It was a parade, it was a firework show, it was a musical operatic with the largest number of voices Omega had ever heard.

There were stories of old empires where entire nations had sung in spirit single prayers to call on divine creatures.

There were stories of people calling on Terra herself to rescue them in times of strife.

Most of those she was almost entirely sure were fictional.

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Nevermind that most of those voices in their full audible timbre and character were being conveyed directly to her brain via Pylo. With an added choir character carrying over the melody and spiritual nuances that would normally be present in a Human performance via Quarti.

She could tell, she could practically hear the voices flowing over her in a flooding wave of sound that if she had actually heard it she was sure would have deafened her.

Voices surrounded them.

Among the streamers and strange glyphs of bright colored fabrics.

Circling closer and closer around them in spiraling dances like water going down a drain.

But big as the sky, and made of a eye searing expanse of color.

Strobing in time with the music in its own prismatic intricate whorls and sparks of color.

Searing bright lines spinning, splitting, then bursting with secondary flashes of lightning hued throughout in every color.

Accentuating and emphasising the streamers. Casting them into black shadow in contrast.

There were times when the bubble blacked out suddenly around blinding white coronas of light.

Only fading back to transparency several seconds later.

All of this had happened as they exited and she was going to run out of notebook at this rate.

And then the trial started.

It was the only way she could describe it, the words flowed rapidly and in rhythms that barely left her time to catch what each meant.

But the welcoming party berated, challenged, insulted, insinuated so many things on the low character of Pylo.

They greeted her like a tyrant throwing misery and spite in every word.

They downplayed Pylo in a manner that Omega could only just barely grasp was call outs and references to the stories already told to them of what was sang about Pylo and Tunie.

Each took their turn, some interrupted or cut in but were then overturned in rythm by the others.

They move amongst and around each other on those various wierd spear, stick, pillar things.

She was not sure exactly what they were.

Maces?

Weapons?

Vehicles?

It was difficult to tell most of the time precisely who or what was moving whom. It seemed like they were wielded and thrown about as much as they were used to brace, to be pulled and so many more things.

There was a way that both of them moved.

And then finally the last pair had their time to lay into Pylo and honestly Omega had no idea how to take this. She had been expecting formal songs or something dirge like.

But these were vital and violent the impression in the rapid fire lines almost seemed obscene.

It was hard to say if the group had choreographed everything or were performing all of this on demand in the moment intuitively. Either would have been impressive far as Omega was concerned.

And then Pylo started singing.

Omega had tears welling up to distort her view of things.

She had to shake them loose and wipe with her sleeve.

It turned every barb and lancing lyric back on the lot of them. It made every single aggression seem incredibly petty and childish.

It hurt to hear her singing those things.

Omega liked to think she knew Pylo, but she was suddenly thrown into doubt on all of that. Either there were depths to the frustrating buffoon she had never even expected or her ability to lie was frighteningly good.

Aleph’s voice was a whispered gasp.

“Wow”

Honestly all she could do wa nod and snort up a glob of snot that had started bubbling up in her nose.

Ugh she missed gravity.

Her sinuses did unpleasant things without it.

“Yeah.”

There was a silence then, a sacred kind of hallowed silence where before the world had been made of music.

Omega glanced around then gestured for aleph to hand over the telescope. It took a light tap and a short “hey!” to actually get it though.

Peering through the scope she confirmed what she had suspected.

The crowds had all stilled everywhere she cared to look in wake of that song.

She hummed and poked at the membrane of the bubble.

It refused to let her hand pass, so there must not be much atmosphere there.

Did Pylo do her little voice in the brain trick to all of them?

That was significantly more range then Omega thought she had.

How had she managed that?

The stillness went on.

And then suddenly Quarti belted out.

“Oiy yo! Yo! Dour be the rythm but are we not here to party?! I am the Fourth of fourths Quarti!”

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“So Let me tell ya Frogbits about Pylo!”

The shock was obvious among those before them and then Pylo supplied rhythm and music.

“Eprik-oauwhp-barbles-ohv-istorieee!”

“So I’m Quarti Ten thousand years-young is me.

Mehbe bit shy but a quarter of ya whole poly see!

Now you might think that you itty lived lot are hot shit, but-I’m-gonna-give-ya-all a taste-of-my-flick.”

Omega started choking! She didin’t just say that! How would Pylo even translate that?!

Okay sure she was half sure something almost as vulgar was said to Pylo earlier but this was supposed to be some kind of diplomatic situation right?

And Quarti was not whatever psudo saintly god myth person that Pylo was.

“Pylo don-a-bunch-a-good-by-the-legends-she-say, but what-are-you to-only-listen-to-the-past-gone ey?”

The words came out so quick and fast Omega barely had time to even hold it before Quarti was on to the next.

“So she’s done right in ancient past as a crafty lady sure.

But what about the times from MY before?”

“Whole Lotsa tales sung on our way ya see, but most of them fibs and halfwit and heresy”

“You-got-a-genuine-witness here to say, this is a fun hipsalicious lady hey!”

It took Omega a this long to realize Pylo was almost certainly on board with this, after all she was providing musical accompaniment and glancing in the telescope she saw that the various crowds were moving to that rythm more or less.

The figures before them had settled into a dance of their own.

“She picked-us-up-as-a-trio of inexperienced scrubs, laid us out-a-bit there-but-then-it-was-just all for the love!”

“She-whipped-em-good when-we-partied-too-hard. Flung the sneaks and the sleazers and made their schemes pay par!”

Omega could not keep up with the pace that Quarti was singing, the way she was moving, sweeping and flipping and bouncing around the bubble, hair fanning about, Her and Aleph could only barely sway a bit in the rythm to try and not wreck whatever this was.

“So-where-you-floppy-frogs getting-off-to-this? Tryina even pretend you’d make pylo-out-like-bitch? I’m gonna have you know the bite of this-witch. Feel the sting of my words take your lashing now! Switch!”

It would have helped if someone had informed them she was going to do anything like this sooner then the very last minute!

There was a sweep from one of the frogish aliens, the one that either had two beards, or two sets of braids.

Honestly they seemed to flip and move as if there was no right side up.

Quarti bounced with the beat and Pylo continued to provide

“Reimeireimeirei! I am as I said before! You speaking like you matter you animal whore! You come in and bluster like your meat’s worth my spit! You’ve challenged the least masters in a battle of wit!”

There was a flurry and then the smaller one that rode their metal pole thing a bit like a bike nodded.

“You sing fast, spin like a bore, a bauble and a toy for your betters? A chore? We will take up your challenge mere beast though you are. But I expect you will not last very far!”

The two nearly black big goggle eyed ones with a massive pillar of dark metal between them swooped and ‘walked’ the ungainly thing in a way that made Omega uneasy. Speaking up in support of the

opener they had given.

“A Quarter is the name of the thing from the blue?

They sang in turns, bouncing together and dancing. Flipping around the pole of their strange conveyance as much as spinning it around.

“You’re a fourth of something, Yes that sure is true.”

One of their voices was deeper than the other, exotic. Similar to the guttural growl of the first one.

“Spitting such bars so fast that’s you! But maybe you can help and give us a clue?”

The second had a more natural and soft tone. But there was a sneering to it in Pylo’s translation.

“Only fools think fast is the only way through. So tell us, does that name speak of your loving’s brevity too?”

Quarti’s grin widened at that as they continued on, pouring derision, trying to find hints of her character to lash out and attack.

But Omega recognized that posture, she was coiling to strike.

And as she turned to look at the aliens she could see the same eager tension in all of them.

Aleph kept up her embarrassed kind of swaying to the music, but honestly that was about all the two of them could hope to contribute here.

Although she had a bit of a worried look to her eyes as she pinged over the choir.

“Omega, please tell me we did not just meet an entire species like Quarti... I don’t know if I can handle this many of them.”

Honestly she was not sure, she looked at the closing in curtains and loops and the crowds of dancing, swaying and now that she was listening to it singing creatures.

“I am not sure if I can say we haven’t”

And then it was Quarti’s turn and she proceeded to lay into the least masters with everything she had.