Heartthrob

Outside, in the hallway, a pink-wreathed idea was made flesh - a devil in the house of God.

Purity lingered just outside the door, fiddling with her phone, pretending with every ounce of her being that she was searching for a signal. A few of the convent's denizens drifted past her, saying nothing and paying her little to no mind, outwardly buying every last bit of the bullshit she was selling. Purity searched in her peripherals alone to try and pick Lulu out from the passersby, the corners of her eyes doing their damnedest to search for that black bob bouncing through the halls.

And there it was! No, wait - no, no, that was someone completely different. A woman Purity had never seen before traipsed on by, carrying a large stack of books in her hands, seeming notably determined to reach her destination without spilling them. Surely it couldn't be that hard with robot arms, right? Right? Fuck, maybe it was.

Just as Purity was beginning to consider what difficulties may arise when accounting for balance with prosthetic, cybernetic limbs, she felt a gentle prod about her ribs. The pinkette whipped around, then, to find a different black-bobbed nun staring up at her with amethyst eyes. The nun gave her a coy, mischievous little smile, sticking her tongue out a touch at the left edge - this was accompanied, of course, by a playful wink. Lulu had snuck up on her while she was distracted - figures. That's how shit always was, wasn't it?

"Hey, sister Purity. Phone giving you troubles? The dampener we've got set up might be interfering with your signal, if no one helped you adjust your specs... here." Purity had no time to react before Lulu reached up and took the phone from her hands with a muted sort of power, the imperious decisiveness of an authority figure who thought it unthinkable that there may be challenge. She was absolutely correct, of course: Purity had no reason at all to rebuke the attempt.

However, what Purity did have time to do, was smile from ear to ear. As soon as Lulu had brought up Purity's phone, oh so genuinely and with seemingly earnest goodwill, Purity was sent plummeting into a dreamland version of the living nightmare she'd had with Tsang. It was double-speak, of course - that was to say, of course, that it was complete bullshit. Maybe there was a cell frequency dampener set up somewhere in the facility. Maybe that was why her phone had been running so slow. But, at the end of the day, regardless of the truth of Purity's phone-based difficulties?

The dampener was irrelevant. It was a nothing line, a throwaway trail of conversation meant to give the both of them an out to go somewhere else, somewhere just the two of them would occupy, so that Lulu could 'fix her phone'. To any outside observers, or even a passing listener? They were having a rather normal, rather mundane conversation about Purity's phone. It reminded Purity of a thousand nights in a rain-soaked alley, talking to herself while the shadows responded, or those countless phone calls to Tsang HQ.

"Oh! Yes, please help, Lulu! My phone has been so weird recently... I keep getting public address alerts, something about city safety, but they never expand when I click on them. Do you know how to fix my shit?" Purity allowed the profanity for the sake of seeming natural, and by the nun's slight bewilderment at hearing profanity spoken aloud, Purity knew she had sold it. She would've fist pumped, if it wouldn't have been extremely blatant.

Lulu blinked a few times, smile faltering, before her gaze and grin became that much more genuine and intense. She nodded rapidly, that ebon mop of hair bouncing a half-second behind her head - the movement made Purity realize that Lulu had purple dyed on the inside of the bob, to match her eyes. The honorary sister was a bit jealous, really - such care was hard to find. Tsang mandated she went with pink, something about psychological impulses and being easier for her handlers to spot in a crowd. She never got to choose what color her hair had been dyed.

Lulu opened her mouth to reply, and the words she put forth were exactly the ones Purity had been hoping for - and expecting. "Yeah, yes! Here, come with me, sister Purity... I can take you to my dorm, it's just down the hall. We can tinker with your phone there... I've got a toolkit in my bag, don't worry. Here - follow me." Lulu didn't wait for an answer, but she didn't need to, not really. Purity was all but guaranteed to be following, and follow she did. The pair whisked themselves away, down the myriad grid-like hallways of the convent complex, Lulu taking the lead without worry. She even found her hand slipping about Purity's wrist, just to make sure the pinkette didn't get lost.

Purity let her mind wander as they walked, eyes absently locked upon Lulu's hips - how they swayed in her habit with every step, how nice of a curve they had, how... Purity nearly slapped herself bodily, the urge to shake these thoughts from her head so strong they threatened to manifest physically. She could not allow herself to objectify this woman before her, no matter how tempting it would've been a month ago. Idle hands were prone to making mischief, it was true, but she could not stand the idea of allowing herself to slip back into bad, old habits. No, no, no - never again. Never, ever, again.

Purity's brain went, then, back to that mind palace of hers, with the locked doors and the stony floors and the eternal coolness in the air. Past the years of Tsang servitude she went, delving down deeper, deeper, back to her days before Vitus at all. She'd been such an awful bitch - such a chronic cheater, a filthy little flirt... to call herself 'notably promiscuous' would be putting it lightly. She'd been a terrible, self-centered woman who only cared about what she could get out of a situation.

She thought, not for the first time but for likely the ten-thousandth, if this life was her just desserts. She wondered if Tsang had been right to put her through what she had endured, if they had somehow seen into the rawest, most earnest layers of her heart and found the poison therein. They had looked into the depths of who she was and found it empty; they had tasted the apple of her being, and found it bitter and worm-ridden.

And so they had put her right where she belonged.

The thought ate away at Purity like a starving hound ate fresh pork, metaphysical fangs rending her tender heartsflesh into a dozen bloody, emotional ribbons. There was no way to confirm it, she knew... Alex never told her anything of the sort, no matter how often she pried at him. Hell, he was apologetic about the whole thing, but he hadn't known the details of what Judas's little 'project' entailed.

But there was also no way to deny it; no way to shut out that evil, to turn off those thoughts and worries and horrid nightmares. And now, feeling herself slip up now that she was comfortable again? It spiked disgust through her with the force of an ice pick, drilling her deep to the core of her being - and her stomach. Nausea flooded her but she choked it back, as she had done all those times before, instead just clenching her fists and focusing on her breathing.

God, she was disgusting, wasn't she? The question was posed to an unseen audience, the mirror within which Purity viewed herself. She felt sorry for Est and EJ, honestly. They were so good together... Est was so nice, and capable, too. She had everything a girl could want or need. Sure, she wasn't fully organic, but that was just a cope to even think about and Puri chastised herself for bringing it up.

Est was a better lover for EJ than Purity was. That was all there was to it, right? After all, even after they had agreed to be open and honest with one another, Purity couldn't fucking stop herself from lying to the little blonde.

Her phone. The alerts. Of course she'd seen them, of course they'd worked. Judas had gone batshit insane, even worse than she already was. Five million dollars for any information that leads to Esper James's arrest? That was... insane. EJ, and Zofia, and even Tsang (as far as Purity knew) had no reason to believe Esper James was unique in any way, at least not those relating to Tsang's goals. Why did they want her so fucking badly?

And along with that, it meant she was feeding Est and EJ both a big heaping helping of bullshit. The talk of getting back out into the city, for the good of all three of them... it wasn't quite as true as she wished it was. In truth, she didn't want any of the three of them to get used as a bargaining chip by the mother abbess. Without Luca there to watch over them, to keep her in line, to ensure their safety, it was spotty at best. The mother abbess could easily offer up Esper James as bait to Tsang, or use her for a hostage exchange, or this, that, or the other thing... and none of those would result in anyone but Tsang winning. Those bastards always won in the end.

And so, Purity had told them that they needed to go. She was thankful that EJ's phone was MIA, presumed to have been left at Judas's place. At least without that, and with Est's aversion to the internet, Puri could be reasonably sure that neither of her girlfriends knew just how fucked things were getting out in the city. Wait, what was that?

"-rity? Ah... sister Purity, hello? Are, ah, are you having an episode?" Lulu was staring up at Purity, concern etched into every detail of her face like a masterpiece bas relief. Purity gave her own head a quick side to side shake, letting her bubblegum bouquet of hair gently toss from the motion before settling back into classic hime. Lulu's eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and her mouth opened anew to interject and express further concern - but Purity stopped her, not wanting to cause any further worry.

"Ah, fu-u-udge, er, fudge. Sorry, Lulu, just... zoned out a little, haha. Happens to the best of us, right? Gah... anyways." Anyways indeed. Purity realized they were just outside of a pair of doors very similar to those that led to her and Est and EJ's shared bedroom, and that honestly told Purity all she could have wanted or needed to know. They had arrived - it was time to get down to business.

"Ah, okay. Great, great... sorry if I startled you, sister Purity. Here, c'mon, let's go in so I can get started on your phone - this sort of thing can take some time." The cover was still in place, even with no one around to hear them discuss. Purity couldn't rule out hidden cameras or microphones, though, so she begrudgingly acknowledged that there was still a place for the bullshit about her phone. At least, there was for now. The first-living woman hoped they'd be able to cut it out soon.

Lulu opened one of the two doors, gesturing for Purity to head in at her leisure. Within, it was - at its core - identical to the room Purity was sharing with her lovers. Four large king beds, four wardrobes, four trunks at the feet of the beds, a single table with four chairs near the middle for a spot of tea... but otherwise, this room had been altered drastically.

Posters of the outside world's culture were plastered to the wall all around one of the beds: popular bands, video games, and movies all found representation within these paper portraits affixed with tape and glue. Hell, one or two of them were just honest-to-God pinups, displaying women in costume laid out in erotic poses for the audience's viewing pleasure. This corner of the room also had a sound system plugged into a wall outlet, a variety of alternative fashion ensembles hung in the open wardrobe, and three stacks of books piled in a trio of towers near the head of the bed.

Lulu gravitated towards this corner almost immediately, hopping onto the not-quite-made bed and patting the comforter just beside her. Purity screwed up her face and gestured to the decor that Lulu had apparently chosen, words unspoken asking for some sort of explanation for this bizarre display. Lulu just laughed, rubbing the back of her head after a moment.

"Oh, haha! Hahaha! Sorry, sorry- I know, not very nun-y, right? But... Well, since I'm a senior field team member, and I mostly work recon... I get special privileges. Living like a Vitus citizen helps me blend in with real, proper Vitus citizens, you know? So I get all the glitz and gore and guns and glamor a girl could, uh... ge-ask for. Heheh. Sorry, couldn't think of a 'g' word that kept the alliteration going." The nun feigned bashfulness, kicking her feet and bowing her head and offering Purity doe eyes in spades.

Purity supposed that made sense, in the same way as method acting. If she was gonna pretend to be a Vitus native, she should live like one, right? Well, it made as much sense as anything else, at least. The Waywards seemed to have plenty of weird justifications for the little indulgences they partook in, and Purity would be one hell of a hypocrite for asking them about it, or pressing them on it. Instead, she'd just have to accept it.

Purity hopped up on the bed beside Lulu, right where the black-and-purple haired operative had indicated she should put her butt. The phone was laid on Lulu's left thigh, between herself and Purity - it wasn't paid attention to much more than that, though. They had other shit to discuss, and the both of them were far more eager to dive into that than to perform phone repair.

Lulu was the first to break the silence, chomping at the bit for Purity to begin layering wisdom onto her. "Alright, siste- er, fuck, no, just Purity. Okay, Purity! Where do we start? What kind of Vitus wisdom do you have for me?" It was odd to Purity, seeing how excited Lulu was at the prospect of being instructed on this. She gave off every bit the energy of a child learning a new game, or an animal enthusiast learning about a newly discovered species in some far and exotic part of the world. Puri couldn't help but find it, begrudgingly, adorable.

"Well, boo, first off... never ask for something here and specify something like 'gluten free' or some shit like that. If you go into any butchery and ask for 'gluten free' options, they'll immediately peg you as an outsider." 'Why?' Lulu asked, in Purity's mind, and the response was simple. Given how about half the population couldn't eat large quantities of bread at all, gluten free was the standard way that all food existed within Vitus. Food with gluten would have been harder to find.

And so, one by one, the tips and tricks and tools of the trade were rattled off. The mistress instructed her new student diligently, going so far as to quiz her on little minutiae that most Vitus residents would know (such trivia as 'How do you spell FixAte', 'How do you pronounce tAsT', and 'What is the difference between a butchery and a restaurant'). Thankfully, Lulu was a quick learner; she picked up every minute fun fact or gameshow answer she could, her cybernetically augmented brain no down committing the information to literal and figurative memory. God, that must've been nice, Purity thought to herself.

Mixed in with the trivia were questions, Purity's real reason for coming here and speaking with Lulu in the first place. She began to secure routes to and from the convent, what times they were safest or most frequented, what contacts in town Lulu and her people often went to in order to secure supplies, support, or shelter... The names were all just footnotes that Purity did her best to make a mental note of, even picking her phone up and opening a documentation app so that she might more accurately jot it all down. One name stood out, however.

"...oh, and Roth Sharique at the Jezzebelle club. I dunno if you've ever been... I've popped in a few times. I know it'd, uh, haha... it'd be my place to go, if I wasn't, y'know. A nun. But-" The rest of Lulu's sentence was sliced clean as Purity leaned forward a few inches and scowled, mind split between elation and exasperation.

"Roth? Like, the bartender? Yeah, I used to fucking go to the Jezze all the time. And Roth's been working with the Knights this whole fucking time?! What the hell?! That's...! God, I fucking wish I could get my hands on him right now, really wring his fucking neck for... Ugh." Purity realized then that Lulu was staring and silent, nowhere near as incensed at Roth as the ex-club darling was. Puri sighed deeply, shoulders lifting and falling as she forced herself to calm down.

Lulu spoke up after a moment, not quite timid but wanting to ensure that Puri was done with her little outburst. "Yeah, uh, Roth is just an info broker for us. A lot of us girls... we aren't super into the whole 'killing people by holy mandate' thing, or at least, we feel better killing assholes. Roth's a bartender. He tags people for us to, uh... haha, help meet our quota." There was zero genuine joy or mirth in that feigned, pitiful excuse for laughter. Purity's rage only blossomed anew within her chest.

Roth. That fucker. It made plenty of sense, he was a lot smarter than most people gave him credit for... but to think, he might have had a hand in orchestrating this whole fucking thing?

Ugh. She'd have some words for him, once they were streetside - and EJ was tucked away somewhere safe from prying eyes.