An unfamiliar planet rises up to meet them.

They have a few seconds to get a lovely view of some scenic coastline before they are abruptly introduced to a pleasant sandy beach, on rather more intimate terms than they might like. The beach isn't too happy about it either.

The shields take a lot of the impact, but they're still somewhat jostled. Wrath gets thrown into the wall beside her, continuing to swear.

"Sitrep?!" she barks.

"We crashed. On...a beach? Damage report is going to take time."

"...Any settlements nearby?"

The beach itself is deserted; their ship sits at the end of a long glassy scar in what was once a nearly pristine expanse of white sand.

The nearest sign of civilization is a small fishing village about half a mile to the south.

"Small one, half a mile off," Envy reports.

"Alright, set the diagnostics to run. Let's go have some fun. Engines are inert enough I'm not going to be doing anything more than beating them with a wrench without any information."

Regardless of her irritation at that, there's a grin on her face when they start heading towards the village, even while the others grumble about the rough landing. (And Sloth grumbles about being woken up.)

"We need information as well," she says, almost reluctantly as they approach the village. "Try to get some before we finish everyone." (There's some groaning about that, but the others nod.)

The people of the fishing village have noticed the giant flaming something-or-other that crashed into a beach half a mile up the coast. A few of the braver ones are on their way over to investigate.

"Let me," Pride murmurs, striding past Wrath, flicking one whip out, before coiling it into her hand again. "Hi," she says brightly as she approaches the idiots, "we're a little bit lost," her smile is devious, "any chance of telling us where we are?"

There are three villagers: an old woman with a floppy blue hat, a younger woman in a faded green dress, and a boy whose age could fall anywhere in the range between a late-blooming fourteen and a tall and weathered twelve. They look similar enough that they could be three generations of the same family; they have the same black eyes, the same brown skin, the same curly black hair except where the old woman's is streaked with grey.

The old woman is giving them a suspicious look as she approaches; when Pride speaks, she responds in an unfamiliar language, her tone of voice courteous but wary. The young woman puts a hand on the boy's shoulder to discourage him from getting any closer to the strangers.

"Well that's a first," Pride comments, and looks over her shoulder to Wrath. "This is going to get old quickly if we can't understand them."

"Can't even tell the kid to run," Wrath sounds almost regretful. "Well. If we can't understand them, we're not getting any information. May as well start the fun."

Pride gives a bright smile, and pivots, her whip lashes, out, aimed directly at the old woman's throat.

The whip passes through her; in its wake, and in spreading ripples that rapidly overtake her body, her flesh turns to seawater. The resulting oddly shaped column of water collapses in on itself and flows down the beach toward the ocean, leaving behind only a pile of wet clothes under a hat.

The young woman freezes in shock; the kid, it turns out, does not have to be told to run.

That gets simultaneously blinking from the group.

"That is...also a first," Pride comments, half blandly, wrist twisting to pull the whip back to her.

"Keep an eye out for the tech responsible," Wrath orders, starting forward.

The young woman unfreezes and turns to flee.

And this woman lunges forward, catching the woman, a knife pressing close to her face. "You not understanding this takes so much fun out of it," she says, trailing the knife over the woman's skin. "But you look...delicious." Her words might be discernible from the tone, and the way she licks her lips, although it's definitely not lust that's on the woman's mind.

The others are moving past them, more intent on the village ahead of them.

The young woman shrieks.

—and a wave rolls up out of the ocean, a few hundred tons of water surging past the high-tide mark to smash down on the group and sweep them away from the village.

(The young woman curls into a ball and covers her head with her arms as the crashing water rips her out of Gluttony's hands.)

Wrath snarls, shifting herself to plant her feet into the sand. (It is not as effective as she would've liked, a few hundred tons of water could flatten and move most things.) And that actually hurts. (The snarl is cut off as the water forces breath from her lungs, and she'd laugh if she had any air for it.)

The group are certainly not as dead as a few hundred tons of water smashing into them should make them, although they certainly can't resist being swept away from the village. (They manage to keep enough breath not to end up breathing in any water.)

In defiance of all rational laws of hydrodynamics, the wave washes them sideways along the beach and up over a rise before finally depositing them next to their ship in a pile of mud, seaweed, and dying fish. Small disgruntled crabs scuttle away across the briny sand. An agitated eel flails at Gluttony's face.

Gluttony flinches a tiny bit from having something flail near her face, but is already in motion to grab it and bite its head off. "What?" she says through the mouthful. "I'm hungry. And that wave just ruined my hair. And what the fuck?!"

"I'm not picking up any tech readings," Avarice says to Wrath as he picks himself up, and helps Pride to her feet. "But last I checked, waves did not go sideways."

"Apparently they do," Wrath retorts. "I didn't pick anything up either."

She stares along the beach. "I for one, am not being put off. The harder the prize, the more worth it, it is."

She looks up the beach to see what the terrain is like there, if they could sneak around and come at it from a different angle.

A shallow rise blocks their view of the village, and the place where they met the old woman and her companions was a low point between that and a steeper ridge; there's no direct line of sight on the village from here without doing a significant amount of walking.

If they left the beach and went inland, they'd reach higher ground faster, and there are some trees that might provide visual cover. Also it would be harder for the next misbehaving tidal wave to reach them, if there is one.

"You're gonna make us walk the long way, aren't you?" Gluttony says dropping the remains of the eel to the ground.

"It's hardly 'make'," Wrath retorts, already heading for the higher ground and the trees. "You're as eager for this as I am."

The others share mildly irritated looks, but she's right, and they follow her, up into the treeline, and along to come at the village from away from the sea. (Both Avarice and Wrath are watching the sea suspiciously, as though it might still be able to leap up and wash them back to the ship from here.)

As they come into view of the village, they can see dozens of people all piling onto boats and rowing out to sea.

The old woman is there, wrapped in a wet cloak and directing the evacuation.

Wrath snarls, because she will not be denied. Not by some freak of nature. (In the back of her head, she's worried, because something isn't right here, and there's only one thing she can think of that might cause people to be able to become water, and she doesn't like that idea.)

Still. She darts forward, ignoring Pride's suggestion of caution. (The buildings give good cover, and as much as she dislikes it, she can sneak.) She fingers one of the grenades on the bandoleer over her chest as she gets closer, directing nanites to cover it (they'll be off and infecting people before it explodes), and directing some at the old woman, and anyone remaining on the beach.

The boy from earlier spots her, and shouts and points, then helps an older man into a rowboat before scrambling in himself. The old woman, now the last person on the beach, shoves the boat into the water and turns to face Wrath. Behind her, the ocean swells, gathering another unnatural wave and pulling the boats away from the shore on an unnatural current.

She tugs the grenade free, and pitches it out towards the boats, not actually aiming at the boats, but the water between, and her pitch gets it further than most would say was possible. The grenade is a way to get more nanites onto people, not much else.

If the people are anything close to regular human physiology, the ones her nanites get into should get spurred into murderous rages. (And the boy is useful as a way to spread them.)

She's already twisting away, flicking a second grenade at the old woman. (It might not kill her, but hopefully it'll distract her for a little while.)

Arcing tendrils of water lash out of the wave to bat her grenades back toward her.

Wrath doesn't think she's had this much fun in years. No-one has ever been this much of a challenge.

She deflects one of the grenades, but doesn't bother doing anything more than continuing her twisting motion to evade the other. (She is still much to close when it explodes, but her only response is to tuck and roll.)

"Fuck," Pride gasps, jerking like she just got kicked in the chest.

A gunshot rings out, echoing hollowly against the water, aimed at the old woman's head.

By now the wall of water rising behind her is close to twenty meters high.

The bullet has much the same effect that the whip did before; she falls apart and flows away, merging with her swelling wave. A ripple runs through it, but it's not clear whether that's an interruption in her control or a deliberate expression of annoyance.

Well. Wrath tries another grenade, aimed at approximately the base of the wave, because why the hell not not?

(Her body is slowly knitting itself back together from the damage the last one did.)

She is not, however, entirely without a self-preservation instinct, and is making her way back towards the trees. "Sloth, shoot her again."

"Wrath, maybe you haven't noticed she's a wave?" Sloth says through a yawn. "What do I aim at?"

"The damn wave!"

The third grenade is as easily fended off as the first two.

The wave continues to ripple, and then its front surface bulges outward in the middle, and a humanoid figure emerges, recognizable as a scaled-up version of the old woman. Twenty meters tall and made entirely of seawater, she picks her way delicately through the village, headed for Wrath.

Wrath considers the woman, and then stops, turning to face the woman. There's no fear in her stance, only mild irritation that she cannot end this woman, and a half-delighted anticipation of what's going to happen next. She hasn't been challenged like this in too long. People can't face her, don't face her, won't face her. (And she has to deliberately handicap herself to make it even close to a fair fight half the time.)

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Wrath," Pride grumbles, but she knows she can't talk the other woman out of this.

Sloth aims another shot at the water-woman. He is really not expecting even a headshot to actually work here, but he at least has the energy to try right now.

His bullet takes out one of the fish swimming in her head. The water-woman herself is unaffected.

She reaches down to close a hand around Wrath.

Wrath doesn't even try to evade it, standing almost placidly, arms loose at her side. Her nanites aren't going to affect sea water, and she's curious to see if the water can lift her.

Yes. Yes it can.

The water-woman picks her up off the ground and hefts her thoughtfully.

Wrath face twists into something that would be a pleasant smile if her face could support that expression, seemingly entirely unbothered by the hefting. She's a bit too busy surreptitiously pulling the key from another grenade.

And then the water-woman winds up and throws her inland in a high arc.

She's still in the air when her grenade goes off.

She's still in the air for a good half-minute afterward, in fact.

Meanwhile, the water-woman is looking for the rest of them.

Pride is doubled-over, swearing, eyes pressed closed, trying to get back to an even keel.

"...Are we as resilient as Wrath?" Avarice asks looking up at the water woman. "Because I don't really want to find out the hard way the answer is no."

Sloth's apparently fallen asleep against his rifle.

"...Just how far away from the sea do we reckon she can make it? And do we still want to be here when she does?"

She doesn't seem to be noticeably affected by her distance from the ocean, but then, on her current scale it's not that long a walk to their current position.

She finds them. She stops.

The dead fish is caught up in an internal current and swirls out into her right hand. She holds her hand over the group; the fish drops from it to land on Avarice's head.

She makes a gentle shooing motion, angled to direct them back toward their ship.

Avarice snorts, pulled it off his head, and holds it out to Gluttony. "You're irritating," he tells the woman. "But I like you."

Gluttony is glaring at Avarice, but she takes the fish, and does start to eat it.

Pride has straightened now, and while her face suggests she's in discomfort, her jaw clenched tight, she's functioning. "Back to the ship," she orders. "If Wrath can't take her out, we're not managing it."

(Gluttony and Avarice obey, grumbling quietly.)

Lust crouches down to wake Sloth up, gently helping him to his feet and guiding him back towards the ship, shooting the woman suspicious looks.

Once they've started moving, Pride follows.

The sea-woman walks back into the sea and flows away along with her wall of water.

The Sins (minus Wrath), return to their ship, sour and defeated. That entire situation was entirely new to them, they are not used to losing.

Wrath meanwhile, is picking herself up from where she landing. The fact that some of her bones are broken and still trying to heal is causing her some problems, as is the fact that she keeps breaking down into half-delighted, half-hysterical laughter. Her left arm hangs at an odd angle, having been wrenched from the socket by her landing.

She does eventually make it back to her feet, shaking herself down, and carefully hooking her arm into her bandoleer to keep it as immobile as possible (rapid healing didn't really help with dislocation very well). She looks around, trying to get her bearings back, to get back to the ship for now. (She assumes the others have probably retreated with her own rapid exit from that fight.)

She is on a dirt road that meanders between a scattered handful of grassy hills. It's hard to see anything much from down here, but if she makes it to the top of a hill she can see where the road leads to a bridge that crosses a river that runs down to the village—

—and, a much shorter distance away in the other direction, a patchwork of grain fields surrounding a cluster of houses: another village, much bigger than the one on the coast. Village number two is between her and her ship, if she wants to follow the road as much as possible; she could walk a straighter route if she cut through some of those fields instead.

Well. As much as a direct route does have some appeal, she's also kind of curious as to whether all villages come with inbuilt protectors, or if they just had the (probably bad) luck to run into the one that did. She's pretty sure she looks alien enough, what with the damage from her latest mishap still visible, although also visibly healing. So, she'll take the long route through the village.

(It'll also tell her if they might be able to get rid of any of the sour feelings the others are doubtless feeling after the last village.)

The first person she meets is a teenage girl with curly black hair and freckles, wearing a baby in a sling. She seems to be extremely concerned about Wrath's injuries, although of course Wrath can't understand a word she says.

Wrath stares at her in disbelief for a second. Then she bursts into laughter. Because people being concerned for her is...different. Sure, Pride got concerned, but that had as much to do with not wanting to deal with the side-effects of Wrath being injured.

"You wouldn't be concerned if you knew what I was," she tells the girl through her laughter, and keeps walking.

...she is now, if anything, more concerned; she says something else, then turns away and hurries off, perhaps to get an adult.

There are a few other people around, when Wrath walks a little farther; they, too, react first with concern.

Seriously? Maybe Wrath's just cynical from knowing what she can do, even in this state, but her first reaction to someone in this state would not be concern, but suspicion. (It probably helps that there are six people in the entire world she truly cares about the wellbeing of.)

She glances around, and sends her nanites for the nearest adult. If there's a protector, someone going rage-crazy should lure them out.

The afflicted adult yells and attacks someone. Two other people try to restrain her. Everyone is very distracted from the grievously injured stranger.

Who is watching the proceedings with a vicious glee. Provided there is no sudden emergence of someone capable of actually stopping her, Wrath'll ping the other Sins. (After a momentary confusion about the lack of communication towers, but Avarice had made sure their comms had enough range for a distance far greater than this.)

It'll take them a little while to get here, but in the meantime, Wrath wants to find out what happens if she infects one of the two trying to hold the woman back.

Now there are two enraged people fighting each other, and the person who was first attacked and the person who was trying to help are both fleeing in opposite directions, shouting for help.

Wrath cackles, and then moves to intercept one of the runners. Then she stops, glaring at her left arm in irritation. It's been a while since she tried doing anything like this one handed. She shrugs. She's done more dangerous things in worse states, but instead of aiming to intercept, she strolls after them, completely unconcerned, building her nanite swarm as she moves, ready to infect people as needed. She predicts that, provided the ground transports weren't damaged during their...landing, that the others will arrive in ten minutes at most.

More people are emerging from various buildings, confused and alarmed. Someone tries to stop the person she's following, and fails. Someone else ducks back into his house for a minute and comes back out with a big basket of cut flowers, which he heaves at Wrath, shouting something that might be 'stop right there!' or an insult or a curse.

She proves surprisingly agile for the fact she is down one arm. She ducks sideways, absorbs the blow from the basket on her right shoulder and pivots inward with the impact. Her lips twist into a truly terrifying grin, and she takes two steps forward, and then lunges at him, definitely in range now, her arm reaching out for his wrist. (And seriously? A basket of flowers?! Why was that anyone's first choice of weapon against her?)

She is covered in flowers, the ground around her littered with them—

—and before her hand can quite reach him, the flowers wrap their stems around her and grow and grow, clinging to her limbs to impede her movement, obscuring her vision with clusters of petals. Her feet are rooted to the ground in mere heartbeats, and the flowers seem to be trying to drag her hands down to do the same to them.

Well, this is just irritating. She lets out a sharp sound when her left arm gets jostled, but her fingers have retained enough movement to pull one of the grenades from her bandoleers as her hands are pulled downwards. (She counts out the time before dropping it.) Her right hand pulls a knife free and slices at the stems wrapping around her wrist and arm as best she can with limited mobility. (Her nanite swarm immediately swirls around the man, infecting him. It might just drive him further against her, but it has been known for it to end up distracting the person from their original intent.)

...that may not have been the best of ideas, because as soon as the effect takes hold, the flowers drive their roots into her flesh. Roots slither through her veins and wrap themselves around her bones, piercing through muscles and organs, growing thicker with every passing second.

And Wrath is laughing, and it's agonised, but delighted and she likes this place, and these people are a challenge. The nanites in her body immediately attack the roots, determined to expel the foreign bodies (and they're definitely highly effective at that, determined to set her body back to how it should be, without anything invading it). Less concerned than she should be, she shifts, feeling the roots tugging at things before the nanites disintegrate them (and use what they absorb from them to heal the damage, and to replicate more nanites to destroy the invading roots).

The roots are insanely resilient. There's nowhere for them to be getting enough mass to regenerate like this, not even if they're somehow tapping her for nutrients, and yet they grow and grow and grow and her nanites disintegrate them and stray fragments dig into the marrow of her bones and grow some more. An adventurous flower sends its roots into her eyes.

That isn't quite so easy, the nanites have started forming a barrier over any potential points of entrance into Wrath's body now. (She's still laughing.)

And there's another echoing shot, aimed directly at the man stood in the doorway, glaring at what Sloth assumes to be Wrath. (He can hear her cackling.)

He makes a vague sound at Lust, that the Sins can probably translate as 'your sister has no self-preservation left'.

The roots that are already inside her body are not impeded by the barrier, and they're getting more resistant to disintegration with time. The flower on her face battles the nanites and mostly loses, but another few plants grow out of her lungs and up through her carotid artery, aiming for the eyes but not particularly bothered about how much brain they have to go through to get there—

—and then the shot rings out, and the man crumples to the ground, and the flowers lose most of their vicious determination. They're still spread throughout her body and growing absurdly fast, their regeneration still keeping pace with the nanites' disintegration, but they're no longer deliberately aiming for vital organs, no longer treating her as anything but a material substrate to grow in.

She tries cutting her way free with her right hand again, and tearing some of the flowers off her body (and out of it), expecting the nanites will, eventually, win that fight.

The rest of the Sins, meanwhile, have arrived. They split apart, their vehicles almost idling as they trawl the streets, vicious grins on their faces, and no real intent in their movements except to find people, and have some fun.

Except for Pride and Sloth. Sloth is falling asleep again, over the back of his vehicle. Pride, meanwhile, is striding directly towards Wrath, face drawn in something approximating pain. She's carrying one whip, and flicks it lazily, partially an almost-nervous tick, partially irritation, and partially an intended deterrent to anyone who thinks approaching her is a good idea.

No one thinks approaching her is a good idea.

The only people in the village who have not yet fled are the ones Wrath first infected, who are still trying to beat each other to death. Everyone else is running away, carrying babies and small children where applicable. (Inconveniently, the ones with small children are usually slowest.) They haven't had time to go far, though, and the Sins will have no trouble catching up to the stragglers just outside of town.

Anyone carrying children, is, for now, dismissed, as is anyone who could pass for a child. Instead, the Sins head directly for adults.

Gluttony looks for a group. (It's always so much more fun to affect a couple of people in a group.) The others aren't necessarily using their nanites, seeming to be enjoying running people down with their vehicles for now. (Avarice in particular appears to be taking great glee in running people down and lashing his bardiche at their legs.)

There's a cluster of a half-dozen childless stragglers a little ways down the road, if that suits Gluttony's purposes.

Targeted villagers try to run faster, and when that fails, some try to turn and fight, throwing rocks they pick up from the side of the road. Avarice's bardiche mysteriously goes dull after the first few swipes; it isn't clear who's to blame.

Avarice heaves a sigh, and resorts to using it as a club. Not quite as fun, but he knows that other fun is liable to follow, and leaving people dazed will suit that purpose as well as leaving people maimed.

That suits Gluttony's purpose very well, and she targets her nanites at one person to the edge of the group, and another to the middle.

Within a few seconds of being affected they will start to feel a severe, unavoidable hunger. They should totally eat the nearest apparent food source, still breathing or not.

Well, that group of villagers is now having a really bad day.

Haphazard patches of rust appear on the sides of some of the vehicles, and panels start to dent and bend, and then the rear axle of Envy's vehicle locks up and snaps in half.

And Gluttony is watching that with a truly vicious grin on her face. (It's always nice seeing someone else be that hungry.)

Envy feels it happening, and hits the brakes, trying to angle the vehicle at the person ahead of him, before pitching himself sideways off it. His landing is not the most graceful, but he's still able to push himself to his feet fairly quickly, and looking around - just because he's on foot, doesn't mean he can't still cause damage and chaos.

Lust is circling wide, slightly more wary of going at speed having seen Envy's vehicle go down, but not all that concerned.

Now that that tactic has been proven to work, the other vehicles go down one after another, rust-blighted until they break. But in doing that, the relevant villager reveals his identity: it's the man caught by Avarice's first slash, lying on the ground bleeding from deep gashes across his lower legs, staring intently at each vehicle as he disables it.

Well then. The others abandon their vehicles before they get thrown from them, aware of what's going on now.

Avarice saunters over to the guy, whistling, and spinning his currently useless bardiche around idly. He steps over the man to press his foot onto one of those gashes. "That wasn't very nice," he says lightly.

The man spits at him and throws a ball of torn-up grass in his face.

Avarice evades the ball of grass. (Look, he saw what was going on with Wrath, he isn't that insane, thank you very much.)

He reverses his bardiche and slams the pole into the man's head, with enough force that even the blunt end manages to split skin. Provided nothing stops him, he'll repeat the action until the man's skull breaks.

By the time the pole reaches the man's head, it's rusted through badly enough to disintegrate on impact, leaving Avarice holding half a bardiche.

He throws another grass ball; this one falls apart in the air, making it much more difficult to dodge.

Avarice straight up drops on the man, and wrenches his head around to snap his neck. (Getting him dead certainly seems like a wiser move than playing more.)

Avarice's caution is rewarded with a complete lack of any plants trying to destroy him from the inside out! The grass fragments that reached him remain inert.

Avarice climbs back to his feet and brushes grass fragments from his clothes. He frowns at his bardiche, snaps the head off, and spins the blade around his wrist thoughtfully, before skipping over towards Gluttony, whistling again. She looks like she's having more fun.

Gluttony is perched on her broken vehicle, humming absently as she watches the people she's infected.

"Think Wrath and Pride are ever gonna make it down here?" she calls over to him.

"Probably depends on how much the two of them are arguing over Wrath's tendency to get herself seriously hurt."

As if summoned by his words, Wrath strolls out from in amongst the village. (Her left arm is still across her chest, apparently Pride hasn't managed to get her to stay still long enough fix it.) One of Pride's whips flicks out, catching around Wrath's ankle and tripping her up. Wrath twists as she goes down, landing on her back, while Pride lunges forward to straddle Wrath's hips.

"Now there's a sandwich I'd like to be the filling of," Avarice leers.

Gluttony throws a rock at him. "Wrath would break you," she retorts.

Wrath bucks under Pride, shifting her weight so that she's toppling them-

Pride grabs hold of Wrath's arm and uses the momentum to wrench her arm back into place.

"You're welcome," she snarls as her back hits the ground. "One of theses days you're going to encounter something that you can't fucking heal from."

"But not today," Wrath says, pushing herself to her feet and surveying the scene in front of her, looking around for someone to target.

Gluttony's victims are still trying to eat each other alive. The man who downed the vehicles is dead; there was one other person caught by Avarice's bardiche in its brief moment of usefulness, and she is lying motionless half-under a bush, state of continued survival unclear. The closest other villager, by a fairly wide margin, is a middle-aged woman carrying a wailing four-year-old girl and pulling a nine-year-old boy along by the hand. She looks like she's about to collapse, but is still running as fast as she can.

Wrath smirks, and takes off towards the middle-aged woman. If there's any lingering injury or plant, it's certainly not showing as she moves, and she manages to put herself in front of the woman.

"Hi," she says, in a tone that manages to be sinisterly pleasant. "You really don't look like you're in shape to be running this hard. Especially not carrying a child."

She staggers to a halt, breathing heavily, too exhausted to try to evade.

—the nine-year-old boy picks up a rock off the ground and hurls it at Wrath's face. He's got good aim and an impressive throwing arm for his age.

Wrath barely moves, leaning very slightly sideways so that it glances off her cheek rather than hits her dead on. The look on her face indicates that she's finding the boy's attempt more adorable than threatening. She takes half a step forward, sending her nanites towards the woman. (She's close enough, and fast enough, that should the woman's ire turn on either of the children, the younger will be in Wrath's arms, and Wrath between the woman and the nine-year-old before she can harm them.)

...well, under normal circumstances that would've been an adequate precaution, but as it is Wrath is lucky she's so annoying, because the first thing the woman does is hug her four-year-old tightly and pull the air from Wrath's lungs by might-as-well-call-it-magic. If she'd done that to one of the kids, they'd be choking to death regardless of whether or not she could still touch them. As it is, Wrath can enjoy this uncomfortable surprise while the nine-year-old rushes her and tries to stab her in the leg with a dry broken stick.

After a surprised choke, Wrath just decides that breathing apparently isn't necessary. She looks down at the child and makes no move to avoid his attack. If she had more breath, she'd be correcting his form. (She's watched Lust spar with eir swords enough to know at least a little about form for that.)

Pride saunters up and places her hands on the woman's shoulders, her own nanites already infecting the woman, working around Wrath's carefully. "You are so—" she's speaking before her hands really make contact, right into the woman's ear, the nanites taking any pride the woman feels and bolstering it, making her overconfident, cocky.

—and before Pride can say anything more, the woman drops her child, spins around, and pulls the air from Pride's lungs while also attempting to scratch her eyes out. (Wrath can now breathe again! Lucky Wrath.)

Pride apparently can't decide that breathing is optional, but her arms still automatically come up to shield her face.

Wrath does not decide to start breathing again, pivoting around the boy to catch the younger child before they can hit the ground. Then she shifts upwards, the child juggled carefully onto one hip, the spare hand pulling a knife free and slamming it up into the join between the woman's neck and chin, directly at her pulse point.

This solves the immediate problem, but also offers the nine-year-old boy an opportunity to steal one of Wrath's other knives and stab her in the back with it.

Pride curses Wrath out in a barely there whisper as she regains her breath.

Wrath makes a half-surprised sound, breathing now restored, and looks back, turning smoothly. "I really wish I could show you how to aim that more effectively," she states. Perhaps strangely, her body is angled such that the child on her hip would be protect should the boy try to attack again.

He yells something and stabs her again.

She reaches down, catches the knife blade, but instead of deflecting it or stopping it, aims it into her side. "Better place to stab," she says, neatly sliding her hand down to twist the knife free of his grip, taking half a step back to crouch down. She ignores the knife in her side, and places the younger child in front of her, on their feet, holding on only enough to make sure the child can stand on their own.

As soon as Wrath lets go of the smaller child, she dives into the older boy's arms and he scoops her up and runs.

"Smart kid," Wrath comments, pushing herself back to her feet and pulling the knife out of her side.

"Smarter than you at any rate," Pride retorts snidely, poking a finger at Wrath's side.

Wrath doesn't appear to notice, except to brush it off, stalking across the ground towards where the others have gathered, scanning the area around them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there seems to be no one around who wants anything to do with them. The village is thoroughly deserted; Gluttony's new friends have torn each other apart; a few crows are investigating the mess, but besides that, things seem pretty quiet.

And then a roaring column of white fire blazes up on the horizon. Thunder booms as bolts of lightning wreathe the pillar of flame, crackling around it in unnatural arcs. It's not an explosion, because explosions stop, and this - whatever-it-is - shows no signs of stopping.

It's almost too bright to look at directly, making it hard to judge the distance by eye, but it seems to be on the other side of the river, only five or ten minutes away by ground transport if they still had a working ground transport.

Well, Pride and Sloth's were in fact still in the village, out of sight, and thus are still in perfect working order, although it'll still take a couple of trips to get all seven of them closer. Pride has gone and nudged Sloth awake, and the two of them are bringing their transports down.

Wrath nudges Sloth back far enough to slide in front of him. "Let's go."

She guns the engine and drives off towards the...anomaly.

Avarice slides on behind Pride. "We'll come back and get you guys," he says over his shoulder.

They catch up with Wrath and Sloth as they pull up near the anomaly. Avarice hops off and steals the other transport once Wrath and Sloth have vacated it.

Wrath walks closer to it, eyes narrowed against the bright light, seeing just how close she can get.

The... phenomenon... is approximately cylindrical, about twenty feet wide at the base, gradually narrowing as it blasts its heat into the sky, almost like the flame of some cosmic blowtorch.

If she gets up close and then squints hard at it, there's a smudge of not-quite-so-brightness in the middle, a faint shadow that almost looks like it might be the blurry silhouette of a person. But she won't have long to look at it, because after a couple of seconds at that distance, she starts being repeatedly struck by lightning.

She retreats some. "I think someone's doing that," she comments to Sloth.

Apparently Sloth brought a tea set with him, and has in fact made tea. He hands her a cup. "Some tech we missed being developed?"

"I...have no idea. If it is technology, it's something we should've heard about being developed. Besides which, we have no idea how we even ended up here. We weren't above a planet when we started going down. And yet..."

Sloth hums, and they watch the anomaly while they wait for the others.

Ten minutes later the others arrive, Pride and Gluttony sharing one transport, Avarice, Envy and Lust precariously balanced on the other.

Lust bounds off the back of the transport and proceeds to lay out a couple of bright, check blankets. "There, proper picnic," e declares brightly. "What is it then?"

"Seems to be a person at the centre of it," Wrath explains. "And it starts hitting you with lightning if you get too close."

"You lobbed a grenade at it yet?" Avarice asks, excited.

(Pride's roared 'no' probably startles any nearby wildlife.)

"Okay, so we start smaller." He hefts the remains of his bardiche. "Gonna miss you," he says mournfully.

"You have at least two others on the Cardinal," Pride points out, amused, even as Avarice launches the remains of his bardiche at the anomaly.

It goes in, and is briefly visible melting in the heat before it's lost in the general glare.

"Well then," Wrath says as she refills her tea cup.

They spend a while throwing other things into the anomaly. Stones, sticks, a spare battery lamp from one of the vehicles.

All are summarily destroyed by the blazing pillar of fire. More flammable items go much faster.

Avarice and Wrath share a look, and Avarice shifts so he's lounged over Pride taking up all her attention.

Wrath carefully unhooks her bandoleer of grenades and slides one off (key still in), tossing it up and down in her palm a couple of times.

Then she hauls back her arm and-

Pride's head snaps around as Wrath throws the grenade into the anomaly.

"I said no," her tone is approximately that of someone scolding a naughty puppy.

Avarice and Wrath are too busy watching the grenade to care.

A billow of white fire plumes out of the pillar where the grenade hits, but it doesn't reach far enough to touch any of the Sins.

Avarice springs to his feet, punching the air. "Woohoo!" he cheers.

Envy has sprung to his feet as well, and Wrath is laughing in delight.

"I'm surrounded by children," Pride decides, shaking her head. "Shouldn't we...I don't know. Consider leaving?"

"How?" Gluttony asks, holding a box of scones out to Pride. "The Cardinal is still scuppered."

"I want to know what's going on here," Wrath nods to the anomaly, taking a scone for herself. "And I mean. I don't think any of us are picking up on any radio signals. Which means it's not like we're gonna get bombed from orbit."

"If there's anything I should've squelched I can't find it," Avarice says, flumping back down beside Pride. "And if they've got tech good enough to hide that we deserve to be bombed from orbit."

"Speak for yourself," Lust retorts. "The galaxy would be bereft if I was no longer in it!"

Avarice stares at eir for a moment, trying to formulate a response. He gives up, throws his hands in the air and laughs.

"What can you say to that?" he asks the group at large.

They grin, and seem perfectly happy to stay put here for the forseeable future. They occasionally throw things into the anomaly, mostly just because it gives such pretty results (although no more grenades are thrown).

Most of them take naps at some point, the others keeping any conversation quiet enough to not disturb each other.

Except Wrath. Wrath is, when not talking to someone, staring into the anomaly with almost laser-sharp focus.

The anomaly continues behaving exactly as it has been for ten hours.

Then a tall man with giant grey owl's wings descends from the sky. He lands next to the anomaly, looks at the Sins, and raises his eyebrows. (His feathers trail through the edge of the pillar of fire without seeming to be damaged at all.)

The Sins are responding before he's even landed. Wrath and Avarice roll to their feet, Wrath's shotgun levelled directly at the man's chest, the two of them between the man and the others.

Pride, Lust and Gluttony start to their feet, Pride shaking out one of her whips, Lust and Gluttony drawing their blades.

Envy has snared Wrath's bandoleer and remaining grenades, and is fingering one of them as he watches the man.

Sloth hasn't got to his feet, but he's lifted his rifle, and it's aiming right at the man's head.

None of them say anything.

He looks at the various weaponry with the expression of someone who cannot fathom what they might be hoping to accomplish with it, pauses consideringly, and then does a dismissive little headshake, very much as though he first wondered if he should do something about all those weapons and then decided it couldn't possibly be worth the trouble.

Then he asks them something in the indecipherable local language.

Wrath thumbs the safety catch off her shotgun. "Yeah we can't understand a word you're saying, jackass."

Pride looks like she might want to facepalm, but is a little more focused on the potential threat.

He seems mildly intrigued by the language barrier, and spends another moment thinking about it before he - does something. Curling ribbons of sunlight spread out from his hand, shimmering half-visibly like weak holograms. He extends them toward the Sins.

Wrath steps forward, finger tightening on the trigger but she doesn't shoot yet.

Avarice and the others shift backwards, more on edge and wary.

Sloth's gaze flickers to Wrath, waiting for a cue. (This doesn't seem rapid enough to be an attack.)

The light-ribbons connect, giving each of them a faint glowing aura that lasts for half a second or so before ribbons and auras all fade away.

"As I was saying," he says - and he's still speaking the local language, but now they understand every word as fluently as if it were their own - "what are you all doing having a tea party next to a ten-hour self-dedication? It seemed like a weird way to meet me, but I'm starting to suspect you don't have any idea who I am."

"The view was good," Wrath drawls. "And it was doing interesting things. Where else would you have a tea party? And, well, I don't really follow the ins and outs of who everyone in the galaxy is. Pride?"

"Only when I'm really bored," Pride responds, rotating her wrist to make the whip she's holding twist in lazy circles and figures of eights.

"...I'm the Emperor," he says. "Usually I don't need to specify 'of what', because there's only the one world to be Emperor of, but you are apparently from somewhere else. That's interesting."

"Okay, I know the only person claiming Emperorhood, Wrath," Pride says. "And this guy? Not her. Cuter and maler."

"Which. Does suggest we are from somewhere very else. And begs the question: Emperor of what?!"

"...the world, like I said."

"Yes, because that's such a helpful answer, you imperial-"

"Wrath," Pride snaps. "All things considered. Please actually pretend you have a self-preservation instinct."

She turns to the man. "Can you give us any more information about your world?"

"Probably. What kind of information are you looking for?"

"I dunno, maybe the existence of the fucking level nine thousand grandma on your fucking coast?" Avarice points in the general direction of the coast as he takes half a step forward to put himself back on a level with Wrath.

...he laughs. "I don't know who you're talking about, but I think your problem might be that you don't know what magic is."

"What? Like something out of a fantasy novel?"

"Well, any sufficiently advanced technology and all that crap."

"...I have to admit, I wasn't expecting you to be skeptical that it exists."

Wrath lowers her shotgun slightly, pulling a knife with her other hand. She lifts it to her face and drags it down her cheek, hard enough to cut. She doesn't even blink at her own action.

(Pride makes a discomforted sound.)

The wound doesn't close immediately in the wake of the knife, but by the time Wrath's wiping the blade clean, the only indication the cut had been there is the blood that seeped from it.

"Magic or technology?" she asked. "I know the answer."

"It's not my magic, I know that much, and beyond that what difference does it make to me?"

"He's got you there, Wrath," Avarice trills. "I think Wrath's point is that we haven't encountered magic before. And well. Given what we know about our tech levels, magic does seem pretty ludicrous. A lot of people say-"

"Would say!" Gluttony corrects.

"Yes, thank you. A lot of people would say what we do is magic."

"Pretty sure it is a working theory going by the news outlets," Wrath comments, spinning the knife around her fingers. "But it isn't exactly like what you've got here."

"Yeah, I wouldn't expect it to be. I can tell when something has this world's magic going on with it, and you don't."

"Small mercies," Gluttony mutters. "Although I still don't appreciate someone ruining my hair by being a couple of hundred tons of water at me."

"You did appreciate the eel."

Wrath shifts her stance, rests her shotgun over one shoulder (gun safety? What's that?). "Given you're claiming you're the Emperor of the world, my guess is that you're worse than anything we've encountered so far. So what happens now?"

"I suppose that depends on whether or not you decide to be a nuisance."

Pride speaks up before Wrath can say something that instigates something. "Just so we're all singing off the same song sheets, and all, define 'nuisance'? I'd hate to think we were working off differing definitions."

"Well, that deserted village I flew over on the way here with all the dead people lying around is an example of the sort of thing I'd rather you not do."

Pride makes a low sound, looks sideways at Wrath. "Well," she says slowly. "We...might have a problem then."

"That's unfortunate."

"How dead are we then?" Gluttony asks, her voice almost peculiarly steady. (Her knuckles are nearly white.)

"That depends on whether you're still going to make trouble even now that you know better."

Wrath raises an eyebrow. "Well..."

(Pride kicks her.)

"...We'll certainly try." (That does not seem to be what she actually intended to say.)

"How long are you actually giving us on that?" Avarice asks, squinting suspiciously at Wrath. "Or yourself?"

Wrath shrugs. "Long enough, hopefully."

"...Do you have some kind of time limit on how long you can go without destroying a village? And if so, why?"

"We get...antsy, if we go much more than two weeks without it. And 'why' probably links back to the bastards who...well. You probably can't see the cybernetics, but we didn't do that to ourselves."

Envy wiggles his metallic left hand vaguely in Pride's peripheral vision, and sticks out his also metallic tongue.

"Probably can't see most of the cybernetics."

"...This is starting to sound like the kind of story I might like to hear from the beginning."

The Sins manage to share a look without seeming to move. And they seem to make a decision. The variety of weapons are hidden away, or slid back into holsters and sheathes.

"Cup of tea?" Gluttony offers. "Scone?" She holds up the box.

...he laughs. "Sure, why not," he says, and he steps away from the pillar of fire. A patch of bare ground next to him grows a small sturdy tree in the shape of an elegant and comfortable chair; he's already moving to sit in it as it begins to sprout, and it settles into its final form just in time to catch him. He is entirely casual about this, as though it's a perfectly ordinary way to acquire a chair.

The Sins seem, if not inured to casual magic, at least at the point of not bothering to question it. Avarice carries a cup of tea and the box over to the Emperor, offering both.

Now he has tea and a scone!

"Thanks," he says cheerfully. "Anybody else want a chair?"

"Well, if you're offering," and there's something to the way Pride's moving now, something...refined, more suited to a high society ball than the slaughter in the village. "It would almost be rude to refuse."

"Guess it's a good thing people don't expect me t'be polite," Wrath comments, staying on her feet, but accepting the cup of tea Lust hands her.

Avarice is keeping to Pride's shoulder now, almost protective. Sloth appears to be asleep.

"Seats do sound more comfortable than the ground," Lust agrees. Gluttony and Envy make affirmative noises. "So, I guess that's four yeses, Av and Wrath being awkward and S being asleep, your...Emperorness? What do you even call and Emperor?"

"You can call this one by name," he says cheerfully. "It's Solekaran."

Four more chairs grow out of the ground.

Those wishing chairs take seats, and there's a round of introductions from them! (Although Pride introduces Avarice who's hovering behind her, and Lust introduces Sloth who is still sleeping, and Wrath who is watching Solekaran closely.)

"I think, Wrath, the story starts with you?"

"Of course you do," Wrath rolls her eyes. "I suppose it makes sense. I was the first."

She stares down into her cup of tea for a while. "We've expanded beyond one planet," she says eventually. "But colonisation isn't exactly easy. As your people just proved, local flora and fauna do not in fact like being colonised all that much. So. They figured they needed a way to cull the human population. Without being obvious about it. And then they figured, people kill for very base emotions. For very base Sins. Wrath, Envy, Lust, I'm sure you're seeing a pattern here."

"...I think I'm missing a few links in this chain of logic. If you're trying to settle somewhere and it's difficult, how is killing a bunch of your own people supposed to help?"

"Because Wrath skipped the part where there are already colonies. Functional, mostly safe. Easier to cull populations there than anything else. Sure it's a little creepy moving into a house where a horrific murder happened, but, y'know, better than possibly getting eaten if you join that colonisation effort that's happening. I never really thought the project's motivations made sense. But like. The people in charge were invariably idiots so. They seemed to think it was logical."

"Cull the undesirables," Wrath corrects, and something in her mannerisms seems...off, at odds with her previous almost confrontational behaviour. "Anyone the Imperials and the Royals didn't consider 'appropriate'. Which included anything from criminal tendencies, to monetary value, and believe me, they were more than willing to overlook the criminal activities if you had enough money. And screw how you're getting that money." There's a challenging look in her eyes again, watching Solekaran for his reaction to her words.

"...if you're waiting to see how I respond to something, you might want to tell me what it is I'm supposed to be responding to."

Wrath manages an approximation of a grin. "How do you feel about parents selling their twelve year old's virginity?"

"That's the sort of thing where when I find out someone is doing it I generally go straight to killing them without stopping to chat first."

"On that we're agreed."

"Fuck you, sis, it would've been fine. You put up with their shit."

"Oh, were you the twelve-year-old in question?"

There's a moment of silence, the others looking at Lust and Wrath from the corner of their eyes.

"Yes," Lust confirms, with an almost casual shrug. "Although I hardly see how that is relevant."

"You're the one who brought it up. But anyway, back to this story you're trying to tell. So the idea is that they're trying to settle new and dangerous places, and it's not working so well, and instead of doing any sensible things about this, they decide to go back to the places they've already settled and kill a bunch of people they don't like to make room for people they like better? And you're all meant to help with that somehow?"

Pride's not exactly watching him as she responds, head tilted to keep both Wrath, Lust and Solekaran in her field of vision. "I'm not entirely sure they intended to use us personally. Or at least, not all of us."

(Wrath shifts, and there's an impression she's rolling her eyes, even if she doesn't actually roll her eyes.)

"We were just the first ones who survived their tests. And then proved harder to kill than they might like. But the point was that we would act as a...delivery system. For nanotechnology that would...induce the correct emotions that would then lead to murder."

"Oh, charming. So, what, you ran off and now you're making people murder each other on your own time?"

"I'm pretty sure 'ran off' doesn't quite cover what we did," Gluttony muses. "But then again, if you're going to make mistakes like 'get the kid sibling Wrath has already slaughtered a considerable number of people to protect involved' and 'kidnap a fifteen year old off the streets, reconstruct him badly and let Pri know', you probably deserve to have your spines ripped out."

"And Pri did mention that we get antsy if we go too long not killing people earlier. Besides which. Seemed like a pretty good 'fuck you' to them when we realised that managing to get people to move back into those colonies was a lot harder than they thought it would be."

"Yeah, the getting antsy if you go too long without killing people sounds like it might be a problem."

Wrath looks down, lips pursed. "Two weeks is time," she says carefully. "And we've pushed it longer before..."

Pride looks over at Wrath. "Time to what, exactly? And last time we pushed it further you nearly blew yourself up."

"I have to say," says the Emperor, "it sounds really inconvenient to be you."

"Was fine till we ended up here," Envy mutters petulantly into his tea cup.

"And two weeks is time to fix the Cardinal and figure out a way back," Wrath points out.

"And if it takes longer than that?"

"Guess I get to try blowing myself up again."

That pronouncement is met by dead silence and stares from the rest of her group

"...do you like having to go on a murder spree every two weeks? I mean, is this actually something you'd want to keep if you had the option?"

Lust looks back to Solekaran, while Pride continues to watch Wrath with a narrow-eyed gaze.

"It might not be convenient," e says, "but it's sure as hell stress-relieving. And it's not like we actually have any other option that we've found. Besides which, people are dicks. The galaxy could use less of them."

"What if you did have another option, though?"

They're all silent again. Most of them look...thoughtful, confused by that question. It's pretty clear they've just...never thought about it before.

Wrath's shifted so that she's more sat on the vehicle she was leaning against, one leg stretched along it, the other knee up by her chest. She doesn't actually seem to be considering the question, more focused on fiddling with the shotgun in her lap.

"It would...certainly be more convenient to not have to," Gluttony says eventually, rubbing her hands together. Pride, Lust and Envy appear to be in agreement with that. Avarice doesn't really look concerned one way or the other.

"Better for sleep," Sloth mumbles, somewhat blurred by the fact that he doesn't appear to be entirely awake.

"For that matter," he says, looking at Gluttony, "I expect you probably don't prefer to be constantly dying. And," glancing at Sloth, "whatever's going on with you doesn't look like much fun either."

"'Constantly dying' feels a bit like an exaggeration," Gluttony retorts coolly. "Pri's done a damn good job keeping me alive and more to the point functional."

"But it was always just a patch. I've just never figured out how to actually get rid of that tumour and stop this war your body's got going on to stop it killing you. Or how to actually help S here."

Sloth does appear to have gone back to sleep.

"You never intended to be a brain surgeon, love," Avarice murmurs. "And Gee had some of the best brain surgeons in the galaxy consult and they couldn't solve it."

Pride gives him a flat look that seems to say 'Well I should've been better'.

"I, however, have magic," Solekaran reminds them, "and can fix that kind of thing pretty trivially. Will it fuck anything up if you stop constantly dying? At this point I wouldn't be surprised..."

That gets him a startled blink from Gluttony, and Wrath straightening, the shotgun now nearly aimed at him again.

"I...don't- Pri?"

Pride is silent for a moment, fingers tapping on her thigh. "I'd probably need to disable some of the patches I put in place so that your system doesn't try to over-correct, and make sure the nanites don't just...attack your brain. But, taking that into account, I can't imagine removing the root cause would fuck anything up."

Wrath's back on her feet, restless, a quiet growl emanating from her. "You seriously considering this?"

"What, you don't want Gee healthy?"

"Not what I was saying, L."

"...I'm not going to fuck around with you here," says Solekaran. "If I wanted you to stop being my problem and didn't feel like being nice about it, I'd just kill you all."

"But you're going to want something. No-one does anything for nothing."

Avarice and Envy are both nodding slowly, agreement clear. The others seem less convinced on that.

"...I'm the next thing to all-powerful. I can already have anything I want. When I do something it's because I feel like doing it. I suppose it'd be nice if you'd refrain from trying to kill any more of my citizens, but I can stop you even if you do, I don't need to take it in trade."

It's not necessarily that Wrath looks disbelieving (although she does), she just doesn't seem to be capable of comprehending that anyone can act that way, even if they have explicitly stated and good reasons for it.

(There's a sound of splintering wood as the stock of her shotgun cracks under her white-knuckled grip.)

Lust actually laughs. (Although there's an almost forced note to it.) "Oh, shut your mouth, sis," ey says, "you'll catch flies. Just believe that the nice Emperor for some strange reason feels like fixing our problems. Or at least Gee's." Ey takes Gluttony's hand, and squeezes it.

"You're breaking your whatever the fuck that is," he observes cheerfully, and then turns his attention back to Gluttony. "So, d'you want the fix?"

"Well. We...don't know that any of this won't just...give out. Our tech or Pri's patches..."

Gluttony looks eager, but... she looks back to Wrath, obviously not sure.

Who is still growling, but stops when she sees the look. "Oh for fuck's sake, Gee. I don't want you dead. You should know that. It's your choice." (Somehow, wrapped up in her words, there's an implication of 'and I'll take any consequences or debts that are applied'.)

"I don't want to have to worry about this any more," she says firmly. "If you're saying you can fix it. Then yes. Please."

He tilts his head and studies her thoughtfully for a moment; then he flicks his fingers and says, "There you go," and by the time he finishes saying it, she is in perfect health.

"...That easy?"

Pride's still, eyes mildly distant. "...Brain activity stabilised. Nanite activity desisting. What the fuck? That would be- you could make billions with that kind of-" She doesn't seem to be entirely aware she's speaking out loud.

"Magic!" he says, cheerfully. "That was the easy one, though, I'll have to put a little more thought into it to fix whatever he's got," with a gesture at Sloth.

"Things being that easy seems...dangerous," Avarice comments, although he's grinning in delight.

"I want a scan to be sure, Gee. But. All evidence says it's gone."

She considers Sloth, and then Solekaran. "There was some sort of exhaustion syndrome going on. I have no idea which one, because he never got officially diagnosed with it. I- don't know if that's any help to you?"

"Mm, some. It'd be pretty easy to just - wake him up, give him a day or so's worth of functioning like a normal person; the tricky part is fixing it so the exhaustion goes away and doesn't come back."

Which is about the time that Gluttony manage to move passed 'stunned immobility' into 'utter delight'. She half launches herself at Solekaran to hug him, never mind the potential risks of startling him. "Thank you," she states fervently.

Wrath's taking half a step forward, shotgun starting to come up but then Gluttony is in the way, and Wrath looks like her heart has stopped. (Although Pride isn't seeming concerned, so it's probably nothing to worry about.)

...after a momentary startled pause, he giggles and hugs back. "You're welcome!"

"Hey," Lust complains good-naturedly. "M'gonna get jealous if you keep hugging other people and I don't get in on the action."

Wrath makes a half-choked sound.

(Solekaran is delighted by his hug. He is actually caught a little off-guard by how delighted he is.)

(Gluttony has apparently decided that he needs this hug for more than just the purpose of her expressing gratitude. And she hugs like she has a lot of experience with hugs, warm and almost comforting.)

"Ooh, keep this up and we might give Wrath a heart attack," Avarice grins. (But there's concern hidden there.)

"As much as I'd love to see her realise she is in fact mortal, I don't want to deal with the effect it'll have on me."

Wrath growls low in her throat. "I hate you all," her voice holds very little heat.

Awwwwwww.

"You're very huggable," he says to Gluttony, ignoring the peanut gallery.

"She issss," Lust agrees happily.

"I've had a lot of practice with that one," Gluttony says, jerking her head slightly towards Lust. "And I like hugs. So being huggable is a good state of affairs I think."

"Hugs are pretty great," he agrees, letting go. "Anyway, where was I—right, helping your sleepy friend."

Gluttony returns to her seat, and promptly has to rearrange to accommodate for the fact that Lust has decided ey wants to be curled up in her lap. She doesn't actually seem too bothered by this, and nuzzles Lust's neck briefly.

Wrath sighs. "Would it help if he was actually awake?" she asks. (She still seems suspicious, but apparently having her people hale, whole and healthy means more to her than her suspicions.)

"Might, yeah."

"Okay then," Wrath says, rummaging around on the transport beside her.

"Wrath, what are you-"

She pulls a flask from the transport, opens it, and dumps it over Sloth's head. "Wake-up call," she states.

Sloth splutters awake. "Wrath, you bitch," he manages, sounding perhaps surprisingly alert.

Despite that, he stills seems somehow exhausted, like there isn't enough time to get the amount of sleep he needs.

"Why am I awake?" he asks a little plaintively. (Wrath hands him a scone.)

"Hmm," says the Emperor, giving him a thoughtful look.

Although he doesn't do anything overtly visible, after a few seconds Sloth's exhaustion starts to lift, leaving him reasonably well-rested.

"Not a permanent fix, but it's a start," he says, sounding a little distracted as he continues to examine the problem.

Sloth blinks, tries to figure out what just-

Blinks again.

"...uh. I feel like I missed part of this conversation?"

"The all-powerful Emperor decided he wanted to help us," Gluttony summarises. "I think you'd fallen asleep at the point he noted we had Issues."

"...It would be nice to be able to be awake for longer than it takes to eat a scone..."

"He's already fixed Gee's brain!"

"There's probably some clever way to fix this that I'm never gonna figure out because I don't know enough about how this stuff really works, but luckily I can cheat," he says.

That gets a grin out of Wrath of all people. "Cheating is generally useful for fixing things," she notes.

Envy sticks his metallic tongue out at her again. "Punching the engines doesn't count."

Her grin widens. "It works don't it?"

"As the person this is about, can I ask how you intend to cheat?"

"Magic. Specifically I'm thinking of giving you a version of the same thing that makes me only need to sleep four hours or so a night."

"...I mean, I don't actually mind sleep, I just mind sleeping for...like, twenty hours a day."

"Damn, I'd love not having to sleep."

"You'd love not having to do anything most normal humans have to."

"My thinking is that if right now you sleep twenty hours a day, cutting that in half will take you down to ten, which seems like a more reasonable number. Although since I don't know exactly how your problem works I don't know exactly where you'll end up; anywhere between four and twelveish is possible."

"-okay, that I'll take. That is definitely an improvement!"

"And would implementing this fix be as quick as what you did for Gee?"

"A little slower, but not by much. A few minutes instead of a few moments."

"I'm starting to feel a little obsolete."

"We're always gonna need you, Pri." Looks back to Solekaran. "When are we doing this?"

He shrugs. "Now, if you like."

"Sooner the better right? No point waiting if you can do it now?"