three times freed







+ invite (PM for one!)

For the first time in recent to semi-recent history, Malcoma didn't give a womp rat's arse about her appearance.
She was still in her vigilante bodysuit, just as she had been on Denon, having made no attempt to hide what had happened on Denon. The suit itself was rather unsightly ripped and bloodstained. So was her face marred by a few dark bruises, shallow scrapes, smeared makeup, and a certain dissociative gaze entirely uncharacteristic. It seemed inappropriate to brush her hair and juxtapose her otherwise haggard countenance.
Just as one never mixed their metals.
Pick one and commit to it.
In this case, she'd lean into the damsel in distress narrative. She didn't even have to act either; right now she was that.
Malcoma waved off Phaelix's concerned eyebrow quirk as she hurried past his bar counter to the ladies' room. For once, she didn't push open the door to powder her nose or see about a power coupling, but to dry heave in the sink.
Again.
She looked up into the bathroom mirror.
Once more.
At the end of ten minutes, Malcoma had pulled herself together reasonably well. She sauntered out of the washroom to the Sanctum elevator. The two Family goons guarding the elevator shaft alternated for a few long seconds between watching on and glancing at each other, surprised to see an associate well-known for her good looks looking instead like chit. One finally moved to approach her. "Hesse--" he began, body sliding to block her progress onwards.
She bat at him, nail implants unextended but drawing blood nonetheless. "Get out of my way!" she exclaimed.
He did clutching his superficial wound.
The other goon offered her neither resistance nor assistance. Soon, the crisp ding announcing a descended elevator interrupted the Family's ongoing meeting and Malcoma stepped out onto the floor. She was fashionably late, yes, but she was also visibly fethed up. Hopefully the latter excused the former. "Denon is a den of inequity," Malcoma called over the gathered crowd, and over whoever, if anyone, had been speaking.
As the crowd parted and murmurs rippled out through the room from the apex of disturbance that was the battered woman, Damris glanced over the back of Malcoma's empty assigned seat to Sonti, one of the Eves. The young Kiffar woman didn't look back, her gaze instead transfixed on her employer. Her hand came up to cover her mouth, keep in a gasp. A moment passed before Sonti ran across the way.
Malcoma accepted her into a single-armed hug. "We have friends there." Darkwire, that was. "That was why I assumed it a safe place to do some business abroad." She leveled her gaze at Ivory, finding her easily among the conference-goers. "An oversight, evidently, Donna."
"...Are you okay?" Sonti whispered over Malcoma's shoulder.
"I'm fine," she replied, volume dropping and tone softening, but only momentarily. Her hand tightened protectively, instinctively around her girl's back. It wasn't a side that anyone outside of Eden's walls had seen until now: caring, really and truly, rather than capitalistic and callous. "But I can't say the same for Jysya Irard."
