Intense Struggle! (Round 7 - The Database)

Cerise was unravelling. Despite the gestures towards a new identity, she was not a person so much as an idea; a shield Aph was using to insulate herself from the monstrous things she had done. Even at her best Cerise was unstable; perpetually moments away from succumbing to the uncontrollable waves of anger and despair that threatened to engulf her, but now that identity had been compromised. The artifice of Cerise had been built entirely upon the idea that she was a different person because she would not kill others, and now...

Well, she wasn't exactly sure where she stood now. She had killed The Lord of Skulls. Yes, technically speaking she was the one who had stabbed him in the back, but she'd been forced to do it. The fact that nobody had forced her to do it was the only sticking point in this otherwise credible defense. The truth was that the lack of clarity regarding the responsibility she held was the only thing keeping her from backsliding into the Aph she used to be. The more she thought about it, the more she felt her new identity crumbling and so in desperation she sought for something, anything, to distract her from her sins, or lack thereof.

Luckily there was plenty to distract her from her introspection; around her were rows and rows of huge black cylinders around which sleek and elegantly designed machinery rhythmically clicked and clacked as they performed some intricate task. Cerise wasted no time, she stepped up to the nearest set up and leaned in as close as she dared. She watched as the mechanical arms chipped and sliced away at the enormous cylinder, leaving grooves and bumps in some elaborate pattern, and at one point had to duck beneath one of the more lively arms of the machine. After a minute of examination, as her interest in the machines began to wane, the machines came to a shuddering stop and the mechanical arms retracted into the machine base. Very aware of the sudden silence Cerise looked nervously around to confirm that every machine had halted.

As the cylinder before her was lifted from its machine base, she took a nervous step backwards. It hung there for a moment before being whisked to who-knows-where by a track built into the ceiling. Cerise might have for a moment been contemplative about where they were going and what purpose they might serve but a cylinder from a nearby machine gently, but firmly, nudged her out of the way and as she turned made her aware of just how many cylinders were headed her way. She tried to dodge out of their way, but it was after being knocked again by another, more faster moving, cylinder that she opted to hit the ground and stay there until the danger had passed. It was all surprisingly soundless; the only indication that the process was still ongoing the whoosh of air as each cylinder passed overhead.

Cerise crawled to relative safety between two of the inactive machines, where the cylinders did not seem to be passing through, and waited for the movement to end. She supposed this was just part of some enormous assembly line, (though she wasn't sure which fragment of her shattered psyche the knowledge of such industry had come from) and given that this place was supposedly some vast repository for information she further supposed that the cylinders were some means of data storage. She frowned; she certainly hadn't been able to learn anything from the one she'd examined.

After a minute of activity the cylinders began to slow and then stopped. They were dropped into place and the carving of grooves and marks began anew. Cerise couldn't tell if they were simply copies of the cylinders she had seen before or if new information was being recorded onto each and every one; the patterns were too small, too intricate. She wondered what information they held and idly, how much data could be contained on such an object, but without any means of interpretation her interest soon began to wane. Eventually she concluded the only course of action available to her was to follow the path of the cylinders and she did so.

Cerise wouldn't have been able to tell you how long had passed before the second set of cylinders were complete; there was little to denote the passage of time and, for that matter, little to indicate that her journey down the assembly hall was actually getting her anywhere. As the obelisks were lifted into the air for the second time Cerise took shelter; half-sitting half-crouching between two machine bases. She watched the blurred shapes of the obelisks as they whizzed past and wondered what it was that she would do exactly when she reached wherever it was that she was going.

As they began to slow Cerise spotted something; a figure hidden beneath a heavy brown cloak, clinging onto the side of one of the cylinders. It was visible for just a moment, looking squarely in Cerise's direction (she met its gaze but nothing was visible beneath the hood but shadows), before it dropped with a thud to the ground. The cylinder it had rode in on, if one could spare it a glance at this point, was left cracked and slowly crumbling as it was carried away. The figure itself remained kneeling as the cylinders slowed and came to a stop. Cerise's first reaction was panic. She had no idea who or what this figure was or what they might want, but maybe any interaction threatened her precarious grip upon herself. She'd liked it better when it was just her and an endless corridor of black cylinders; things had been easier back then.

The machines roared back to life once again and Cerise and the cloaked figure both got to their feet. Cerise braced to flee back along the assembly line at the first sign of trouble. The figure took a step forward and she drifted back slightly.

"Aphrodite?" The figure's voice was familiar, his tone cautious; as though he's dipping a toe into a murky ocean, uncertain of the response he will receive. Cerise remembered his voice; even with half of her mind torn from her, and the rest of it muddied and mixed up by innumerable contradictory memories, she could never forget the man who brought her to life. The man who she had loved and hated so strongly, who had taken her for granted, who she had hacked to bloody pieces and cried as she did so.

"Xan." she tried to say, but it was lost in the rising tide of emotion; hate, fear and anger, love, guilt and regret. It was all too much. She'd held on for as long as she could, but she was a teacup trying to contain an ocean. Her skin crackled with energy; Aph smiled.