Lunar Liberation
Lyun eventually awoke to the growing noise of the citadel, the whole place suddenly bursting with activity. It was at that point that Lyun recalled that she still had responsibilities to attend to, she couldn’t afford to just sit around while everyone else was working so hard.
“Welcome back, inheritor. Please let me know if there is anything I may do to attend to you, otherwise I have been instructed to ensure that word is brought forward regarding your current status.” “Oh, hey Luna. Maybe I should at least know what I’ve missed, so I know what I should be doing?” “Lady Mheridz has been coordinating everything in the absence of either inheritor, claiming that she has the blood ties to the inheritor and thus is entitled to at least some recognition, especially when there is threat to both inheritors. Of course, you have the complete capability to override such claims.” “Well, that has me worried. What is she up to, then?” “Mheridz is occupied currently with saving the lives of those found in the crash of the academy’s siege-mantle. She is the one I’m supposed to report to once you’ve recovered.” “Wait, what? Crashed? Actually, that’s an idea, let’s go see her. This would probably be much easier that way.” Luna led the way out the door and through the halls, bringing Lyun to yet another room nearby. Considering all the ersatz running around, this was obviously why everything had gotten so loud around here. Inside, she saw what was visibly quite the recovery assembly, several healing instruments scattered everywhere in front of an assembly of other random instruments. Luna hadn’t actually ever seen this room before, but it held quite the marvel of innovation. Much more of interest to her though was the people also present, most of which from the academy, many appearing to be in a very critical condition. Then she noticed Mheridz switching from one room to the next, looking into the matter with absolute diligent care.
“Mheridz, what in the hells happened?” “Oh, Lyun, you’re up. Perfect, I need a hand. We could be doing so much more if one of these stupid units weren’t down, could you look into it and get it working again?” “Well, yes, but..” “Perfect, this way. It’s this thing here, just let me know when it’s fixed, thanks.” “Could you at least tell me what’s going on while I work?” “Right, you do get stressed out very easily, and that does get in the way of your results. However, Mo-.. Axln is looking into everything else, so there is much less to worry about.” “What else is going on?” “Voidspawn have taken to a new attack, actually making use of probability itself to engineer stuff going wrong. There have been numerous failures as a result, a lot more that you’re probably going to have to fix before something else goes terribly wrong. That’s what caused the crash too, things going terribly wrong. However, Axln has come up with a few new things that even I can hardly understand.. so now probability is back to normal. She’s the one who brought word on everything.. and is probably the only one who understands what is going on here. Just expect everything to be fine, it’s easiest that way right now.” Lyun kept working on the instrument Mheridz had brought her to while considering their current conversation. Lyun certainly had not missed Mheridz’s slip-up there, which decidedly was more like Velvet than Mheridz. Axln had obviously been very busy while Lyun was out of the picture. However, Mheridz was also wrong, there was another place Lyun could get such answers from.
「Quite simply, chaos had wielded the chaos of chance to engineer widespread disaster, something which had actually worked for a while. However, chaos can defend itself from chaos, leaving that one capable of enduring misfortune through controlled chaos. Actually, that one brought an impressive display of true chaos to bear to control the situation, melding chaos and principles together in angles chaos could not hope to explain.」 Okay, so maybe Mheridz really was at least partly right. Lyun was going to need to get most of this story straight from Axln. 「That one is currently unreachable, having lost consciousness after their victory. That one is currently safe, for now at least.」 Wait, where exactly are we considering as safe? 「Such would be in a hidden location in the middle of chaotically controlled territory.」 That wasn’t exactly what she would call safe, it sounded more like Axln needed to be recovered too. See, there was a lot of value in reaching out to her own chaos to get an update of the situation. Aware of such, she completed her own work before turning to the door. Right, this place was a maze, she would need a guide to find the rift room.
“I’m going to go check on Axln, I think I can find her easily, and I’m worried that she hasn’t returned yet. Where’s the rift room again?” “Oh, it’s really not far away, but there isn’t any point in going there. The whole thing sort of failed for us. Remember, I explained before, instruments didn’t exactly like enduring mass misfortune. Luna says the whole thing is shot, would take a long time to repair, probably even for you.” “How did you get everyone aboard then?” “We landed the citadel.. it seems this thing was totally designed to sit in a hole in the ground. I always thought that area was a landing hanger, but it seems it also makes for the place’s main entryway.” “That still means I can’t just rift to her though.” “No, you can’t.. not unless you’re going to start pulling your own tricks out of your hat. Then again, I seem to recall you do have a few new tricks, it wouldn’t be as if you would just need to walk the distance. Use those wings you fashioned for yourself, get there far quicker than any of us could hope to. If you need a way out, consider that we still know little about what the other world is up to since all this happened, it might be important to go check on everything there too. There, you might find stuff that still works, which would certainly be more helpful than what you find here. Get things in order there, then return to us here so we can make sure things start working once again. Just be careful, Axln already figured out that their biggest goal is getting you both, you appearing on the field again will get plenty of their unwanted attention.” Lyun nodded, accepting Mheridz’s plan. The girl really was so much like her mother, and Lyun was thankful for having someone create a good plan for her. After flagging down a passing Ersatz, she found herself with a guide taking her to the main entrance.
Once safely outside, she materialized her wings once again, a process which was starting to feel possibly a bit too natural. Launching into the air, she quickly turned to get her bearings, even though there really was no landscape for her to base her movement on. Supposedly the place was a reservoir of elementals, but none of them actually held a physical semblance. Possibly, this was simply the state that resolved with life as an element, when there was enough balance in elements that no single one had dominion, so none of the usual traits appeared. There was warmth, but it wasn’t warm. There was cooling, but it wasn’t really cool. There was humidity, but it wasn’t really humid. There was even that touch of wood without a single tree, branch, or even plank. A brilliance without light, a shroud without darkness.. though, there might be a bit more to that former than the others. The moon had its own orbit, and from their current position they could behold Yhndae in all of its glory. Of course, stuff like that did shift the balance slightly, the same was true with the stone presence, that was basically everything they stood upon. What was reasonably lacking was the void.. which was quite unlike a feeling she had ever experienced as Lyun. A void of the void.
Such thoughts then prompted concern, realizing what was being claimed there. The chaos was of the void, having such a lack of void was reason enough for suspicion and concern. Her arm was the biggest concentration of void around, ashen or otherwise. She knew the moon was supposed to be rich in the elements, but this was unreal. What she didn’t know was something Axln had herself forgotten. Axln had been worried about the lack of elementals that had flooded out by her abyssal strike, but had forgotten that just before that she had been chain reacting several fiends in a burst of a void reaction that inverted into elemental blossoms. Lyun even found the areas sourcing such a reaction, following the trail of saturation along Axln’s path of carnage. All along that path, chaos actually kept its distance, both between not noticing the traveller passing through and not wanting to broach the conflux of disaster which had recently swarmed. Chaos knew their important target was within such a domain, but it was too afraid of the threat possessed by such unabating oblivion to wander inside so hastily.
Eventually, Lyun’s path turned to quite another reveal. A sense of balance didn’t shatter here, but instead remained a feeling of pure oblivion.. like life was shredded without even leaving a void in its wake. The entire impression of her surroundings made her feel very nervous, a massive concern in what exactly might have occurred here. Within such an atmosphere, she even got a further feeling of wrong, the oblivion here having not only removed both elemental and void, which together were presences of order.. but also she could just feel the chaos that was consumed. She was certainly glad that her chaos brought certainty that Axln was somehow still well, it was the only thing keeping her from falling into a state of worry. She continued her search through the abyssal fallout until she eventually discovered Axln’s hiding spot. Axln was, of course, still completely unconscious, curled up against an outcropping stone in a small cave. Lyun switched everything to scientific law and picked the sleeper up with a holo, making her way to a clearing she felt would be suitable for a return to Aluna.
As she began the shift, she noticed things appeared invariably different. The usual blanket of the temporal was nowhere to be seen, everything instead shifted to a dark shade far closer to the color of her arm. 「This would be because our passage is being denied into the temporal plane. We could possibly force our way inside easily enough from this location, but I suspect this attempt was more of a safeguard as a quick effort to protect the temporal.」 Protect the temporal? Why would… 「The other had just finished an assault of the temporal plane in order to halt their own assault. Suffice to say that such was successful, especially with an assault that left all primitive chaos concerned that this side could then very easily destroy the entire temporal plane if given the opportunity at a continued assault. Of course, not only would such an action not be recommended, such is probably not even possible. The demands for such a process certainly would no longer be reproducible.. but there is no way primitive chaos would remain aware of such.」 She was more than certain that she needed to know what in the world had just happened back there. She was the one who was supposed to do over-the-top demonstrations, this was not a lesson that others were supposed to pick up from her.
Rosa then resolved her destination, witnessing the sudden absolute chill around her as this moon’s area was far more occupied. The fiends present turned their attention towards their newest visitors and reacted. Rosa didn’t even have long enough to learn what sort of reaction her foes might have taken, she didn’t offer them the opportunity. Ionic bursts surged around her as she called forth a rally of ionic energy exactly to the position of her enemies. She then called forth another holo and boosted above the lunar surface, drifting once in orbit. Doing so committed even more attention her way, the chaos below becoming aware of her presence. At once, all of such chaos reacted, though there was variance in the reaction. Several of them appeared to lance projectiles of various sorts her way, many of them turned to flee instead. She evaded the projectiles.. but then found Kori missing. Kori it seemed had somehow been taken captive in the process, another fiend having somehow brought Kori to it. That fiend was quick to perish, the ionic beams tearing it apart being only slightly faster than her own sonic-speed dive. A holo protected Kori from the impact, but several of the other nearby fiends were simply blown away. Quite obviously, she couldn’t afford to just hover around, she needed to get her defenseless companion into safer surroundings.
“Holi, we’re back. Kori here needs a place of rest, any chance that could be provided?” “Oh, welcome back, Rosa. By my last measures, it was you in need of rest and Kori finding means to secure that.” “You could say we’ve switched places since then.” “Oh, hardly. I’m sure you could fashion yourself a very dutiful saviour, but I would have to seriously doubt Kori would have unleashed unrelenting destruction that would have caused widespread catastrophe.” “Don’t worry, I want to hear all about that story too.” “Velvet has been.. Velvet is already gone.” “Gone? What happened, where did…” Rosa was herself cut off along with any reply Holi might have had as the OSIDF field nearby dissipated, revealing a small space fighter that had just made a short-range hyperspace jump with its lightspeed engine. The airlock unlocked, providing room for boarding. Rosa made her way inside with Kori, finding herself in a rather cramped space with only Velvet otherwise present.
“Holi gave me directions.” “Hyperspace jump? I thought the technology was really poor at doing that in close distances.” “Ah, well, mostly it currently just sucks at jumps within an atmosphere. By my time, that problem is fixed, though everyone knows it is Hypertech that came up with that technology. You’ve changed so much that I’m pretty certain their first release of the product will be even better than I got used to. Wait, the hell is on your back?” “Thrusters? A girl’s got to move around up here somehow, we don’t all have lightspeed gear.” “Did you OSIDF holo thrusters.. how the.. wait, it has an ionic burst reaction that’s providing momentum. .. and you have that bleeding off your back.” “Bleeding.. not exactly. You should see my wings on the other world.” “Shit, I don’t know if the biggest reason I can’t think of you as being a younger version of mom is simply because you’re somehow even more.. wow.” “Wow, huh? I’ll take that as a compliment.” “That’s not what I meant! Forget it, let’s get you back to my battlecruiser. Omega isn’t very far away.” “Not far huh? So there is no reason to just jump back. Great, because it’s too cramped in here. You fly her back, I’ll just fly alongside you.” Rosa stepped out through the airlock before Velvet could complain. Rosa really did feel like that space was pretty cramped, especially after having gotten used to flying so much. It felt rather cramped for the wings she had grown used to.
Rosa leapt out the airlock and took flight, looping back around to hover near Velvet’s fighter. Her timing was good too, the hovering craft had drawn a bit of a crowd of chaos who had come to the conclusion that it wanted to attack the thing. Rosa blocked the strike with a holo barrier, leaving room for Velvet’s missile volley to pass back in return, decimating the attackers in a thermite blast. Several others took up the gumption of the same ambitions, prompting the two girls to at least get moving instead of just floating there. Velvet took to the lead, but with Rosa having no problems keeping up. Scientifically, it might have been difficult to explain how her smaller ionic engines kept up to the thermite intensity of the space fighter, but that was simply accounted for by her own chaotics. The ionic stream she left in her wake held an intensity that looked quite similar to the space fighter’s too.. only brighter. Both of them were also weaponized, Rosa’s ion storm being complimented by Velvet’s thermite missile barrage. Even so, Rosa knew better than to show off too much, she was already depending on chaos for refueling as things stood. She needed to get her ionics recharged on Omega too, something Velvet would hopefully be willing to requisition for her. Well, if not, she would just go visit Epsilon, that option would certainly hold people willing to lend her a technical hand.
“Hello Rosa, welcome to the landing hanger. I’m possibly the only one on staff who could be here to welcome you, but I expect you would need a guide for entry. The ship is generally expecting vessels much bigger than just a person, but the landing bay should suffice enough for you.” “You mean, like the same thing ATALS had? I don’t suppose I could just follow Velvet through docking, or do I need to find my own spot? ” “Things are much smaller than ATALS, but that’s the basic idea. There should be a decent enough opportunity for you to enter through the same docking as Velvet, but you would have to drift without thrust once inside.” “Yeah, go ahead and ask control there to open the doors for me then, thanks. I’ll see you inside.” Holi’s voice vanished as Rosa plotted her own approach. Keeping on Velvet’s heels, she reached the barrier marking the edge of docking and cut with her thrust. However, instead of simply drifting, she restructured her design into a wing structure far more similar to the other world’s. Once through the barrier, embodied by an artificial atmosphere, she used her wings for propulsion to guide herself gracefully into a smooth landing.
“Wings now, really?” “I know, they suit me so much better, don’t they. It sucks that there is no atmosphere in space, I could have made use of them instead. Then again ionic thrusters are much faster, so both options really have their own places. Even so, an elemental shift with wind elemental boosting is still pretty fast, and that works with wings.” “Please don’t shift us to elementals on the battlecruiser, there is no telling how much would go wrong if you did so.” “Thermite engine would push an elemental reaction making itself inert. Computer systems would go completely offline, which would suspend most services. Oh, and the place would start venting our atmosphere.” “Like I said, please don’t shift us over to elementals.” “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m even pretty sure I know which places this floating rock could endure a shift, but I still won’t. Where did Kori go?” “Holi had personally gone to get her guided away, so I expect she’s part way to med bay by now. Is there any unexpected needs she would require?” “Oh, no, I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t forgotten. Trust Holi to always be on things, right?” Velvet scoffed again, leaving Rosa to ponder if she stepped on something unexpected there herself.
“Ah, whatever. There isn’t any point in not talking about the future anymore anyway, the same stuff just won’t happen. But yeah, the Rosa I knew always trusted Holi to be on things, including babysitting. Growing up, I was in her care more than anyone else’s, though it was only the supervision of a spare cluster in all reality. As a child, we never got along. However, I still grew to count on her to bring stories of what mother was up to. She had several other stories to share too, which was a decent enough exchange. As an adult though, we became much closer, herself always on hand to help out with the stuff I had gotten myself involved in, but I still knew she was just assigned to keep a watch on me. I’ll give you, I got along with that Holi much more than this one too, but the reasons why are pretty obvious. My biggest regret coming here was always that I never learned how to fashion something like that for myself, I’ve never had my own Holi that was always on things, not for this timeline. You never understand how much you count on something until you lose it.” Velvet sighed, not mentioning that she knew there were far more important things at hand than such idle comforts. The two of them made their way to the med bay, going over what little had changed in Rosa’s absence. It really was a lot of nothing, though there came a point when the enemy became seemingly confused or something, no longer working together in joint attacks. Even so, the numbers of their enemy still appeared endless, leaving plenty more work to accomplish in order to get the moon back under control. The good news at least was that the heat filter that had been applied at some point had apparently failed unexpectedly, leaving the world to already begin to recover. It had happened around the moment that spawned the DMA confusion, so it was suspected that the two were related.
Whatever might have caused the sudden shift for their foes, things were at least on the right track for getting better. They still needed to sweep up the remaining enemies, but it was quite a step in the right direction.
Luminaeris 