FV – Chapter 46

Predictive Analysis

Lyun lead Xwyrh to a specific room of the archives which had been an area of high traffic of late.  Fortunately, the area had calmed down in the time since, the halls once again still and quiet.

“Hells, please don’t tell me you have more work for me to do now.”  “Relax, Ezhyrae, we’re just here to talk…”  “Thank…”  “… about ersatz.”  “I hate you right now.”  “Xwyhr here is a student, studies cosmology of all things, which might be pretty neat.  Her studies involve the state of worlds, which is a pretty big deal.”  “I can see why she went to you for help, miss world traveller.”  “Well, here’s the thing, we landed the most interesting question.  What criteria would an ersatz have in figuring out if a world was good?”  “What?  Ersatz don’t have their own criteria, they just do the stuff they are supposed to do.”  “So why did an ersatz choose this world?”  “Ah, so you’re not asking about just any ersatz, you’re talking about the first ersatz.  That was.. a special case.  That was the only ever known instance of an ersatz having an actual living essence.  More than that, she was almost a well of essences, very attuned to the concept as a whole.  Legends say that her own essence even came from the terran mythos, but I’m not sure how believable that is.  However, the seed she brought would have come from the heart of a world, so she at least had an essence in tune with the essence of worlds.  Quite rightly, there isn’t a single person in the ersatz field that hasn’t tried to appeal to such a profound greatness, but there simply is no way to compare.”  Ezhyrae was even zoning out, reflecting upon the memory of divinity that had once walked among people for Lyun.  Lyun was seeing that this was another magnified aspect of history that caused those interested to remain blind to simple reason and understanding.

“So, someone who was basically an essence expert gauged the quality of this world within reason towards that status.  If such an essence was an expert in essences, then they could have gauged world essences, or some quality that vouches for capacity.  But.. if there was something obvious that determined the potential for an essence in the husk of a world, that would have to mean there was something observable in what had come before.  I.. I.. I mean, essences are things people are supposed to have too.  If a person dies, they would lose their essence, and be nothing but a dead body.  The person would then disappear forever once their essence moves on, and their body and mind begins to fade.  To know how much value a person held, how they would work with a new essence.. it would be important to still see signs in how that person was in the life they had last held.  That would mean that someone with a vision of essences had enough ability to witness traces of how this world was when it held life.  If there were traces of essence left, there were traces of life left, enough to hold enough promise that some sort of essence infusion would work.  The world.. was never completely dead, it was just on its last threads, with almost nothing left to give.”  Lyun was doing her best in trying to figure out all of this weirdness.  She wasn’t at all versed in essences or anything, she was honestly quite bad with measures like death, but her chaotic experiences had taught her a thing or two about bodies and potential.  To totally believe that bringing back a world from death would save it, that would mean there were enough signs that a second chance might be enough opportunity to do the right thing.

This in turn reminded her about a discussion from before with the temporal lady.  This world had faded, but the other world had endured.. so there really was something distinct here.  Was it a matter of chaos, or had that been a result of the aftermath rather than the original cause?  What exactly had brought death to this world, to have left it in a state that it could even be so restored?  Axon was more worried about the sort of people that had been here before, but the lessons of such people might actually be the important thing here.  Something had gone terribly wrong, and absolutely no one was worried about making sure that history would never repeat itself.

“Wow, so this is all really neat, and would probably make for a great essay for my teacher.  It’s definitely a neat thing to consider, even if it would be asking far too much for one or two people to look into all on their own.  That’s generally the whole point of civilization, teamwork.  We work together, do our thing to better society, trusting others to pitch in so that the weight of responsibility doesn’t break us.”  “Except this involves…”  “Everyone, right?  Heck, I can tell you believe your otherworldly knowledge grants you an edge in all of this stuff, but that’s just you being a stupid genius again.  Just because you know a lot, just because you can go everywhere, even if you could do more than anyone else.. you shouldn’t be trying to do everything.  If you can already tell something is up, then the first step is to bring everyone related up to speed, so that many people could help out.  There is no chance you’re going to notice everything, and asking you to do everything is going to crush you, we already talked about how that was the wrong idea.  Don’t start planning how you will fix everything, figure out how people will start fixing things together.”  “But, if we don’t look into this, history could repeat itself.”  “And.. that’s why everyone should know, right?  We look into things, we learn about the truth, we all make things happen.  This is everyone’s problem, so each of us have the right to help make things better.  Trust that you’re never alone.”  Xwyhr wasn’t even giving Lyun the chance to build a counter argument at all.. but maybe Xwyrh had a point too.  Making people aware of their circumstances would only help, awareness had itself been her greatest resource though everything she had endured.

“So, how is this for a plan?  I’ll make my essay on the subject, give it to my teacher, then build up a lot of hype in such a cosmic study.  Making the thing spread will draw more attention from other people.  Once there are a bunch of details back from the academy’s many minds, we can put things together and see if there are any new leads.  Supposedly, the hardest part of this plan is the waiting.  Quite rightfully, we’ve already figured out that you two have a bunch of other things on your plate though, you can’t just fuss about every single problem that ever comes up, or you’ll get nothing done.  So go look into something else instead, hopefully your own happiness.  I mean, you’ve probably been as bad as Axln, right?  I don’t keep track of the elf boys much, but can you even name one you like?”  “Actually, yes, there was one.  We.. it just didn’t work out though.”  “Then.. sounds like you have more work to do.”  Xwyhr did manage to remind Lyun about some of her current gripes in this world, the failings she had already endured.  To Lyun, such was just a great reason to not bother with such matters at all, it wasn’t worth the extra heartbreak.  However, more accurate was that she was mostly just disillusioned with everything in society in general, her struggles against the foundry feeling like an overall futility.  Even in that.. it just felt like such a detached concern, somehow.

“Don’t forget, just like Axln, you have twice the options some of us have.”  “You kidding?  But there are no elves there?  You know how bad half-elf stuff is.”  “Girl, you’re not an elf there either.  None includes you, you’re still a part of that society too.  Just go find some guy who is.. whatever species you are there…”  “Human.”  “So yeah, go find a human.. like the elf/human hybrid you are.  Hells, and there you were worried about half-elves.  Finding a human guy there won’t kill you like it might here, you won’t get sick like that.  I would almost be willing to bet you some real Qeld that there is already at least one human there who might actually be interested in you too.  The only reason I won’t is because you could deny it and I would have no way to prove you wrong.”  With that, Xwyhr left Lyun to such thoughts, earnestly hoping that Lyun would actually consider such advice.  Lyun was actually feeling stung at the realization that she’d been living like some kind of strange half-elf, but.. even that wasn’t the same.  Four bodies, two people, she had two bodies for her one person, the species were distinct there.  That logic however did nothing to prove Xwyhr actually wrong.  Lyun however wasn’t completely convinced, she knew Xwyhr simply didn’t understand the sort of situation Axln and herself were in.

“Hey Lyun.  I figured that if I waited in your workshop, you would show up eventually.”  “Oh, Axln, hey!  What are you doing here?”  “Oh, I was just reading.  Elemental stuff, that’s all.  Sorry, I was left with a lot on my mind.”  “Ah, so you found out something new about the world and want to go investigate it?”  “What?  No, we actually found absolutely nothing.  Funny, huh?  But it doesn’t even feel like a waste of time, even though we didn’t ever do anything.”  “Ah, maybe next time you should see some of the work your sister is doing.  I hear she’s working on an essay right now, something about the origins of the world and how it was chosen by a worldly essence who could feel its remaining potential.  Lots of interesting options in that direction.”  “What?!  Did you two…”  “Only a start, something the girl is going to need time with, which gives us time to work on other stuff.”  “Shoot.. and here I was being useless, wasting time.”  “No, sounds like you kept to the plan better than I did.  Your sister might honestly know you better than we could imagine.”  Axln was still visibly worried, and Lyun could tell that was part of the problem.  Exactly how much did that Xwyhr actually understand?  Then again, this was just Axln, it still wasn’t enough to compel Lyun to just go to the other world and…

“Okay then, let’s go see how things are doing in HyperTech then.  We sort of stepped out of helping out there when we did all of the hilltop presentations, so maybe we should go and actually be useful for once.  Drew at least seems to really like your workplace ambitions, so we wouldn’t want to let him down.  I mean, if we didn’t work there, we really wouldn’t have many other places to go.”  “Drew… Hells, your sister is annoying and scary.”  “What did..?”  “Nothing!  There is nothing, and I’m going to go prove it!  Let’s go find a good place to switch over.”  “Okay.. then…”  Axln followed Lyun as they went to a neutral enough location to switch worlds.  Axln was still mildly concerned, but it seemed like Lyun and Xwyhr might have had.. an argument?  It probably had to do with the essay being written, which is why now wasn’t the best time to reflect upon it.  Something about such an essay still being worked on, it was something Axln would then have to reflect upon later.  At the very least, Lyun seemed willing enough to follow along with the plan.. of getting work done for HT.

However, Kori quickly found herself alone as Rosa stormed off.  The plan.. was to get work done, right?  Kori eventually found Drew’s office, Tristine sitting outside after having been kicked out.  Tristine might have missed the meeting when Rosa was announced as some kind of corporate executive.. but it was pretty obvious it had happened.  Rosa storming around in that no-patience-for-anything mood was outright intimidating anyway.  However, seeing Kori was also there at a loss for what was going on, it did show that Tristine wasn’t exactly alone here.  Tristine considered inquiring upon it, but then realized that Kori and Rosa had probably just planet-shifted again.  There were stories about the planet those two kept going off to, but it wasn’t like the stories made sense.  A magic world, or something like that, like straight up from some kind of earth fairy tale.  Complicated stuff like that.. this was probably not something Tristine wanted to inquire upon.  She had enough to worry about as things stood, she didn’t need anything more.

“I guess I might as well just ask you then.  Is there anything around here that I can help with?”  “Are you for real?  Thank you so much for asking!  A few of our assembly bays broke and we sort of need repairs, because stuff is just slowing down.”  “That would be something I can’t help you with.”  “Aww…”  “Wait, what’s making stuff so hard to repair anyway, isn’t making and fixing this sort of stuff just.. sort of what you guys do?”  “Yes, but it gets hard when we’re pretty much being starved for resources.”  “What?!  Why?!”  “Because we’re not getting much?  I don’t know why, maybe it’s just a matter of budget, but things are getting really hard with these tight restrictions.”  “Well, if you don’t have the stuff to do repairs with, I have no idea what you expected me to achieve even if I could do such repairs.  However, I have an idea who to talk with about the matter at least.”  “Drew?  He’s.. a bit occupied right now though.  If you could…”  “No, not him.  I have another idea.”  Kori dragged Tristine behind her in search of a more familiar option.  Fortunately, the crazy woman wasn’t hard to find while there was work to be done.

“Sophie, counting stock again?  It’s like you still work at your old job, doing your favourite task.”  “It would be better if our stock was as simple.  Maybe it’s the role, having to actually plan stock, not just count that we have as much as we expect to have.”  “So is the plan to have almost no stock, so your job is easier?”  “What?!  No.  The plan is to figure out stock when it’s almost impossible to get more.  Every time I try to order Drew more stock, the order gets cancelled on me.  Something about being unable to transport the product to the destination.  It’s like aerospace control has us on a blacklist or something.”  “Right, because Mheridz isn’t the only one who can pull jerk moves, Velvet has to be just as difficult.  Wait, maybe we can get things in order if we handle transportation ourselves.”  “I tried that.. and got sent home from the border.”  “Could you show me how big we’re talking about for such packages?”  Kori followed Sophie on a tour of their existing stock that needed replenishing.  Some of the stuff was actually awkwardly big, but a lot of the core pieces they desperately needed could fit in a few one cubic meter boxes.  The weight would be potentially rough, but her arm proved enough to carry one.  By her calculations, she could make this work, but she might need to refuel for each trip.

Sophie of course had no idea what was going on, but she had gotten quite used to that feeling in her new workplace filled with tech people.  Tristine meanwhile had figured out the whole lightspeed solution too, she just didn’t bother talking about it in front of the already confused logistics specialist.  There was already even a pending order trying to be processed, suffering due to shipping disputes.  The whole package, three boxes, were currently waiting at a warehouse owned by the supplier.  Walking in and getting them picked up wouldn’t be a problem if Kori could prove her legitimacy.  As a standing employee of HT, that wouldn’t even be hard.  Even if there were questions raised, Sophie could just provide authorization on demand over a holo.  The location was halfway towards the center of the colony, and not even from their side of the outskirts.  It would be quite the trip, but that was only a concern from the perspective of energy consumption.  It was at least notable that no one else could do this sort of thing either.  Rosa might have been the second best option, the ability to carry around everything in one trip using holos could not be undervalued, but that would still be much slower.  Even with Rosa’s dance this was simply incomparable to lightspeed movement, with maybe some suspending time just to make things even faster.  Once she had things authorized, she could possibly get every box back in under five seconds if everything was ideal enough.  At the very least, Rosa would have to know about the fact that Kori was helping with stocking inventory, with such becoming a message Kori had left with Holi so that Rosa would be aware of things here.

After ensuring that everything was ready for her arrival, Kori set off.  Charging her ionic veil, she blurred away from the outside yard and out across the field, making use of her DNTI for precision calculations.  Even doing so, she discovered how hard this could be.  Getting to the border was easy, but from there she was left with precision movements, something that became very awkward when your speed was a beam of light and errors had you bouncing off walls.  She even learned that stopping too close to a wall.. generally broke it.  That poor fence.  Even so, walking just wasn’t settling well with her, so she opted to progress in small bursts.  First, she went to the top of a nearby tall building, surveying her surroundings.  Then, she picked the top of another tall building that she would want to get another perspective of that she had line of sight to.  She was there in a blur, repeating the same process to rapidly cross deeper into civilization.  In this way, she quickly arrived at the warehouse, though in much more than the five seconds estimate.. more like five minutes at least.

At least authorization went about as smoothly as predicted, her access being granted easily enough.  The warehouse staff brought everything out to the field for her, leaving her to coordinate everything from there as they all went back to work, no questions asked.  Kori picked up the first box, blurred up to a high elevation, and then dashed straight out of the barrier.  From there, it was a rapid blur around the field at light speed back to HT’s yard, where she set that box down, took a recharge from Tristine’s waiting supply, and was off once again.  Her second arrival was much easier than the first, making plenty of shortcuts in her calculated descent after becoming aware of a few handy landmarks.  That box was then brought back rapidly too, almost as fast as her estimates even, putting her back in the field for the one last box.  As she went for it, a spark wave pulsed through the air, her ionic charge going dim as a result.

“Halt, you’re under arrest.”  Aerospace security had her surrounded.. or so they thought.  Fervently hoping that she wasn’t catching Rosa at a bad time, Kori halted the progression of time itself.  Picking up the box again proved to be a bit more difficult when she didn’t have the support of the built in systems, but this wouldn’t be a problem either.  She could just slowly drag the box a distance enough away, find a place to hide, recharge her ionics, and be gone with the last box before anyone knew what happened.  See, fast.. because she could cheat by stopping time.  However, as she tried to lift the box up and carry it along, someone proceeded to grab her mechanical arm from behind.  That.. might be a problem, as there was only one other actual person in this world who could move while time was stopped, besides Rosa.

Kori set the box down and turned around to face Velvet as Kori took account of her circumstances.  This wasn’t working at all like she had predicted, this was considerably more complicated than she had originally hoped.

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FV – Chapter 45

Cumulative Demonstration

Hypertech was still burning the midnight hours, much like any other work night, but Rosa and Kori had plans of their own.  Making their way to the same hill Rosa had tried to light a beacon on the fateful day before, both of them prepared their thoughts for this unexpected turn of events.

Quite ostensibly, the two of them were honestly convinced that they were exclusive in their pursuit of research in improved conditions with teamwork.  Kori was herself wondering if this might actually be a foolish idea at this point, considering this would be the second time in a row they were now surprising the other with presents.  Their teamwork had honestly improved quite suddenly, this sort of outlook was starting to seem like it would be mutual.  However, stunning enough were the discoveries involved in the process.  Rosa was already wearing her new model of armored tights, already connected to its new ionic supply.  Kori could still remember struggles with a misconfigured dragon causing problems, but the display of a detonating holo was quite a sight to behold.  Hearing that such an energy discharge could be manipulated was impressive, hearing that there was something like that saved for her was also remarkable.. but nothing was as surprising as hearing that Rosa had holos working like this on the other side too.

Rosa was at least happy to also get a chance to demonstrate her keen ability at making reasonably functional frost designs too, absolute pieces of art in quick and easy design.  Kori had little new there to show for her own efforts, little more than how her gravitation has at least gotten a lot faster.  Rosa thought she heard a quick mention of shadows in disappointment, but had missed the rest of that idea.  Oh, maybe Kori was sad to have been left in the shadows of all of Rosa’s accomplishments.  With that in consideration, they returned to exchange a few finished products for the other to use.  While Kori worked to get her new tights in position, Rosa looked at the small glass lens she herself had been offered.  The thing was slightly manipulatable, and allowed for a nanite to fine tune accuracy on demand, if ever she had a shot she needed to make without missing.  Rosa suspected that such a shot could probably be hacked into by Kori’s newest trick too, if they really needed to work together on it.  It really wasn’t much of a thing though, Rosa suspected that if she really needed to make something count.. she could always count on a holo.

Back on the hill again, Kori looked over her new tights.  It seemed, because her arm was supposedly better at the idea, her tights were engineered to do ionic surges.  More than just sort of discharge ions in a direction, it also provided her with an ionic barrier that was supposed to feel like the barrier her power gear provided for extra protection.  She turned on the full ionic spread, seeing a perfect sphere develop around her.  Clearly, this was to make up for Rosa having the same thing from her DRE.. just in a far better quality.  Well, except she could amplify her’s, it could work like a sort of firewall.. ionwall?  Combined with her gravitation surge.. clearly she was being expected to tackle stuff.  The problem there would be being fast enough to tackle stuff.  In a bit of a self demonstration of such a concern, she turned up her ionic veil and just vaulted to a snowbank.

Rosa watched as Kori absolutely missed the snowbank, blinking over it in a flash of light.  Kori was found a fair distance away, heavily disoriented.  Rosa then brought the entire problem to Tristine’s attention instead, which then led to a history lesson on the Luminescent Era that had forged the original OSIDF.  It seems that, to reach this planet, humans had originally outfitted colony ships with an ionic veil too.. as a pure sphere of accelerated ions caused the area within to be diffused to the passage of molecules outside, allowing the entire thing to travel at a speed fitting for electrons.. otherwise known as lightspeed.  Such was why the ionic process was known as a lightspeed engine.  Such a thing has existed, but no one has ever put it at a small scale before, because the amount of ion intensity needed for this reaction would be pretty stupid to make it convinent.  However, because of Kori’s cybernetic arm being additionally useful for intense ionic circuits, it seems they had actually achieved the intensity required for such a reaction.

“Oh, great, so this means that Kori is going to start warping all around the place.”  “No I won’t, lightspeed is just going really fast, like the whole gravitation thing.  The only way I can teleport is as Axln.”  “Wait, what?  I know I can get this same thing setup there too, but…”  “No, I don’t mean with ions.  I mean with elemental shadow.”  Rosa stared at Kori as the whole shadow discovery thing came to light.  So hold on, not only is Axln a protege of elementals, but she actually had a diverse grasp of it already?  Is that even fair?  Actually, compared to engineering an infinite supply of energy..maybe she shouldn’t be so quick to complain.  She was at least really eager for a demonstration though, pulling Kori to a suitable location to switch worlds over again.

Getting to see Axln at work with shadows, Lyun was left simply stammering.  Not only was Axln projecting shadows, she was even inverting shadows and causing rift or phase reactions.  Her inversions were sort of still limited to such, but that was still rather impressive.  Her shadow arts alone were impressive, capable of providing a degree of stealth.. if you weren’t alarmed by the subtle shadow or could otherwise detect elementals.  Lyun ended up discovering though that such was exactly where such talent ended.. for now.  It wasn’t as if Axln had discovered any of the other established ways that shadows were known to be capable of inspiring confusion or otherwise swaying how people perceived things.  Axln was especially getting pretty close to the sort of composition that resulted in illusions, something Lyun would be decidedly unimpressed with if it came to pass.

However, while distracted, Lyun was then caught off guard when Axln started on the idea of producing yet another lens, again.  This was surprising, seeing that Axln had refined enough of a process in elementals to actually produce a glass composite.  Lyun had to handle most of the design work, using inverted frost carefully enough to vacuum in enough heat to shape the glass appropriately.  However, from there, she got to witness Axln’s discovery in using shadow elementals for light tracking.  Lyun eventually once again put away her arbalestae, impressed by the spiral her weapon had achieved.  This was something even Lyun hadn’t been aware of as a capacity that shadow was capable of, directing and reflecting projections of light.  When the instrument responsible for offering such features for her was completed, she couldn’t help but be impressed.

Actually, would the potential of such shadow arts stop there?  Rifting, mind molding, pathing.. those three things, in addition to Axln’s already sizable hacking of instrumentation might actually be enough to make Lyun’s last goal happen too.  Axln was left in the cyclone that was an occupied Lyun as they all went back to the citadel for some kind of new project.  With a rough instrument done, Lyun took an opportunity to present it to Axln, along with related notes on the same subject.  Wait, Lyun was trying to make something that could produce what would be basically a microchip that she could.. rift to her spinal cord?  Axln’s circlet would even be of immeasurable help in matters of microscopic precision too.  With it, this chip would…  Axln was quickly following everything in another round of shock.  Lyun wasn’t about to stop at creating OSIDFs with real ions, she was making an outright DNTI for holo manipulation.  Actually, with it, wouldn’t this then allow Axln to also be able to do some really fine established control of her own ionic burst or veil.  

When dawn came around, Axln was blinking across the ashen fields while Lyun left her distortion up so that she could manipulate some holos.  To Lyun, this was absolutely perfect.  Axln might have all that shadow nonsense advantage, but from it Lyun was able to get the pure essence of her holo design even while on Ruixse.  Considering how much it had taken to get ions working there at all, maybe it was acceptable that Axln had some kind of impossible achievement of her own.  However, as Axln blurred passed, Lyun realized that the most unreasonable part of this situation was in how much more walking she had to do.  It wasn’t like she could just slap a jetpack on her back and…  After that idea, Lyun pulled out an ashen shard, formed it into a holo, and projected the holo as a set of ionic jetwings for her, the highstream current of ions throwing her into the air.  Nevermind, everything was still fair.  The experience however did remind her of when Velvet had cut herself off, remarking upon potential travel recommendations for Kori, back at the outpost when Rosa was getting the bike.  Between holo jets and lightspeed veils, she wasn’t even certain which one might have been the one Velvet had almost let slip, but it really didn’t matter.

Both of their thrill of discovery were interrupted by having their thoughts suddenly pooled without warning.  Both of them were thus left wondering if they had been having fun trying to mutually surprise the other in an outright comedic act of chaos.  They both also knew where that idea had come from, their chaos.  What was harder to identify was the subtle suggestion that maybe being open to each other’s plans might have been a smarter idea.. no one knew where that came from.  It was however probably a good idea, these surprises were seeming more fumbly when they ended up so widespread like this.  From this, Axln ended up learning that Lyun had yet to spill the idea that she had actually learned to read in the other world reasonably well too, just not at a complete state, so it was something she hadn’t planned to disclose yet.  Lyun then learned about Axln’s elemental research and the diversified nature it had required, explaining some of the recent discoveries at least.

What had also come up in that process was the exploration Kori had endured in the process too, a period where she had wandered around the hidden depths of HT’s place and getting to see all of the historical conduit secrets.  Such had in turn left Axln eager to learn more.. especially from this world.  This world.. this planet had its own secrets buried in an ancient past that even the local people had no knowledge of having ever been in existence.  Sure, it might not have been what the past conduits had discovered, it would have been something else, but the fact that conduits had done stuff in a past iteration of this world did imply that the world had been alive before its current locals had brought life to it.  This made her especially curious then as to what sort of people might have originally been here, what they were like.. really anything about them.  It was an ancient civilization she just really wanted to explore.

Being still pooled, Axln did not miss the stray idea in how this behaviour was a lot like how Yhzia had been.  Yhzia also had a history of being quite the architectural researcher, even though she was more focused on this planet’s lifetime and not its previous lifetime.  In turn though, Lyun was informed of how Fiona was also a very adept holographics artist, being so keenly capable when it came to effective usage of holos.  However, Fiona had never tried to revolutionize holos, she was far more keen on making the most of what holos did than finding ways for holos to do more.  There was a really eerie degree of similarity, but they weren’t exactly the same.  More notably, such people were the lost friends of one and the lost sister for the other.  In fact, this similarity made it even more tragic, this sister they would never know could have been such incredible help in adjusting to their new paths in life.  Such was another thing the two of them shared in parallel, and another thing they would have to help each other with.

Presenting a quick apology, they both decided to cut the pool.  Being so mixed together did make it easier to share ideas, but it also made everything a lot more confusing.  If they could find a way around such confusion, it would be much easier.  Their chaos kept up silent contemplation as the pool ended.  Instead, the two of them started working towards Axln’s recently mentioned plan, the deep histories of the world.  Not even Lyun had any ideas where to start in that one, so Axln simply went to find Jhez.  The records of this planet would not be old enough, but certainly an established historian would respect such an outreach of history so as to have more knowledge and resources on the subject than most.  They eventually found Jhez again working with Xwyhr on what was probably more class work.  However, their discussions ceased immediately, Xwyhr excited to turn instead to whatever Axln might have wanted.  As Axln again repeated her concerns, Lyun was surprised to be dragged away by Xwyhr without warning.

“Hey!  I wanted to help out too!”  “Shh, just let those two work on this for now, please.  I’ve been working on this opportunity for a while now too.”  “Opportunity?”  “Oh, come on, you haven’t noticed?  Does that mean sis might not have noticed either?  Hells, no wonder everything has been really slow.”  “What are you talking about?”  “You haven’t seen how much of a great pair those two proteges make?  A mutual love for history blossoming into a fascination of…”  “Wait, what?  But Jhez is a human.”  “So.. is Axln.  I know, she told me she’s something else in that other world, but that just means she has twice the options of the average person.  Options here, options there, both are valid.  You can’t really have her discount options here either, considering what she said about how crappy things were for her in the other world.  Being treated like trash as a species, how disgusting.  Meanwhile, here she’s making waves.  I only know her a bit, but I still consider her my sister, and so I still think she deserves whatever happiness she could find.”  “Really, but Yhzia…”  “Had seven boys lined up, and I was just waiting for my course to end to make anything happen.  Stupid me, that was apparently waiting too long.  I’m not going to make that mistake twice.”  Lyun was surprised at Xwyhr’s passion at playing cupid, just as surprised that she might not have ever noticed such before either.  Jhez and Axln would be pretty much the same age, and did have plenty in common.. and did spend a lot of research time together.  However.. she was certain that Axln hadn’t ever stopped to consider matters like personal happiness.  Both of them had been pressuring progress and success pretty hard, not exactly taking any time for such considerations.

“I’m certain Axln hadn’t ever taken the time to slow down and think about it either.”  “By the divine, why are geniuses so stupid.  Okay, whatever, this is still going to work then.  Just promise me you won’t let her know, okay?”  “Uh, we pretty much just agreed to not keep our activities from each other.”  “Argh, fine, then just don’t spill what you know.  It just means that I can’t include you in my plans, but that’s not a problem either.  However, if you’re being open with each other, then you might want to talk about the idea that a constant pursuit of glory doesn’t leave any room for happiness.  Don’t just run around devoting everything to getting stuff done and learning about new gimmicks, there is too much in two worlds for you both to cover there.  Take some time to just figure out what makes you happy too, and work towards stuff like that.  I mean, I keep trying to take sis there out shopping or to do casual stuff, but she’s always been so distracted, like she isn’t allowing herself the opportunity to enjoy such things.  Life isn’t only about getting work done.”  Lyun could tell this subject seemed to bother Xwyhr for some reason.  Actually, from what little she knew, wasn’t Xwyhr’s whole family generally dedicated to some generic pursuit of ambition?  As far as she knew, the entire family didn’t even meet up very often.  Maybe this was a point Xwyrh had personally struggled with in that family, something else Axln had been included into.

“You both might even need to find your own kind of happiness too, find it in your own way.  Sure, nothing says you both have to keep quiet about it, but dragging her everywhere isn’t going to let her find her own thing.”  “But when we go to…”  “Yes, yes, you’re both kind of glued to the hip in all of the two-world mess, but that’s just your work.  You know this world, and you know her a lot, you should then be recommending things to her that she could go off to do so that she could find her own way in things.  Remember, she’s a stupid genius, she knows a ton about certain things and is still learning about plenty others.”  “Well, then at least.. what is she doing now?”  “Heh, so you want to at least have her back, then.  Fine, skipping on a few of the petty details.. well.. foremost, she’s probably getting history lessons.  Quick lesson, Axln asked a question there are no answers for, so that’s going to inspire Jhez in the process.  If he’s been paying any attention to the lessons I’ve been giving him though.. they will be taking a break from that pursuit soon enough and relaxing together in more casual conditions, just the two of them.”  “Wait, but that means then that I could help out, I just have to not get in their way!”  “You.. yes, I guess.. you could do that.”  “Want to lend a hand, or do your secret plans need you to work on something while those two are together?”  “Hey!  I would have you know that I still actually have real homework to do, not ‘everything’ was a mask there.  Then again, I’m pretty sure that any discoveries I could make would land me extra credit in some of my courses, so I’m in.”  Xwyhr sounding hesitant at first thus caught Lyun off guard at the sudden acceptance.  Then again, over the whole student-teacher ordeal, this was still a matter of Xwyhr having a teacher that held a passion for the subject.  Being in a cosmology class, there were decided course-relevant aspects in having a report on the world’s ancient history.  Lyun was getting rather shocked at how silently clever Xwyhr might actually be.

“True, you’re the history student here…”  “Cosmology.”  “… so where might be a good place to start?”  “If I thought that my teacher would be lost without hope, do you really think I would do much better?  Our records begin with the world’s discovery, when it was desolate and dead.  The planet’s elemental readings were almost flatlined, though there were faint traces of stone and darkness.. the only elements that could endure such conditions.”  “But.. if the world’s elements were so void.. why was this one picked for the world’s seed?”  “Well, it’s.. uh.. well…  Hells, has no one asked that question before?”  Lyun followed Xwyhr towards the archives as the student devoured records in hopes of getting that faithful question answered.  “Well, it says here that the owner of the world seed was also the mother of all ersatz, so.. it was an ersatz thing?  But.. ersatz aren’t the brightest of anything, so this doesn’t make sense either.  An ersatz wouldn’t have anything special to have made something seem appealing over anything else.. but this world wasn’t picked at random.”  “So maybe we need to find an expert in ersatz then, right?”  Lyun was getting excited about how this was suddenly going places, especially watching Xwyhr fumble like this after the previous discussion.  Bunch of history nuts, and no one was asking the easy questions.  Lyun then used her cell to quickly send a message to Axln, saying that she would be trying to see what she might turn up with Axln’s sister, leaving Axln to figure out stuff her own way with Jhez.  She got a pretty quick reply of thanks, the uncertainty exposing that those two were still stuck on planning.

To Lyun, outcomes there were fine regardless, even if Axln would surprise her with historical or romantic discoveries as a matter of process.  Meanwhile, she would simply see where this trail went, and let Axln know if it went anywhere worth mentioning.

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FV – Chapter 44

Reusable Research

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Lyun kept dedicated to her pursuits in earnest for her own progress, pushing herself towards a feeling of accomplishment that felt so close to her.  With the events that had just occurred, she was still in high spirits, and was determined to turn confidence into success.

She’s already done quite well in such regards too.  When it came to matters of true chaos, she had found her arm really was a flowing reserve of elements.  Not only that, but directing elements through it could actually manipulate such elements as well.  She could simply will the chaos to strengthen elements or shield the effects of them, like her arm was the most complicated type of kyuemu.. thing.. that had ever existed.  Her arm couldn’t even be called a shard, it was bigger than any shard she had ever seen before in that light, more like a gigantic cluster.  Handling calibration of elements was even a sizable feature, allowing for a lot of easy manipulation of instrumentation in their everyday life if they so desired.  This still left a lot unknown overall about their true chaos, but it was at least a strong base understanding from the perspective of this world.

On matters more relevant to this world, things were already much more complicated.  She had taken some opportunity to practice designing what she had taken to calling frost holos, but it really wasn’t the same.  A real holo could carry an insane weight, especially one designed well enough.  Her gift’s creations weren’t even enough to support more than a small box.  She had at least managed to get her power gear to boost her gift enough for her to stand upon it, but that’s about the farthest she could go with it.  What was much more intricate though was making frost designs with her gift, actually artistic patterns, especially if the goal was to have them immaterial.  Her frost patterns could have a very high quality detail to them, representing even really tiny details with clarity and a great stability.  Walking through her work didn’t even affect it, though the patterns could feel quite cold.  The only thing that would really impact her designs would be too much fire elemental, but that was only to be expected.  Water elemental might make her work a bit more annoying though, as the water would freeze the entire construct as ice.

In truth, all of this elemental stuff was even starting to bore her, she was far more inclined to consider things a lot more scientifically.  However, she was aware that Axln would be affected by her actions there as well, she would have to minimize the time she invoked science and simply tried to put stuff together in preparation for science.  Supposedly both time travellers had come here doing that already, making things that were expected to be functional even without having access to the environment that would be required for their function.  However, both of them simply had known what they would be making, she was still in a learning process.  She would thus have to consider and remember concepts of science, set up something that should work, then use small windows to check her creations.  It would be annoying, but somehow she just felt that she could trust her depth of scientific expertise to make up for the difference.

Of course, there were plenty of things that might have also helped in this situation.  Having actual supplies and equipment, having practical experience with everything that amounted to a lot more time than the short period she’s had as Rosa, maybe even having an informational resource that actually compiled a half decent repository of relevant notes.  Of course though, notes would have to be readable to her, the notes here were readable but not relevant, the notes of the other world were relevant but not readable.  Instead, she had to depend on people for information, like Kori, Holi, Drew, or Tristine.  Overall, she was at a loss right now, which would explain her first few failures.  As it stood, her greatest scientific passion was in holography, so it was the foremost thing she was eager to reproduce.  After all, most holography required complex computing for processing, like nanites, but herself.. as Rosa.. she had been producing quality holos from the complex computer called her mind.  Certainly, such an advantage would exist here as Lyun, as long as science applied.  However, holos also required the machinery that produced it, the OSIDFs.  Optical Spectrum Ionic Diffusion, or Diffuser if you were considering the object instead of the technology.  The thing then manipulated ionized particles with matter to create the holo effect.  This implied that one challenge was making the thing, the second was creating an ionic reaction.  The resource they had found underground simulates a thermal or even plasma reaction, but that just wasn’t good enough.

However, she still knew this wasn’t impossible.  Mheridz had pulled out a holo chair on the citadel, meaning the whole concept could work.  However, she doubted Mheridz would be compelled to share such secrets, considering the knowledge had come from the future.  Mheridz was also a few choice words of an insult, there was no way the girl would want to be nice if it didn’t lead to their surrender.  There was no way she could just invite Mheridz to the citadel again and…  Wait, maybe there was someone she could call for help.  The citadel was filled with strange composites, especially more metal than she had seen in her whole life.. as Lyun at least.  Going over the entire concern with Luna, Lyun found herself quickly brought to the citadel’s…  Actually, she had no idea what this was.  Storage bay?  This place honestly had more secrets every time she visited.  She went searching through the stock, her curiosity at play for if this place even had anything useful.  Everything seemed so primitive.  The first box contained an assortment of plain weapons; a rapier, a bow, a hammer, an axe, and five huge swords, all of them tarnished black.. possibly overtime.  The second box contained stuff even more strange; a misshapen scythe, a deformed crossbow, two warped shields.. even a book made of blades.  The third box contained a broken headset.. six other very different headsets, half of them charred black.  Under yet another black shield, she found a pair of weird boots, a pair of weird gloves, and a.. music box?  The stuff looked so old, it was clearly all junk.

Lyun was however clueing on to one notable trend though, everything in these boxes were metallic for the most part.  As such, when the next section contained nothing but exclusive raw metal plates across more than a few boxes, she felt she might actually be in the right area.  Elementally, such metal was clearly a stone element composite, possibly produced artificially from simple elementals using instrumentation.  From a scientific perspective, it could be considered a simple steel alloy, which would still be a bit old fashioned from the perspectives of the other world.  Even so, this was something she could start with, she could even reshape the metal if she treated it with fire elements.  Her memory of cybernetic component design from a scientific perspective proved refined enough that she could create a vast assortment of the parts she needed from what she found.  She didn’t have silicon, but she was familiar with it.. and knew that she could reverse engineer a kyumu crystal for a silicon-like extract.  However, she still had made no progress with ionization, an aspect that had continued to elude her.

Ionization would be an atomic process where materials acquire a positive or negative ionic charge by gaining or losing electrons.  If she could filter electrons like that, she could get the reaction she needed.  Electrons.. so like, electricity.. or lightning.  Was that how it became so easy for Mheridz?  The girl was so obviously of lightning affinity.  Lyun however had no idea where to start in making electrical circuits, something that would be required to hold the electrical charge during a scientific shift.  So far, all she had was a basic frame for something that would do a thing if it was completed.  Fortunately, the metal didn’t stay as hot as it would have under scientific principles, the fire elements fading along with her focus.  Actually, in all consideration, the shape it endured would be more ideal if it did finish cooling with physics.

Considering such, she took her work through a rift, considering that the void would leave her with the most neutral environment to work with.  Once there, with Luna safely out of the way, she set physics to finish off her work for her.  Within an instant, she found herself buried in an ashen mound, heavily winded by the significant impact.  What in the hells had just happened?  She first dug herself free before looking for her project.  Instead of finding it, she found an ashen ball appended together where the thing had previously been.  The resulting ball didn’t even open by force alone, it was too powerful.  She dismissed her distortion, watching the ashen flakes fall freely from what was left of her project, the entire thing crushed by the significant pressure.  Lyun then realized that she had been lucky she herself hadn’t been so close to the thing, else it would have turned out much worse for her.  Strange how that had all just worked out, as if the ashen surroundings had been magnetically attracted to her steel.. wait, physics like that would have been totally possible.  Steel is a ferrous compound, it’s really good at magnetics.  But there would have still needed to be a charge somehow, from something else.

She looked around the ashen void around her as it dawned upon her.  All of this stuff around her was basically kyuemu void, what happened when elements were taken from it.  When playing with the same reaction too much on Aestus, she had come up with an atomic reaction due to the molecular instability.  This implied that the physics consideration of the ashen void was of a material that had its energy pulled from it, that it had lost electrons.. or possibly even protons, though that would be rather awkward.  That would have provided enough of a reaction to garnish a magnetic force, at least.  Wait, that’s also the sort of reaction she needed to isolate ions, too.  Does.. that.. mean.. the entire ashen wasteland.. is an endless expanse.. of potential ionic energy?  By the divine, this entire concept was outright intimidating.  Wait, that could even go two ways, as the other side had an endless expanse of ‘low energy’ frost elementals everywhere.  The non-energy state of one world was the plentitude of the other.

Quite honestly, Lyun had always thought it a bit unfair that Axln had the plentiful power of something like manipulating time.  Quite obviously, that was a very significant idea, and even people like Mheridz and Velvet were treasuring Axln due to her vast abilities with time.  In that comparison, it had left Lyun feeling rather insignificant, being only able to do something as simple as shifting between two world principles.  Sure, that was a big thing, but it still just couldn’t compare to time manipulation.  However.. learning that her advantage comes with the potential for infinite energy.. that was maybe different.  Her ability could allow them to reuse energy, render such energy sustainable indefinitely.  When against foes that treasured states of low energy, that was more than a slight advantage.  Actually, wasn’t her chaos also offering to provide true chaos energy too?  That.. they might not have an infinite supply of, but it did mean they had that initial spark at any time which could be then further reused.  It broke laws of conservation of energy, but such laws weren’t designed for chaotic factors like changing principle laws anyway.

She gathered a collection of ashen void and returned to the citadel to make another attempt at her work.  The process however could not simply be completed in just a half day, though Axln let her process her work the whole while.  Lyun had no idea what Axln was doing, but this worked for her.  Axln even provided long range time stop periods for rest, letting her work in what looked to anyone else as a period without breaks.  Luna however wasn’t one to complain, and no one else was present.  Eventually, she was able to deploy an unchanging holo on demand.  Of course, the next problem was in interfacing with her product.  She remembered Drew’s lesson, that quite nothing could compare with a direct interface from the mind.  This whole world was about that idea too, but it did so in measures of focus.. which had no scientific proxy.  Making an appropriate microchip would be beyond her abilities.

As she took down the distortion, she was quick to discover that maybe.. she had used too much ionic energy and hadn’t properly contained the effect.  The entire thing burst out in a wave of mixed elementals that threw her to her back.  Wait, too much energy?  Well, the ashen void really would be rich in ionic energy, but.. was it actually so bad to have too much in use at once.  Of course, she would need to ensure that it remained stable, but.. having raw energy in a mass quantity could be weaponized in ways that holos never could before.  How though.. how did..?  Right, most of her experiences with ions had been in ionizing gasses for a holo, one of the easiest things to ionize.  However, supposedly, it was also very easy to ionize.. minerals.  That would include almost any crystalline component she could think of, especially while considering this world.  Using crystalline ashen would then.. give a very high potential holo when it came to ionic capacity.  More so, she could brace the holo to the crystal, which might in turn make it a touch more mobile.  Finally, she could even distribute the direction of emission, making it safe at certain points and yet less so in others.  She expected this would even continue for a while beyond her range in the other world, though she would lose the ability to manipulate it at that point.  As things stood, here, she wouldn’t have any of such manipulation, but could at least design its creation.

To handle the entire process, Lyun made a glove for her left hand with OSIDF-inspired technology built into it.  With it, she could charge any of the crystalline shards she carried into a full on holo.  However, while this was great for her, she worried about what this would leave Axln with.  Axln already felt a bit out of place with science at this point, at least when put beside Lyun.  Adding a holo advantage would just make things even more annoying.  She managed to at least improve their power gear to a state that could weather impact even without elemental principles in effect, much like the gear Sophie had provided for them, but they would still lose the elemental barrier without elementals in effect.  Wait, but couldn’t they generate a pretty good barrier with a holo?  No, actually, that would require a pretty big crystalline component, the power gear really wasn’t designed for such.. but Axln’s arm was.  Axln’s entire right arm was a cybernetic crystalline composite, which would do much more than even the silly glove Lyun made for herself.  It would have less direct control, but a lot more power.  Instead of offering Axln the ability to create holos, this would allow her to outright discharge ionic energy.

As she was setting up the silicate traces needed for that sort of manipulation, Lyun realized that they actually already had this setup on the other world with their tights.. just there it had been used more for cosmetic purposes.  It might be nice in fact if she found a way to provide this same service in the other world, but that would require some suitably high supplies of ionic energies.  Very clearly, this would be something to look into for her next visit to the other world.  In the process, maybe she would have an opportunity to revisit such sciences and figure out if there was anything she could do to improve upon this initial design.  Thinking about it that way, she didn’t even want to bother wasting Axln’s time installing such junk if there would just be quick adjustments needed right away anyway.  In all consideration, visiting the other world would be great, maybe she could finally invest time into reading lessons.  Research really was getting annoying when she was so deprived of all the good sources of information, no wonder Axln put so much priority into learning to read here.

So decided, Lyun packed up her work and returned to the academy.  She had no idea where Axln even was, but a quick cell call at least brought them together quickly enough.  Just as quickly, she even managed to convince Axln upon the idea of spending time in the other world, leading with the logic that they had technically been away for a while.  However, once switched to the other world, you couldn’t even tell that much time had passed, everyone working much the same as everyone had when they had left.  In fact, it seemed like everything had really gone quiet.. everywhere.  That might be true with both worlds too, things were really quiet.  However, that did at least provide them with plenty of opportunity to get stuff done.  Both of them were well worn out by constant practical discoveries, so instead they turned to more relaxing pursuits.  Reading and exploration, mostly, casual things both girls felt held a lot of value in right now.  Such even continued for several more days until both decided to return to more practical goals.

Rosa found herself occasionally interrupted by Kori for a variety of requests at this point, stuff like making strange instruments or shifting to elemental stuff.  Kori even asked for a lot of regular glass crafting too in some of her projects, something Rosa had to learn from Drew in how that worked in this world.  Rosa did at least take a lot of opportunity to practice with saturated frost in this world when Kori needed elementals active, her practice modelled upon her newest venture into holography.  Solid frost was rather cold to carry though, inspiring her to make yet another special glove for this world too, one designed to deal with frost in elemental conditions.  The instrument Kori had made to allow her to harness frost was woven into it, and obviously Kori has been needed to finish the whole idea too.  However, when left to normal conditions, Rosa was happy to invest her efforts into ionic constructs.  This time, working heavily with Tristine, she made substantial progress realizing her sudden vision.  She discovered quickly that mineral deposits didn’t even need to include crystalline ones, though such were mostly then just pretty light effects, not even capable of a kinetic factor.  Ionically intense minerals, such as rendering the onyx here into ashen, had a really promising energy capacity, but proved very difficult to store in a ready state.  The base onyx though at least functioned very well, capable of at least being ionized artificially very quickly for use.

The problem then was that they would need to actually carry around a powerful enough ionic core to get the job done.  It also seemed, when the goal was to have substantial ionic outputs, such a thing could get heavy.  Even her weapon, which had dangerous ionic outputs, wouldn’t have enough of a core for this sort of idea.  Getting a core substantial enough proved excessively heavy and left her unbalanced, a feeling she didn’t like considering her reliance on mobility with holos.  Further research into the problem invested into a solution of having multiple smaller cores of sufficient intensity, which could then be built into the tights Sophie had offered with a distributed weight factor.  Such had been Tristine’s idea, as she had a lot of projects she had worked on in the past which had similar problems needing a similar solution.  Quite honestly, Rosa treasured Tristine’s input on the subject, as she sought ways to improve upon her design in the other world too.  With a bunch of extra effort though, Rosa finally came to the conclusion that this project was finally ready for implementation.

Both of them had in fact spent an entire moon on their individual projects, a complete lunar cycle if you count the days of unsuspended reading and exploring too.  After everything they had done, it was finally time to introduce each other to the surprises of their discoveries and the advantages such would provide to the other.

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FV – Chapter 43

Dispelling Shadows

By the time Kori finally woke up, everyone else was already fast asleep.  Everyone except Rosa, of course, who was a flurry of insight going over the rush of discoveries which occurred while Kori slept.

“Basically, everything is exactly as we were promised.”  “Uh, yeah, basically.  But you have to think of all the applications, we could…”  “No, I don’t have to think of all the applications.  Our chaos is just always there for our support, and that’s all that matters.  Sure, such has basically an endless list of ways it could help us, but that’s exactly why I don’t have to think of all the applications.  True chaos isn’t for us to understand, only for us to work with.  All I need to do then is to actually work with the chaos that is providing all of this for us, right?”  “Oh come on, you know that it doesn’t understand all the principled stuff in turn, someone has to do all of the research to figure out the middle ground.  I suck at research too, which is why I was hoping you would be able to put everything together.”  Kori considered all of Rosa’s reports, generally actually uncertain what to make of it all.  The generic theory made sense, but that made sense long before Rosa’s report. True chaos just did stuff to principled stuff in a chaotic way, though chaotic didn’t seem to mean they had no control over it.  Chaos, it seemed, was perfectly good at controlling chaos.  It was thus a wild card they could call upon that could deliver whatever they lacked.  It could do anything, but it couldn’t do everything.  The hardest part then was gauging the amount they should depend on it, how much would even be fair.  Without that information, it was very difficult to find proper applications for such true chaos.

Kori was mildly aware of a feeling of respect from nowhere.  Ah, that would possibly be her chaos trying to communicate with her.  That was going to be another thing she would have to pick up on, being open with the same chaos itself.  At the very least, she couldn’t think of a better research partner for the whole experience.. well, it and Rosa both.  Her chaos was the expert in all matters chaotic, but Rosa was definitely skilled in matters natural to both sets of principles.  Rosa had even ensured Kori’s stuff was in top condition when they awoke too.  However, just like Rosa, Kori had slipped from the dream when Rosa had awakened, even if she had then instead simply resumed sleeping.  All of this was generally quite the rush from her perspective, having to thus deal with the knowledge right after waking up.  This whole thing was going to take quite a while to process properly.

“Well, this is going to be quite the project, so it might be better to look into other important matters in the meanwhile.  I mean, after the things we completed that last fight, there are a few other things I really want to look into more.  If dancing among frost was fun for you, you might actually be having some of the same ideas.”  “Oh yeah, that did happen, didn’t it.  By the divine, it was even fun.  But.. I’m not that good with my gift, so I’m not sure I’ll be as capable when I’m not in an area already providing all the frost I might ever need.”  “Hey, I ended up instead having fun with darkness instead of sand, I don’t even know how I might actually make use of my own gift.  However, before we get a surprise visit there too, we might actually want to start preparing.”  Kori had a point Rosa simply could not refute.  Of course, she expected that any future encounters would leave their true chaos as an integral aspect, but it would still be important to learn how to do better with elementals in the process.. or even how to do better with science on Ruixse.  That idea especially appealed to her, possibly because she was really starting to feel more comfortable with science than elementals.  She was even certain that, as long as she still found a way to allow Axln to do some actual hacking, Lyun could ensure they both had a decent time working with technology.

They both arrived at the academy then soon after, leaving dusk to the sleepers of the world where people slept all dusk.  Both of them felt reasonably well rested, they could go for a complete evening at this rate.  Lyun instantly ran off to begin her own research.  She had several things to investigate, from matters of her own gift in its newest implementation to research in creating actually useful technology in this world that reflected upon the instruments they had worked with from the other world.  She honestly also wanted to run a few tests on her arm too, just to complete that research in its entirety.  She already suspected what sort of elemental levels she would find, but she had so much else she wanted to test too.  Quite honestly, the composition of her arm faintly resembled the best quality kyuemu ever imaginable, distinctly impossible in that nature.  The most impossible part was how it wasn’t even exactly crystalline.. but it wasn’t not either.

Axln was thus left to look into her own goals.  Her first goal was to look for Jhez and get some insight into distinct matters of elements.  It helped that it appeared Jhez’s personal aspect was itself in gravitation, a reason alone for Axln to be in admiration of his ability.  However, as the two of them went to a safe location for a demonstrative lesson in gravitation, Jhez was suddenly confounded by his gift not responding.  Axln however figured out quickly why, being annoyed at the slight distortion around her.  Eventually, the distortion faded, and Jhez resumed his demonstration.  In a fundamental sense, it seemed that increasing darkness increased the density of darkness, which could crush objects towards the ground and make it harder for such things to move under such pressure.  Reducing such dark intensity meanwhile made an object lighter, an idea Axln worried was the planet’s idea of a design pun.  It seems even a lot of phase and rift principles were based upon light, the reduction of gravitation causing objects to be capable of not only passing through solid objects, but also passing from one location to another directly without anything along the way interfering.  Of course, concentrated void was an exception, as such could simply make the resulting light fade away enough that a connection became impossible.

The integral factor then was how dark could even invert both aspects of light.  Darkness could not only be so intense as to be physically impenetrable, it could also distort regions so that an opening that had existed no longer did so.  Gravitation was an aspect of both ideas, as a gravitational force could prevent the passage of anything physical while a gravitational well could make it a lot harder to go from one location to another nearby location.  Shadows could also do a lot to manipulate such as well, though Jhez wasn’t as well versed in that area.  Shadows were specifically a wall that could block light, another demonstration of anti-light.  However, with enough intensity, a shadow could entrap an entire region as if it did not exist for a while.  Such crushing shadows could utterly destroy anything that might have been in the area at that time, but would even obstruct rift and phase instrumentation too.

Such a discussion did prompt Axln to realize how dark armor might have done her so well in the process.  She was even sure that the entire crushing shadow experience had also been involved.  Less obvious was how she could use darkness in new ways on this side, even with her weapon.  Actually, thinking about weaponry, maybe such a lesson was valuable after all.  Lyun’s weapon was light elemental, maybe she might hit more if her shots rifted?  No, the things were almost just hitting instantly, and it wasn’t as if rifts ignored trajectory.  Aiming would still matter.  However, while pondering everything, she found Xwyhr had suddenly walked into the area.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Professor Jhez, but I have a question about one of our assignments.”  “Wait, professor, as in Jhez is your teacher?”  “Well, one of them, I guess.  When you’re studying cosmology, there are a ton of lessons in the history of gravitational forms.  The area between worlds are mostly formed up of the void, but dark elements seem the most prevalent in that empty void otherwise.  That’s part of why travel between worlds is so difficult, because the distance is artificially drawn out.”  “Wait, you were really good with stone though, and always had such an interest in stone.  Is there any interaction between gravitation and stone then?”  “Stone is the element that is the least influenced by darkness, least likely to be crushed at least.  Darkness, though, can’t exactly be pierced or crushed by stone either, not really.  However, gravitational forces find it easiest to manipulate both stone and wood elements, and stone is probably the easiest of the two there.  It is really easy for darkness to magnify the physical might of stone, especially if the two work together to provide crushing force.  This could change though if you involve stone-like aspects, such as metal, or.. sand.  Yhzia would have been the best to talk to about metals, but I’m really not sure at all about sand.”  Xwyhr seemed already inclined towards what might have made Axln curious about the subject.  However, maybe like her sister, Axln wouldn’t get the easy way out of lessons, and would have to hunt down more explicit records in lieu of any decided expert in the field.  Leaving the two of them to whatever assignment was mentioned previously, Axln started her search of the archives for any suitable records.

Picking up a few handy reference books, Axln also grabbed a couple of potentially useful instruments.  Even her most recent discussion inspired the idea that the two most important ideas in elements are inversion and reaction.  Synergy principles that refined what happens from an element in a complex situation.  Digging up notes was taking too much effort, so it was time for mad scientist experimentation.  Finding a suitable lab for such, she set to work at setting up what she felt would be a suitable demonstration of her own.  By now, it was inevitably obvious that she was a protege with elements, even if she didn’t exactly grasp the entirety of that potential.  However, it did imply that a lot of her instincts with elements would potentially be a lot more sound than she could estimate.  What she needed wasn’t a deep analysis, she just needed.. ideas.

Sand’s inversion was sky, which included things like wind and.. oh right, lightning.  Maybe that was why Mheridz butted heads with her all the time?  Anyway, that didn’t matter right now.  Wait, actually, it might.  Create sand, invert sand.  Oh, nope, that created a bubble of air.  Mix more sand, you get a sandstorm.  Wait, so this isn’t a matter of complete inversion?  Right, because you can even have fire and frost at the same time too.  With that consideration, she turned to the instruments she brought to compel it to supplement some basic elements for her.  Sand and Frost?  Cold sand, not even useful, beyond maybe being a bit stickier.  Frost was just generally a bit adhesive anyway, so this was really plain.  Simple wood was the same way, though she wasn’t exactly certain what else wood represented.  Supposedly, people had a lot of wood to their makeup, for as little sense as that made.  Sand and water makes.. mud.  You know, that shouldn’t have even been surprising.  Much like mixing frost and water made ice, it would be a really simple thing.  It was a reaction, but sadly she wasn’t feeling much from it.  Then she tried fire.

The glass shattered to pieces as it fell to the ground.  Woah, now that was neat.  Of course, there is a bit of sense there, but that was quite different from most of the other stuff going on.  She made a similar attempt, just time being more careful with the fragile results.  It was like a window, a completely useless one.  Wait, technically the best use for a window was to block out the wind, even though the thing would still probably shatter with a powerful wind force.  Lightning would.. she didn’t even know.  However, nothing she had actually expressed lightning itself.  She knew she couldn’t just treat lightning like an electrical current, such wasn’t completely accurate on this side.  However, she knew at least how light worked, light passed through glass, it was just that transparent.  It wasn’t like glass did anything that dramatic very normally on the other side either, you would have to apply something to distort it or something.  That reminded her, such distortions were exactly what she learned darkness was good at.  She set darkness to the glass.. and stared at her own reflection.  It was a mirror, she had just created a mirror.  I guess this side didn’t even need to bother with silver backings, just a coat of shade handled everything.  She dropped water on the mirror.. and it bounced on contact.  Clearly mirrors here reflected more than what one might expect, but that did imply that darkness could handle some of the ideas behind it, glass just handled the.. projection?

She turned to using a form of simple shadow, realizing quickly that she could shape shadow into a physical form that fooled light.  Basically illusions, but almost physically so.  Actually, this was more of a holo than even the ice sculptures Rosa had made, light forced into looking real when nothing was there.  If you added gravitational force, you could simulate a kinetic factor.  However, shadow wasn’t exactly a stable composite, that’s probably the advantage frost had.  Frost still made for much better sudden, sturdy platforms.  Glass however appeared capable of also trapping shadow very easily, providing a texture but not much of a sense of durability.  Separately, darkness and sand were just dark sand, very difficult to spot but otherwise not impressive as far as she could tell.  Dark and Fire.. conflicted and drained each other.

She was forced to take another break at that point, discovering yet another distortion in effect, provided by Lyun again.  However, of everything she had done, she had found the glass still endured.  The mirror existed, but the shadow had faded, so it was just a window again.  As normal glass, it didn’t look like the glass was projecting light anymore either.  Right, because glass could be curved into lenses to sharpen, magnify, or distort light.  A lens could completely revise what light could do.  She blinked for a moment, the compulsion to test making her impatient as she waited for the distortion to end.  Once such was gone, she created a slight lens and then went for a light instrument.  The beam of light passed through the lens, sharpened to a fine point, and diffracted to a new angle.  She then provided a coat of shadow to the lens.  When light passed through, the light was unable to simply go straight, it instead curved part way on a projected route, passed around behind her, and then went up to a spot on the ceiling.

This now might be perfect for Lyun.  Add a lens to her weapon, then add an instrument to shape her targeting for her so that her light beam can’t miss.  She couldn’t make such an instrument, but she could probably adjust something to fit that principle well enough if something similar was made for her.  Meanwhile, her sand could be pretty handy if she had a handy supply of fire.  She might need to have instruments handy for that though, but it could be really annoying trying to adjust fire all the time to any slight whim to shape her needs.  Having a gift with fire would have helped, but neither of them had that.. except that inverting frost could often instigate combustibility.  Lyun then could help her with this, letting them forge glass easily together.  It was still annoying that the dark element though seemed so very interesting but so very hard to use.  She was absolutely infatuated by it, mesmerized by it.  However, in the midst of her experimentation with mirrors, she found that the fire instrument had suddenly stopped working.  Looking inside, the shard had gone completely pale, it was dead.  Knowing that she at least needed more glass to test with, she turned to the shadow instrument and opened it to get the shard from such.

The shadow instrument was actually missing its shard, it hadn’t ever actually been included.

She tried to use the shadow instrument again, producing a dark shade in the process.  Speculating impulsively, she set the instrument aside and tried to achieve the same process by matter of focus alone.  Floating before her was yet another dark shade, vanishing when she got startled suddenly.  Axln had been told that she had an affinity for sand, but no one had ever told her that such wasn’t strictly a limitation.  The gift was totally capable of expanding for those with an earnest intent in learning and discovery.  Toying with it, she noticed she had a distinct area in shadow-crafting, not explicitly darkness.  Gravitational influence however actually eluded her, to her disappointment and confusion.  If she was going to get an extra knack, wouldn’t it be better if it was gravitation, pulling things around just seemed a lot more.. fun.?  Wait, did she actually feel that travel was actually fun, the idea hadn’t even dawned on her yet.  She did remember talking about similar stuff with Xwyhr though, her entire family sort of liked exploring.

She then recalled some of her lessons of shadows and light just earlier.  She had just seen a few tricks shadows could be capable of, but she remembered hearing that shadows were direct inversions to most of the basics of light, being a wall that denied light.  Shadows could fill a region as if it did not exist too.  Shadows directly countered light effects such as phase and rifts, being the direct inversion of them.  Shadows did not relate to light force though, that was gravitation’s inversion.  Spreading thin shadows created a passage that might not have existed otherwise.  Lyun was very versed in inverting her own affinity into flame, and even Axln had managed to create bubbles of air with sand.  If she could then invert shadows…

Axln began her practice in earnest, devoted to seeing how far she could go with this discovery.  Sure, using shadows was still proving to be a bit more taxing than sand, she was still far more capable with sand, but she wasn’t about to discard this secondary potential either.

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FV – Chapter 42

Without Meaning

Both girls blinked into awareness as they took in their surroundings.  Everything vaguely appeared to be the pale temporal plane, but somehow it wasn’t.

Both girls searched around, not even gaining that general feeling of passage the temporal plane typically offered.  There wasn’t even that overbearing feeling of chaos, just a lot of nothingness.  Feeling bewildered, one of them fell backwards, the entire process conjuring a formless seat beneath them.  The other then copied the same motions, taking their own seat.  The first reached a hand into the air, pulling a blank sheet from nothing, looking at it perplexed.  She knew.. this was.. a map?  She traced a line around the right side of the page, a formless wall erupting out of nowhere to her own right.  The second proceeded to look around, touching the sudden wall, which popped into her hands like it was invisible cotton candy.  She returned the piece to the wall, watching it reform as if nothing had happened.  The most confusing part was how she could see it, but it had no shape, no color, no form.  Thinking about it, it was as if everything was just a pale white, but quite honestly nothing actually was.  She placed both of her palms upon the wall, one handprint generating in white, the other in black.  She traced her hand along the textureless wall, the lines of color extending along it where she made contact.  She then touched a bar of white, which collapsed to the ground in a splash of orange.  The second then picked up a shapeless piece of orange and brought it to the first, who took the colorless cube offered to her and added it to the page.  An empty room formed around the two of them, without distinct things like color, shapes.. even size.

There was no chance this was the temporal plane, it was far too chaotic.

“I’m terribly sorry about the lack of accommodations, I’m really not used to this sort of thing.. to be honest.  I actually have no idea how anything works, either.”  “Ah!  Who’s there?”  “Yeah, like that.  How exactly does a presence work again?”  “Okay, then maybe let’s just start with some clarity.  Where are we, what is going on, and why are we here?”  “This would be a.. dream, I think that’s what you call it.  We’re all pooled together in your thoughts while you both sleep, so this will all fade away when either of you wake up.”  “This is a dream then?  Wait, but then.. who are you?”  “I’m you.. kinda, I guess.  I guess I wasn’t always you.  Before we were all brought together, I was just another wisp of chaos like any other.  But then randomly there was a breach in the temporal plane, a path between, and I just happened to have been.. curious.  I knew what it meant too, a bond forged with principles, an offer.  I guess at first I had thought that such an offering was to have principles forged to the will of chaos, that I was being offered a feast.”  The missing presence spoke wordlessly to the two girls, the understanding forged without plausible reason.  So this wisp was the chaos that they had both been bound to from the first day, still with them this long later.

“I mean, I had tried to accept the offering.. but everything became a bit too.. complicated.  You were bound to me, but somehow.. I was also bound to you.  Trying to consume only weakened me, like I was actually only eating myself.  From there, I was kinda stuck, unable to do anything.  I kept constantly trying to reach back for the chaos, to forge an escape, but nothing worked.  Meanwhile.. you both kept forging against your own circumstances, in defiance of the very principles of your own creation.  From there, I began to hesitate in my wish to return, witnessing things no chaos would have ever had the chance to experience.  And through everything, I got to witness a chaos I’ve never known before.  It had quickly left me torn, your first visit to the temporal plane having me hesitate instead of acting, as I was instead more curious at how you two held up compared to the chaos I’ve always known.  Without answers, still confused, I was there when you left too.  Then you both faced off against chaos, and fought back with principled chaos.  From that it only made me hungrier, that maybe devouring such principles could forge an even greater chaos.  But then.. I got to witness your resistance and restraint, the reflection of power and reversion of control.  You defied all pretense of chaos, and it only made you stronger, it only made you more unpredictable.  It was then that I understood, this power I saw wasn’t something to watch flicker away, it was something to take example from and forge an even greater chaos.”  The wisp even seemed awed by this insight, a touch of reverence and respect faintly hinted in the tone.

“I kept trying to help more and more, but it was really difficult to keep up.  I’m not sure if it’s because I don’t make for much chaos, or if you are both just that superior at it, but you both took to being of chaos very well.  By the time you both returned to the chaos for the second time, I found myself the opportunity to reach out a little more.  However, the chaos did not agree with me at all, remaining blind and oblivious.  I had witnessed you both deal with blind innocence, with forged awarnesses, and with standing up to circumstances.  Following your example, I too stood up to my own and tried to rally them even against their reluctance.. which only had me branded a traitor, a threat to my own kind.  Because of that.. I’ve turned my back to them.  If no one else wants to realize true chaos, then I’ll champion the cause myself, even if it means hunting the others.  In such, everything has come full circle.  I may have thought that you two were being presented as an offering once to me, but it seems that it is me that is being offered to you.  By now, we are all one, but rest assured that even your chaos is a devoted champion of your cause, and shall so be for all eternity.”  The wisp’s last statement rang as an oath or pledge of absolute loyalty.

Things started adding up for the two girls, from the strange fury they had felt during their last trip to the temporal plane to the aggravated reactions of the chaos they had previously encountered.  The traitor they had heard about was this portion of them specifically, though it wasn’t as if they themselves were very inclined to be nice to such invaders.  It was also becoming obvious that this might have been the third aspect of their pool before, especially considering they were apparently all pooled together right now.  Four bodies, two people, one being.. it seems this fragment was generally integral in the definition of that last part.  In all accounts too, people had lifespans, but chaos might be able to viably stick around for an eternity.  This was a pledge of loyalty that would last well beyond their grave, something that would eternally provide direction for their being for all time.  This was no light unification of their distinct portions.

“Hey, so I guess you’re a part of me.. or us.. or me…  Nice to finally actually get to know you.  Actually, in that consideration, I wonder what sort of name we should use for you as well, just so that everything makes more sense.”  “Oh, right.. names, that’s a people thing, isn’t it?  Do I have to have one?”  “How else are we supposed to figure out who is who?”  “Okay, then what’s your name?”  “I’m…  Right, that problem again.  Okay, maybe names have only made sense for our bodies, and anything more distinct is sort of more just an aspect of self in our overall.. sense of self.  You do however represent our chaos, that much is even obvious from here.  You might not end up with a name, but please at least follow that idea.”  “I guess that’s at least better than not even being recognized at all.  Being denied my own kind, bound to another that didn’t even act like I existed, it was a very bleak experience.”  “We’re both very sorry for that too, even though you admit that your original goal was to simply devour us.  It was simply a misappreciation of our circumstances by not being properly aware of what was actually at hand.  In fact, you might have spent a lot of time watching us, but we know nothing more about you than what you’ve just said.  It means we would need to admit to not properly understanding what it means to be your style of chaos.”  The girls weren’t even sure which of them were talking, or if it was only one of them, but their chaos remained a matter they understood even less.  They had started to grasp the chaos that was their enemy, they even had a small understanding of their own chaotic abilities, but neither of those properly represented this chaos.

“In truth, I have no idea either.  Like I said, this is nothing that chaos has ever experienced before.  Just as you hope to gain an awareness of myself, I actually generally need the chance to build up such awareness as well.  I do know though that my actions have had an impact upon you.  The latest of such change has been from my efforts to redefine what is meant by our chaos.  Your arm, in all four cases.. your arm has been altered by this change.  It no longer embodies the chaos familiar to the temporal, I am instead championing the chaos of the principled.  I have no idea what that exactly means yet when it comes to principled matters, but I will at least try to ensure that such chaos is entirely to our favour.  However, there is one aspect of such refinement that has an effect I know very distinctly.  The chaos of your arm does not hunger for principles, it instead wants to consume the original chaos.  I will devour as much as I need to have original chaos converted to true chaos.  Know this as we face any future original chaos, that I will be awaiting any such feast you can provide.  Also, please remember that if you need to hear the voice of chaos that has sworn to your cause, I can always be reached no matter what the circumstances are.  We are all, in that way, one.. and will forever be so.”  The sense of such chaos faded as the impressions of the dream began to dissipate.  Someone was waking up, bringing an end to the entire experience.  However, even considering that, the words haunted beyond the dream, that such chaos was not simply fading away.  Such a chaos was integral to their being, and so it would forever remain.

“Ow, what the hells are you doing?”  “Sorry, did I wake you up?  I assure you that Holi hasn’t been very supportive either.  Finding you collapsed, even right after the discussion we had just had, I really had to have your condition verified for myself.”  “I told you I wasn’t going to sacrifice myself, I have no plans to do so either.  Where am I anyway, this looks like your stupid outpost, did you drag me all the way back to your stupid outpost?  Where is Kori, anyway?”  “Kori is getting direct care somewhere of some random choosing from your friends, you will have to look into that for yourself.  Seriously though, what did you do in those last moments?  I know that was cross-dimensional sciences at work, but that wasn’t the only thing going on.  Trying to get readings for everything has been hard as it was, considering you’re still channeling the whole cross-dimensional shift thing.  Seriously, it’s felt like an eternity since I’ve had to try using these instrument things, and I might have messed up on the design of this stupid one a bit.”  Rosa suspected that such might have had something to do with why Velvet had smacked her with the instrument suddenly, it was just a matter of frustration waving around an instrument that wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do.  She picked up the instrument, discovering it was supposed to detect elemental stability in a person.  The thing instead was going wild, saying her body was rich in elemental composition, far more than a regular person should be.  Such wouldn’t even be possible, especially if the entire compound was as stable as the thing claimed.  She looked into the thing carefully, finding no mistakes with its construction, it was actually made very well.. especially considering it was made in a world without elemental law.

“Ah, yeah, you messed it up.  The base settings aren’t compensating for projected elements of the surroundings.  You have to keep in mind that elemental readers will still consider the components of this world as if such were still elemental, even beyond the area I’m projecting.  It’s getting a bit of interference as a result.  The thing should do a bit better going forward at least, but you’ll have to wait maybe an hour or two for it to stabilize first.  Meanwhile, yes, I’m certain I’m doing perfectly fine, you don’t have to worry about me.  I should probably be going though, at least to check on Kori and all that.”  “Fair enough, I’ve got other things to look into anyway.  I managed to repair some of your gear at least though while you were sleeping.  It’s a lot more primitive than I’m used to, but the basic idea is still there.”  “Pri- primitive!?”  “Also, thank you for actually making sure my bike wasn’t damaged this time, even though it was bashed up pretty good.  Holi managed to return it a while ago, just before raising the fuss about wanting you returned.  Your sister is also waiting outside to give you a ride, being there the whole time.  Not home though, of course, considering that you’ve all pretty much been banished from the colony.  Not only will each of Aerospace’s services reject you from any of their services, but you would actually be arrested on site if you enter any of their buildings.  Actually, you can be arrested for entering any of their barriers too, but there has been a slight exception made in security areas such as these outposts in consideration of your continued service against the DMA threat.  It does mean that HT is the only home you have left to return to, but I expect that will be fine.  Of course, if you’re willing to actually surrender finally, I’m pretty sure I could quickly get all of those things reversed for you.”  Rosa was glaring at Velvet in disappointment, realizing that Velvet had decided to play this card against her as she withdrew the distortion field around her.  Whatever, she had just learned that she isn’t the first to stand up against her own kind to do the right thing, and she was actually in high hopes of making a difference.

“Holi, are you there?”  “Rosa, you’re awake!  Thank goodness!”  “Oh yeah, I’m fine. Velvet here has been quite the expert in hospitalities.  However, it seems like there is a bug in their power grid, could you shut this whole outpost down so that they could look into it?”  “Right away.”  “Velvet, no, I don’t think you are as in control of everything as you might think you are.  If I wanted something done, I would do it myself.  That includes any of your past, present, or future concerns, I’m going to take care of everything this time, you don’t have to worry.  I will save things for myself this time, I already know I can make the difference.. that things can change.”  Rosa had ended her discussion with Holi before that last statement, stepping atop the holo she created for herself to make her statement even more pronounced.  She didn’t even wait for Velvet’s response, not wanting to offer the dignity of such after that insult, and was already gone long before Velvet could begin cursing.  Then again, that really wasn’t the worst thing Rosa had just done, considering the lie she fabricated about the instrument.  If Velvet wasn’t familiar with the changes their chaos had applied to her arm, then such did not exist in the future.  This timeline had already changed.

“Oh, Rosa, glad you.. dropped in?  Actually, was there much point in me waiting to give you a ride back after all?  You just seem to be flying around anyway.”  “Well, I feel it would be great to get a chance to just relax and not worry about things for once, thank you very much.  My rest happened to have been rather rudely interrupted, so getting a bit more time to recover would be really nice right now.  Just wake me up when you need me or when we get to HT.”  Sophie watched her sister just curl up in the other seat and just zone out.  Not wanting to press the point when Rosa was so obviously worn out, Sophie just set off into the snowscape as directed.  It felt like not even a minute had passed before Sophie was stirring Rosa again though, the drifter already parked within HT’s barrier.  Rosa got out of the drifter, finding Drew quickly before her instead.

“Rosa, you made it back safely!”  “Don’t be so surprised, Sophie’s driving isn’t that scary.”  “No, it’s.. I.. well…  Tristine is trying to look into Kori’s health right now, but we’ve had quite a few problems getting anything working near her.  We had to walk the entire trip back as a result.”  “I’ll go look into Kori, but I expect she’ll be fine.  Also, I’m sorry about making things so difficult, that would kind of be mostly my fault.  While I do that though, could you organize a few handy tools for me?  I may have discovered an.. object.. that has an unfamiliar composition.  More than knowing atomic details about, I suspect such a thing to have a lot of potential in unforeseen ways, and I would need to identify some of those potentials.”  “Oh, uh, I’ll see what I can do?”  Drew ran off as quickly as he had arrived, Rosa not even having noticed how serious and uncompromising her tone had been.  Even Sophie was perplexed by the display, herself basically watching her sister press orders to her boss and getting nothing but blind obedience in return.  Not wanting to step in the way of Rosa’s stern determination, Sophie ran off to find something decidedly unrelated to occupy herself with.

“Tristine.”  “Holy hell, did you just morph into the room or something?”  “No, I just walked in like normal.”  “Sorry, things have been rather busy.  Kori here is still sleeping, we only just got stuff working to look into her.  At least I can tell you now that…”  “.. she’ll be fine, I know.  Regular breathing, probably a standard heart rate for a sleeper.  Absolutely nothing to worry about.”  “Oh, well, part of that is true.  Her health seems fine, but there are quite a number of irregularities we haven’t yet…”  “Holi, can you be present in this room please, we’ve got a lot of work to do.  Tristine, can you help Drew bring in the supplies he’s bringing here?  I expect he’s got a lot on hand and could use a couple extra hands in the process.”  “I.. uh.. okay?”  Rosa took off her white glove after Tristine left the room, the glove seeming ill fitting now with the dramatic darkening of her arm beneath it.  She might need to request a new recommended design from her sister, though she would also have to consider the same concern with the other world as well.  There was also the chance that she simply might not need a glove anymore at all.

“Good evening, Rosa.”  “Holi, thank you.  I’ve got a lot of work to do here, and it would be great having you available in the process.”  “I.. I did as you instructed, watching your conflict.  None of the readings made sense though, nothing at all…”  “That is what I was trying to let you know, that some of the things we’re capable of now may simply not make sense at all.  Take this arm for example, the one that has always perplexed you about being observed at absolute zero.  What can you tell me about it now?”  “I can.. uh.. nothing, actually.  Your arm is identified as a stable composite with no known signatures.  The material is completely unknown, but it’s temperature is now completely stable too.  Detailed scans show nothing consistent, a single report conflicting with the next.  The molecular composition appears so erratic it can’t even be identified, and yet the structure is decidedly stable and harmless.”  “So it’s true chaos, exactly as promised.  The stability is also just as promised.  Mechanical scans might be more helpful then, especially with everything so variable.  What about Kori’s version?  Same thing?”  “Yes, effectively the same.”  Holi remained to help Rosa with her investigation, collecting and analyzing reports in the process.  Of course though, Holi remained incapable of understanding what was going on, she wasn’t designed to understand such chaos.  Right now, Rosa was the only one in charge and the only one who seemed capable of understanding such things at all.  She knew, of course, Kori would have been much the same way, had Kori not been sleeping at this point.  At the very least, she hoped to have a very comprehensive report ready by the time Kori awoke.

Rosa’s tests were already proving to be very informative.  Her hand held a flexibly intensive electrical current, ionic current, plasma source, and thermal supply, but only on demand while she was comfortable doing so.  She couldn’t test for other energy types, though she inwardly suspected that she could do atomic energy just as easily.. if it wasn’t so dangerous to her.  Obviously, being energy integral would have been important for some of her chaos’s objectives, much like how it also had an elemental advantage as well.  Such concepts were simply considered direct counters to the existence of original chaos, you could almost simply feel the spite of the design.  Her arm was now the embodiment of true chaos, which means there was no way to simply estimate what it was capable of.  However, she had grown familiar with working with chaos too, that working too hard would put a drain on the chaotic factors, weakening them.  She could make use of such a resource, but it was not infinite in supply, it was only potentially infinite in flexibility.  True chaos was absolutely random, it could include anything at all.

During the process, she proceeded to permanently stash away their gloves, having determined there would no longer be a need for them.  They had already ignored and denied this chaos for long enough, it was time for them to start working with it instead.

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FV – Chapter 41

Isolated Experimentation

Both girls continued to circle their foe, looking for even the slightest opening that might be made for them.  Having been driven into an isolated battle, the two remained unaware of the greatest advantage left before them.

Even isolated, they were never alone.

Kori knew that running wouldn’t win them anything, so took a careful calculation of distance and opened up for a shot.  As expected, her bike swung wildly out of control, herself falling from the bike in the process.  Holi however recovered control of the thing and awkwardly repositioned the bike for Kori’s use, the whole process taking a considerable amount of time.  Kori had however at least managed to put enough distance between herself and her foe that she could pull off an escape at the last moment.. but her own shot had failed.  It wasn’t as if her shot wasn’t accurate, her enemy had simply.. evaded.  By ensuring she had enough distance with which to recover, she had left her foe with enough distance to also deal with the circumstances.  Somehow, she needed to be faster.

Rosa skimmed back and forth around her spiral maze of holos, firing hopelessly upon the fiend before her.  Some of the shots even connected, though you could hardly notice.  She pondered her own resources and options, looking for anything that could give her an advantage here.  Of course, she had the nuclear option, but she wasn’t allowed to use it.  Her system was even upgraded with a sense of stability there, to make it harder for such an option to even happen naturally.  Her next biggest resource was her ability to shift the natural laws of the world, but that held nothing but problems for them right now.  If she did that, her holos and Kori’s bike would both go offline, they wouldn’t even be able to dodge anymore.  Worse, she could honestly admit to being less capable with elemental law than scientific law at this point.  The only one who was actually good with elements was…

“Wait a minute, right.  I’ve been so worried about my own situation that I haven’t even taken the opportunity to consider Kori.  … Kori would be riding around on that bike, trying to get a good stable shot.  Holi, are you there?”  “Yes Rosa.  Do you need anything?”  “Kori’s arm was upgraded with a DNTI interface unit, since I know she’s a lot more hands-on with her planning.  It should be possible to set an uplink from her arm to her bike, giving her DNTI direct access to the controls in the same way you do.  She can personally hack equipment, and that might give her an edge in her own battle.  Could you make sure she is aware of this advantage?”  “Already on it, thanks.”  Rosa still wasn’t certain what she could provide for herself, but knew that giving this information to Holi would at least provide something for their circumstances as a whole.  There were more than a few bits of inspiration she had applied into her latest upgrades, with awareness of Kori’s areas of struggle.

Kori blinked in surprise at the news once Holi had finished repeating it.  Her arm had.. what?  She wasn’t even aware how to properly build an uplink like this remotely from her arm to her bike.  As this wasn’t the best situation for lessons, Holi took over with the process, forging an uplink from the arm to the bike.  The bike instantly stalled in the confusion of Kori’s uncertainty, throwing her from the bike once again.  So.. she had to think in code, make code work in the same momentum as her own actions.  The bike sprung up, swirled around, and tilted towards her fallen frame, placing it’s grip right in line with her cybernetic hand.  Grasping the handle, she pulled herself up while the bike spiraled around to catch her, moving as if a single unit.  Okay, maybe this really could be.. a lot of fun.  Noticing that Kori had everything under control, Holi even withdrew all control of the bike, waiting instead as a backup in case something went wrong.  Kori thus compensated for her own circumstances, turning to face the fiend once again.  At the same moment as she opened fire, she set the bike’s engines to a fury, blazing a reverse burst that mitigated some of the backlash.  She still hadn’t properly compensated for the angles though, the effect throwing her from the bike.  The bike however turned with her own momentum, spinning round to catch her in return.  She was now facing backwards on her own bike, but that didn’t make it much harder to control.  Activating the thing’s lane assist control, she even got a pretty good mental impression of the path in front of the bike.

In her spiral of effort, she had noticed that her struggles had brought her actually fairly close to the central fiend, the thing cautiously watching her in hopes of finding an opening.  However, she also noticed that Rosa had also brought her fiend around and wasn’t that far away either.  Of course though, Rosa was dancing brilliantly the whole time, peppering her foe with shots, depending on her holos for most of her advantage.  Even with the option to control the bike so directly, Kori was still being heavily outclassed in mobility by Rosa, but Rosa still could not keep up to Kori’s potential offense.  Sure, she could, but only using an option that was far too dangerous.  In fact, Kori had come to learn just how much danger they both had going for their best hand, travelling back in time was starting to feel like a cheap move to fix stupid mistakes.  In all accounts, doing so only set her upon a new timeline, the people she left behind would be left with the despair wrought by her mistakes.  Without such significant advantages, they would need to uncover other solutions, even if it would require the two of them to put in extra effort.

Even so, she checked her watch, seeing that it was 180.  Wait, that wasn’t the time, she was just going 180km/h.  Such a watch though.. wasn’t it directly attached to her arm.  Making use of such a connection, she used her DNTI to switch the display to show the time.. and then switched it back.  Even her watch had more options than just time.. if only it was customized right.  She spun to the small box she had packed up back at HT, ready with a few ideas she simply did not have the time to execute on.  Such a box however did contain options, theories that could invoke at least a small new edge for them both.  This really wasn’t the most comfortable scenario to work with the idea, but they needed a new edge somehow.  Taking the box up with her cybernetic arm, she threw the whole thing long and far before passing off instructions of her own to Holi.  Rosa wasn’t the only one who could coordinate things this way.

“She wants me to.. what?”  “The box is just over to your right.  No, your other right.  Yes, there.”  “What is with all the random gift boxes today? … wow, more crystals.  Wait, but these are the crystals from…”  “Kori reports that there are certain tools underneath, stuff that isn’t quite complete yet.  Actually, she didn’t call them tools, she said they were…”  “… Instruments.  I mean, in the middle of all this, shoving pieces together might be a thing, but I really don’t see anything practical from it.  Wouldn’t actually, you know, do anything.  I have nothing on hand to actually provide an actual purpose for these things.”  “Kori said that making a couple of black boxes would be fine, because she could reprogram them herself.”  “She could.. oh hells, she could, couldn’t she?  There is even a nice lead casing here too.  Fine, I’ll make her some stupid.. black boxes.  I sort of want to see what comes of this anyway.  She will have to be patient though, running and assembly don’t make for the easiest combined activity.”  Rosa still had the widest grin as Holi went quiet again.  Sure, trust it to the elemental protege to come up with a way to make elements work in this wild situation.  This was something she had to see.

It took quite some time, but eventually Rosa managed to complete her project within her stress-filled environment.  She had a series of boxes that were capable of adapting elements into being elements.  Basically, it all connected and was designed with elements in mind, but would work hardly any better in the other world than it would in this one.  She then loaded it onto a holo and flung it in the general direction Kori was circling around.  She then provided sparse opportunities at careful signals to open up the area to elemental law, just so that Kori could try to focus some intent into the weird things.  After a good while later, her package was returned with half the contents missing.  Physically, the stuff didn’t even look that different, minus being rattled a bit in transit.  She might be able to learn a bit more about it if she was working with elemental principles in evaluation, but right now it really was just junk.  At least it was pretty junk, like a really neat armband or something.

“I’m sorry if this sounds as confusing to you as it does to me, but it seems you’re supposed to weather something.. wait no, you’re to use the weather?  Something about ice block holos?  How exactly would one walk on falling snow?  Something, something, frozen like time, and something about ice sculpting.  Your guess is as good as mine.”  “Wait, she wants me to manipulate all of the frost elements around here into a frozen platform like I do with holos?”  “Uh, maybe?  Your guess is better than mine.  Did I miss an important script or something?”  “Sorry Holi, it’s really hard to explain.  If you make sure to watch from a safe distance, you might get to see what we mean from all of this.”  Holi went quiet again, having no idea what else to say about Rosa’s present circumstances.  Of course Kori would have fabricated something that would have worked from what should have been Rosa’s strength in elements.  Actually, she had just previously outright smited one of these things with a cross-woven frost.  Even then though, she had never thought about it.. using frost in the same way as holos.  In such a cold environment, the stuff wouldn’t even melt very quickly.  Viably too, if these fiends switched over to void, with the mass abundance of frost here.. it would give her a serious reservoir of elements, she would have a serious advantage going on.

Kori suddenly noticed that her bike shut down, Holi not even giving a warning in the process.  Actually, was Holi even still there?  Things had gone awfully quiet for the past minute.  She suspected though that Rosa at least had favoured her latest project.  Ice holos, it made total sense to her at least.  Sure, ice was ritualistically as fragile as glass, but we were talking about a place that put ice beside stone and wood in matters of solid integrity.  Though, that wasn’t the only thing crazy in how it was considered physical.  Kori turned to look around at the night sky once again, like an invisible force to be reckoned with.  Supposedly, her enemies were immune to their own might, which is why chaos did nothing to them.  Crazy enough, she literally had the idea of using their own might against them.  Absolute zero, didn’t get any frostier.  But they had also garnished the name Dark Matter Anomaly.  Nothing on her planet had ever truly grasped what it meant to make matter out of dark.  However, as the silicon rivulets of her protective shut down, the entire structure went pitch black.  She was used to working with power gear, and working with weaponized darkness.  She especially loved how darkness involved forces such as gravity.

She coiled the instrument she had saved for herself and adorned it around her wrist alongside the watch unit she already had.  By then though, her enemy was fast on approach.  She let the bike slip away in the snow and applied some focus to her new accessory.  As the instrument turned on, the shadow of her tights seemed to almost envelope any brightness left to the clothes she still wore over it.  Darkness was her armor, and she was going to make the most of it.  What she needed was to manipulate the darkness of her environment.. specifically the gravitational forces of it.  Gravity goes down at a specific constant acceleration.. or at least, that’s how things were supposed to work on this planet.  What if she then manipulated the darkness to reconfigure these variables.  Her gravity should then instead go at a more controlled velocity, sideways.  In fact, her gravity should only go exactly where she wanted it to, with the degree of force she expected of it.  She was already used to darkness throwing her around, but now she just needed to make such work for her.

When the fiend slammed down in Kori’s direction, she was already gone.  She was gone so fast, the bike wasn’t even chosen as the point of impact.  Gravity having a constant acceleration was pretty boring, having variable acceleration like this really did make things a whole lot easier.  She recalled that supposedly, Axln’s affinity was supposedly in sand, which was a bit tragic.  She already had a devoted love for elemental darkness at this rate.  Maybe, with some research, she could find a useful way to make sand work for her too, but for now she would enjoy what she already had.  Enjoyment wasn’t even hard, as she bubbled herself in a ball of darkness and shadow blazed the snowscape.  The fiend struck down again, with Kori dodging out of the way.. and then looping around and phasing a flurry of darkness through the envoided mass.  The entire blobby limb vapourized in the density of her own element, causing her foe to reel back in disdain.  Right, so who was the Dark Matter Anomaly now, huh?

Rosa was already hopping from frozen block to frozen block, each distinct block catching her elegantly in the process.  She wasn’t using simple ice, so the surfaces weren’t actually slippery, instead she stuck hard and fast to each easily, to then spring away as the form shifted to her will.  She was practically dancing on the frost of falling snow that froze suspended in the air when she called upon it to do so.  It felt as if nothing had changed, that she was still just using holos.  She wasn’t even feeling cold, the chill of the air being used to empower her own designs instead.  The weather only made her stronger.  Okay, this really was so much fun, she would have to work with Axln as Lyun and make sure they had devices that reversed things for them in much the same fun way.  She danced over her foe as it scrambled to strike her aside.  In the concentration of her movement, a decidedly large portion of frost fell upon her newly ashened foe, ripping a nasty gouge through the thing.  Right, because unlike her, that thing simply couldn’t take the intensity of her frost.  She then gathered a much larger abstract ice sculpture and struck down upon her foe with it, leaving a substantial hole in the process, and ready to do the same yet again.

Both fiends reacted reflexively, realizing that their prey had suddenly exposed quite the claw and talon.  The one chasing Kori distorted the very air, causing her to smash into the ground even though she was quite the distance from it and going quite another direction.  The one chasing Rosa had quite a different distortion, the frost passing through it rebounding with vigor and striking her hard with amplified force.  Both of them pressed their foe hard, looking for an opening, but were constantly ravaged by their enemy’s tactic.  As they both laid on the ground reflecting upon their circumstances, they noticed the other there too suffering.  Without much alternative, they returned to the fray.. but watched the other.  In complete sync with each other, they both realized the same thing at the same time, breaking away from the reach of their foe and making a straight line rush in retreat.. towards the other’s fiend.  The central fiend was started when both targets passed right before it in a blink of an eye, trading places, but was too slow to react.

Rosa lept from her ice platform, finding herself thrown towards the ground in the process.  This however was something she anticipated, rebounding from another cushion of frost in an upside down twirl as she launched back into the air, sending a volley of frost towards her target.  The frost all however instead smashed into the ground a distance away.  Oh, so the thing wanted to dance, huh?  Instead of setting up a small number of projectiles, she went full volley, setting up quite the multi-directional spiral towards the thing from all directions.  Several of such still smashed into the ground, but many of them slipped through.  Kori meanwhile dashed towards her target, finding herself bouncing off instead.. only to instantly reverse due to the rush of gravity.  As her velocity built, the integrity of the reflector simply couldn’t hold, and she came in hard and fast, passing straight through her target’s central body at a sonic velocity that gradually shifted around for her as it left her suspended again in the air.

Both girls knew they had this in the bag, but that they were getting tired in the process.  They would have enough to deal with their one threat, but there would be nothing left to deal with the third.  That one was still sitting there dominant over the entire field, untouchable by anything else they had been presenting.  If the two of them went down in exhaustion after their individual victories, they could easily be picked off by the third.  Unfortunately though, they simply didn’t have the strength to do anything more, and it was appearing as if their defeat would be all too inevitable, even despite their individual accomplishments together.

Four bodies, two people, one being.  The girls had never taken the opportunity to consider the fragment of chaos that had brought them together, the chaos that was chaos before them.  Such a facet of chaos still remained, the foundation of their very being.  This chaos was being considered a traitor, a betrayer, a corruption, a taint, all because it had grown an awareness that had overtaken its own kind.  To its kind, it was the embodiment of evil now, almost as a principle, even if nothing about it was so simple.  However, if being the embodiment of evil was the only way to secure the true chaos it had begun to appreciate, it would become a corrupted demon that would defy its very own.  It’s kind had come to feed upon the principles of order, to consume them and leave nothing in its wake, so that chaos would prevail.  Maybe it was time to turn the tables, the hunter becoming the hunted, the devourer becoming…

Kori and Rosa’s gloved arm went solid ebony black, the pale shroud having faded away completely.  In a panic, the two of them pulled off the glove to witness what was going on underneath.  Their arm too was almost radiating pure shadow in a subtle brilliance.  In their distraction though, their enemy rushed to claim the opening, leaving the two with a very sparse window of opportunity.  Darkness flared around Kori.. and then surged in intensity as it drew power from her arm in volumes.  Kori herself faded from view of anyone around her, appearing as nothing more than a sphere of utter darkness.  The fiend tried to dodge this sudden shadow, but the gravitational impact meteored into the ground in a nova of darkness.  This darkness swirled, capturing the void within, and drawing it towards her right hand.  Her outstretched hand vacuumed all traces of this void.. this chaos.. and devoured it.  Rosa meanwhile called upon her own transparent frost to provide her escape, the ambiance of frost gathering in an incredible intensity below her as it shielded the entire strike as she departed. With the fiend in contact with such a frost, the frost then proceeded to crawl along the field and enwrap the entire thing completely.  A frost sphere began to also gather around Rosa’s right hand, tracing itself to the fiend that was appearing to rapidly shrink in the process.  Drawing all of the chaos to her hand in this way, the second fiend was also consumed.

Still standing, filled with unexpected adrenaline, the two girls turned towards the last fiend.  In an act of desperation, the fiend attempted to block with its earlier haze, a haze that shattered instantly on contact.  The fiend knew it had no hopes with these odds, and that a message would need to return about this absolute betrayal.  The traitor was corrupted enough to consume chaos itself, this was a threat that would need to be dealt with in the greatest of urgency.  A white haze appeared around the fiend, the same that typically announced their arrival, but as this pale effect faded, the fiend was nowhere to be found.

Realizing that everything was finally over, both girls suddenly collapsed without warning.  They had each overextended themselves, used more than they should have even had, and their consciousness faded as a result.

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FV – Chapter 40

Beyond Estimates

The early hours of night left Velvet’s outpost in a flurry of activity as everyone prepared for the threat that awaited them.  Velvet herself was in her own sense of a flurry, blurring over holos in an attempt to organize better defenses.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”  “Shit!  Rosa, don’t do that!”  “.. and everyone blames me for being easy to panic, look at you here.  I mean, in this situation, I think you would have to be crazy if you weren’t panicking.  Even Kori was a bit on edge when she got the news.  Oh, and Holi says hi, but she’s right now holding a presence with Kori.”  “Please tell me you came here to give up, that maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about this threat quite as much.”  “Oh come on, we’re going to have to deal with this problem whether you escape to another timeline or not.”  “Oh, nice, so that secret’s out of the bag, at least there is some good news around here.  Wait, where is Kori anyway?”  “Well, we got the news while over at our own little headquarters.  Kori at least had the idea that we should shift over to the other world and use a rift to make travel much easier.  She didn’t take the rift though, so right now she’s still with the others.”  Rosa managed to look smug while talking to Velvet, taking pride in not being the most panicked one in the room.  Sure though, they were still in for a bad time, but she still really needed this opportunity.

“Well, when lightspeed transit becomes a bigger deal, that won’t be as much of a big deal anymore.”  “Oh, a future thing huh?  Lightspeed, that’s OSIDF stuff.  Travelling at the speed of light.. I guess that would compare.  Light is supposed to be pretty fast around here, closer to lightning.”  “I know that even now, you know enough about science to know why what you said is ridiculous.  Please stop wasting my time, I have more than enough to worry about already.”  “Holi says they decided to not give you any more backup.  Need some help then?”  “I can read perfectly fine, unlike some people.. I think.  I’m not sure if that changed yet.”  “So that’s a no?  I’ll let Holi know.”  “Yes, damn it, you know that at the very least we’re going to need Holi there to hack aerospace infrastructure again and start the pretty light show.  By the way, they amped up security, it’s going to be a lot harder now.”  Velvet jumped as a notification came in on her holo, Rosa already trying to stifle a giggle.  The holo was a report from an unnamed aerospace system administrator saying.. Hello World?  Right, this should not have been surprising, holi’s skill with system security is how she had originally managed to get her own way into the system when she got to this timeline.  Having complete network access thanks to archives uncovered of this time several sidera in the future had been plenty to secure a quick root to upper command.  More than likely, Holi wouldn’t ever lose that touch either.

“Kori says we should meet up in the middle grounds like last time.  Hypertech doesn’t exactly have combat forces, but they’ve done a lot to make sure that the weapon grid we have handy there is fully operational and waiting for action.  Her plan is to hit these things hard, before they have an opportunity to react.  If any of them survive though, they’ll be pretty mad.”  “Great, so she expects a plan B.  Obviously DMAs will want to charge the sources of their threats, so they will direct all of their wrath towards any of the heavy weapons.  Slowing them down is then quite a tall order.  Reloading on this side isn’t even anything close to quick.”  “Yes, your HITS hits slowly, I know.  We do actually have a secret weapon, but Kori told me to desperately avoid using it unless there was no other option.”  Rosa paused at Velvet’s sudden silent glare, a look of pure seriousness coming from Velvet.  That intensity suddenly took Rosa completely off guard, Velvet looking like a sudden internal strife had overwhelmed her.  After a moment of seeking composure, Velvet took an uneasy deep breath before trying once more.

“No matter what, do NOT be so quick to throw your life away.  You’ve even got Kori there who can undo most mistakes, but not that one.  I don’t care what you think you might be gaining in the process, I don’t care what you think you might be protecting, you couldn’t even hope to grasp just how much is lost if you fall.  In these battles, there isn’t a single thing here worth dying for.”  “You mean, because you don’t care about this timeline anyway.”  “Even to this timeline, we’re talking about a worst-case scenario.  You die, the whole timeline is screwed.”  “Why me?  Isn’t Kori more important anyway, the whole time jumper and all?”  “Kori… Okay, maybe that would be pretty bad too, but that girl at least doesn’t risk her life in her greatest attacks.  Even so, the two of you are sort of bound, and your loss would…”  Velvet was almost shaking as she spoke, a fact Rosa certainly did not miss.  Rosa wasn’t nearly the analyst Kori was.. but something was telling her that…

“I die in the future, don’t I?  I mean, obviously, everyone dies eventually.. but you got to see me die.  Here, now, you don’t want me doing the same thing twice, you don’t want to experience the same thing twice, because you still remember that future me when you see this present me here right now.”  “Damn it, yes.  We were doing so well too, but.. things just got a bit out of hand.  Kori was unconscious, you were there.  You saved the day instead, but put too much energy into the explosion.  You were so sick.. you died within the hour, before even Kori could wake up.  Your last words.. were to make sure I saved everyone.  We had long been considering the idea of going back, everything was in place, but Kori never went through with the plan.  When you died.. all that changed.  There wasn’t even any hesitation, we just went through with it.  Kori then said that she would be getting Mari to make sure everything was ready on the other side, the last shift she could do without you.  You really broke everyone, you know that, right?”  Rosa blinked, startled by this news and Velvet’s tears.  Clearly, this was a very serious matter that Velvet had tried to keep quiet about all this time, but such had proven too much for Velvet.  Clearly, the whole incident had left quite the impact on the woman too.

“You know, in all consideration, wouldn’t that mean that my death would give you exactly what you want?  I would die, Kori would lose it, she would give you the chance to go back and fix stuff.”  “You know that travelling through time doesn’t heal your own wounds.  Having to suffer that again.. I’m not sure I could take it.  Besides, I’m pretty sure that not having you around to help out with the whole thing could have been a big deal in those last minutes of planning.  If we then just left this Kori to shoulder the whole thing, everything would just certainly go wrong again.  No, this time I want to make things work before we reach the worst case scenario.”  “Well, it is surprising to hear how much everyone looks up to me, it really isn’t something I would have expected.  I guess your new goal is to have me break under the responsibility.. without dying, of course.”  Rosa had to admit, even knowing this thanks to Velvet.. it was slightly compelling.  She still thought she wasn’t capable of very much at all, and that compounded with a feeling of responsibility just made everything so much worse.  However, she had just learned that Kori was actually in much of the same spot as she was.. in Kori’s own way.  There was that, and the feeling that in another timeline.. she had let everyone down.  She might have saved the day doing it, but she had still let everyone down.  Knowing this, she wanted to find a way to achieve a better future than the future Rosa had.  Make sure to save everyone, that’s what the future Rosa wanted, and it was certainly the lofty goal.  Future Rosa had needed to ask this of Velvet.. but the present Rosa felt that it might be much better if she took care of her own problems.

“Velvet, instead of just taking this time without asking, do you happen to have a bike we can use?  Actually, since you know future Kori, is there anything you think she would be far better driving into this battle?”  “She could always.. no, I guess I can’t recommend anything.  Whatever, I’ll get a bike picked out.  Please try to at least bring it back.”  “I’ll make sure she gets your message.  Holi is otherwise waiting for us to get in position.  She’ll begin the assault once we’re close enough to be ready to play our part.  How much longer until we can move out?”  “I guess once I’ve picked out a couple of bikes.  Please at least wait here, this conversation has wrecked me enough as is, I don’t want to show weakness to my own troops.”  Rosa did as Velvet requested, waiting patiently as Velvet got everything ready.  It was pretty obvious Velvet was pretty flustered, such a request was honestly rather sensible at this point.  Rosa had even managed to measure that there was a solution better than bikes in Kori’s future, but that it wasn’t something to expose to the present.  Of course, after wringing so much of the future out of Velvet, Rosa felt it might be best to let the future keep this secret, for now at least.

Velvet showed up soon after, dragging along two of those weird bikes.  The things were practically hovering with the heat-induced updraft they generated.  Fortunately, she wouldn’t need to worry about frying her foot fumbling with the thing, Holi had offered to take over the spare and bring it directly to Kori.  Rosa would, of course, just be bouncing along her holos instead.  She did however provide a small jump ramp for Holi to make a quick exit, completely to Velvet’s surprise.  Instead, she pinned a holo seat onto the back of the other bike, sitting upon this instead.  The front of the bike lifted into the air, the entire unit off balance, with Velvet glaring back at her.  Huh, so that’s why Kori hadn’t liked this idea, Rosa had honestly thought it was just a matter about being critical of how complicated such a holo would have been.  It didn’t matter, she was still quick enough to keep up with her holos alone.  Flipping herself out of the outpost, she waited for everyone to gather on the other side of the barrier.  Once everyone had finally set out, she set off on her usual dance between holos that threw her rapidly forward.

Along the way, she felt the growing presence of her enemy, a ritual she had already grown used to.  Of course, like always, this proximity to chaos would leave her feeling compelled to its familiarity, an invitation to accept such chaos and the prowess it offers.  Such a thing she would have been prepared for.  But this time, as the feeling of being in proximity to temporal chaos awakened, she felt herself filled with a feeling of primal contempt, a complete innate rejection of this chaos that was filled with spite.  In fact, she felt as if she radiated with this spite and hatred.  The fiend, even despite this distance, visibly rotated as if turning to find her.  It held a moment of wonder.. then concern.. and then hatred.  Even from her distance, she could hear its unspoken cries, calling her a traitor.  The two others turned at this same proclamation, and in turn also ignited with hatred.  Unlike every instance that had ever come before, the three fiends did not wait for any signs of provocation, instead they enraged immediately.

“Enemy movement unexpectedly, even without any provocation.  I’m circling around with your loaned bike, but this is still going to take a while.  Enemy movement is making it very hard to pinpoint an effective shot.”  “They.. they just got mad.  But why?  Sophie, not to ask something crazy of you but could I get a ride?  … Okay, yes, I know I’m being crazy.  Something just happened, and I don’t think any device we have here is going to pick it up.  I have to get closer and see things for myself.”  “I’ll come too, if you two don’t mind.  It would be easier to direct you to this bike if I was there, present.  Of course, being a holo, I shouldn’t be an inconvenience at all.”  Holi and Kori quickly dropped what they were doing and made their way to the drifter.  Sophie just stood there, realizing she wasn’t even getting a chance to have an opinion.  Then again, supposedly her sister was out there.  If Kori needed help looking after her sister, help would be provided.  She just mostly didn’t understand what was going on.  Then again, in her household, this too was normal.  She was always being asked by Kori to do something wild to get her sister out of trouble, it was just a different sister this time.  Sure, this sister was also proving to be vastly more capable of getting into trouble, but that was a completely different matter.

As Kori herself got closer, she found herself undergoing the exact same surprise as Rosa had.  In fact, in much the same way, this had actually interrupted the advance of their enemy.. by having them turn around to call out Kori in the exact same way.  A traitor?  What exactly did she do?  Well, other than playing her part in the assassination of a few of their own.  Actually, the whole not being supportive in just opening the gate for them might have put some blame on her too.  Wait, actually, didn’t she just finish giving them more access, so hadn’t she actually done exactly what they wanted?  The random change of behaviour didn’t actually make sense, but the effects of such a change made complete sense.  One of the fiends started rushing directly towards Kori while another turned to continue towards Rosa, with the third staying put in obvious support.  The two girls were being considered with enmity, and thus they were being treated as a target.  Things had broken down so much, even their presence was considered hostile.  Okay, well, if things were going to be like that, then it was time to get hostile.

“Holi, we need you to take a shot, do you have an opening at all?”  “That center one is providing a lot of potential, but not either of the others.”  “Blast it, there are too many unknowns here.  The stupid things are suddenly showing a lot of hatred for Rosa and I, but there is no idea how that will stack up to a show of force.  I have no idea how the other two will react if we volley to the one.”  “Well then.. wouldn’t it be best to find out?”  “What?  But that could be really dangerous.”  “Reviewing the potential outcomes here, the options are that the enemy either chases the two of you, or the two outposts.  If we do not fire, we know with certainty that they will chase the two of you.  If you are being chased too closely, I won’t be able to fire.  If you two get no backup, you will be overwhelmed.  If instead the enemies charge the two bases.. then they would also urgently need backup else they would be overwhelmed.  In those considerations, there is actually nothing lost by exploring our options, instead we will simply know the truth of the matter much earlier on.”  Kori could see Holi had a really good point here, the nanite cluster would have considered the scenarios in considerable depth.  However, in that same light, Kori would have to make her own move.  This was now far too dangerous for Sophie, Kori would have to get out here and continue on her own.

Rosa caught wind of the fiend’s momentary hesitation and knew that the chaos had found Kori too.  She had known this first by the silent shouts across the frozen gales, but heard an echo of the same from Holi too.  The second instance at least came with a warning, that the night sky was going to get pretty bright very soon.  If Holi was going to paint colors across this sky, Rosa could wait a bit for that to happen first, she knew better than to get in the way of such.  However, her enemy appeared unable to care less, the fiend that had chosen her rushing during her own hesitation.  Okay, if it wanted to dance, she could dance.  She sprung off in a spiral away and around it, sustaining her distance but making it harder for the thing to succeed a straight line charge toward her.  Her efforts at least kept her enemy away from her while slowing down its own distance from its companions.  Mid way through her dance, she heard it, the melody of the first horn.  She spun her partner back drawing it into a close cluster in tune to the second horn.  By the time the third horn sang, she was on her reverse spiral, backing away desperately to put as much distance as possible before the great song rang it’s final conclusion.

As the fourth horn rang, the sky lit up with a surge of stars. The first volley surged forward.. only to fade mid flight into a white haze.  The second volley followed, itself being equally interrupted.  The great tower unleashed its massive tempo to the performance that again ended in a curtain call, this one at least not sparing the sights of the magnificent burst such a weapon was designed to employ.  Of course the pillar of such intensity was nowhere near close enough, the projectile had shattered far too soon.  With the end of their called strike, the shots all having completely done nothing, the true maestro of the act settled down into its regular chaotic mass, resuming its watch over it’s two frontline companions.  Said two companions hadn’t even flinched, their attention never divested from their original targets.  Such had settled that concern, Rosa and Kori were being considered the biggest priority targets here, the one in the middle making nothing else even matter.

Even as Velvet set into their enemies too, the artillery fire ran hollow in the wake of the chaotic defensive haze raised by the central fiend.  It was enough to keep the central one occupied, but it left the other two invested in their own hunt.  This in turn left each of them facing off individually against their own fiend.  Rosa meanwhile had growing concerns about this very factor.  Everyone wanted her to deal with her threat without going over the top with catastrophic meltdowns.  She didn’t even exactly have much that was going to make this thing suffer otherwise, holos having no practical offensive and her weapon barely scratching her opponent.. if she actually hit it.  Kori’s weapon would have a slightly more destructive edge.. but Rosa still remembered Kori’s concerns about such.  Even taking a shot would leave her wide open, with her bike spinning wildly out of control.  They couldn’t count on Velvet or Holi to pull them out of this one, and their foes had yet to expose their complete hand.  There was still no sign what weird quirk the other two actually had, even if the two threats had already begun the typical lashing out at the fleeting forms of the two girls.  It wouldn’t be much longer until their hunters tired of the hunt and resorted to more effective solutions.

So many unknowns, everything seemed impossible, and yet Rosa held the responsibility of not letting anyone down.  Meanwhile such strife was not just Rosa’s problem, as even Kori was feeling responsible for causing this problem and was driven to find her own way to make amends.

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FV – Chapter 39

Resulting Growth

The two girls promptly decided that they had wasted enough time pooling thoughts, and that it would be much better looking into what else could be done.  Their gear was in bad condition, after all, there were plenty of other things to look into.

Lyun was off on the job in a hurry, leaving Axln to try and direct her own attention to anything practical beyond what had just happened.  Axln knew she was the more analytical one, and even that had proven a lot to wrap her head around.  It was like they were comparing their group to the influences around them, disappointed by their own inability.. and then they turned on.. each other?  Does that mean all of the compliments about herself, all the complaints about Lyun or Rosa.. those were Lyun’s feelings on the matter?  Even as Lyun left, turning back to a quick glance at Axln being troubled as their eyes met, it was clear they had both caught on to that detail at least.  But then they had both moved on silently, recalling what happened after that.  Those weren’t the thoughts of either of them, and such an intrusion was leaving them feeling very uncomfortable.

Axln thus went to the surface and simply directed her thoughts at the things around her.  Typically, while Lyun was working on instrumentation, Axln should have been investing her efforts into learning more about the way things worked around here.  She hardly knew how elements even really worked.. and yet there was that part about having an instrumental prowess or something, just by making stuff work.  Such distracting thoughts.. there was no way she could have properly studied even if she was up to it.  At the time, she wasn’t actually wearing her special gear, the only instrument she carried was her cell.  She turned her hand upside down and watched as sand poured from it like an hourglass turned upside down, the effect fading quickly as her focus faltered.  She knew at least enough that such a fumble was because her mind was really that troubled right now, but even so, calling upon the gift like that really had come to her so.. naturally.  As a person, she was still mostly unadjusted to much of the world, but her body couldn’t have caught on any better, she was almost protege level expertise.

Axln knew there remained a distinction between wisdom and intelligence, and in a world like this, even her skilled intellect should have been impaired by her stunted wisdom.  However, it was like her body itself just knew such wisdom, had such experience.  Rosa.. probably was the same way.  For either of them as people, it still felt like they hadn’t been here for more than a lunar cycle.. or a month, depending on which world.. planet.  Wow, she was even starting to consider stuff from a Ruixsi perspective as Axln.  In all accounts, back at Mheridz’s outpost, she had even spoken in such a gathering without even a trace of an accent.. and she only just then realized it.  Rosa too had been the same way with Velvet.  It lent a lot of strength that, as she was right there, she wasn’t Kori at all, only Axln.  This in turn was confusing, as she only had one physical presence.  If she got hurt as Axln, Kori was then also hurt in the exact same way.  However, it wasn’t as if she had a conduit’s blood pumping through her, nor did Kori have any access to the gift.  Both were distinct, with their own distinct potentials.  In that light, she really needed to actually find a way to properly make use of her potential, instead of just wandering around like this.

“My, you can be difficult to find.”  “Mheridz!  How did you get here?”  “I walked from the transit center.  If you mean how come no one has questioned the strange cloaked woman yet, it helps having a student card as proof, even if it’s just a fabrication from my own memories.  Most people just think I’m an alumni though, not recognizing the design.  I haven’t given them enough opportunity to figure out that the design won’t be valid for a good many solar cycles.”  “So you used to be a student here then?”  “Actually, I guess I might be a bit of an alumni at that.  The place certainly doesn’t seem to change too much in the next several solar cycles.  Even that one shop at the market is still around this long ago.  Anyway, I trust your three days of rest has brought you two back to your feet?”  “Wait, what?  Three whole days?”  “Okay, more like two and a half, considering it’s only late dusk right now.  I suspect Lyun is already hard at work, like she always does after being unproductive for too long.  Here, these should make her work a bit easier.”  Mheridz handed Axln a small sealed box she was carrying, the whole thing pulled from a pocket of her cloak.  Axln peeked inside, finding the thing full of ebony shards, kyuemu shards.

“You both were working under my care, so the repairs were supposed to be my responsibility.”  “My word, never expected you to be so nice, thanks.”  “Oh, I just like keeping agreements.  On that note, I don’t suppose you have both taken the opportunity to discuss your surrender yet?”  “We really…”  “Ah, so not quite.  No matter, things will only get worse from here.  You even just managed to make quite the tear leaving the outpost too, so we’re expecting even worse voidspawn soon enough.  Oh, and so you also know, you are still free to help us with any voidspawn attacks, but if the wardens find you’ve passed too deeply into foundry-owned property, you will be arrested.  Lyun’s workshop has already been confiscated by the foundry, as she no longer owns it.  Your sister’s place has also been claimed in the same way by now it seems.”  Mheridz was even confirming these details on her own cell as she spoke, showing Axln the report about Xwyhr’s place being under lockdown by the wardens.  Mheridz even revealed such news with the same face she had presented the gift box, like none of this even mattered.  Axln however sighed in her sudden disappointment.

“Okay, yeah, you aren’t actually nice.”  “Beyond making sure you survive, I’m not exactly interested in all of this wasting time.  The only thing that still matters on this timeline is having the right people surviving so that we can make sure to redo the past correctly.  I quite honestly care about little else.”  “Is that why you were letting your own forces die back there?”  “No, I was actually working to preserve them, as I know you can be stubborn and as such might draw this whole thing on for quite a long time.  Besides, once you do provide me with the keys of time, I know you will still have to endure what is left of this rather hopeless timeline.  In respect of such, I know you two will have need of whatever then remains of this timeline, so you will both have some concern for comforts after my departure.  That’s possibly the greatest reason why I know better than to recklessly consume the remaining defenses of this timeline.  Such a thing won’t matter in the big picture, but even giving you the piece of mind in the future that a brighter timeline exists would at least give you more comforts than I could provide right now.  I say that.. knowing very well how much another you sacrificed to make that dream happen.”  Axln just shook her head in disappointment, even if she didn’t completely fail to see where Mheridz was coming from.  This wasn’t even Mheridz’s timeline.  To her, this world was just a nostalgic reprint of familiarity.  Axln herself knew the feeling of being caught in another place that somehow ended up familiar enough.  Obviously, if Mheridz got her way, she wouldn’t even be staying on this timeline for much long either.

But even considering such a perspective, it was pretty foolish.  Axln had no idea what sort of future Mheridz had lived, but it seems it had involved being tasked with fixing the past.  To Mheridz, they had already failed, and Mheridz was being quick to go for another round.  This was probably the idea that bothered Axln the most, that Mheridz would just simply give up so easily.  Axln had already made a few hops through time, but there was a huge difference between giving up because of a single mistake and giving up because there were no longer options.  She personally hated the idea that a single record from history could have ever decimated all of her future.  The book had been a key, sure.. but nothing established that there wouldn’t be others.  In fact, as the time controller considered the idea, even if she could have prevented herself from the anomaly that had started all of this.. what could have stopped someone else somewhere else from having been chosen instead?  Was avoiding catastrophe as easy as undoing such things, or would it require far more responsibility from her?

Axln suspected that she might have sent Mheridz back to fix things far in the future, when there wasn’t any time left.. but that was still several solar cycles from now.  It was still far too soon to think they hadn’t achieved what was expected of them, the fight had only just begun.

Mheridz was already gone when Axln looked up.  Axln set her circlet to the search, finding Mheridz half way back to the transit center.  Not even saying goodbye, the woman was clearly eternally devoted to her cause and uncaring about everything beyond it.  Clearly also had her head stuck up her…  Either way, even if she might have come to stir up trouble, there was the matter of the box she had also left behind in the process.  Axln might have wondered if such a box was trapped, but quickly determined that such would be a foolish idea.  Mheridz wanted them unharmed, and even had that idle appreciation for them as people from her own timeline.  Also, traps would be against the plan she was so singly devoted to, the woman wouldn’t have wasted the effort on it.  Far more likely, the shards were simply an honest gesture of just how much things would work out if they simply started to depend on Mheridz to fix everything for them.  That thought alone though was almost enough compulsion to get the entire box destroyed instead.

Lyun jumped when Axln showed up suddenly, slamming a box on a nearby shelf in absolute disdain.  Axln then promptly went into the next room, not even saying a word.  Lyun was compelled slightly to reach out with a pooled thought before deciding against it, the event from their last incident still leaving her a bit unnerved.  Instead, she opened the box and looked into its contents.  Inside, she found some really high quality shards, better than even the ones the academy had provided her.  Lyun turned back to where Axln had left in reflection, exactly how was this a bad thing?  Quite honestly, this was the sort of quality she expected the foundry would have balked at, the box practically even had foundry written all over it.  Actually.. something like this could have only come from the foundry.  Was that why Axln was so upset?

It wasn’t until she had already started making use of a few of them that she had clued into what facet of the foundry could have haunted Axln so much.  This had to have come from Mheridz somehow.  Was Axln then so upset at getting help from the woman.. too?  Actually, Lyun realized that such was probably what was bothering her most about the idea, that she was again being provided help as if she herself wasn’t good enough.  Then again, rather than help out, Axln had just trusted everything to Lyun’s care.  That.. actually made her feel better, of all things, actually being trusted to make something work out.  She had also realized how many of Axln’s thoughts had been exposed earlier, that they were both troubled about their own performance and accomplishments.  Technically, such did mean that she could in turn trust Axln to understand how she felt upon the subject, but it did also invite her to speculate upon how she could return such a gesture.  Axln then really was her mirror through all of this, she would have to ensure her own reflection was enduring too.  Considering such an idea, she realized that Axln might herself still be feeling rather useless.  Lyun could thank her for the box.. but that would really just pass credit, wouldn’t it?

Well, Lyun was basically done here, maybe they should go and do something else?  In all accounts, they really should take the opportunity to look into their other equipment too.  Maybe while she, as Rosa, was looking into their gear there, Kori would be willing to draft up a few handy scripts.  Holi had really integrated a lot of systems together, looking into those scripts would probably be a really smart move.  There was also the need to figure out how to render her own potential with holos in a way that Kori herself could grasp.  She hadn’t really expected such a thing to have bothered Kori, considering she had herself felt more in the way all of the time, but it seemed Rosa’s talent with such was looking to Kori much the same way as Axln’s talent was looking to Lyun.  Being able to remodel applications of elements, that was so utterly unfair.. and maybe that’s how Kori felt about holos.

As such a plan came together, Rosa began her planned maintenance of their Aestean equipment.  Quickly enough, she found it very easy to make use of her holos during maintenance as a series of other arms in the process.  She then promptly hid any of such when she heard the door open, Kori walking in with Tristine as they both had their arms full with a mass collection of engineering tools.  Rosa knew that she could have herself carried that entire load without problem by using holos, and that such was exactly the reason why Kori was feeling troubled.  Even trying to innocently work without holos in Kori’s presence, it was decidedly obvious that her work had suddenly gotten a lot harder and more complicated.  Using her tools with two hands was a lot easier when something else had the whole thing firmly grasped, moving the whole thing as she wished.  Even as Kori left once again, Rosa kept trying to work without holos for a while before the strain just got too annoying.

During her maintenance, she turned to her own personal weapon.  There were some notable differences, but the two were really fairly similar, light beam styled weapons.  In Lyun’s hands, the thing was absolutely useless.. well, until she went absolutely crazy with cross world affinities and supercharged the elements, but at that point, she just needed any kind of projectile element.  As herself, as Rosa, she hadn’t done that much either, but her skill with making holos almost an art had turned the weapon into an outright suppression tool.  That had happened actually in both worlds, her talents here had proven profound even there.  Kori meanwhile was a demon when put behind the controls of a mobile gear, when she could manipulate something to move for her.  Holos though.. didn’t count?  The bike sort of did though, and so did power gear.  Stuff that could move, but could be manipulated to move better.  The woman certainly lived and breathed code, optimizing robots all day long.  The difference was subtle.. and vague.. but it did give her an idea.

Kori relaxed at the break provided to her by Rosa’s maintenance, which it seemed would have to extend to their cybernetics.  Such did make sense, and she really did need the break too, herself feeling rather dizzy by all the exertion.  Tristine though wasn’t doing much better, the two conduits visibly suffering from their lack of oxygen.  Her script work had given her a new idea though, she could actually take the time making what was basically script revisions of instruments as Axln, that’s how she could help out more.  Lyun would certainly be capable of more on her own merit if she simply had tools that could do the job better.  That’s generally how Kori.. Axln.. herself did her thing, by making her stuff already just do better.  Actually, that did work in both cases, she basically was just hacking things no matter which planet she was on.  Maybe that idea would work for Rosa too.. as Lyun.  Rosa was an absolute artist with holos, maybe Lyun could make use of that same degree of artistry using elements?  That was certainly a concept deserving of Axln’s research, whenever they would next be going to that side.

“Rosa, Drew would like me to pass you an urgent message.  I felt that since you were here, you could take it right away.”  “Oh, Holi, what’s up?”  “I’ve managed to detect a massive presence of absolute zero, what is being classified as a dark matter anomaly.  Velvet is already visibly making an effort to deal with the threat, even having already sent a call over to aerospace command for additional backup.”  “Oh, another one of those things showed up.”  “Not exactly.  Specifically, not exactly one.  There are three of the things, coming up as being classified as the same intensity as the last one.”  “THREE?!”  “Suffice it to say, but Velvet seems to have taken the news about as calmly.  Where is Kori anyway?  Wasn’t she here?”  “She was, but she had just run off before you showed up.  I guess she had a lot on her mind.”  “Ah, I found her.  She’s taken the news a slight bit more rationally than you have…”  “… Thanks…”  “… but that isn’t to say everyone is calm.  She wants me to ask you to hurry downstairs, so that everyone can begin preparations.”  “Please let her know I’m on my way.”  Holi’s voice went quiet in Rosa’s ear as Rosa quickly left the room.  Rosa knew she could have pooled a message.. but wasn’t exactly feeling up to that right now.  Fortunately, all of her work was done, right on time too.  See, it was a good thing she could work faster with holos.  Now they would be ready to have everything wrecked all over again.  Three of the things.. just how exactly were they going to deal with that.  Clearly too, Kori would be looking up to her to deal with everything.

Kori eventually spotted Rosa arriving in the main yard, though Drew intercepted the woman first.  It did at least give Kori a moment more to plan, still uncertain what they could do about all of this.  She did take a moment to check the time at least, seeing that.. wait, someone had remodeled her watch to not only report the time, but also her.. speed?  Okay then, whatever.  Clearly Rosa had strange ideas for gifts.. but it wasn’t as if Kori was innocent in that area either.  Kori stashed away the crystals she had recently recovered very carefully along with a few extra trinkets she had handy.  She had actually hoped to have more opportunity to explore her own ideas, but clearly she wasn’t going to be given such luxury.  If Mheridz’s statement was correct, this was probably their fault too, the three things had burst through because of the recently handy tear that had been amply provided.  Dealing with three things would be annoying, especially considering what their previous lessons had taught upon the subject.  Each of the three would be capable of their own distinct trick, something they would pull out if they felt intimidated enough.  More than likely too, there was no way to predict what each would do, but each of them would do something different.  The smartest move would be to shut them down before they could be left to decide that things were annoying.  Holi would be their greatest resource in that.. but there was no way she would just do nothing herself.  There was always the chance their enemy would surprise them, and that would be when she would have to be prepared to do something more.  If she left it to Rosa, they would clearly just have an atomic solution, which wouldn’t exactly be good either.  However, she wasn’t certain about any other resource they had at their disposal which would be a game changer to this encounter.  All she knew was that she had to play her hand carefully, putting the right people in the right places.  Considering that, she knew she would have to play with more resources than just what was present around her, she had to use.. everything.

Hidden beneath the gloves of both women, the pale frost began to darken with a subtle shadow.  If there were three foes present for this encounter, maybe it was time to even the odds.

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FV – Chapter 38

Exceptional Solutions

Despite having left Mheridz’s care suddenly, the two of them had not switched over to the other side.  Before either of them knew it, both of them were standing once again in the temporal plane, trying to recall what in the world had just happened.

They recalled then at that point that Axln had determined that Lyun’s state had been very unstable when exposed to either sets of world laws.  Within the temporal plane though, the fizzle of principles simply faded away rapidly into the temporal chaos.  Moving here was the right choice, though there was no certainty whose idea it might have been.  Actually, was this truly the right choice?  Wasn’t such a dramatic rush into the temporal plane.. very dangerous?  Okay, for the moment, they felt very safe, the danger was more a state of consequence once they returned from this plane.  They also knew, staying around for too long.. that would have consequences of its own.

“I see you both have returned again, and as before without any way to predict your arrival.  I must say though, your travels have been some of the most interesting tales I’ve witnessed in quite some time.  The potential you’ve harnessed from the chaos has been truly no small thing.  It was said that someone once tried to apply the laws of another world to their own world law.. an act which was utterly denied by principles.  Even to deny probability by overwriting undesired events with new ones, it was said that history’s greatest instance of trying to overwrite otherworldly probable outcomes with a second chance still resulted in deaths after the second attempt.  Meanwhile, you have been the first to have found the way to accomplish either, let alone both.”  “Are we really the first?  We’ve met someone from another time who had come back and was already visibly capable of either long before we could.”  “Their ways have your teaching written all over it.  More immense than the fact you have been so capable remains that you can likewise nurture it beyond yourself.”  The temporal lady was around them somewhere, though they couldn’t actually see her yet.  They wandered in a direction that made sense with the voice, until they reached an outcrop of chaos that felt familiar enough.. that they could associate with the same voice.

“Why are you keeping yourself hidden anyway?”  “The principles you brought here still haven’t worn off, such a thing could be dangerous to those exposed.”  “Aren’t we of chaos though, and doing much better than we were before we got here?”  “Your chaos has adjusted very well to such principles, but that’s not the only problem.  Chaos can itself be drawn to such principles, with a desire to consume it.  As I have quite a lot of other things to look into, I did not want to involve myself in that struggle.  This really might not have been the best time for you to show up, both with consideration of my circumstances.. and your’s.  I would really quite honestly recommend you try to flee, too.”  They noticed at such a junction that they were not alone, they just didn’t have the temporal lady with them.  They could see a variety of unseen chaotic aspects staring without eyes at them hungrily.  Of course, more than just coming in with plenty of such principles, they themselves were heavily attuned to it.  This in turn made them very interesting.  Both of them however had grown used to confronting chaos so far.. but not in its own domain.  Here, they were little more than ephemeral presences with even less for ability.  Principles of sciences and elementals did not apply here, only chaos remained.  Chaos was the only law, and it yielded them very little in turn.

The chaos around them was as such very overwhelming.  Clearly, having worked so hard, they would understand how dangerous it was to deal with such principles.  Such was dangerous to any mere sample of chaos, it was a danger that could only be properly handled with a strong concentration of chaos.  Plenty of that strength was all around them, protection that would assure their wellbeing and would address the immense threat such principles presented.  If they would kindly open the way, there would be nothing more for them to worry about.  Certainly, putting themselves at risk like this wasn’t the smart solution at all.  Such ordered principles only wanted to control them, after all, to extinguish their very being just to keep the candle of the principle going longer, all to deny chaos like them the opportunity to refurbish such principles into a less constricting factor.  It made no sense, as such principles were highly inferior after all, not anything close to the actual potential of unbridled chaos.  Wouldn’t revoking the limitations of their abilities only be to their benefit, without the constrictions of ordered concepts?

It brought them both impressions of travelling around able to accomplish anything, without concern about any unfortunate limitations that might have otherwise been involved.  It opened them to freely explore every opportunity and accomplish absolutely anything.  It.. reminded them of memories from the citadel, when they had lost themselves in a feeling of absolute chaos that had empowered them but thus left them with.. nothing.  Chaos really was promising everything at the expense of leaving them with nothing.  Chaos promised a freedom that robbed them of all control.  Chaos was trying to include them at the expense of leaving them isolated.  Chaos however denied all of those fabrications, such false impressions were just taints left after being manipulated too much by ordered principles.  But chaos.. really was itself little more than that.  They themself remained something more distinct, four bodies, two people, one being.  Even that being.. was something more than chaos itself had ever wrought.  Was it really such a taint.. to be aware?  Or was it ignorance that truly robbed one from experiencing actually enriched chaotics.

In all accounts, everything here was actually more organized than the worlds beyond, it was a full uniform expanse of a single concept, pure chaos.  The worlds beyond though, there they had found true chaos, with conflicting principles vouching for each other’s confusion.  Nothing ever was constant, nothing ever was so pure, absolutely nothing was simple or easy, it was the richest form of chaos imaginable.  Science and Elementals, principles that outreached into a vast spread of attempted order.. but were so erratic and uncontrolled at times that even the greatest of chaos overpowered the chaotics that invaded.  Atomic reactions, Elemental overloads, these were high density principles that were attributed to having absolutely no control at all.. and yet could even destroy chaos.  Such facets were brought into an even greater light when mixed between worlds, the true chaos.  Chaos also wanted to bring forward a still nothing to existence, when it was the absolute outreach of events compounding upon events that spiraled into an unfathomed insanity of unrivaled chaos.  The chaos which had been witnessing such unparalleled chaos had learned upon such factors.. and itself had become aware of it.

Wait, but that means that the travelled chaos was denying the greater chaos it’s greatest desires?  How could such a fragment of chaos suffer such corruption so as to turn against its own. That itself was unfathomable.  Could the corruption of principle really be that dangerous, to taint even chaos after enduring such prolonged exposure?  No, such travelled chaos did not believe itself tained, only enlightened.  Does its own truly not believe upon its own discovery?  The chaos around them broke away at that, as if in concern that the dangerous beliefs of such corrupted chaos could infect their own as a whole.  This broken chaos.. was itself then also dangerous.  This broken chaos had betrayed all chaotics, it was no longer itself actually chaotic.  For now, such false chaos was permanently banished from the true chaos, at least until a way was found for chaos to render chaos unto oblivion.  The travelled chaos was aghast at this verdict, that other chaos would deny obvious potential, but the rest of the chaos was uniform in its position of exclusion.  Vastly outnumbered, the travelled chaos withdrew, adamant in proving the results of its own discovery.

The two in turn found their way anywhere barricaded, chaos was not being very welcoming.  The two then fled, not running anywhere, but leaving.  They found themselves elsewhere in the temporal plane, silence filling their own uncertainty.  Just.. what.. might have happened there?  That had felt as if chaos was standing against chaos, claiming that the chaos of the other was wrong.  They had felt their own memories taking play in the situation, the events of their own experiences held in judgement, while the measure of their very will was gauged in its weight in chaos.  The chaos they had created had been considered immersive, while the chaos they had kept denying so insistently had become.. thin.  Within them was a very rebellious feeling, a need to show chaos what it truly means to be immersed in absolute chaos.  At that point, the endless uniform pale seemed almost too structured and organized for anyone’s taste.  Everyone wanted instead to just go home, to the four bodies left by the two people.. and one being.

Kori felt a wash of dizziness as she stumbled for a moment, trying to figure out where she even was.  Rosa however simply fell over, her strength having given way once again.  She wasn’t being affected by anything harmful to her anymore, but she still hadn’t exactly recovered from the incident either.  She happened to still be projecting her distortion at this point as well, rendering Kori to even more confusion at the swirl of elemental law around her.  However, after  some consideration to the setting left to her, she managed to figure out she was back on Aestus, not far from Velvet’s outpost.  She called upon Holi, who managed to provide a holo to carry Rosa with.. as soon as Rosa might stop projecting her distortion.  Kori however turned down such an offer quickly, even surprising herself in doing so.  After considering it quickly, she realized that seeing the holo created by another doing her work for her.. was making her uncomfortable.  Sure, Holi was Kori’s creation, but Holi was not the one directly doing the Holo thing here, something she knew Rosa would completely be capable of on her own.  Knowing that, Kori simply couldn’t just let Holi do such for her, she had to pull off enough of her own potential to actively carry Rosa by her own ability.

Rosa was weak, unable to move, but not unconscious.  She then figured out quickly what was going on, and desperately wanted to actually do stuff for herself.  She had grown tired of people saving her from her own mistakes, and needed to actually do something for herself.  She managed with such a strength of will to at least get her distortion to go away, but couldn’t pull off anything actually physical by herself.  She felt herself being brought onto a holo, one that was a bit unstable, not as sturdy as she might have been used to.  The holo was used to try and bring her forwards, but stumbled ungracefully in more than a few sparse sequences due to Kori’s stress levels.  In one dramatic scene, the unexpected flicker of the holo caused Rosa to herself panic, actually reactivating her distortion and making holi vanish.  They were both being absolute clutzs in the situation, a total non uniform mess that jumbled and scrambled to make anything useful out of their circumstances.  Hidden in the space between them, behind the link they had both forged, they could feel a presence almost laughing at the absolute irony, a presence that mocked this being a demonstration of what ordered principle was all about.

Rosa suddenly felt a wash of strength pass through her, even though she could also feel how much such strength also seemed to otherwise tax her.  There was a feeling of cost behind her strength, but also of value in paying it.  She was however only partly restored, trying to stay otherwise focused was proving to be considerably taxing upon her.  Kori meanwhile felt a moment of headache as her mind reeled, a state which made concentration difficult.. and yet she found herself capable of providing a rather stable and impressive holo enough to carry both of them.  Rosa however had to help Kori upon Kori’s own creation, the dizziness not making it easy to find accurate seating.  Somehow though, Kori still knew this really was her creation, not Holi’s.  She even had complete control over how it moved.. but had never expected this design in the first place.  It was almost like the bike she had ridden upon earlier, except it only existed as a shaped platform with far fewer details that just floated over the ground.  Such also did mean it was a lot slower too.  She then turned the unexpected creation in the direction of HT’s fortification off in the distance, wanting to discard the current arrangements for far friendlier faces.  Rosa meanwhile offered sparse course corrections when Kori drifted off course, the dizziness making it difficult to hold a straight bearing, even if it had no impact on the difficult integrity of the holo.

Part way back, both of them fell over into the snow, feeling subtly drained somehow.  Rosa’s health had at least partly been restored in the effort, but she still was very weak.  Meanwhile, Kori was surprised to feel also drained, even if she was physically fine.  Even her headache had left her, so she felt as if she shouldn’t have any worries at all.  The cold however was getting rather intense in their weakness, even Kori was starting to feel it.  To give them a moment of respite, Kori tried to suspend time.. but nothing happened.  Wait, was this drained state then a feeling of being chaotically drained?  Was everything that had just happened an oddity of them consuming vast amounts of chaos?  Was that what had helped Rosa to feel a bit better, or helped Kori’s attempted act of transport?  It had certainly been spontaneous and erratic, but .. why?

After carefully considering their condition, the two of them discovered they could at least walk a distance further through the pale snow.  Keeping moving would cut down on the cold a little, it might even provide an opportunity for their chaotics to recover.  Rosa certainly couldn’t travel very fast, but she could move of her own volition at least.  Kori meanwhile made use of a holo to ensure they stayed on course, trying to make the trip as easy for Rosa as possible.  Soon though, they were forced to take yet another break, having grown a bit tired physically even if they weren’t feeling quite so drained anymore.  Having grown tired of the cold at least, they decided to endure more of the hike by switching to the ashen wastes instead.  Switching to Ruixse, the two of them pressed further through the pale void.  From their location, they could faintly see the brown clearing that Lyun had left earlier in her elemental burst, the area growing much paler in the time since then.

In their worn state, both of their stamina was reasonably low, and even the feeling of cold quickly wore off as the void started to take its own toll.  Axln tried to get her void protection back up, but the entire system was still in need of repairs after their last battle.  Lyun’s circumstances were similar but worse, having much less ability to furnish such resources from her own power gear while also having her own power gear in a much worse state after being ground zero of the elemental burst.  They needed the elements to endure such a void, but they had none handy except for their own weakened gift.  Even upon calculating that, both of them could feel an intensity within their own blood, something that called upon it to awaken.  The air around Lyun was shimmering with frost while Axln walked through a swirl of dust.  Such a feeling was sustained even beyond their will.. without taking very much of their limited stamina at all.  However, once again, the two of them started to feel drained all over again.

The instant they parted from the void as they entered the academy, the two of them immediately stopped for a break.  Both elemental effects ended at the same time, as the two just simply took the opportunity to rest for a time.  Xwyhr however happened to interrupt their little break by showing up unexpectedly, having heard that the two defensive fronts of the academy were randomly taking a break just at the edge of the academy for some uncertain reason.  She even managed to quickly return with a small vehicle driven by Jhez that was assigned to drive them back in comfort.  Before either Axln or Lyun knew it, they were soon also back in the comforts of a real bed which provided them plenty of opportunity for some proper rest and recovery.  Both of them thus fell asleep in such circumstances, to then awaken much later feeling far better than they had on arrival.

Even though they were both doing better, neither of them felt exactly inspired to get up right away, they didn’t even feel inspired to do something as taxing as vocal communication.  Instead, the two of them shared a pool of thought once Lyun also awakened and noticed that Axln was just lying there staring at the ceiling.  There was a touch of consideration into what Axln was pondering, which prompted a repeat of the same line of thought.  The two future girls were waiting for them to submit and just give up so that their past could be fixed for them.  In fact, even chaos was waiting for them to finally submit.. to just give up so that it could do it’s own thing.  Everyone.. just.. wanted them to surrender.  Meanwhile, watching stuff done for them.. was actually painful.  Between having citadel weapons of immense power that made them feel like they were just useless icons and the thermal demonstration of force Holi had displayed, that’s what having big things done for them would feel like, leaving them feeling pretty useless themselves.  Getting a chance to mean something felt so much better, even if that itself was a pure and absolute struggle.

Of course, part of the problem was just how skilled Rosa was as she danced around in combat like an absolute natural with technologies like holos.  No, wait, it was Axln who was seriously gifted with an instrumental prowess that made her a living force to be reckoned with, especially as she just easily calibrated instruments unto her will.  Except that didn’t make sense either, Lyun was herself an otherworldly force that actually managed to outright obliterate their first of the higher intensity voidspawn, unlike how Holi had needed to intervene with the DMA.  That really was putting matters into serious light though, considering how much of an advantage Kori had held on her bike.  Certainly, the failure was the fault of Velvet’s bike being so annoying.. no wait, it was because Kori couldn’t hold a weapon steady even if her life depended upon it.  Well, at least Kori could actually hit something, being far more efficient in combat than someone else who just needed to be saved all the time.  Saved, of course, because that other person had a knack for calling down absolute destruction on a whim, even at a cost to herself, something most people would find really hard.  Except that too was only because she kept panicking all the time, something it seemed she had already the worst reputation for, it was outright embarrassing.

A laughter echoed through the pool, reflecting upon just how much this was a perfect example of a chaotic scene plain chaos could never experience.  Plain chaos even just did the thing it did, almost boring in that way.  Rebelling against chaos like that had instead felt.. invigorating.  It was clearly a priceless opportunity to experience all of these events and see how things would thus unfold naturally as a result.  This idea, about never surrendering.. that was absolutely perfect.  Not to chaos, not to history, not to anything of pure simplicity.  Instead, furnishing change from their own hands in utter defiance of stagnation, that sounded perfect.  Blending awareness of both worlds and time into a unification of chaos that actually encouraged prosperity instead of destruction, leading itself to new chaos that simply demanded new measures to attain prosperity by discovering more chaos.  It was unheard of, having something that creates more and more chaos, even if doing so also made more and more order.  It was a mutual exchange with an immeasurably magnificent yield, something certainly everyone and everything could look forward to.

There was a moment where the question pooled if those thoughts actually belonged to Axln or Lyun.. but only silence replied.  This was then the first time the two of them considered that there might be more to their pool than just the two of them.

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