't understand it at all.

At least being a book meant he wasn't really distracted by any of it. Much.

"Maybe because we're more apt to want to take responsibility for things?" It was possible: if most girls had a whole 'lets look over people' thing, they would naturally be trying to strengthen themselves, right?"

Luckily, she knew nothing about Zetta and his thoughts on adolescent girls.

"I guess. You seem to be doing more to help out this ship than any of the damn people in alleged 'charge'." Now Zetta was all contempt and annoyance. "Captain? Council? Fah. Their heads are so far up their asses they can see their own tonsils from the wrong way back. If it weren't your crowd of people I'd've scuttled this ship and gone on my way ages ago."

Katara shrugged. "I do what I can to help the kids on the ship get prepared. The council, the Captain: they try to keep things under control on the ship. If we didn't have that, I know the morale on this ship might be pretty low, and you'd have some of the people here turning on others. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes: I'm free to do this at least. They aren't."

"Keep things under control? You mean, by forcing demon Overlords into counseling, books into physical examinations, and hiding the presence of a rage virus in the city so people had to find out second and third-hand?"

He's disgusted, but now irritated. He'd hoped, somehow, that Katara would be of his mind about things, but... that was too much to ask, he realized.

Katara sighed. It wasn't as if she agreed on everything the council did: in fact, it was only recently that she learned Matt was on the council. What had not occurred to her though, was the last part: she had not thought it possible that they would let the information about the virus happen without telling people what it was.

Then again, she thought she had heard a message about the virus, right?

"I don't really know why they think the psychological thing would work," Katara said. "There are far too many people on the ship to evaluate, and no real way to evaluate them in a fair way. The physical thing makes sense though: it would probably be standard on any ship or military thing. The virus I don't have an answer for though: they dropped the ball on that, and I don't really like all of their secrecy. Personally, the council exists to calm down most people used to normal life: even I know they can't implement half the stuff they want to do."

Personally, she thought the council had little power anyway, but she kept that to herself. She knew how important it was to think these factions had power, who didn't?

"Huh... so it's just a front to keep people thinking there's decent people in charge, even if they can't do a thing?"

Zetta seemed to understand this, and this comprehension lightened his mood... for a moment. Then he just got darker, a rage slowly building on his features.

And then it abruptly vanished, for reasons no one would ever begin to suspect. Namely -- because at this moment, for this one particular time only, Zetta didn't think he ought to be ranting and raving at Katara.

He hadn't forgotten why he had come to see her to begin with, after all.

"People need that, especially if they come from worlds where order and government made them feel safe," Katara said. "Besides, I'm sure they're doing something, even if they choose not to tell us what that is. At the very least, I know the magical department do their best. Have you met Nanoha yet?"

But she did notice the look on his face: it was hard to miss. "If something is making you angry, I'll listen, Overlord Zetta. It;s not all about me, you know!"

"No.... I haven't met Nanoha," Zetta said. In fact he'd only met one person from that world, Reinforce (Eins), and he had no idea they had any connection anyway.

"Heh. D'you really want to hear me rant about how a bunch of people who aren't doing crap are in charge, instead of someone who would?"

"You should," Katara said. "She's in the Magical Department. I'm not sure of most of the people on this ship: they think being grown up and having their own experiences entitles them to keep secrets, because they feel they know better than we do. Nanoha isn't like that: its like she's been there before and is honestly trying to do whatever she can."

But Katara didn't shake her head and what he said. "I want to now what you're thinking. What's the point of being on this ship and having a government if you can't talk about them and where they're succeeding or failing?"

Zetta just grunted at the description of Nanoha. He'd believe it when he saw it... but given his habit of butting into anything and everything he could, the fact that he hadn't run into this girl yet made him think that whatever her good points were, accessibility wasn't one of them.

"Look, Katara," he said. "I'm an Overlord, okay? That means I'm the ruler of a Netherworld, because I'm the most badass freakin' demon in it. And of all the thousands and thousands of Overlords out there? I'm the most badass freakin' Overlord. I don't know what you think of when you hear that, but it means that if I had my body back... well, we wouldn't be here, because I'd have killed ever last Ohm that thought it was worthy of death at my hands!

"But I don't have my body. I'm stuck in the Sacred Tome. Okay, fine, whatever. That doesn't make me any less of what I am, though. And that means someday -- maybe soon, maybe not -- this crew is gonna splinter like balsa wood. On the one side, we'll have all the idiots who are spending more times playing games and screwing around and not telling us crap. And on the other? There'll be me. And people like me, or people who know that I'm not playing around. The people who are smart enough to get stuff done and do what needs to be done.

"And that splintering is gonna be damn ugly."

Katara was quiet a moment. She knew she had to think out what she was going to say carefully, because honestly she didn't completely disagree with what he was saying. In certain instances, it was actually telling considering what he, as someone knew, had seen.

"I hope that doesn't come to pass," Katara said quietly. "The fight is not going to be an easy one, and it may be that there will be deaths. I've always prepared myself for that. But if we continue to be divided, quibbling about our differences, it will make it all that much easier for the Ohm to attack and hurt us. You have to understand something Overlord Zetta: in my world, evil meant suppressing others, hurting them and keeping them captive. As long as I've been here, that concept has been turned upside down and around.

She paused. "So this is what my deciding factor is: the choices we make are what will decide how we face the Ohm. I'm for what choice looks after those on this ship, and what prepares us to fight: that is why I maintained The Outsiders. If one of these factions are against preserving their lives, than I am against that. You can call me an idealist or foolish for that, but its what I think."

"So here's a thought for you, then," Zetta said. "You want to keep people on the ship alive, right? What about the people in the pods? They're alive, I guess, but is that living? If you have to sacrifice, I dunno, two people not in the pods to save twenty people in the pods, is that okay? Two hundred? All of 'em? And what about all the people who died on the worlds? We beat the Ohm, we bring them all back...

"I dunno what you think, but I'll tell you what I do, so if that kinda fight ever happens you can decide where you stand a little better." Zetta paused for pretty deliberate dramatic effect. "I'm playing to win. I'm going to beat the Ohm and get my Netherworld back. And my body. I'm not going to go about it some stupid way that gets people killed, and I'm not gonna sacrifice people just to make it happen." Because that would certainly lose the cooperation of a large number of people, after all. "And when we wish things back to the way they were before, I'll release everything but my Netherworld from my Netherworld. That's my plan here."

This wasn't exactly how she expected this conversation to go, not really. But at the same time, he posed a good question, one that she honestly thought more people should have been thinking about. And she was completely prepared to at least answer him.

"I'll save everyone that I can, Overlord Zetta. I know it sounds stupid to you, and I know I must look like nothing but a naive little girl, but I will. If it means I have to pick a side, then I'll do it. I don't know if our reasons will coincide, I have no idea. But I do know that my reason to be here is to fight the Ohm, and make sure we don't become less than we could be for that. But...Overlord Zetta, I want you to know something. Thank you for helping me..with all of your evilness."

She had to add that last part so he wouldn't think she was being too nice.

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