The Blue Dragon Gains Another Scale [ Recommended Listening: https://youtu.be/LXoSdiY5ZMQ ]
A layer of red paints a large street in District 16 as the Blue Dragon Office sits behind battlements set up by the Li Association, though their makers have long since fled the doomed battle. Many clad in blue suits with golden dragon embroidery lie dead or dying against the coming tide of genetically enhanced super soldiers that Q-Corp was eager to test on the uppity office that dared to deny them the return of their property: a misplaced clone that had given itself the name of John Hancock.

The man himself sat slumped over, firing his weapon blindly over the last stand of the office that he had been working in. Alma was a wreck, silently staring over the mounting bodies of her subordinates in stunned horror. A smaller girl grabbed Alma's wrist, insisting she release her lock and slaughter every last Q-Corp soldier in the street with her.

"No... Hana... they'll know it was you..." Alma says slowly as she grips her battered and overly large sword.

=========================================================

Alma wakes up in her apartment in a cold sweat. It wasn't fancy except for its close proximity to a WARP platform and a bar of "Canned Experiences" she never felt good about using. Her nightmares were never the fun kind she used to have, where it was just the corpses of starved backstreet rats. At least not anymore. Ever since she accepted her Color, and found enough support from the Zwei, Liu, and Seven to convince Hana that she wasn't going to be the next Blue Reverberation, her distortions were controlled, and her dues to the Head were paid in full, these flashbacks to the recent past came.

She walked over to her bathroom and cleaned herself up, giving her long black hair a light brushing. Her scarred face stared back at her, a reminder of the past and her home district. Her eyes looked tired, her skin paler than usual, and her skin dry. She brushed her teeth and ignored the beauty problems of the day as she put her billed hat over her head and angled it down, dressing in a regal protective suit that made her look like an old-time general or, well... ringmaster from a circus who only wore black and blue.

Next was her night bag for the likely late night she'll pull at the office, not that she particularly disliked being around her charges. If anything, she only came back here since she made a promise to herself not to sleep in her office anymore.

Lastly, comes her trusted blade: The Restored Dragon's Tongue, her mentor's old blade that was so gummed up with viscera that the hundreds of tiny rotors that allowed it to "reverberate" visually brought it to functionality once again, with the whole thing shortened for more convenient use. Without a steady hand, it's no better than a large ornamental kitchen knife, but if one slashes without flinching, its strikes find purchase in even the most well-defended target.

Alma walked to the WARP station and got in the first-class car after flashing her identification to the attendant, as if her armor wasn't a dead giveaway as to who she was. She took her seat in the lonely first-class cars.

==========================================================

Morrana rarely slept. Her body didn't need it these days, and the pain of "starvation" was something that was now a memory of a worse time. She was unique amongst the distortions cared for by the Blue Dragon office in that she could act freely, whereas the others had to be contained with locks and comfortable cages.

She helped the human members of the office with morning tasks: feeding the more animalistic distortions, making sure the duty roster for the next week was posted, and giving a light dusting to Alma's office. The room was wood paneled, the walls decorated with certifications, and special permissions from the Hana Association that the office had earned from its long battle to operate in the open and to be separated from the syndicates that do exactly what Alma does without altruism.

Alma entered her office and smiled upon seeing Moranna: "Good morning."
"Morning!  What's the plan for today?" The distortion asked excitedly.
"I actually wanted you to come along and help recruit someone." Alma says as she sits down and looks through her mail.
Moranna tilted her head. "Who?"

"One of your sisters, actually: Fun."

Moranna got excited as she jumped up and down, her silver saber clattering a bit in its scabbard: "She's ready to say yes! I can't wait to have her around more!"

Alma smiled as she readied a contract she had altered to better fit a more subdued distortion's needs: no locks, full freedom to leave, a promise of physical, medical, and legal support to the office's extent, and a salary. She never found distortions that could manage themselves in a way that she saw as better than even herself, let alone other humans. The Blue Ringmaster had known Fun for a while, as she was a frequent visitor to the aftermaths of the Blue Dragon Offices work: they were specialists in dealing with distortions and often called to incapacitate and relocate everything from troubling nestbound Urban Legends to Stars of the City that made warzones wherever they went.

Moranna ran off to her room to look nice for the occasion, her human looks making her the "image girl" of the office given the ever-increasing amount of scars Alma seemed to earn. She put on a darkly colored dress that draped around her body loosely and bore a paisley pattern, her wild red hair cascading and spiking down her back. She put a cute navy blue bolero jacket with gold dragon embroidery on it over the dress, the pattern worn by members of the office to identify themselves as friendlies to many of the distortions who required a simple way to distinguish friend from foe.

She heard her door open and brought her hand to her practice swords for a moment before letting out a sigh of relief at the sight of Alma. "You look lovely," she said with a motherly tone.

"But I wanted to teach you something before we went out today."

"A new technique? A new weapon?"

"It's a technique in a way..." Alma said as she unzipped a bag full of makeup. "Come on, I'll show you how to put it on." the color fixer said in a casual tone.

The distortion seemed skeptical of the changes that putting colored pigments on her face would have in a fight as Alma dolled her up. Her cheeks looked rosier, her eyes larger, her eyelashes longer, and her lips slightly larger.

"I see now... This is camoflauge." Moranan says as she looks at herself in the bathroom mirror, causing Alma to chuckle a bit.

"It's meant to make you prettier; think of it like... a social fight. You want to be wearing armor, right?"

Moranna nods.

"And in that fight, you have more weapons than just words: your face, where you're looking, your body language, the environment you're talking in... all of it affects the outcome of that battle."

"Oh! Like sitting with your legs crossed! It's parrying away the prying eyes when you're wearing a skirt!" Moranna says, remembering a previous lesson on ettiquite.

"Exactly.  And once their guard is opened by your beauty and refinement, you strike directly."

The two beings look gratefully at each other, with the woman seeming glad to have something to care for and the distortion seeming glad to have someone care for her.

============================================================

Funeral Rites (AKA Fun) sat surrounded by crying schoolchildren in District 5. Around her was the burned and collapsing husk of an apartment building. Some local Grade 9 fixers had the grim job of carrying the charred bodies out as their compatriots oversaw tracking the perpetrator down. As best as the black-clad distortion could tell, a weird-looking stranger shed his skin and started burning anything in sight: people, fixers, property. It all went up in flames. He had others loyal to him come and block the doors to prevent people from running.

The bodies stretched out like a row of horrific, ashy sculptures as they showed signs of their last actions: a woman cradling a similarly dead infant, a man with outstretched arms and an open mouth yelling for help, and people left face down choking on smoke. While the newbies who carry the bodies out of the burnt-out building still quake a bit at the sight of all this death, even the Grade 8's hide their reactions as they coldly interrogate survivors or passersby. They were working a case and leaned into the wanted mindset to avoid the crippling empathy that the passing children hadn't evaporated yet.

Fun wasn't even sure if these were their parents or just children who saw something horrific and needed a stable shoulder to cry on.

A large truck traveled down the road, an APC decorated with golden dragon engravings on navy blue steel. It parked on the side of the road, and a well-dressed girl and the unmistakable Blue Ringmaster stepped out and approached the incognito distortion.

Alma offered the children a small consolation in the form of some money to buy candy in a store across the street. Fun assured them she wasn't leaving as they ran off with eyes out of tears to shed.

"...I was hoping we'd find you in a more calm situation, but... you have a code to obey." Alma says to the distortion in a mourner's gown.

"Someone must ensure the dead receive proper treatment... and that the rats don't simply scurry off with the bodies." Fun replies.

"Do you know how this was caused? I can talk to Seven if not."

"No, this was the work of Xibalba, I am sure." Fun says with an edge of sorrow in her voice.

"The fire cultist guy?  But why kill a bunch of normal people like this?" Moranna asks.

"...I don't know why..." Fun says as she looks over the charred corpses, gently closing their eyes if they were still present.

"He's always a step ahead of us... always in a separate district, as if he has eyes and places to lay low everywhere." Alma says as she takes a colder eye to the scene. "But Moranna's right... even if the reason is something I can't understand." Alma says.

The two distortions tilt their heads at the color fixer.

"Fear: He wants to go as high up the Hana Association's bounty board as he can and scare off the small fries who want to keep living.  At least, that's what I can gather from... all of this."

Fun nods as more bodies come out, the fixers saying the buildings emptied out. She offers them money in exchange for starting on digging graves while she finds pieces of wood to turn into grave markers.

Alma nods to Moranna, and the finely dressed girl hands Fun a contract and a fountain pen. "Alma drafted it; it's like mine."

Fun took a moment to skim it over: "I... why do you want me? You're aware our ways of working may clash, correct?"

"We know... but Moranna's cravings have passed, and frankly, we already see each other around the same sites. Besides, we only help the distortions that are a threat to themselves and others pass out of this life in peace." Alma says with a serious expression.

"And... I'd like to have you around more, Funny." Moranna says as she tugs on her jacket.

Fun takes a moment to consider, but signs: "Will... I need to be present for any screenings?"

"I just want you to come by our office, register you in our system, and let you choose a room to keep your things in." Alma says, looking at the many bodies that need tending. "I'll send some of my caretakers to help with this."

Fun nods as she lashes grave markers together with wood and twine, Moranna staying to help as Alma called some of her human fixers to assist in the gloomy but simple work of burying bodies respectfully.

========================================================

Alma's walk through District 1 and the Hana Association building that resided there was a nervous one as she shook the dust from her shoes and coat. She approached the gleaming building with Funeral Rite's employment/naturalization papers in hand. The attendant at the desk gave a sigh and directed her up a few floors to someone of a higher rank.

The white-suited fixer scanned the papers, looking for any mistake that could be seen as fraudulence, but finding none. He got to work removing Funeral Rites bounty profile, as she was no longer a distortion but a "Non-Human Ally" with the job description of being a Blue Dragon Fixer.

"Figures you would chase disaster zones..." he says toward Alma.

"Tends to be where people in need are." the woman says back, not intent on letting the fixer sass her without a bite back.

"You'll just make more the way you've been going along. How long do you really think those monsters are going to play along with your script?"

"They're not playing along, and the only script is one that helps them in the long run. Just because you lose an accolade to put on your resume doesn't mean you have to make it my problem." Alma says as she watches the paperwork get scanned in and verified by the computer system. She stands up and stares down the white-suited fixer.

"And if you want to make a problem for yourself, then we'll see how long your own association has your back compared to how long my 'monsters' will have mine."

Alma leaves as the man holds a cold face, going back down to the main lobby. A large screen displayed the top bounties that Hana was seeking information on: Xibalba and his cult had risen 2 spots to #9, with a bounty large enough to buy a prosthetic body with. The Blue Ringmaster bit her lip and tilted the bill of her hat down, her goal set.

The Skinless God of Cleansing Fire would either be swayed into accepting rehabilitation or be slain before he could sully distortion kind any longer.