Welcome to Gaia! ::

The running of the 'operation' was rotted from the top down. Access was a free-for-all, the facilities were not designed for optimal control, most of the reports weren't being filed, and there was no immediate and on-call assistance to research. Was there even surveillance set up to review and cross examine ever gesture and flinch? Every fevered ramble? No.

It was ineffective. Inefficient.

Schörl tried to quell most of her annoyance by finding uses for the time and experience- for herself and Quartz. For any that fell under her purview of guidance. Failures on the part of an officer of equal rank, were unacceptable. Especially ones with actions highly suspicious that had not been run by the SpecOps. Seeing the girl there, nervous and throat flashing, confirmed enough to avoid some parts of conversation. You have something to fear from me. Here, I am a general of the SpecOps. So. What is it you fear I will learn.

"Persephone, " it lilted off Schörl's lips as she entered. Barbary's eyes glinted on her shoulder. "Do you spend much leisure in reading? "

"So young. Pretty." Schörl halted in perfect parallel with the eternal. She was a razor in comparison, shoulders squared without searching for inward strength. "I pay attention to probability- you seem the type to like fantasy more than say...the developmental history of capital punishment."

"I think you can tell me why. " The general's smile fell away to a dark stern. "It is why you are afraid. The same reason you answered at all. "

"Any eternal isn't really of rank with any General, are they. Not with the SpecOps. We were supposed to watch the flock. So many failing that though..." Schörl lifted her hand to show a set of small energy balls. Then playfully started to juggle them. "There's been no arrangements for you in formal, accurate ally-enemy play. But you're going around comforting and undoing dehumanization of the subjects."

She dropped a ball.

"You ordered a SpecOps officer away from monitoring, away from keeping you accountable."

She dropped another. Barbary slipped from shoulder to chase the glowing spheres. One, two snaps of jaws and they were gone. Schörl held the last out to the eternal, "Tell me. Why are you afraid, Persephone. "

"You like the easy way out too often, luv. Don't lie to yourself. I have acted with rational choice always to bear. Rational and effective. "

"No. No, I do not want you out of my way. That doesn't grow your capacity as a soldier. That doesn't benefit Metallia. Our queen has use of you in this project- your magic. So monstrous is effort on the flesh? Then save them it, Persephone. Your magic can move things along without the need to cripple muscle. "

"Do not label me a monster if you do not even make an effort. They are a danger to our queen, to the stewarding of the Earth, to themselves. Time is short. Help them give us the answers we need." Unless you no longer believe as you did, all the benefit of our so called strength and organization. Do you believe Metallia is wrong, Persephone?

"Earn better, then." Schörl didn't giggle. Her expression didn't alter from its vague pleasantry with sharp focus taking in the set of hand and wrist, the exact tone of giggling. it is a laughing matter to be an appropriately deployed weapon?

"The only common factor in all your dysfunctional missions is yourself. You are still wrapping up in lies. There is nothing unreasonable in seeing a source of pain exquisite for use that will not risk further infection or bloodloss of the captives. Who then has the mercy here, luv, in risking lives? "

"Spare the rod, spoil the child. Resistance must be broken, answer Apatite's need, then they can to be set free again even as you are. They could even stand by your side, all your friends. "

That is what they are to you, isn't it child. So inconceivable, using an magic against them where you didn't hesitate in using it for them.

How much you reveal already, just asking if you can beg off. Begging of bringing how many potential titles under Metallia's sway? Of how many new allies? Does it disgust you, girl, hiding behind your hand? Using limb as a screen, a physical barrier between the disease and yourself? Are you going to breath my poisonous vapors? Quaint. The General stepped deliberately closer and into the usually reserved 'personal space' of handshake distance. She leaned and whispered against the tiny, pale shell of an ear, "Timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that word gives the ultimate choice, doesn't it."

Schörl straightened, if nothing else enjoying the vantage height offered on scenic views of Negaverse tracts, "I can't help but wonder what rational reasons, rather than emotional ones, you could tender to a superior as to why you would withhold your tender mercies and helping it to go smoothly."

" Tonight, if you see fit to agree. Say the first hour? Yes, that would do well. "

" I would be impressed if your magic was enough of a coercion for that. That's where your fantasy stories aren't helping you in any of this, pet. Regular application from here out does have a good chance of speeding up the process and making it less necessary to hurt them all much more in the physical sense. In a perfect system, it wouldn't have been necessary for anyone to touch them physically at all. Even Apatite is young. I don't expect she's done research in this field either." Its possible. Improbable. One week of hardship only and you expect one spell is going to get them to open up? For regular civilians, maybe. No, girl, no, it is general a couple weeks, or two months for actual systematic application of behavioral conditioning and hardship to break someone down to ground level. And there's none of that discipline in the ranks of the SpecOps, let alone all the other branches here, bollocksing up the works.

Even Apatite....there's something missing there. Someone. It felt like what the idea of an itch was, when reading the word on a page and processing it. It was foreign, that there was a space on the shelf of memory for a book that just wasn't there. "For all that, hurrying things along so that they can be done more right is better than current. You can help them, Persephone, with your magic. You can save them. There's good bodies and blood here, your friends. I don't want them ruined any more than you do."

"You can take energy balls to recharge your magic. It will be good practice, since you haven't exactly stretched your limits. As much as you can manage from cell to cell. They must not be allowed to see each other in body. " A mistake on the part of whatever jackass ordered Ganymede brought to Valhalla's cell. It confirms too much, and undermines the ally-stance of the handler. Not, I expect, that there was an attempted handler in that room.

"Very trying, having someone treat you to the rank you are and pretend to. It has been ...let me guess. You know, checking with the Infos Division, sometimes their documentation is a little spotty...Winter of 2013? You've been part of our military for a year already. Imagine someone asking you to use your skills as a senshi. Very, very trying. Someone expecting better of you. Or maybe expecting at all. "

"And such dramatics, " the General leered. " Did I say anything about 'killing' you? You can't want to be a leader, to have respect, and then want people to treat you like a child, Persephone. You can't ask me to cradle your naivete. You want to help these poor souls, then help them. Help them see what you saw faster, and then when they have given over the information Apatite wants, you can cradle them and help them stand anew in black stronger than they ever were before. "

As you should have been, woman-child. I don't trust you. I don't trust your resolve if you're begging naivete after a year, but sending officers away. You're hiding too much.