[ Some time passes after those explosions go off and -- there's a lot going on here, Fox, as you come to. People next to you rubbing wrists and ankles where rope or chains have been severed, dazedly pulling masks off their faces. And there's someone with a very different sort of mask crouched next to you right now: probably a pretty un-reassuring one, metal and dark and vaguely like a skull.

Archeval knows that face. He's seen it in pictures. It'd be hard to forget the person who got Bai Mingyu to actually smile. ]

Hold still, will you? [ The voice that issues out of the skull-like helmet is filtered somehow, a little mechanical and unsettling. ] Let me cut you loose.