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Her name. At last, someone knew her name. Madison realized she was trembling, and took a deep breath, getting a grip on herself, her hands tightening around Kouki's hilts as the flames froze in mid-air.

And then she appeared, and Madison's gaze narrowed. "Memories... so that's why. You can't change the past. You can't re-write a memory," she said, and some tension inside of her released. Monster attacks were standard fare by now, but there was a subtle yet deep horror in being effectively unseen, unacknowledged. "What happened to them?"

Before the Huntress could die in front of her (if, indeed, that was to be the outcome), the scene melted away into something else. Favorite part? What could that possibly mean...

Oh, how she wished she knew what 'she' was saying, at this moment, or what the person who had originally perceived this moment had said. The sudden reaction, as if she'd punched him without even moving, actually startled a laugh out of her - the whole thing was absurd, too absurd, even though it wasn't really funny per se-

When that faded out, she let out a long, slow breath and stared at the offered hand as if she'd never seen a hand before. "I'm not a hero," she murmured. "Just... someone doing what she can with the hand she was dealt..."

But the woman had known her name. Slowly, Madison reached out and folded her hand into those tanned fingers.

"What kind of story?"

Madison closed her eyes in response to the soft kiss - it felt reassuring. Finally she was seen, named, touched. She wasn't trapped in someone else's horribly ******** memory any more.

"My most important..." Her voice trailed off, and she sighed. "That's hard to pick on the spot, y'know? But, um... I guess maybe... at the end of the candidate trials. Not that I knew what it was, then. There was the... the lounge, and the door." She still had no idea where they'd actually been, if they'd been physically present on the island or in some kind of mass pod-induced dream, if that was even possible. "We, my squad - Phoenix Squad, we fought together, and mostly died together, but it wasn't until then that we really became..."

And the words died on her lips. What were they, now? Family, as she'd told Robert? If they were, it was a scattered family. Maybe any other kind was impossible, given their duties and the stresses involved. Friends? Both too much and not enough. It stung, abruptly. But the figure had said important, not best. She closed her eyes tightly.

"We sang. Danced. Held hands all the way in. Jerry was so happy, so... so bright, so... so unbroken. Ennea, too. And there was Zeta Four, I don't think... he woke up, ever, and... everyone else I knew, but when they woke up I didn't know them anymore. But I think we were all more alive right then than we've ever been since..."

The woman was gone. Something else was gone, too - she remembered someone else's memories, the woman's cool touch, the brush of her lips against Madison's own forehead. She remembered being asked for a memory... but when she reached for that memory, she found a weighty, thick nothingness.

She swayed on her feet and took a deep breath as the room swam into focus around her. A completely normal room, with nothing destroyed, nothing damaged. Population: Caelius. Great.

"I - uh, sir. With all due respect, sir... what the ******** just happened?"

Ah, life under Caelius. But his question was an odd one. "Er... an overload of FEAR?" It was half a guess, honestly; she'd mostly heard the term in the context of Horsemen and their little Halloween minions. Something to do with how they collected. She'd seen the undead wolf-thing's crystal herself, back in Alaska...

Madison gritted her teeth. "Sir," she said, as evenly as she possibly could. Circumstances had changed, dramatically, but bringing that up now wasn't going to earn her any favors. "You don't have to worry - after all, I was one of the only people to follow through on the weapon candidate acquisition request. And that candidate was successfully converted and is now bonded successfully to an active Hunter trainee."

She lifted her chin. "And I actually want to be here. I might not ever be able to make you proud, but at the very least, I'll show you I'm not useless. This is my division too. Sir."

Her salute was as perfect as she could make it.

Madison staggered under the sudden blow; she felt Kouki hissing in fury, but even as she tasted the tang of her own blood she poured all her effort into not summoning her weapon as the serpent-snake demanded. It worked, though if the wall hadn't been there she would have fallen.

"Understood. Sir." She was here because she'd chosen this. And sometimes - like right now - she regretted it. But not always. Not always. She clung to that like a lifeline as she moved towards the door.