Paws whispered against cold metal, silence perturbed by the taste of brimstone and exhausted warmth as a small, nondescript fox threw itself onto a pile of beanbags haphazardly tossed into the corner of the room. Electric illumination framed fiery orange fur, luscious shimmer shining in the relaxing atmosphere as she stretched with a yawn and slid smoothly into a more humanoid form. "Opposable thumbs. Oh how I've missed you."
"You like your natural form more, don't even try to deny it. Who was it going around touting that thumbs have nothing on a fox's grace only a few millennia ago?"
"...you?"
Scowling, a slip of a girl gestured with an outstretched hand and transformed the beanbags beneath her to supercooled ice. "I'm not a fox, Kitsune. Try again."
"Kittens are… ok?" The ice transformed to chaotic winds, viciously slashing at her tails- "Kittens are the best! Honest! Give me back my beanbags!"
"Fine." Chuckling, the girl made another pointless gesture and the winds resolved back into a pile of fluffy beanbags. "So, how'd it go? ISON updated me with the estimates, but I'd like to hear your perspective."
"Honestly? It sucked. I can't tell where it's coming from, and all my attempts to pry keep obliterating branch cohesion. Their so-called "eternal Emperor" is incredibly powerful- I can see it, every time we fight towards the end, but it's so sudden and subtle- I can't pin down a base cause to it. Tons of different possible points of presence, but nothing I can confirm." Sighing, she watched the screens as ISON data updated, infinite possibilities calculated in an instant. "Sorry Tabs… I know we're behind schedule, and-"
"I swear, if you make me come out there…" they laughed, then, just content with being in each other's presence after so long apart, content in that sibling's rivalry that had never fully disappeared between the two. "The ISON data you got was invaluable. I'll formulate a new strategy for you and then it's Tau-33720 for you."
"Oh come on. Can't you assign me to some simple Beta branch cleanup? Or exploration? Or anything other than this pointlessly repetitive work? Its been like a trillion years-"
"Respect the plan, girl! I'm the boss here, which means I get sic-Ajinan-on-Kitsune power!" The blue-haired girl sniggered softly at Kitsune's pale face before deftly manipulating the possibility that here was also there. Time-space twisted with a sound like burnt apple pie before Kitsune- and the beanbags- disappeared into nothingness. Tabs breathed, enjoying her abuse of rank before turning back to the new data.
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She had a plan to make.
………
By random chance- which, around Tabs obviously wasn't random at all- the fabric of space decided it'd had enough over a vat of some unidentifiable liquid that glimmered emerald green and smelled absolutely pungent. Cursing, some hasty flight, and a four thousand year old experiment ruined later she was facing the disappointed silver gaze of a small black dragon as he berated her on the importance of his work- in great detail.
A while and some aborted escape attempts later- she wished she could escape Ajinan- she'd been roped into creating several esoteric flames for one of his many experiments. "-saying, anyways, it was Tabs' fault. You know that!"
"And if I wanted my careful experiments to go haywire, I'd grab Tabs to help me. You're here now, so you get to help. I'm getting closer to finishing up ISON-II…" a glint shone in those silver eyes, only a bit undermined by Kitsune's quiet chuckles. "Honestly! You have no faith…" grumbling a bit, silver eyes burned for a second before some type of… thing, complicated machinery so incredibly far beyond her understanding materialized out of nothing in the air before her. "Look, the central unified… orthogonal to the planar matrix…" Kitsune just tuned him out, closing her eyes and resigning herself while she acted as a glorified lamp for a few hours. "...and- oh. Did you listen to any of that?"
Kitsune peered up at Ajinan with her best innocent expression. "...no?"
"Whatever. Only Tabs cares about ISON-II anyways."
"That’s because she wants you to work on something else. She's probably more frustrated than anything that she can't include it in any of her plans." A flicker of premonition shivered on the edge of her awareness, plans remade in infinite permutations- "this was a short stop anyways. I've got Tau branch to beat up some more, so, portal please, shiny eyes?"
Ajinan met her eyes, cold silver to fire, and smiled warmly. "Good luck, little sister. Next time you're back for real I'll go with you to that fire plane you've been harping me about. Or maybe we can arrange a family vacation."
"Thanks." She breathed deeply, preparing for that tearing- "...hey, we were born at the same time-space paradox! I'm nobody's little-" tears of silver blood bled over black scales, mirror eyes shone with the incandescence of a million universes, and existence gave out beneath her as she disappeared into a swirl of broken reality.