[Worm]

Tennan was great at masking her raging fire within. Whether it was because of her lack of external eyes, or the fact that she always had a cold smile on her lips, no matter the occasion, she was hard to read. Right now, she could hear the humming and buzzing of her learned hatred of men hissing at her ears. Though the boys were young, they reminded her of the reckless youth she'd known at home. But, it was Marco that brought back the screeching metal of tinnitus. She held her cold smile, arms still crossed as she looked beyond the boys and their taunts. "Well, I'd say the mark turned out quite lovely." She let out a soft and brief chuckle. Though she couldn't see the mark clearly,
it was the images that the boys rendered in their own consciousness that mapped it into her software. "And my record is far from clean." She smiled slightly broader, just enough to allow a small amount of teeth to show.

As A'vi mentioned ale, Tennan's arms unhatched. She nodded to her request, keeping her focus on Marco. "Yes'm. We'll make sure he loosens up tonight." Her smile was now out of sinister happiness. Tennan wanted to know how well this sharpshooter could hold his liquor. "Do you kids know any drinking games, or am I going to have to make a funnel?" She hovered closer towards the group, excited to get this party on the road.


---

Shenxin was tired of the belittlement, the lecture. He knew all too well that he was a mistake. After all, Yingya did not have emotion or compassion for their conquest victims. They did not have those emotions in general. If a creature was to be slain, it was purely because they were not fit enough to survive. After minutes of being spat at and shoved into the cold metal of the Quzhujian, he displaced himself. Somewhere far away from this moment.

"You will find the ship that escaped us." Master Huan kept his foot firmly placed on Shenxin's head. He accepted this treatment because he knew it was temporary. "This is your mistake. You clean up after yourself, you dung beetle." And his metal clawed foot released from Shenxin's face. He kept his head down until the sound of Master Huan's footsteps dissipated. Shenxin snapped his jaw back into place and made his way to the pods, wiping this memory from his mind. He had a mission now. A chance to prove himself.

---

"Ilani. Mostly." She kicked her legs back onto the dashboard. "You like gambling? Or partying? It might help cheer y'up a bit." She giggled, letting her crossed feet swing back and forth with the gentle beat of streaming music. "Did you have that stuff on Guangda?" Her eyebrows furrowed, seriously concerned about the level of sheltered living her new passenger might have experienced. Ilani was a party girl who couldn't bare to be restrained by anyone's shortcomings. Either this Qi girl was going to get fucked up beyond repair, or... She was going to get fucked up beyond repair. This could be an incredibly good experience for her, or a not so good one, let's just put it that way. Ilani leaned forward and popped in the coordinates for Ariacan, the gambling planet. Her little yellow ship zipped through the ripples of time and space, giving them just a few hours to reach its destination.