And suddenly, everything falls to silence.

The sounds of her dying planet disappear in an instant, replaced instead with an uncomfortable quietude. But Breve can see it anyway— under the transparent glass she’s now kneeling on, she watches as a beautiful blue-green orb is suddenly split open, cracking like an egg.

But instead of yolk, the insides spill with a terrifying blast of flames, one which quickly overtakes the land surface. She watches as a continent she clearly recognizes as her own becomes engulfed in fire, its familiar coasts burning to nothing, consumed by devastation in an instant…

Breve gasps for air, not even realizing she wasn’t breathing— and, as if her defiant act of life is the very last straw, the remaining bits of the planet explodes, leaving naught but debris and total annihilation in its wake.

“OPERATION COMPLETE,” a robotic voice commands from all around Breve, hammering the final nail in the coffin— and Breve almost feels that nail get driven into her stomach, too, with how utterly sick she feels. “COMMENCING COLLECTION.”

And then, it all falls into silence once again.

...Which is then promptly punctuated by Tiffney’s voice, leaving Breve without any time to even grieve. “Heya, Peach! You’ll like this new one,” she says, and then she lets go of Breve.

The caten, who had forgotten about her own kidnapping in the horror of watching her planet be obliterated, immediately snaps back to reality. Her eyes dart around in frantic curiosity: the floors, the walls, everything around her is constructed of a pure-white material that, if her bruised knees are any indication, harder than the steel used to build plate armor. Only the ground below is made of a transparent glass— a cruel decision, as if purposefully designed so one can observe the destruction from a safe environment.

“Am… am I dead?” Breve whispers aloud to herself, the dry air of the changed environment filling her lungs. Before she can fully process the fact that she’s been spirited away, the sound of wooden soles against cold steel reach her.

Breve flicks her ears before raising her head up. There’s Tiffney, in all her dirt-dusted glory— but then there’s another woman, with a head full of bright-pink hair and tied up in a high ponytail. And, oh, she’s human, thank the lords for someone of an actual familiar species, even if she’s got wacky hair.

“That’s Breve,” Tiffney says, pointing to her. Breve weighs the pros and cons of running away, before the final realization that she has no idea where to go sinks in, sending her heart slumping down her chest like the water drop of water down a drainhole. “Dechambul’s spying isn’t bad, huh? Rank A Healer! And I recruited her, full adherence to ethical guidelines and everyth—”

The human with pink hair suddenly grabs Tiffney by the throat, before tossing the elf against the metal wall with such force that even Breve feels bad for her.

“Alright,” Peach spits, and Breve can more clearly see her now: dressed in flowing white robes with red accents and wearing circular orange-tinted spectacles, she’s about Breve’s height but probably a thousand times as strong. She’s got pink-toned white skin, though nowhere as ghostly-pale as Tiffney’s— especially with how Peach is absolutely red in the face with blazing anger. “What the fuck was that, Tiffney?”

Tiffney, who is somehow in one piece after being slammed hard enough to break bones, crawls off the ground before giving Peach a stubbornly wide grin. “What the fuck was what?”

The look on Tiffney’s face, however, betrays that she knows exactly what she’s done to earn Peach’s ire. And Peach responds by promptly kicking Tiffney in the face, once again with such force that her head connects loudly with the wall. Breve flinches.

“You are an embarrassment,” Peach declares scathingly, and Tiffney struggles a little harder to lift her head off the ground this time. “That was the worst recruitment I have ever had the displeasure of eavesdropping on in all my years at the CBT. You made her cry before we destroyed her planet. You didn’t even specify what she would be joining.”

“I mean, it’s join or die with the rest of the world, right?” Tiffney retorts, and Peach crosses her arms in obvious disapproval. “Besides, didn’t your mother ever teach you that eavesdropping is rude?”

“Unlike you, Tiffney, some people in the galaxy have morals by which they adhere to. There are some who would rather perish with their world than join us, and that is something we have to respect,” Peach explains, and Breve forces herself onto her feet before backing away slowly. “We only have one ethical rule, Tiffney. And you couldn’t even do that right.”

“Aww, you love me,” Tiffney laughs.

Peach immediately responds with an appropriately-powered kick to the back of her head, and Tiffney finally passes out.

At that moment, Peach turns her attention towards Breve. Upon making direct eye contact, Breve immediately screams, bringing her hands up to her face in a vain effort to shield herself. “W-wait! Don’t beat me up!”

“I… will not beat you up,” Peach reassures, and her voice is a hundred times more soothing than anything Tiffney ever breathed out. “I apologize for the abhorrent unprofessional behavior of my coworker, Breve. Now, I just need to ask one question…”

She claps her hands together, and Breve pulls her hands away, before reluctantly nodding. “Good. Now, do answer truthfully…” Peach steps closer, giving Breve a serene smile that almost makes her seem friendly. “Would you rather die with the rest of your planet, or join us in destroying more planets?”

What the fuck.

All remaining hope that anything can ever be alright again is swiftly dashed from every corner of Breve’s mind. The sheer weight of the question is enough to stun a rugged soldier, much less a friendless loser who just had her entire perception of reality stolen away from her. “I…” Breve’s jaw hangs, for a moment, and Peach regards her with a solemn nod.

“If you wish to die, I promise you I will make it painless,” Peach says, and then the cogs finally begin whirring in Breve’s head.

“No! Absolutely not!” Breve wheezes, and then she shakes her head violently just to make it clear. “I don’t want to die, not at all, no sir!”

“I hear you loud and clear,” Peach says, and she extends an arm to Breve. Breve stares at her outstretched hand, something which will probably be a running theme, and Peach tilts her head before retracting her arm. “Apologies, I assumed shaking hands was a customary greeting in your culture.”

“Uh— no, no, it is, I’m just…” Breve trails off, because there is no word in the entirety of the caten vocabulary which can describe how absolutely fucking frazzled she is right now. “Just… a lot to take in.”

“I understand,” Peach hums, and Breve is so utterly thankful that she’s finally talking to someone who isn’t a raving lunatic that will stab her palm with a syringe and offhandedly mention the idea of murdering her. “Well, you do not need to re-introduce yourself to me. I overheard your unfortunate conversation with Tiffney, and I must say, Resurrection magic is a truly powerful skill… you will fit in well here.”

“Ah,” Breve breathes. “But… I didn’t bring my staff with me.”

“Do not worry. Equipment is easily replaced,” Peach reassures.

Breve sighs. “Well, that’s good, but… you also know I…”

“You will learn,” Peach says, and though her tone is still gentle, there is a subtle hint of determination in her word. It’s not a ‘oh, you’ll learn’, it’s more a ‘you will learn’. “But let us not speak of such things now. Come, you should rest.”

She begins walking down the hallway, beckoning Breve to follow. Breve spares the passed-out Tiffney a fleeting glance, before happily leaving her behind to accompany Peach in her slow stroll down the metal corridors. “I will introduce you to the remaining member of our squad,” Peach says, and Breve realizes she’s got a gauntlet like Tiffney’s, except that it looks much cleaner and less… blood-colored. “He is an Alchemist, and he will make you a drink that can soothe even the most frightened of cats.”

Breve, despite knowing she’s in a situation where she really shouldn’t talk back at all, lets a few words barrel out of her mouth in annoyance. “I’m not a cat. I’m a caten.”

“Oh?” Peach gives her a surprised look, before suddenly nodding in understanding. “From your tone, I’ll take it that such terminology is offensive. My apologies. It is simply unfortunate that the Intergalactic Guidelines for Unified Species Naming has titled one of your particular phenotypic showing as ‘catgirl’.”

“Wha… catgirl?” Breve’s eyes widen in disbelief. “Intergalactic… guidelines… wait, stop, I don’t even look like a cat!”

“You… don’t?” Peach looks at Breve with palpable concern. “Perhaps… there is something being lost in translation, here. I will have to report a glitch to the Universal Translation team.”

Universal Translation team? “Wait, then, what language are you speaking, Peach?”

“My own, as you are speaking yours,” she explains calmly. “The device I am wearing on my arm automatically corrects my speech to one that is understandable to you, according to universal indicators of your language evolution.”

Breve’s eyes flit down to the gauntlet. “It can do that?”

“It can do quite a lot,” Peach says matter-of-factly. “I am not the right person to ask, however. I will not be able to explain how it accomplishes any of this to you. My only concern is that it works, and that you get your own CBT sleeve as quickly as possible.”

Fair. Breve figures that if she actually tried to understand half of this shit, her head would probably explode.

“Let me explain the layout of the spaceship,” Peach begins, and while Breve has never heard of a spaceship before, she can put two and two together. A massive vessel in space makes sense if her planet has been blown into pieces. “Currently, we are boarded on the Nostradamus, one of the many CBT spaceships within its large fleet. It is the one our squad is assigned to. The room we just left is the Teleport Hanger, where people are transported in an instant to and fro from the spaceship. It is how you were brought here from the surface of your home planet.”

She waves her hand in front of a door they’ve approached. “And here,” she declares as the doors miraculously slide open on command, “is the Main Hub.”

As a rush of cool air floods in from the open doorway, it carries a symphony of brilliant lights and winding hallways that the mere sight of nearly knocks Breve onto her arse. The clean, metallic walls extend forward before opening up into a huge open space, covering multiple floors and countless pillars.

“Stick to the left,” Peach says, and only then does Breve notice the fucking dragon who is sauntering down the wide hallway, nearly five times her size and wearing a similar metallic band to everyone else on its left foreleg. Its shimmering red scales and terrifying reptilian eyes echo back to the fairytales she would read as a kid, and if dragons are real then what the fuck else is in here?

Needless to say, she promptly moves the fuck to the side, letting the dragon pass. It walks by without incident or fanfare, because a massive dragon casually strolling by is apparently a normal sight here.

“We’ll be taking this to our squad room,” Peach explains, and she stops in front of a long, vertical tube. With a wave of her gauntlet over a white panel, it flashes green before the tube opens up, and she beckons Breve to follow as she walks in. With lack of anything else to do, Breve wordlessly obeys, entering the cramped tube along with Peach.

And then Breve nearly screams, because there’s a towering twelve-legged beast reclining against the tube’s side, its body segmented in a way that is reminiscent of a winged insect.

She spends a good five seconds taking in the sheer height of the creature, and… is it… smoking a cigar in its pincers?

“Ahem,” Peach coughs, catching Breve’s attention. She quickly tears her eyes away, rushing to Peach’s side as the pink-haired woman sighs. “…Please excuse my squadmate’s staring, she’s new here. She didn’t mean any offense.”

“None taken,” the beast coos almost seductively in a confident baritone voice. Breve is more blown away by the idea that it can talk at all. “I’m used to being eye candy for the ladies.”

“Of course,” Peach responds politely, but as she faces away from the bug-man-thing, her expression twists into something more akin to annoyance. Breve simply stands next to Peach, keeping herself close to the only vaguely familiar living thing in this entire landscape.

The tube seals up, and the floor beneath them ascends in a smooth, rapid fashion through the brightly-lit tubeway. As they go higher, the walls become transparent, and Breve can suddenly see hundreds of people scurrying about their business among the layout of the spaceship.

And people is a generous descriptor: for every two-legged two-armed being of vaguely caten or human proportions, there are many who break every rule in the box, from slithering serpents that could swallow her whole to diminutive winged beasts that choose to fly rather than wait in the tubes.

The floor beneath them begins to slow, before coming to a complete standstill. “...Well, this is our stop. Follow me.”

Peach takes a step out, and before Breve follows, she decides to turn away and give the strange bugman a bow. “I, um, sorry for staring.”

“Hey, I said it was fine,” it chuckles. With a casual puff of its cigar between its fuzzy slit-mouth, it continues: “Besides, I suppose I’m somewhat guilty myself… but it’s not my fault when you’ve got such a nice ass.”

And then, the bugman immediately gets decked in the face by a brown object flying at great velocity. As it falls back, it lets out a moan of exaggerated faux-agony, before Breve realizes the thing that was tossed is Peach’s shoe, and she walks back with a scowl to collect it.

“Let’s go, Breve,” Peach repeats sternly. As she pulls her wooden sole off the alien’s face, it gives her a wink with one of its many eyes before she kicks it again in irritation, this time eliciting a real cry of pain.

Breve, who decides that commenting on Peach’s inclination towards violence isn’t exactly a good idea when both occasions have technically been in defense of her, silently nods before hurrying back to Peach’s side. “CBT employees come in all shapes and sizes,” Peach says as the tube door closes behind them. “And mothren, as you have just learnt, are the most insufferable of them all.”

“R...right,” Breve stammers. “Mothren, huh… is beating people up allowed, by the way?”

“Of course not,” Peach answers calmly, and Breve stares at her in silence. “But our line of work means that tensions often run high. Fights are inevitable, and our employers turn a blind eye to most altercations.”

A short, humanoid alien carrying a bunch of boxes walks past the two of them, before their heart-shaped tail stands up in alarm and they let out a loud wolf-whistle towards Breve’s direction. Peach immediately fixes them with a blood-curdling glare, and they scurry away while Breve blinks on confusion.

“...A point of note you will likely figure out soon enough, Breve,” Peach begins with a sigh. “I understand you do not enjoy the term ‘catfolk’, but that is what many will classify you as. And ‘catgirls’, as you would be colloquially termed, are considered by many societies as highly attractive.”

“Oh,” Breve blurts out, her ears twitching in surprise. She’s not quite sure how to feel about that, especially when torn between the idea of getting attention after being generally seen as a Plain Jane most of her life versus the issue of intergalactic sexual harassment. “Why?”

“I am not quite sure myself,” Peach answers honestly, shrugging her shoulders as she does so. “Perhaps because catfolk are stereotypically expected to be promiscuous.”

Pro— promiscuous? Before Breve can even stutter through a thousand reasons why that isn’t true in the slightest, Peach takes a sharp turn to the left before banging on a rather inconspicuous piece of white wall. “We are here,” she announces, and sure enough, the wall in front of them opens up.

The room ahead is almost… cozy, in contrast to the clinically clean white walls and floors they’ve just traversed. A mismatched assortment of furniture decorate the space, from a bright red couch to a horrendously ugly lime-green rug.

On the other end sits a hunched-over figure, an ominous black hood draped over their head. They’re sitting at what should be a dining table, bony brown hands holding a spoon, and they’re slurping up… okay, what the fuck is that? What are they eating? Is that offensive slurry of brown specks and viscous red slime supposed to be appetizing?

“Mmffmmfgh,” the man proceeds to greet both women with, before finally turning around and patting the guck off his face with a tissue. Much to Breve’s delight, he seems to be a normal human being too, and while Breve has always seen human tourists as rather irritating in Brigid, she’s also incredibly relieved to know they seem to be the most populous race as compared to massive bug-people or towering dragons.

Call it a cope, but hanging onto the few silver linings in this situation is probably essential for her continued mental health here.

“Please swallow first,” Peach grumbles, and the man has to hold back a laugh before doing as she commands. She steps aside, letting Breve into the room before gesturing to the man.

“Breve, this is Dechambul. He is the last member of our squad.”

“Nice to meet you!” He gives Breve a large, toothy grin, and she silently notes that the in-betweens of his teeth are packed full of treacly red ooze. “Dechambul, CBT’s best vampire at your service.”