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.
Luminaeris 