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Lady floated through the vast vacuum of space, feeling at peace for the first time since her release from exile. As good as it was to be back on Paradise, returning to a bloody mass murder of the island's most powerful elite was not exactly the happiest of homecomings, especially since it meant she had to suspect some of her old friends as well. But up here, alone in space, it was… nice. She had more freedom than she did during exile, but she still had the same peaceful solitude.
Oh, and look, there's the moon! She smiled as she noticed the large white rock, floating ahead of her in the darkness. Well, I guess I finally reached it… She was still many miles away, and she had other objectives to take care of first, anyway, but it felt nice to reach out and pretend that she was able to hold it in her hands. If she had been on a little joy ride through outer space, she would've totally stopped by to take a few moon rocks home as souvenirs, but as it stood, she was after something much bigger than moon rocks today.
The second Holy Seal was supposed to be out here, somewhere, and Lady could already feel something drawing her towards it. That had to be it! What else in the entire, emptiness space would give off such a powerful, compelling energy? So she followed her gut and followed her instincts, allowing them to lead her away from the moon again.
She wondered briefly she would be able to identify her star sign, Kiss Me to the Moon, from here. She had plenty of time to stare at the constellations during her exile, but would it be any different now that she was floating among them?
The pull Lady was feeling deep within her chest and stomach didn't grow any stronger or weaker, but she couldn't help but feel as if she were steadily getting closer and closer to the Second Seal. She was sure that soon she would be able to—Wait! Was that…music?
Lady closed her eyes and tried to focus hard… Yes! It was! As crazy as it sounded, she could hear music playing through space! As sure as her name was Lady Love Dies, even though it was faint, she would've sworn under Oath, at Judge's feet, that she could hear music. She tried to orient herself towards the sound, wondering if maybe the noise was leaking through the broken Second Seal. After a bit of trial and error, she finally got herself going in the right direction.
For several more minutes, she floated through the void of space, the music slowly but surely getting louder and louder. Sometime during this part of her journey, something else suddenly floated across her field of vision. It was a little red… thing. She wasn't really sure what else to call it. It looked like a bean with stubby legs, and something on its back. It was entirely red except for a light blue, sideways oval near what she assumed was its head, if those stubby things were indeed legs. Like Lady, it wore only a space helmet, although its was on the very top of its head.
As it floated by, it waved at Lady as if to say, "Sup?" Lady blinked and waved back, not sure what else to do as it continued to float away. She watched it go with a level of concern. What was it? And what was it doing just floating around all by its lonesome? But given how unbothered it seemed by its endless, meandering path, she could only hope that whatever it was, it got to wherever it was trying to go soon.
May you reach the moon, Lady thought, thinking literally and metaphorically as the tiny red thing finally disappeared from her line of sight. As much as she may have wanted to help, or at least figure out what it was, her time-sensitive mission took priority over all else. If she didn't even have time to grab a couple of moon rocks to go, she certainly didn't have enough time to go chasing after the first thing that caught her eye out here.
But Lady only just turned back towards the sound of the music when she suddenly noticed something else flying in her general direction, only this was much more pressing, immediate, and dangerous. It was a giant space rock, and it was heading right for her!
"Nani, the Hell?!" the detective squealed, frantically trying to swim out of the way of what was otherwise a giant projectile. Before she got very far, though, something grabbed her, wrapping around her waist and pulling her up and backward.
"NANI, THE HELL?!" The next thing she knew, she landed flat on her butt on a very cold, hard, bumpy surface. Owww…
"And what's a lovely lady like you doing out here all by your lonesome, frolicking with space and time, hmm?" First, Lady noticed the vaguely British accent, just like her own. Then, she noticed all that tall, dark, leather. First, there were tight, black, leather pants. No, it was an entire body suit, the pants didn't break off at the waist. Instead, they kept on going up, just like their wearer's height. Her body was also clad in shiny, black leather, although there was a circular patch of it missing right over her rather large, ample breasts. But Lady could only see a crescent-shaped sliver of skin, the rest of it was covered by a large, gold medallion with a bright red ruby in the center of it.
The woman smirked down at her, gorgeous and intimidating. Her glasses even seemed to flash as she tilted her head in amusement. Her black hair was piled high atop her head, tied with a blood-red ribbon, but it still hung almost all the way down to her boots, which were also black leather, and with quite a large heel, giving her even more height. What were those strange container-looking things on the sides of the boots?
"Hmm, cat got your tongue?" the woman continued to tease, purring almost seductively at the dumbstruck detective. "I know, I know, you like to get an eyeful, darling. I am quite the attractive woman, but I haven't got all day to indulge in your fantasies. Maybe some other time," she smirked again, but what she said next finally breathed some life back into Lady. "For now, I have much bigger fish to fry, much brighter stars to dance with! And I simply mustn't keep them waiting! They are such demanding partners, after all!"
"A-and who are th-they?"
"Ah! She speaks!" The other woman threw her head back laughing, a loud and hearty sound. "They, my darling little one, are beings far beyond your comprehension. I suggest you run along and go back to whatever star or planet you came from." Although she looked back in the direction Lady had come, she gestured over her shoulder to… Lady's eyes went wide. It looked like a miniature sun, and even from whatever distance they were at now, she could feel the heat and energy burning off of it as if it were angry.
"Cereza!" Another voice called out from overhead, and before Lady knew what was happening, another woman had leapt onto the giant rock she and… Cereza? were currently on. "How rude of you to turn our lovely duet into a solo!" Even though she wore red and had white hair, she otherwise seemed almost exactly like this Cereza woman: tall, intimidating, powerful, entirely clad in tight leather, and very sarcastic.
"Ah, forgive me, dear Jeanne, I had something else to attend to," she gestured to the woman at their feet.
"Oh, Cereza, since when did you get such a hero complex, hmm? I thought I was the only damsel you'd ever save!"
"Oh, don't be jealous, darling Jeanne, you know I still love you the best," Cereza smirked and winked at her companion.
Cereza and Jeanne… Right when they finally turned back to her, Lady finally found her voice again. "I'm… Lady Love Dies."
"Lady Love Dies? Now that is an interesting name if I ever heard one!" Jeanne quirked an eyebrow, noting the woman's British accent with interest.
"I prefer my lady loves alive," Cereza agreed, amused. But she finally extended a hand to Lady to help her up, which Lady took gratefully.
The trio briefly exchanged stories, each party curious as to why the other one was out here of all places, in outer space. Lady mentioned searching for a Seal, a portal, some sort of magical entity or body that should've been floating around somewhere nearby. She wanted to inspect the damage to see if she could understand who did it. Jeanne and Cereza (who actually, formally introduced herself as Bayonetta, so it appeared as though "Cereza" was a name only Jeanne could use) meanwhile, were out killing an angel.
"Killing an angel?!" Lady was alarmed. Jeanne and Bayonetta gestured back to the angry, fire-spitting sun in perfect synchronization.
"Oh, do be quiet, you impatient, impertinent, impetuous thing!" Jeanne snapped. A burst of flames suddenly lunged at them. Before it could reach them, though, and before Lady could even blink, the two women's hair suddenly shot forward as if it had come to life, like giant snakes. The ends frayed out into what must have been a shield, because the fire stopped dead in its tracks.
And I thought Paradise was weird! I wonder if that's how this Bayonetta woman saved me?
"Well, Ms. Love Dies," Bayonetta turned back to the detective cheerfully, hair slithering back into its original position and size, "I and my companion would be glad to help you with your little excursion, although if you're looking for something around this area, we might need to take care of our little friend from Paradiso first!"
Paradiso? Lady perked up. Before she could ask, though, Bayonetta asked something first.
"How good are you with guns?" Now that was an interesting question. Lady was technically trained with guns, but she hadn't so much as even seen one in the past 8000 years! When she admitted as much, Bayonetta and Jeanne looked surprised. Perhaps they knew she wasn't entirely human (or at least not entirely mortal) since she was able to travel around space with only a helmet, but to hear just how old she actually was…
"Well, I can assure you firsthand that even if you've been out of practice for a few millennia, it'll come back to you fairly quick!" Bayonetta grinned, gesturing for Jeanne to step forward. She handed Lady two red and gold guns. It was then that Lady realized what the container-looking things on the sides of their boots were: holsters. It was then that Lady also realized she, too, was in the company of immortals. Of course, that was obvious from the start, since Bayonetta was able to have a space fight in even less protection than Lady, but to hear her and Jeanne spell it out was something else entirely.
Jeanne and Bayonetta were the last of their race, the Umbra Witches. They were each contracted to a demon in Inferno, and it was their life's duty to kill as many of Paradiso's angels as possible. Lady, meanwhile, was a member of the Syndicate, a powerful group who gained their immortality through their own pacts with their gods: mysterious, eldritch beings from the stars.
Ah, god-killers who hate Paradise and fight with demons by their side. Lovely… Lady thought faintly, but she had no intention of bringing the Syndicate's sermons here, so she was more than happy to take up arms alongside the other two immortal women.
"Alrighty, then, who's up next?!" Bayonetta sang tauntingly, twisting her hands in front of her. Twin pentagrams appeared, and from the pentagrams came two guns. Lady blinked in surprise. Boy, these two sure were loaded! At the same time, Jeanne's moon-white hair started to rise up and sway like a massive snake again. She was also well-trained with guns, but she preferred to fight with magic and demons.
Suddenly, the music Lady heard earlier started up again. Ah. So these two were the ones responsible for it. Lady couldn't help but feel a pang of despair. Maybe her Second Seal was nowhere near here, and she'd only been misled by Jeanne and Bayonetta's demonic energy. But it was too late for Lady to abandon her new friends now, especially after they saved her life just a few minutes ago. The least she could do was stick around for a little while, so she cocked her shiny new toys and got ready to rumble. She was briefly surprised to find that it did feel familiar, even though it had been over 8000 years since last she held a firearm. Then, right as the lyrics of the song started, so too did the battle.
Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars! Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars!
Although the lyrics were a little different than what Lady knew from her Paradise, she was stunned to hear the same melody. What were the odds? What sort of strange, interdimensional twist of fate was it that she should meet two other women who were also connected to the moon and stars? That was why Bayonetta, and Jeanne, were both wearing those big, shiny medallions. They weren't just medallions.
"They're pocket watches," Bayonetta explained. "They allow us to control time through something called Witch Time." She and Jeanne both used Witch Time throughout the battle to speed up themselves and slow down the enemy. But more than just the medallions themselves were the way they were positioned on each woman's body. The choice to wear them asymmetrically over the heart, such that only a crescent-shaped sliver of skin was left visible to the eye was not just a fashion decision. Of course! A crescent moon!
"In fact, when I first saw you floating through the cosmos, I thought you were wearing one, too," Bayonetta told Lady. Maybe she and Jeanne were supposed to be the only two Umbra Witches left, but who was to say that there weren't possibly more hiding out in the vast vacuum of space and time? And looking down briefly, Lady could understand the confusion. She wore all red, save for a black top, with a golden heart outline on the front. From far away, she could see how Bayonetta mistook it for one of the Umbra Witches' pocket watches.
Suddenly, the sun before them seemed to rumble, throwing off another wave of intense heat and light. It was as if smaller stars started to fly off the sun's surface. As Bayonetta would explain, they were just smaller angels.
"Awww, such cute little boys!" Jeanne sneered, then she touched the sides of her temples, and her hair came to life again. "Madama Styx!" she cried, and then a massive limb shot out of Jeanne's hair, easily swatting some of the small stars away as if they were no more than flies.
"Save some for me!" Bayonetta cried in mock indignation.
"Get better and fight faster!" Jeanne teased, winking at Bayonetta as another one of Madama Styx's demonic limbs suddenly lunged from her hair.
Lady did her best to keep up, thanking her gods that she had jump boosts. She leapt from rock to rock after Jeanne and Bayonetta, all three of them moving closer and closer to the sun. Lady fired off round after round from Jeanne's guns. The chambers seemed endless, and perhaps they were. She wouldn't put it past these two so-called "Umbra Witches" who could summon the limbs of demons through their hair.
That's the weirdest thought I've had in quite a while, Lady shook her head but continued to fire on the next wave of small, starry angels.
"In other words, hold my hand!" Bayonetta's voice cut through the darkness once again.
"In other words, darling, kiss me!" Jeanne echoed, taking one of Bayonetta's hands. The two then began to spin around as if they were actually dancing. But no, as Lady would come to see, they were only helping propel one another through space. Their teamwork, closeness, and synchronization suddenly reminded Lady of herself and Lydia, or of herself and Crimson…
"Fill my heart with song and let me sing for ever more!" Suddenly, the pair of dancing witches seemed to radiate their own energy.
"Come along, lovely Lady Love, join us!" Jeanne reached out to Lady with a smile. For a moment, Lady looked uncertain, but she was quick to scramble after the pair and jump towards them. Jeanne and Bayonetta each grabbed one of her hands and she felt power surge through her arms.
You are all I long for, all I worship and adore!
The music was louder than ever been before, but now, Lady felt charged and ready to go! She was suddenly lost in the dance, and without thinking, took aim at the nearest oncoming angels and fired away, felling several of them as if it were nothing. She gave an almost mad laugh. This was more fun than she thought it would be! Bayonetta and Jeanne, meanwhile, shared a knowing smile.
"In other words, please be true!" they sang.
"In other words, I love you!" Lady finished the song perfectly, and the three lunged forward again, starting to push the giant sun back.
Lady lost track of time as the battle progressed. There came a point when the other two left her side, but she didn't feel scared or alone anymore. Instead, as long as there was music, she would keep singing and dancing her bullet ballet. At the same time, the other two were preparing to unleash a double Wicked Weaves attack. While Lady distracted the sun's "face", the other two surrounded it on either side.
"Ready darling?"
"Ready!" Their hair twisted and morphed into impossibly tall shadows that large demons suddenly emerged out of. It was only then that Lady paused, stunned and horrified. They were such large, monstrous creatures… She was glad she'd never seen any demons like them on her Paradise.
I wonder what Shinji would think of this? She thought faintly, shaking a little.
One looked like a large dragon while the other looked like a lion with snake-like features. As the music swelled and the dance continued, while Lady held off the smaller angels, Bayonetta and Jeanne focused all their energy on the big one. They could see Lady dashing and jumping out of the corner of their eyes, and they were most impressed by the new girl's speed, agility, and stamina in combat. She knew how to handle Jeanne's guns like an old pro!
Up ahead, Bayonetta's dragon screeched, and then shot forward, sinking its massive fangs into the sun. Even though it caused some damage to the demon's mouth, Jeanne's demon struck the second blow. They went back and forth, literally eating away at the giant angel as the music got louder and faster, seeming to swirl around them in a cacophonous tornado. Finally, then, right as they reached the climax, Bayonetta's demon lunged forward one last time and extinguished the rest of the sun.
All that remained after the battle was a vial of glowing gold liquid. An angel's essence, as Bayonetta would explain. It was the trophy they were going to take back to Inferno to prove that they were still fighting angels, as per their agreement for immortality.
"Fuck Paradiso!" Bayonetta chuckled triumphantly as she slipped the vial into her cleavage.
"Excellent work, you two!" Jeanne commended Bayonetta and Lady both.
"Thanks," Lady was breathless, but she still felt energized as she handed Jeanne her guns back.
"You know, if I didn't know any better, I would gladly call you an Umbran sister," Jeanne told her with a small smile, holstering her guns again.
It was a satisfying victory, but now the question was how to get back home? Not only did Lady still need to find the Second Seal (hopefully it would be easier now that the demonic and godly interference from Bayonetta, Jeanne, and their quarry were gone), but Jeanne and Bayonetta themselves had to get back to Inferno. It was well within their power to just use their witch magic to portal there, but they wanted to help Lady first, since she'd helped them in their quest. Unfortunately, since none of them knew where the Second Seal was, they couldn't exactly just portal there.
"But you are right," Jeanne was the first to speak, "I can sense something, and it does feel like demonic energy, although unfamiliar…" As Jeanne would explain, as all three of them already understood to some degree, demonic and holy entities gave off a sort of "energy signature", but Jeanne could sense that Lady's demons "felt" different than hers or Bayonetta's. But that made sense, given that they came from different dimensions and worshipped (or fought) different higher beings.
"It rhymes, but it is not the same song," Jeanne said, eyes closed as she tried to trace and sense the air for Lady's demons. She was the most experienced at sensing these things for two reasons. One, she used to be very high in the Umbra Witch court, so she had a lot of practice with this sort of thing. Two, while she'd spent her entire life out and about, traveling around the world, Bayonetta went through a period her own exile. Like Lady's it lasted centuries, and when she finally came out, she was a little bit rusty when it came to sensing the supernatural.
That was why Bayonetta was so confident that Lady would still be pretty good with a gun despite having not seen one for 8000 years. Bayonetta had gone through the same thing. And just like Lady, as she would secretly confide to the detective, she certainly missed the freedom of being able to roam the planet and be by her beloved Jeanne's side again. Now Lady really got Lydia and Crimson vibes.
At last, Jeanne found a sense of direction and beckoned for the other two to follow her off into the night. At one point during their journey, however, they came across yet another large, unidentified flying object, only this was neither stone nor angel. It was a spaceship!
"Shall we go greet the lovely pilots inside and see if they would give a ride to three, lost, lonely hitchhikers?" Bayonetta asked. She was the first to reach the ship, knocking on the glass and waving to the pilot. "My, my! What strange little creatures!"
Lady was next to arrive. "Oh! I saw one of them earlier! Floating through space!"
For a moment, the tiny creature on the other side of the glass looked stunned and alarmed to see three large figures looming right outside the ship. It didn't appear that they spoke the same language, but after long enough, Bayonetta managed to convey to the pilot that she wanted in. At first, the creature shook its… head, but after Bayonetta and Jeanne both unholstered their guns, the pilot changed his mind.
"Wha?!- You can't just-!" Lady looked horrified that they would threaten the pilot, but neither of the two witches seemed very bothered. As soon as the airlock opened, they made their way to the back of the ship and floated inside, leaving Lady to follow after reluctantly.
Just when Lady thought life couldn't get any weirder, she spent the next unknown amount of time watching Bayonetta somehow take control of this rather tiny ship (or at least, it was tiny to people all tall as them). The crewmates seemed in awe of the three giantesses that had just boarded, but once they saw the massive guns two of them were carrying, they were also quick to comply and offer their service.
Before any of them knew it, Bayonetta was in the pilot's seat. She was a bit too big for it, it felt like watching a grown woman try to sit at a kid's table, but she managed to squeeze up front and make it work. Multiple times, Lady and the crewmates were jostled around by Bayonetta's wild flying as she blasted "Fly Me to the Moon" from the ship's radio over and over again. While Jeanne stayed up front with Bayonetta, Lady was forced to wait in the cafeteria with some of the other crewmates, since there wasn't enough room in the cockpit for all three of them.
It was during this time that Lady learned that these little crewmates were actually on their way back to one of their planetary bases after visiting the moon. Unfortunately, as was common for these little fellows, other alien creatures would often hitch a ride just the way Jeanne, Bayonetta, and Lady did, although unlike the three giantesses, the other alien hitchhikers lived only to kill and eat the crewmates, and because they knew how to disguise themselves as crewmates, it could be difficult to figure out who among them was an imposter.
Demons, imposters, and gods, oh my! This has got to be the strangest case I've ever worked on! Lady thought as she tried to take inventory of the current crew and put alibis together in order to sus out which one wasn't doing their tasks properly. Because the imposters were aliens, they had no idea how to do any work on the ship, so all Lady needed to do was take careful note of any crewmate struggling with a task more than usual.
At one point, there was one death, but after an emergency meeting was called and Bayonetta and Jeanne found out, they both threatened to use their guns if any more violence broke out on the ship.
"Don't make me come back there again!" Jeanne warned as she and Bayonetta returned to the cockpit. "And don't make us turn this ship around!"
"Although, I wouldn't mind punishing some naughty little ones," Bayonetta smiled darkly and the remaining crewmates looked away, intimidated.
Not too long after, Lady was able to sus out the imposter. As soon as it was revealed, the other crewmates were quick to eject it from the ship. Lady watched it float away, waving farewell, just like the one she saw at the start of her mission. If it was angry about being caught and ejected, it certainly didn't appear that way.
"Lady! Is that your Seal?" Jeanne's voice interrupted Lady's musing as she came back out of the cockpit and gestured to a window on the far side of the cafeteria. There was a large rectangle of light glowing in the distance, but it didn't look like an ordinary star, especially upon closer inspection. Some of that light seemed to shed off the ball in wisps, but it never got any smaller.
"Yes, I think it is!" Lady hopped up excitedly. Now it was her turn to head out the airlock. Before she left, however, she felt something tug at her skirt. One of the crewmates was holding a handful of white stones out to her. Moon rocks!
After another game of charades, Lady was able to make out that the crewmate was giving it to her as a gift of gratitude for helping them get rid of the imposter. Lady was touched and she patted the crewmate on the head. It put its fingers together and looked down, as if flustered. That earned a chuckle from both Lady and Jeanne.
"When Cereza realizes how friendly these little things are, she'll never want to let them go," Jeanne joked.
"Funny you should mention that…" Bayonetta also came out of the cockpit, having assigned one of the other crewmates to take over temporarily while she came back to say goodbye to Lady. There were already two more crewmates sitting on either of her shoulders.
"Mama! Mama!" One of them said. Bayonetta looked quite pleased with herself.
Jeanne laughed and shook her head. "Ever the Team Mom, aren't you, Cereza?"
The farewell between the three women was a little somber, it was clear they felt strange just leaving Lady stranded in the middle of outer space again, but as she reassured them, she knew how to get back to her Paradise. It was just the Seal she'd needed help finding.
"Where will you two go next?" Lady asked the others.
"Well, I think Cereza wants to help these little guys get back to their base," Jeanne gave Bayonetta another teasing smirk. "After that, I suppose we shall return to Inferno to drop off our latest delivery." Her smile turned dry as Bayonetta patted her breasts.
"Well, it was a pleasure meeting you," Lady extended a hand. It certainly was an interesting day, but these two hadn't been all that terrible.
"Same to you, Ms. Love Dies," Jeanne shook Lady's hand first, then Bayonetta.
"If you're ever around again and have any demon or angel problems, let us know," Bayonetta winked at her. Lady laughed and nodded her head. They all knew the odds of that were basically zero, but it was a funny idea.
Although I can't imagine the Syndicate would be too welcoming of two demon-summoning witches, unfortunately…
With that, Lady finally exited the spacecraft, her last sight of it being Jeanne and Bayonetta waving from the cockpit, the two crewmates on Bayonetta's shoulder also waving goodbye. Lady waved to them as well before turning her attention to the Seal. Once she had the information she needed, she made her way back to the door that would return her to Paradise.
Right before she stepped back into her world, though, she paused to look out into the emptiness of space one last time. She slipped her hand into her pocket where the moon rocks were. They were a perfect souvenir, and even though she knew it was probably only her imagination by that point, she thought she heard the faint strains of music still humming through the galaxy.
Fill my heart with song and let me sing for ever more! You are all I long for, all I worship and adore! In other words, please be true! In other words, I love you!