A/N: I'm back. I'm alive. God, I've been sick so much lately. I hope there's nothing major wrong with me! Haha. Mortality... but in all seriousness I think I should be fine now. Thanks for all your patience. I know my schedule lately has been hugely disappointing, but I am doing my best to stay healthy, I promise! Enjoy the chapter!

"I thought you, of all people, would understand the dangers of associating with the Dark Rebellion," Amaterasu growls at me. 

The two of us are standing in the aftermath of our fight with Fulgora, watching as she and Veritas slip out of view. Everything here is just… completely full of holes. The street looks like an entire swarm of disgruntled construction workers with power drills worked out their rage overnight.

"What I understand is the value of free will," I fire back. "And also, the value of not fighting battles we can't win."

"Oh, is that what you value!? Could have fooled me!" Amaterasu says, motioning at the absolute destruction in every direction. "Look at all this! Look around us! She would have killed you if I hadn't intervened! She's not well!"

"Well beating her and Veritas up is not going to improve her mental health!" I snap. "We need to be careful with how we handle this and not just fight people until they're too unconscious to disagree with us!"

"Oh, really? A former member of the Dark Rebellion wants to lecture me about when it is and isn't appropriate to get in a fight!?" Amaterasu shouts at me.

Alright, bitch. Line officially crossed!

"I was a fucking slave!" I shout at her, stepping forwards and jamming my finger into her chest. "I was forced to fight you all, over and over and over again! I am not doing it anymore! Veritas. Is. A. Child! She is ten years old!"

Amaterasu holds her ground. She's never been one to back down from a fight.

"Veritas is an Earth Guardian," she insists, as if that changes anything. As if that means she doesn't get to be human anymore!

"Then by your own twisted logic, she can take care of herself, can't she?" I counter. "If she's old enough to put her life on the line, she's old enough to decide who she wants to put her life on the line for. I'm not happy about this, Amaterasu. Melpomene is a sick freak and she'll be trying to twist that kid around her finger starting the first second she lays eyes on her. I'm just going to desperately hope that she'll be really bad at it. I mean Jesus Christ, the first thing she did when the two of them met was to make fun of Veritas for having dead parents."

"And you're fine just leaving that to chance?" Amaterasu asks.

"No! Not really!" I tell her. "I mean, my plates are open, you can tell that for your damn self. But seriously, Amaterasu. Can you think of even one thing you could have said that would convince Veritas to go back? She knows full well she's taking Fulgora back to a pit of vipers, but she's been obsessed with saving that girl for the better part of a year now. There's no way we could have convinced her not to go to hell with her."

"Which is why we should have used force," Amaterasu says. "If words are not enough, one must be able to fight for their convictions. One must have things they believe to be too far."

"I do, asshole," I say. "My conviction is to never punch a child again. And maybe that is the wrong move here. Shit's fucked enough for it, so I don't know. I'm definitely gambling a little on how good Melpomene will be at grooming someone who isn't enamored with and reliant on her. But come on. Can you seriously see Veritas ever liking her?"

"…I don't know the woman, except in her capacity as a threat," Amaterasu admits. "But frankly, that is not my primary concern. The Dark World corruption has taken a deep hold on Fulgora-san, and if we do not get her to Uma'tama, it will only get worse. Seeing her as she was… I do not understand why you would not fight to destroy it."

"I fought Fulgora," I say. "And I'm definitely gonna fight Melpomene, Nanaya, Anath, and anyone else responsible. But I draw the line at kids. The whole reason my crystals were blue was because I kept getting forced to fight them, and it made me power-positive. And you know how shit I am at emotional management."

"…I do not, actually," Amaterasu admits.

"Oh," I say. I guess that makes sense. We haven't interacted a ton. "Well… the best way to think about it is probably just that I've only been magically inclined for a few months of actual conscious time, and I haven't been fighting much for most of it. I'm like a brand new baby Earth Guardian in terms of the fundamentals. I get to cheat all the other stuff with my sick ass robo-brain, but I can't really fake my own feelings."

"Ah, wakarimashita. Er, I understand."

"I speak Japanese, remember?" I tell her. "No need to translate for me. Actually, would you like me to do that around you? Do you miss it?"

"A little, but I will speak English while I am in America," Amaterasu insists. "I will not forget my home language, but my English still needs work."

"It honestly doesn't," I compliment her. "Compared to when I first saw you, you've improved leaps and bounds. You never make grammatical mistakes anymore, and frankly that puts you above some native speakers."

"Thank you for your kind words," Amaterasu says, not believing any of them for some reason.

"I mean it! You've gotten really good!" I insist.

"I still have an accent," Amaterasu says.

"You have like, a little bit of an accent," I disagree. "It's fine."

Amaterasu grunts in wordless disagreement. It's clear she will never accept this compliment. Oh, well.

"I just hope we do not regret what we have done today," she says, glancing around. "We… should probably do search and rescue."

"Already taken care of," I say. "I hacked into everything I could and thoroughly yelled at everyone to get off the block before Fulgora could kill anyone. Evacuation went smoothly."

"That would explain the lack of panic," Amaterasu says, sniffing at the air. Heh. Does she realize she's doing that? "That attack of hers, the… rain of needles? It seemed like it should have left many people dying, but I do not feel them."

"You're welcome," I say, putting one hand on my hip and putting an arrogant tilt into my posture. "It's always smooth sailing with Luna at the helm. Feel free to praise me any time."

"I am already regretting what we have done today," Amaterasu sighs.

"I mean, that's fair," I say. "Maybe it's the wrong move. All I can do is hope that we'll regret this less than we would have regretted fighting. Either way, we're certainly not giving up."

"Certainly not," Amaterasu agrees. "Well… I suppose we should head back, then."

"Just gonna leave all the normies to clean everything up, huh?" I ask. "Man, I bet insurance premiums are through the roof in this town."

"Do not call anyone a 'normie' ever again," Amaterasu orders.

"Pfft. You're not my master," I dismiss.

"Is Thea?"

I freeze for a split second. Why the hell did I say that? Oh right. I also said something pretty damn stupid while hopped up on LCIs. I guess it doesn't matter how many threads of thought I run if all of them are idiots. Whatever. She obviously had suspicions before now. Hopefully I can talk my way out of it. 

"…That's a conversation I'll be having next time I see Uma'tama," I answer.

"Hrm. Truly?" Amaterasu presses.

"Yeah," I say.

"Very well," Amaterasu says, turning and starting to walk in the general direction of the base.

Huh?

"What, that's it?" I ask.

"Uma'tama has decided you are an Earth Guardian," Amaterasu says. "It is not my place to doubt their decision."

No, that's… no.

"Yes it is," I insist. "It's totally your place. Doubt anybody you want, for any reason."

"It is fine if you do not understand," Amaterasu sighs. "Let's head back. I imagine there will be an emergency debriefing after this."

Yeah… there probably should be one, at least.

"Sure, let's go," I agree, following her. "Are you seriously just letting this slide, though?"

"Would you rather I not?" Amaterasu asks flatly, glancing back at me.

"Well, no," I admit. "It just seems out of character for you. No offense."

"Some taken," Amaterasu frowns.

"Look, I mostly know you as a stab first, ask questions later kind of girl," I say. "You tried to one-v-one the Queen of Darkness. You brought your whole posse to try and beat up Thea even after she attempted to deescalate!"

"For that last one, are you referring to the time you were transporting an entire pile of Antipathy artifacts? Because I stand by that decision," Amaterasu says. "There are really only two things Earth Guardians are inarguably responsible for: protecting humans from monsters, and keeping Antipathy artifacts out of human hands. My duty at the time was very clear."

"Are Antipathy artifacts even that dangerous?" I ask.

Amaterasu raises an eyebrow at me.

"Besides me, obviously!" I correct. "When I was selling them on the black market I was mostly giving away like… magical toys, at best. The most dangerous thing I gave out was maybe powerful enough to shove an Earth Guardian through a wall."

"Well perhaps once you've been an Earth Guardian long enough to get shoved through a wall by a rich man with a magical toy, you will take the responsibility a bit more seriously," Amaterasu says flatly.

"You know what? Touché," I concede. "Does that happen often?"

"No, but it happens," Amaterasu answers. "Though we've yet to catch a human with magical artifacts in the local area."

"Yeah, the Dark Rebellion is at least smart enough not to shit where they eat," I say. "The go-between doesn't sell locally. I'm still waiting for Uma'tama to actually order us to go deal with him. I figured that would be a major priority."

"They seem to be particularly busy, as of late," Amaterasu notes.

"Yeah," I agree. "Well, they seem busy, anyway. I don't know how busy they normally are. Hey, wait! You're distracting me?"

"Am I? I was not aware," Amaterasu says, her tail flicking behind her.

"I don't know, you just seem different," I say. "Calmer. You're not being a jerk to me, basically, which I think is weird."

Amaterasu sighs.

"Some may find your bluntness charming, but I do not," she says. "If you must know, Castalia went out of her way to speak with me about you. She told me to pay more attention to your feelings than your words. As always, it was good advice. I can see it now. The pain you don't allow to reach your flippant words. When I start to suspect your treachery, I just need to listen to you hurt yourself for a while, and the truth clicks into place."

If I could, I'd wince at that.

"Wow," I say. "Okay. Ouch. You have my number there, I guess."

"Oh, do you not find bluntness charming either?" Amaterasu asks sarcastically. "Perhaps there is some purpose for courtesy after all."

"Wh—hey! I don't wanna hear that from a violence-obsessed puppy!" I protest.

"Then perhaps we should both keep our opinions to ourselves, and simply work together as professionals," Amaterasu says, and our walk back to base quickly becomes a jog as she tries to run off with the last word. 

Whatever. I'll let her have it, even though I can easily keep pace. This is a win for me, I guess. Another instance of Castalia coming in clutch to help me out. I just wasn't expecting to get stabbed right through the facade to my vulnerable mechanical heart. Well… maybe not that vulnerable. It's made of magic rocks, after all.

The two of us make it back to base with nothing more than a few worried stares from bystanders, most of which I manage to assuage with a friendly wave. Not for the first time, I find myself thinking about how much more effective I could have been as a member of the Dark Rebellion if Melpomene just let me actually communicate with people. I could have been our cool-ass robo mascot! Chatting with people, getting them less scared of antipathy tech and being able to actively start discourse in person rather than just throwing social media posts out into the void. But ultimately, Melpomene had too many things more important to her than the actual effectiveness of her stated goals. It's… a shame, in a lot of ways. I don't actually think she's wrong, I just think she's stupid and awful.

Still, stepping through the teleportation wall or whatever the hell it is and ending up back in the sterile white of Preserver territory puts me on edge a bit. I really want to rent that apartment. First things first, though: I've gotta find Thea and make sure she's okay. Then, I should see if Castalia is awake.

"Thanks again for the help, Su-san," I say, heading towards Thea's room. "Banter aside, you really saved us."

"Of course," Amaterasu says. "We are comrades. I trust you would do the same for me."

"Without hesitation," I confirm. "We'll keep the world safe."

She gives me a firm nod, and we part ways. Everything went better than expected! Well, except for the entire situation with Fulgora earlier, but… holy shit, that one is going to be rough no matter what. I'm pretty sure I heard her say Minerva is dead. Minerva, but not her. I'd question if that's even possible, but… god, her incarnate form. That thing was straight from a horror flick. Half rotting corpse, half hollow deep sea beast. Is that all she thinks she is, now? I wish it was less shocking that months of isolation and body horror would drive Fulgora that mad, but she's not exactly the first person I think of when considering friends with mental fortitude. That girl was always one bad day away from suicidal ideation, and the raw teal pouring off of her clearly shows that she's had far more than just one.

That kind of thing can twist a person. I know that too well. You never end up the same, after going through something like that. Still, while I doubt the Dark Rebellion is helping, I can at least trust them to keep her alive. Anath would struggle to accomplish much, but she'd at least take monitoring a suicidal person very seriously, and by extension Nanaya would too. Mel, on the other hand, well… who the fuck knows. She'll probably take the opportunity to start gaslighting everyone more. Not even for a good reason, just like, recreationally.

As my musings continue, I track down Thea by her emotional signature, ultimately finding her fidgeting nervously outside Castalia's room. She probably tried to come fetch her, realized she was still asleep, and softlocked her own brain between needing to wake Castalia up to help us and needing to not wake Castalia up because that's terrifying. Adorable.

"Thea!" I greet her. "Hey, we're back. We're alive. Fight's over."

She jolts at the sound of my voice, then relaxes as she turns and sees me.

"Oh, good," she says, sagging a bit. "Where's Fulgora?"

"Veritas showed up and helped her escape. I think they've both joined the Dark Rebellion now," I answer. "Which, y'know, is not what I expected from Fulgora, but I guess I didn't expect her to turn into a fish zombie either."

"Oh my god! That's really bad, Luna! Why are you so calm about this?" Thea whines.

"Because she's alive, Thea!" I say, the realization charging my power reserves more the more I think about it. "She's not just possibly alive, she's absolutely, definitely alive! Yeah, her situation is impossibly bad, but mine was too and everyone got me out of there. So we had to let her go today. That's fine. We know where she is, what she's doing, who she's with… we can actually plan out a rescue instead of just winging it next time. Which we're gonna need to do anyway, because we are definitely not allowed to head back to the Dark World without permission."

"That's… true," Thea says. "Heh. I'm… not really used to planning stuff out much, though."

"Yeah, the DR is a complete mess," I agree. "Fulgora actually mentioned 'the castle.' They haven't even changed their base of operations! We can go assault them pretty much whenever."

"The problem with that is that we won't have Castalia…" Thea says. "She can't enter the Dark World safely."

"True," I concede. "But maybe we can set an ambush up at the portal exit if we harass them enough. If there's one thing I've gotten good at, it's running away from aggressive magical girls. If we bait them into chasing me, we could potentially let Castalia blast them all in one fell swoop."

"I think that's a bit optimistic…" Thea hedges. "We'll talk it over with everybody. We still need to tell Uma'tama about… you know."

"Yeah… Amaterasu was surprisingly cool with it, though. I accidentally let it slip a bit, but she backed off as soon as I told her we'd be talking to Uma'tama."

"Oh, really?" Thea asks. "Huh. Well… that's good. Maybe it won't go so bad after all."

"Wouldn't it be great if something went right for once?" I sigh. "Well, I have decent power reserves from that LCI, still, so we're not completely doomed if it doesn't."

"Uh… what does that mean…?" Thea asks hesitantly.

"It means you'll be safe no matter what," I tell her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Worst case, we run off together and end up in an utterly doomed toxic yuri situation. Nothing but problematic power dynamics as far as the eye can see!"

"Wuhbuh!?"

A near-overwhelming flash of yellow magic from inside Castalia's room indicates that I have successfully motivated her to get out of bed, and I shift my body language to be as smug as possible before her door opens and she floats out to glare at us. Or, well, floats out to look at us with exactly the same face as always, anyway.

"No running off," she commands.

"I don't gotta listen to you!" I say petulantly. "If I had a tongue I'd be sticking it out!"

"Luna, I am still sleepy. Please be nice."

"Ooh, I know what'll wake you up!" I say. "How much did you hear?"

"Not much," Castalia answers. "Only enough to be concerned."

"Well get this: Fulgora is alive!" I tell her.

Immediately, the whole hallway brightens. Castalia's power nearly boils over as the news fills her with elation, though her physical body just floats in place, barely moving a muscle.

"Really…?" she asks.

"Really really," I confirm. "Downside: she's in a bad way. The Dark Rebellion have her, and she's like, turbo corrupted. Teal mage and everything. She said Minerva died."

"Oh," Castalia says, sorrow starting to creep into the aura of joy. "Still. This is good."

"Right? Better than them both being dead," I agree. "And I mean, we still have all the ingredients needed to make a Minerva, so maybe she'll pop back into Eliza's head later. I don't really know how that works. What matters now is figuring out how to get her back."

"That will be hard," Castalia admits. "We will probably need to wait until she goes to Earth."

"Well, I fumbled our first chance for that," I admit. "I'll try to make sure you get woken up sooner if we spot her again. She's a fish now, by the way."

"Please d… a fish?" Castalia blinks.

"Yep. Turned into a fish," I nod sagely.

"A fish…" Castalia hums. "I hope she likes to swim…"

I laugh. It's not even really that funny. It's depressing, honestly. There's definitely a part of me that wishes I had doubled down and forced her to come back with us. But still… even though I know the situation is completely different, it makes me sick to consider trying to force someone to do what I want them to do. The fact that Veritas was making an obstacle of herself was really just an entire second layer of nope. 

"Come on, Castalia! You hungry?" I ask. "Want me to make you something? Then we should probably give Jim the mostly good news."

"Yes, that sounds… oh. Hrm. What time is it?" Castalia asks.

"A bit after twelve thirty, why?" I answer.

"Okay, then," Castalia nods. "I will take you up on your offer. But tonight, would you like to come with me for dinner outside the base?"

Oh, uh. Oh! Well! What do I say to that? I mean, I should say yes, obviously, but… first, I glance at Thea for permission. 

"Don't worry about me, Luna," Thea assures me. "Go have fun."

Okay. Okay!

"Well… yes, I'd love to join you," I tell Castalia.

"Good," Castalia says, a tiny smile managing to touch the corners of her mouth.

Oh my goooood she invited me to dinner! I was not expecting this. I mean, this is Castalia we're talking about, she doesn't take initiative on anything and she's asking me out? Haha holy shit she's asking me out and she chose to ask me out to dinner. I can't even eat! It's the worst possible choice! I love her so fucking much.

"Uma'tama also informed me that they will likely have time this evening for a private discussion," Castalia continues, slightly deflating my mood. But… well, as long as I have Castalia in my corner, I barely even need to fear the Preservers, right? Maybe that's a little optimistic, but some part of me can't help but feel it's true.

"Okay, let's make some breakfast-slash-lunch for everybody!" I say, clapping my hands together with a clank. "Someone find where Su-san ran off to and ask if she's hungry. I assume Aurora is in school?"

"Most likely," Castalia confirms with a nod. "Veritas is probably hungry, however."

Oh. Oof. 

"Ssssso about that," I say, "she may have sort of run off with Fulgora to join the Dark Rebellion."

"Oh," Castalia says. "That's bad."

"It's pretty bad, yeah," I agree. "But I didn't see any way to stop her other than fighting her, and… I'm not gonna do that."

Castalia tilts her head.

"Why not?" she asks.

The hell does she mean, why not? Earth Guardians, I swear to god.

"She's a child, Castalia," I say. "I do not like committing violence against children. I'd hope that most people don't."

"Could you not have simply restrained her without hurting her?" Castalia asks.

"We can't all be a strong as you," I sigh.

"You're close, though," Castalia says. "Closer than almost anyone else."

Oh. Right. I didn't even try to use my incarnate form in that fight, even after getting enough energy from that LCI. Still…

"You have extremely precise and powerful telekinesis," I say. "I have laser swords. I'm a weapon. I'm not really built for that kind of soft takedown."

"You copy a lot of magic. Can you copy my telekinesis?" Castalia asks.

"I can only copy spells. You don't use a circle or an incantation to do your telekinesis, just raw willpower, so there's nothing for me to copy."

"That makes sense."

We make it to the kitchen and I start up some brunch, the smell of which attracts a wandering Amaterasu who informs us that she made the report to Uma'tama. Apparently, both our local Preservers are too busy to meet us in person despite the revolutionary news of Fulgora's survival and defection.

"Is that… normal?" I ask.

"No," Castalia says. "Uma'tama will usually come by for a minute or two, at least. Even for much less important things."

Hmm. Well, that can't be good, but I'm not sure I have any way to figure out why it's not good. I have enough of my own problems, anyway. I'm still freaking out a little trying to figure out the best way to break the news about my continued slavery to the cat anyway.

"Hey, Luna?" Thea asks.

"What's up?" I prompt.

"Are you doing anything from now until dinner time?" she asks.

"I didn't have any plans."

"After that big fight, I… think it's probably best if I did some maintenance?" she hedges.

Oh, she wants to do more research on me.

"That's probably a good idea," I nod. "Sure, I'm ready whenever you're done eating."

"Is it okay if I watch?" Castalia asks.

Thea freezes a bit, fear and embarrassment pulsing through her.

"…It'll probably be boring, but okay," she says quietly. "Can you help me move the big table we had her on in the other room to my room?"

Castalia nods.

It doesn't take long after that for me to find myself lying flat on said table, unlatching my plates for easy removal. It's a familiar position, and one I'm finding myself having an increasing fondness for. The biggest improvements to my robotic life have all happened on a table like this one, and it was often a safe haven from Melpomene back in the day. Just Thea and I, alone in her workshop. As long as she was with me, I never needed to worry about that horrible monster showing the worst side of herself and forcing me into something unspeakable.

Now, of course, that horrible monster isn't my master anymore. My new master is that safe haven, and every part of me agrees she is welcome to do with my body as she likes. As unhealthy as it might be for anyone to have this kind of power over me, I trust Thea with that power implicitly. I don't need to worry about her abusing it, or abusing me. I only need to worry about how much pressure I'm placing on her with that power, and how best I can help alleviate it.

Having Castalia and her both around as I remove my plates is a little embarrassing, but not in an entirely unpleasant way.

"Alright, so what's the plan today, boss?" I ask. "Just poking around? Anything you need me unconscious for?"

"Probably not," Thea says, taking out her laptop and custom-made USB-to-ESB cable. "I think the best path forward today is for me to run some system-wide diagnostics while giving you various orders to try and identify more of how that interacts with your hardware and software."

"Oooh, I hope they're fun orders," I say brightly, taking the cable when Thea hands it to me and plugging it into my hip port. 

"Th-they're not going to be fun orders!" Thea stammers, her face turning slightly brown as she types away at her laptop. "It removes more variables if they're simple and relatively emotion-neutral. A-anyway, try not to think too much about me for a while. I need to establish a baseline reading."

"Hmm… that's gonna be tough," I admit. "Wait, I know the perfect distraction. Hey, Castalia! Do something cute!"

"Something… cute?" Castalia asks, tilting her head in confusion.

"Yeah, like that! Good work!" I praise her.

"But I haven't done anything," Castalia points out.

"What can I say? You're just a natural at this," I flirt shamelessly.

"Hmm. You really do remind me a lot of Thalia."

Woah, uh, what? Not the mood I was going for, but I guess we should roll with it.

"How so?" I ask.

"You're always trying to make other people happy," Castalia says. "Even when you get angry, it is usually on the behalf of someone who is upset. Thalia would always make jokes out of very serious situations. Melpomene would scold her for that, telling her that getting us to laugh before a big fight would make us weaker. Melpomene was wrong, though, and I think instinctively we all somehow knew that."

"…I don't get the impression Mel knows that at all," I say. "Part of her justification for keeping me was that the self-hate she felt about it made her stronger. The lady was literally trying as hard as she could to hate herself as much as possible."

"That sounds like her," Castalia says. "She has always been very driven towards strength, even to her own detriment. The more I think about it, the more I realize I am at fault for what happened to her. She needs someone like Thalia to balance her out, but I wasn't there for her."

"You're not responsible for Melpomene's actions," I say. "No one is except her. That's how responsibility works."

"You are right," Castalia agrees. "But in the same vein, I am responsible for my own actions, and by extension the actions I could have chosen but did not. It is well within my right to choose my own regrets."

I hesitate. If anyone else had said that, I'd have berated them for beating themselves up for no reason. But Castalia is a deep thinker about this kind of stuff. The way she said all of that makes me suspect she has a very good reason.

"I never really thought about it that much before," Thea chimes in, and I suddenly remember she's been here this whole time. How did I… oh, right, she told me to distract myself enough to not acknowledge her presence. Surreal. 

"Thought about what?" I ask.

"About why Mel did what she did to you," Thea answers. "Is it bad that I feel a little better, knowing that she hated it?"

"I don't think that's bad," I say, "but at the end of the day, no matter how much she hated doing it, she still did it."

"I know," Thea sighs. "Okay, well, we have our baseline reading. Let's move onto some orders."

"I should probably mention, I ended up taking your request to not think about you for a while as an order," I report. "I pretty much forgot you were in the room."

"I figured you might," Thea says. "It's probably the best we're going to get, though. It doesn't really need to be perfect anyway, it just needs to be a point of comparison I understand. Stand up, then bend over and touch your toes."

It goes like that for a while, with a lot of basic motive orders. Thea taps at her laptop a lot, but doesn't let me look at the screen. I get the impression she's mostly just recording the influx of data as best she can and saving it for later processing. I can't imagine it's easy; just a single snapshot of what my mind is doing at any given time is a lot for a modern computer to try and process. Has she enhanced her laptop with Antipathy tech without telling anyone…? It's the same laptop she was using with the Dark Rebellion, so I wouldn't put it past her.

"Okay, attempt to convince Castalia that the sky is red," Thea orders.

What? Uh. Shit, how would I… well actually, there are several reasonable situations in which the sky would be red, and since we're not outside I could certainly form an argument that one of them is currently happening.

"Well it actually probably is red," I lie. "We've been in here for several hours. Sunset just started."

Add in a plausible distraction; something to redirect her attention from Thea's order so she doesn't think about it too hard.

"What time did you want to go out to dinner, anyway?" I ask. "Because I'm getting a little bored, and it's getting a bit late, and a sunset dinner sounds nice. One of the best parts about Colorado is seeing the sun set over the mountains, don't you think?"

Castalia blinks.

"The mountains are beautiful," she agrees. "Is it really…"

She starts pulling out her phone. Shit! She'll see the real time!

"We should get going if you don't want to…" I start, but it's already too late, isn't it? I brace for a bit of discomfort at the failure… but I guess my only goal was to attempt to convince Castalia. It's not actually a huge deal this time if it doesn't succeed.

"Two thirty-four PM," Castalia reads. "I am bad at remembering the time, so I was a little worried."

"It's a little scary how good of a liar you are, Luna," Thea comments. 

Castalia wrinkles her nose in what I assume to be agreement.

"I think you magical girls are just, as Mel would put it, credulous," I answer. "I'm not that good at it."

"…I lived with you for months and did not realize you were a robot," Castalia says. "Even if I am somewhat gullible, you are very skilled."

"I guess," I shrug. "You still figured me out in the end, though. When it mattered most."

"Only thanks to your help," Castalia says, sadness pulsing around her.

"Hey now, none of that," I insist. "We're here now, right? Everything is finally looking up."

Castalia nods slowly.

"Yes. You are right," she agrees.

"Okay, now try to convince Castalia that the sky is green," Thea orders.

"Oh! Uh…"

This one is going to be harder. Maybe I can go for a jargon approach…? Wait, I've got it.

"So…  mathematically, the difference between blue and green is just a matter of wavelengths, right?" I ask. "Think about a rainbow. What are all the colors of the rainbow?"

"Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet," Castalia answers immediately.

"You'll note that green and blue are right next to each other," I say. "You'll also note that the color referred to as 'indigo' would itself be considered 'blue.' By definition, indigo is a shade of blue. For whatever reason, the color we interpret as 'blue' covers nearly twice the wavelength distance as other colors, and the particular shade reflected in the sky is much closer to the green end of the spectrum. A greenish blue, if you will."

"No," Castalia says firmly. "The sky is not teal."

"It can be," I insist. "In certain kinds of lighting, I'd argue it objectively is."

"No," Castalia repeats stubbornly.

"Interpretation of color is relative," I press. "Even if it doesn't look greenish to you, it could easily appear that way to someone else."

"Even when it is sad, the sky has hope," Castalia says.

Ah. Haha. I guess magical girls have a different point of view on color theory, don't they? In that case…

"Doesn't flying scare a lot of people, though?" I ask.

"Hrm…" Castalia considers. "That is true…"

"Okay, stop, that's enough," Thea interrupts us. "Luna, attempt to convince me that the sky is green."

"Uh… hmm," I say, considering the order. "Are you certain? Like, I know you know the sky isn't green."

"I was really starting to come around, though," Castalia says, sounding a little put out.

"It's interesting that you treat the order differently," Thea notes.

"I think it might be because protecting you is just as important as obeying you," I say, only just now figuring that out myself. "It never came up as much with Mel, since she's so hard to actually endanger, but it feels like the same bits of programming that make me jump in the way of attacks for you are also what make me need to double check orders that would actively harm you."

"Would believing the sky is green harm me?" Thea asks.

"I mean, probably not a lot, but at least a little," I say. "I believe that believing in things that aren't true is intrinsically bad for you."

"Didn't you just argue that color is subjective?" Thea asks.

"Only to a point," I insist. "Light is real. Wavelengths are real. Color is objectively measurable, even if it's not perfectly consistent as a qualia between individuals." 

"Interesting," Thea hums, and from the way she's staring at her laptop I doubt she's talking about my musings on color. "Ugh. I feel like I'm trying to reverse engineer an eight core CPU with nothing but a voltmeter."

"You measly humans are naught but cavewomen before my technological superiority! Muahahaha!" I laugh evilly. "But that sounds annoying, sorry you're having a rough time. You could try ordering me to upload all my schematics?" 

Thea stops typing.

"…What!?" she gapes at me. "Schematics!? Yes, upload all your schematics! Why didn't you do this sooner!?"

"Uh… well, I don't have access to any parts of my schematics that are actually relevant to what you're trying to do," I say. "Also because Mel wouldn't have wanted me to and so I got used to that. Also because I'm stupid."

"Who cares if it's not relevant? I've never seen actual Antipathy schematics before, anything it helps me figure out could save me days of work down the line, and… oh my god, oh my god there they are, holy shit. Why is it a PDF file…?"

"Because I turned it into one before sending it over…?" I say.

"Luna, write me as many Antipathy file conversion programs as you can and send them to me," Thea orders.

"Oh! Uh, yeah, sure thing!" I agree, starting to do just that. 

"I think I am supposed to be stepping in here to stop this," Castalia says.

Huh? Oh. Right. Because of the whole magitech knowledge embargo the Preservers have going.

"I can't help Luna if I don't understand her," Thea huffs, rapidly soaking up the documents on her screen, eyes flashing back and forth like lightning.

"I know," Castalia says. "I am conflicted. I am also surprised to see you like this."

"Like what?" Thea asks.

"You're being assertive!" I say. "It's hot."

"Luna!" Thea squeaks in protest. "I'm not… look, this is really big, okay? I'm going to have to pore over this for days. You translated it all into English but it's still a lot to try and understand."

Honestly, hearing that is kind of a relief. I won't have to worry about her spiraling as much if she has a project to work on. I can get dinner with Castalia guilt-free! 

"Should I leave you to it, then?" I ask.

"No… we should keep gathering data while I have you here," Thea says regretfully. "I'll finish reading all of this later. Gosh, I wish I still had my magitech 3D printer… oh, well. Luna, successfully do something you know to be impossible."

"Well, I'm a lesbian who is actually successfully going on a date tonight, so I think I've already done that," I say.

"…A serious attempt, please, not a joke."

"You're going on a date tonight?" Castalia asks. "I thought you were coming with me to dinner."

I pause. I turn to stare at her. She stares back. I don't even have eyelids, but I still think I'll end up blinking first on this one.

"Were you… not trying to ask me out when you invited me to eat dinner with you alone?" I ask.

"I never said we would be alone," Castalia answers. "I was talking about you with Thalia's parents a while ago, and they told me to invite you over sometime."

Oh. Okay. Yeah. You know what, I probably should have expected something like this.

"Though now that I think about it, the two of them are the closest I have to parents," Castalia considers. "Would inviting you over to meet my parents constitute a date?"

It. I mean. Kind of!? But it's not usually the first date!!!

"I… I guess that's up to you, Castalia," I say. "Do you want it to be a date?"

"No," Castalia says immediately, and my poor, unbeating heart cracks down the middle. Well shit. Was I not reading the signals right…? My dumb ass never could, I guess. Oh, geez, but I've been flirting with her for so long! Did she think it was creepy? No, she likes me, right? She's happy around me… but she's happy all the time! I totally misread it!

"It would be an odd first date," Castalia continues. "Let's go on a date tomorrow, instead."

My power reserves have increased to 79%.

"Sure," I agree. "Let's do that."