Post by fullmetal on May 22, 2021 2:41:03 GMT -5
RP for UPRISING Episode 12
BLACK CRUSADE WORLDWIDE: JIRITSU & PyreBird
"R is for Regroup"
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT SECTION_________
Quick-fade in from black to the sunset in Las Vegas -- Kalinda Kreigsdottir and her five Black Crusade Worldwide teammates (all masked as usual, except for of course PyreBird) are sitting around an incredibly ordinary table, available at any old department store, in an incredibly ordinary conference room that just happens to have an incredible view of the Las Vegas cityscape, neon lights and all.
Yes, an absolutely, incredibly, undoubtedly ordinary table in an ordinary conference room with a fantastic view.
Kalinda turns to the camera.
Kalinda: "Camera Minion, consider yourself privileged that you're being allowed to capture these sessions for the record, and nod your head if you understand."
The camera nods in acknowledgment and confirmation.
Kalinda turns to the group, specifically JIRITSU and PyreBird.
Kalinda: "Not gonna mince words, crew: that debut match you two had here could have gone a fair amount better for you."
PyreBird: "I'll admit, it wasn't that great. We haven't been specifically tagging with each other very long, but we'll find our footing, get into our groove, and all those other team-building cliches."
JIRITSU clears their throat.
PB: "What...?"
JIRITSU: "Camera. Voice. Accent."
PB: "Oh, for crying--" PyreBird turns to the camera. "I have been residing in several places, and have picked up different dialects over the course of those residences, enough to *ahem* dull my natural northlander lilt." PB raises an eyebrow as she glares at J, who nods in response.
Kalinda facepalms lightly.
Kalinda: "ANYWAY, let's talk strategy for your next match, but first, where are those damn pies that were supposed to show up?"
Almost as if on cue, a hard THUMP sound can be heard nearby, specifically from an adjacent supply closet. Kalinda turns to PyreBird.
Kalinda: "Be a dear and check that, will you?"
PB stands up, opens the door, only to be met by the sight of an upright ladder, painted red and black with its original silver showing through strategically.
Camera cut to a different angle, looking up with an uncomfortable tilt as the ladder somehow exudes a visibly menacing aura.
Kalinda glances over as Other Kallie's face twists a bit with worry.
PyreBird: "Uhhhhh...was there a ladder in this closet before? It's...exuding a visibly menacing aura..."
A subtle 13-year-old setup no one even knew was a setup finally hits a payoff as the ladder speaks with a deep, processed, but slightly familiar voice.
Ladder(?): "IS THAT HOW YOU ADDRESS LADERR THE UNBALANCED?"
Laderr moves -- well, more likes slides -- into the room.
PB: "I'm...sorry? ...And did you say 'Laderr' The Unbalanced?"
Laderr: "YES."
Kalinda: "Did you bring the pies?"
Laderr: "...MY APOLOGIES, I FORGOT. IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I TRAVELED HERE...YOU SHOULD REALLY CALL MORE OFTEN, KALINDA."
Kalinda: "We don't need you to apologize, we need your apolo-PIES."
Kalinda glares at JIRITSU with eyes narrowed as J and KATSUDO chuckle a bit.
Kalinda: "I'm gonna get you two back for that."
A knock at the glass door of the glass-windowed conference room, and the source of the knock is a pizza delivery guy.
Kalinda: "PERFECT timing, RIGHT after I had to deliver that horrible pun. You couldn't knock 10 seconds ago?"
Pizza Delivery Guy: "This room is all the way at the end of the hallway, on the top floor, er, ma'am; it took a while to get all this way."
The pizza delivery guy glances around the room at the 4 masked members, the muscle-y redhead, the pink dragon girl, and the ladder with the menacing aura.
Pizza Delivery Guy: "I hope y'all tip well."
---
Cross-fade to an exterior shot of the building as sitcom-ey style transition music plays, then cross-fades back into the conference room, minus the pizza delivery guy.
Laderr: "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT"
Kalinda: "That was a sitcom transition. We're in THAT realm now."
Laderr: "YOU SUMMONED ME TO THE LAND OF CORROSIVE WINDS AND EVEN MORE CORROSIVE MORALS FOR *SITUATION COMEDY HIJINKS*??"
Kalinda: (cheerfully) "ACTUALLY, we summoned you to apply your legendary championship expertise to help whip our Dynamic Duo into fighting shape for their 2nd match here in Uprising!"
Laderr: "THAT...IS MUCH MORE REASONABLE."
Laderr turns their entire body towards JIRITSU and PyreBird, and unfolds that flap that unfolds where you put paint cans on and stuff, and on the flap is...a plain silver can the size of a paint can. But it's not a paint can, I swear!
Laderr: "CAMERA MINION, ZOOM THE CAMERA CLOSE TO GET A REALLY GOOD VIEW OF THIS 'CAN OF HOLDING', DISGUISED AS AN ORDINARY PAINT CAN TO FOOL THE EYES OF MERE MORTALS." (A beat.) "MAYBE I SHOULDN'T HAVE SAID THAT PART OUT LOUD."
On cue, the camera does indeed zoom in closer to the can, to reveal a glowing symbol.
Laderr: "CURRENTLY CONTAINED IN THIS 'CAN OF HOLDING' IS THE KEY TO YOUR VICTORY."
Kalinda looks at PyreBird and nods her head in Laderr's direction. PB nods and retrieves the can.
Camera cut to looking upward as PyreBird slowly opens the can, and her and JIRITSU look into it -- a bright yellow glow emanates from it, and the framing of the shot appears as only them, the can, a totally black background, and the yellow glow.
You know, real cinematic shit.
Camera cut back to the Camera Minion's regular view, as PyreBird reaches into the can and pulls out...a key. No fancy wrought-iron skeleton key with wyvern teeth or anything like that, just a regular bright-copper-colored office key. There is an engraving on the fat end, but the camera isn't focused on it enough to reveal what the engraving is, nor will it be.
PB: "It's...a key."
Laderr: "YES, IT IS THE KEY TO YOUR VICTORY...*LITERALLY*!" Laderr laughs boisterously, with a big jolly supernatural echo following the laughter.
PyreBird turns to Laderr, holding up the key with a puzzled expression.
PB: "What does it unlock?"
Laderr: "YOUR VICTORY!" Laderr once again laughs boisterously, once again followed by a big jolly supernatural echo.
(It should be noted, with the note intentionally placed here this far into the visual transcript, that the acoustics of the conference room don't lend themselves to echoes.)
PB: "Seriously though, what--"
JIRITSU: (cutting her off) "VICTORY."
Slow fade to black as more sitcom transition music plays.
---
We fade back in from black with JIRITSU and PyreBird standing in front of a nondescript closed door in a nondescript hallway, with Kalinda smirking.
Engraved on a plaque screwed onto the door near the top is simply the word "VICTORY".
PB: "Is it really this simple? We just open the door, and whatever's inside is the secret to our victory in this match?"
Kalinda: "Yup! Open it, newbie."
JIRITSU nods as PyreBird places the key into the lock and turns. The familiar sound of a door unlocking, and she takes a deep breath in and out before turning the knob and opening the door.
And inside...?
PB: "It's...empty. It's just an empty closet."
Laderr: "WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?"
PB: "GAH--!"
The suddenly appearance of Laderr behind them startles PyreBird, giving rise to chuckling from JIRITSU and Kalinda.
PB: "Why is it empty though??"
Laderr: "IT'S A *METAPHORRRRRR*." (Laderr draws the last syllable out dramatically for emphasis.) "THE TOOLS FOR YOUR VICTORY HAVE BEEN INSIDE YOU ALL ALONG, AND OTHER DUMB CLICHED BULLSHIT LIKE THAAAAAAAAT. YOU SIMPLY NEED TO APPLY YOUR SKILLS, AND TRAIN THE FUCK OUT OF YOUR SHIT IN ORDER TO SECURE YOUR VICTORY, AND OTHER INSPIRATIONAL PLATITUUUUUUDES." (A beat.) "Plus, you know, you already use, like, a TON of weapons anyway." (For just a short second, Laderr talks "normally", but still with the heavily processed voice, before returning to normal.) "*AHEM!* ANYWAY, I KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT, FOR *I* AM A FORMER CHAMPION AND *YOU* HAVE NOT YET WON ONE, KALLIE HALLAHEIM."
Other Kallie turns to JIRITSU.
PB: "Did you know about this??"
JIRITSU: "Of course. What did you expect?"
PB: "Um,,,! Uh...well...SOMETHING?"
Laderr: "SO NAIVE. GET YOUR BUTT TO TRAINING, NEWBIE. WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE, DAWDLING AND LOITERING?"
A long beat.
PB: "WAIT, how did you get the can onto your flap without arms???"
---
---
"M is for Minerals"
MATCH PROMO SECTION_________
Fade out to black, before fading back into an all-black room, camera pointing upward at PyreBird and JIRITSU in full ring gear being brightly lit by a single spotlight out of frame. JIRITSU's voice is notably whisper-esque and intentionally lowered in pitch, while PyreBird's sounds reasonably normal.
JIRITSU: "Spirits conspire, mixing cosmic ingredients into a deep cast-iron pot, seasoning with Stardust, and the result is PyreBird and myself faced against a team cosmically similar in some crucial ways, and quite the opposite in the rest of those equally important ways.
The Hive, Kassandra and Knightmare, they are a swirling cauldron of calculation and chaos.
The roiling seas and the stilled ponds, waiting for ripples while waiting to break.
The calm and the storm, uneasy and then unyielding.
The monolithic quarries of rock...and the shifting beaches of sand.
Rocks can be broken, but it takes force, and oftentimes precision, if you want to make anything useful from them...while sand can be scorched.
Sand can be burnt into glass, clear and well-shaped, prismatic, but fragile.
Or sand can be drowned.
Baptized in water and remolded into clay, reshaped by the skills and imagination of the sculptor, sand-into-clay can rebuild into structures even stronger than rock, tools more powerful and forceful than the boulders of the old blocking the potential of the new, or statues even more beautiful than the smoothest of glass or carved-est of marble."
PyreBird: (correcting) "Uh...'Carved-est' isn't technically a word."
JIRITSU: "...I was told that it was." (A beat.) "Oh, I see. Kalinda. Of course."
A light chuckle from PyreBird as the Camera begins to rise and the view begins to pan downward, until a bonfire is visible behind them on a large screen, flames rising and filling the view.
PyreBird: "Hive...Kassandra and Knightmare...you are the rocks, but we are the sand.
Drop a rock and it breaks, but drop sand, and it spreads, and buries the rocks beneath, suffocating what life may lie within but laying the foundation for new life waiting to flourish.
Humans...we exist through the limits of our bodies, not rock, but still mineral-rich flesh, blood, bone, and guts; every single bit still serves a purpose in that cosmic cast-iron pot.
Cook it up real nice, and the meal is delicious, nutritious, filling, holding the promises of meals to come, to consume in the future as you acquire that taste, as you retain that taste, as you remember that taste and hunger for more."
(A beat.)
PyreBird: "You two...you are not that meal.
You are not that celestial feast for Galactus to sate his gnawing planetary hunger with.
You are not the 5-course villa gathering of a Roman Patrician like Lucius Caecilius Iucundus the banker or Gaius Cornelius Calvus the Senator.
You are not even the Earl's Sandwich, or Ray's Famous Famous Ray's Pizza.
You are the Taco Bell value box at 3AM after a night at the club.
You are the White Castle 30-pack after smoking a bowl.
You are the McDonald's Quarter Pounder at the rest stop during a road trip to an amusement park.
You are the last can of beans in the cupboard when there's nothing else left to eat in the house."
(Another beat.)
PyreBird: "...You the stone who thinks you are the soup.
You are not the glorious spoils of war going to the victor, but you'll do in a pinch, because we are hungry, and there's nothing else but spices left in the cupboard until we go shopping again.
Win, lose, or draw, We will CONQUER you, and prepare you with those spices of the cosmos.
We will CONSUME you, quelling our cosmic hunger just long enough until we can feast once more on food fit for true Einherjar.
And we will CONTROL you, because when we are finished with you, you will be BEGGING to do our bidding, if only to end the suffering we will inflict."
JIRITSU: "You see...if you crack a rock enough, you can fill that crack with sand and explode it from within..."
PyreBird: (snickering, almost corpsing) "Hehe...exploding crack..."
JIRITSU: "Hush." (J clears their throat.) "Rocks can temporarily displace and dispel sand, but rocks cannot grind sand down further than they already are, yet sand can wear down rocks...until they too become nothing but sand.
Sand contains the memories of the minerals within, the lives of the living above, the ashes and dust of the dead below, the remnants of everything each grain touches from The Origin through The End.
That sand, that cosmic sand, is the seasoning for our meal this day, the temporary soothing of the rumbling in our stomachs.
The flour of the dough for our daily bread, and the 'smoothie' mix for our drink of life.
For when you are fighting sand, you cannot fly when your feet are buried.
You cannot punch when your hands are buried.
You cannot breathe when the sand fills deep, down your throat..."
(PyreBird snickers again, causing JIRITSU to turn their head slightly at her, shutting her up as she squeezes her lips shut with a look of stifled laughter on her face.)
JIRITSU: "...and you can struggle all you like, but eventually...eventually, everything returns to the sand.
And that sand is falling down the hourglass, counting down the time between now and the time when PyreBird and I CONQUER, CONSUME, and CONTROL you.
The storm will be calmed, the seas will be still, and the chaos will be quiet."
PyreBird: (having regained her composure) "And all that will be left, will be us, and our feast, and maybe a contemplative stroll...across a beach of sand.
Bon apetit, Hive -- you'll need your strength up."
Fade out to black as the camera pans up to the night sky, and we can hear (as the audio fades too) the faint chiding of JIRITSU to PyreBird.
JIRITSU: "You couldn't keep your composure until the end? Seriously?"
BLACK CRUSADE WORLDWIDE: JIRITSU & PyreBird
"R is for Regroup"
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT SECTION_________
Quick-fade in from black to the sunset in Las Vegas -- Kalinda Kreigsdottir and her five Black Crusade Worldwide teammates (all masked as usual, except for of course PyreBird) are sitting around an incredibly ordinary table, available at any old department store, in an incredibly ordinary conference room that just happens to have an incredible view of the Las Vegas cityscape, neon lights and all.
Yes, an absolutely, incredibly, undoubtedly ordinary table in an ordinary conference room with a fantastic view.
Kalinda turns to the camera.
Kalinda: "Camera Minion, consider yourself privileged that you're being allowed to capture these sessions for the record, and nod your head if you understand."
The camera nods in acknowledgment and confirmation.
Kalinda turns to the group, specifically JIRITSU and PyreBird.
Kalinda: "Not gonna mince words, crew: that debut match you two had here could have gone a fair amount better for you."
PyreBird: "I'll admit, it wasn't that great. We haven't been specifically tagging with each other very long, but we'll find our footing, get into our groove, and all those other team-building cliches."
JIRITSU clears their throat.
PB: "What...?"
JIRITSU: "Camera. Voice. Accent."
PB: "Oh, for crying--" PyreBird turns to the camera. "I have been residing in several places, and have picked up different dialects over the course of those residences, enough to *ahem* dull my natural northlander lilt." PB raises an eyebrow as she glares at J, who nods in response.
Kalinda facepalms lightly.
Kalinda: "ANYWAY, let's talk strategy for your next match, but first, where are those damn pies that were supposed to show up?"
Almost as if on cue, a hard THUMP sound can be heard nearby, specifically from an adjacent supply closet. Kalinda turns to PyreBird.
Kalinda: "Be a dear and check that, will you?"
PB stands up, opens the door, only to be met by the sight of an upright ladder, painted red and black with its original silver showing through strategically.
Camera cut to a different angle, looking up with an uncomfortable tilt as the ladder somehow exudes a visibly menacing aura.
Kalinda glances over as Other Kallie's face twists a bit with worry.
PyreBird: "Uhhhhh...was there a ladder in this closet before? It's...exuding a visibly menacing aura..."
A subtle 13-year-old setup no one even knew was a setup finally hits a payoff as the ladder speaks with a deep, processed, but slightly familiar voice.
Ladder(?): "IS THAT HOW YOU ADDRESS LADERR THE UNBALANCED?"
Laderr moves -- well, more likes slides -- into the room.
PB: "I'm...sorry? ...And did you say 'Laderr' The Unbalanced?"
Laderr: "YES."
Kalinda: "Did you bring the pies?"
Laderr: "...MY APOLOGIES, I FORGOT. IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I TRAVELED HERE...YOU SHOULD REALLY CALL MORE OFTEN, KALINDA."
Kalinda: "We don't need you to apologize, we need your apolo-PIES."
Kalinda glares at JIRITSU with eyes narrowed as J and KATSUDO chuckle a bit.
Kalinda: "I'm gonna get you two back for that."
A knock at the glass door of the glass-windowed conference room, and the source of the knock is a pizza delivery guy.
Kalinda: "PERFECT timing, RIGHT after I had to deliver that horrible pun. You couldn't knock 10 seconds ago?"
Pizza Delivery Guy: "This room is all the way at the end of the hallway, on the top floor, er, ma'am; it took a while to get all this way."
The pizza delivery guy glances around the room at the 4 masked members, the muscle-y redhead, the pink dragon girl, and the ladder with the menacing aura.
Pizza Delivery Guy: "I hope y'all tip well."
---
Cross-fade to an exterior shot of the building as sitcom-ey style transition music plays, then cross-fades back into the conference room, minus the pizza delivery guy.
Laderr: "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT"
Kalinda: "That was a sitcom transition. We're in THAT realm now."
Laderr: "YOU SUMMONED ME TO THE LAND OF CORROSIVE WINDS AND EVEN MORE CORROSIVE MORALS FOR *SITUATION COMEDY HIJINKS*??"
Kalinda: (cheerfully) "ACTUALLY, we summoned you to apply your legendary championship expertise to help whip our Dynamic Duo into fighting shape for their 2nd match here in Uprising!"
Laderr: "THAT...IS MUCH MORE REASONABLE."
Laderr turns their entire body towards JIRITSU and PyreBird, and unfolds that flap that unfolds where you put paint cans on and stuff, and on the flap is...a plain silver can the size of a paint can. But it's not a paint can, I swear!
Laderr: "CAMERA MINION, ZOOM THE CAMERA CLOSE TO GET A REALLY GOOD VIEW OF THIS 'CAN OF HOLDING', DISGUISED AS AN ORDINARY PAINT CAN TO FOOL THE EYES OF MERE MORTALS." (A beat.) "MAYBE I SHOULDN'T HAVE SAID THAT PART OUT LOUD."
On cue, the camera does indeed zoom in closer to the can, to reveal a glowing symbol.
Laderr: "CURRENTLY CONTAINED IN THIS 'CAN OF HOLDING' IS THE KEY TO YOUR VICTORY."
Kalinda looks at PyreBird and nods her head in Laderr's direction. PB nods and retrieves the can.
Camera cut to looking upward as PyreBird slowly opens the can, and her and JIRITSU look into it -- a bright yellow glow emanates from it, and the framing of the shot appears as only them, the can, a totally black background, and the yellow glow.
You know, real cinematic shit.
Camera cut back to the Camera Minion's regular view, as PyreBird reaches into the can and pulls out...a key. No fancy wrought-iron skeleton key with wyvern teeth or anything like that, just a regular bright-copper-colored office key. There is an engraving on the fat end, but the camera isn't focused on it enough to reveal what the engraving is, nor will it be.
PB: "It's...a key."
Laderr: "YES, IT IS THE KEY TO YOUR VICTORY...*LITERALLY*!" Laderr laughs boisterously, with a big jolly supernatural echo following the laughter.
PyreBird turns to Laderr, holding up the key with a puzzled expression.
PB: "What does it unlock?"
Laderr: "YOUR VICTORY!" Laderr once again laughs boisterously, once again followed by a big jolly supernatural echo.
(It should be noted, with the note intentionally placed here this far into the visual transcript, that the acoustics of the conference room don't lend themselves to echoes.)
PB: "Seriously though, what--"
JIRITSU: (cutting her off) "VICTORY."
Slow fade to black as more sitcom transition music plays.
---
We fade back in from black with JIRITSU and PyreBird standing in front of a nondescript closed door in a nondescript hallway, with Kalinda smirking.
Engraved on a plaque screwed onto the door near the top is simply the word "VICTORY".
PB: "Is it really this simple? We just open the door, and whatever's inside is the secret to our victory in this match?"
Kalinda: "Yup! Open it, newbie."
JIRITSU nods as PyreBird places the key into the lock and turns. The familiar sound of a door unlocking, and she takes a deep breath in and out before turning the knob and opening the door.
And inside...?
PB: "It's...empty. It's just an empty closet."
Laderr: "WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?"
PB: "GAH--!"
The suddenly appearance of Laderr behind them startles PyreBird, giving rise to chuckling from JIRITSU and Kalinda.
PB: "Why is it empty though??"
Laderr: "IT'S A *METAPHORRRRRR*." (Laderr draws the last syllable out dramatically for emphasis.) "THE TOOLS FOR YOUR VICTORY HAVE BEEN INSIDE YOU ALL ALONG, AND OTHER DUMB CLICHED BULLSHIT LIKE THAAAAAAAAT. YOU SIMPLY NEED TO APPLY YOUR SKILLS, AND TRAIN THE FUCK OUT OF YOUR SHIT IN ORDER TO SECURE YOUR VICTORY, AND OTHER INSPIRATIONAL PLATITUUUUUUDES." (A beat.) "Plus, you know, you already use, like, a TON of weapons anyway." (For just a short second, Laderr talks "normally", but still with the heavily processed voice, before returning to normal.) "*AHEM!* ANYWAY, I KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT, FOR *I* AM A FORMER CHAMPION AND *YOU* HAVE NOT YET WON ONE, KALLIE HALLAHEIM."
Other Kallie turns to JIRITSU.
PB: "Did you know about this??"
JIRITSU: "Of course. What did you expect?"
PB: "Um,,,! Uh...well...SOMETHING?"
Laderr: "SO NAIVE. GET YOUR BUTT TO TRAINING, NEWBIE. WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE, DAWDLING AND LOITERING?"
A long beat.
PB: "WAIT, how did you get the can onto your flap without arms???"
---
---
"M is for Minerals"
MATCH PROMO SECTION_________
Fade out to black, before fading back into an all-black room, camera pointing upward at PyreBird and JIRITSU in full ring gear being brightly lit by a single spotlight out of frame. JIRITSU's voice is notably whisper-esque and intentionally lowered in pitch, while PyreBird's sounds reasonably normal.
JIRITSU: "Spirits conspire, mixing cosmic ingredients into a deep cast-iron pot, seasoning with Stardust, and the result is PyreBird and myself faced against a team cosmically similar in some crucial ways, and quite the opposite in the rest of those equally important ways.
The Hive, Kassandra and Knightmare, they are a swirling cauldron of calculation and chaos.
The roiling seas and the stilled ponds, waiting for ripples while waiting to break.
The calm and the storm, uneasy and then unyielding.
The monolithic quarries of rock...and the shifting beaches of sand.
Rocks can be broken, but it takes force, and oftentimes precision, if you want to make anything useful from them...while sand can be scorched.
Sand can be burnt into glass, clear and well-shaped, prismatic, but fragile.
Or sand can be drowned.
Baptized in water and remolded into clay, reshaped by the skills and imagination of the sculptor, sand-into-clay can rebuild into structures even stronger than rock, tools more powerful and forceful than the boulders of the old blocking the potential of the new, or statues even more beautiful than the smoothest of glass or carved-est of marble."
PyreBird: (correcting) "Uh...'Carved-est' isn't technically a word."
JIRITSU: "...I was told that it was." (A beat.) "Oh, I see. Kalinda. Of course."
A light chuckle from PyreBird as the Camera begins to rise and the view begins to pan downward, until a bonfire is visible behind them on a large screen, flames rising and filling the view.
PyreBird: "Hive...Kassandra and Knightmare...you are the rocks, but we are the sand.
Drop a rock and it breaks, but drop sand, and it spreads, and buries the rocks beneath, suffocating what life may lie within but laying the foundation for new life waiting to flourish.
Humans...we exist through the limits of our bodies, not rock, but still mineral-rich flesh, blood, bone, and guts; every single bit still serves a purpose in that cosmic cast-iron pot.
Cook it up real nice, and the meal is delicious, nutritious, filling, holding the promises of meals to come, to consume in the future as you acquire that taste, as you retain that taste, as you remember that taste and hunger for more."
(A beat.)
PyreBird: "You two...you are not that meal.
You are not that celestial feast for Galactus to sate his gnawing planetary hunger with.
You are not the 5-course villa gathering of a Roman Patrician like Lucius Caecilius Iucundus the banker or Gaius Cornelius Calvus the Senator.
You are not even the Earl's Sandwich, or Ray's Famous Famous Ray's Pizza.
You are the Taco Bell value box at 3AM after a night at the club.
You are the White Castle 30-pack after smoking a bowl.
You are the McDonald's Quarter Pounder at the rest stop during a road trip to an amusement park.
You are the last can of beans in the cupboard when there's nothing else left to eat in the house."
(Another beat.)
PyreBird: "...You the stone who thinks you are the soup.
You are not the glorious spoils of war going to the victor, but you'll do in a pinch, because we are hungry, and there's nothing else but spices left in the cupboard until we go shopping again.
Win, lose, or draw, We will CONQUER you, and prepare you with those spices of the cosmos.
We will CONSUME you, quelling our cosmic hunger just long enough until we can feast once more on food fit for true Einherjar.
And we will CONTROL you, because when we are finished with you, you will be BEGGING to do our bidding, if only to end the suffering we will inflict."
JIRITSU: "You see...if you crack a rock enough, you can fill that crack with sand and explode it from within..."
PyreBird: (snickering, almost corpsing) "Hehe...exploding crack..."
JIRITSU: "Hush." (J clears their throat.) "Rocks can temporarily displace and dispel sand, but rocks cannot grind sand down further than they already are, yet sand can wear down rocks...until they too become nothing but sand.
Sand contains the memories of the minerals within, the lives of the living above, the ashes and dust of the dead below, the remnants of everything each grain touches from The Origin through The End.
That sand, that cosmic sand, is the seasoning for our meal this day, the temporary soothing of the rumbling in our stomachs.
The flour of the dough for our daily bread, and the 'smoothie' mix for our drink of life.
For when you are fighting sand, you cannot fly when your feet are buried.
You cannot punch when your hands are buried.
You cannot breathe when the sand fills deep, down your throat..."
(PyreBird snickers again, causing JIRITSU to turn their head slightly at her, shutting her up as she squeezes her lips shut with a look of stifled laughter on her face.)
JIRITSU: "...and you can struggle all you like, but eventually...eventually, everything returns to the sand.
And that sand is falling down the hourglass, counting down the time between now and the time when PyreBird and I CONQUER, CONSUME, and CONTROL you.
The storm will be calmed, the seas will be still, and the chaos will be quiet."
PyreBird: (having regained her composure) "And all that will be left, will be us, and our feast, and maybe a contemplative stroll...across a beach of sand.
Bon apetit, Hive -- you'll need your strength up."
Fade out to black as the camera pans up to the night sky, and we can hear (as the audio fades too) the faint chiding of JIRITSU to PyreBird.
JIRITSU: "You couldn't keep your composure until the end? Seriously?"