Scorched Earth
Kori gradually stirred awake, taking account of the medical nature of her surroundings. A quick surveillance across all of her surroundings had her spotting Rosa and Velvet talking not far away, she had a pretty good idea what she might have missed.
“Kori! You’re up!” “Thanks to you, I’m guessing. Couldn’t help but rush out to pick me up, straight out of your own sickbed, then bring me to this side and carry me over to Velvet’s battlecruiser.” “Well, yes, of course. Mheridz wasn’t going to do anything, she just said you would be fine.” “Ah, well, she wasn’t wrong.” “Says the girl who had to recover at medbay.” “According to the medical report, I wasn’t doing badly at all. I expect the only problems I had when you found me was being excessively tired and in need of repairs to my arm. I also expect you totally ignored such repairs and never noticed.” “I uh.. Maybe. Getting you to a safe place was far more important!” “I also expect you had nothing to fight on that side, and only had to resort to holding a defense once you reached this side.” “Maybe.. but switching over was Mheridz’s idea!” “Well, it wasn’t as if she would have seen the situation, she would have been taking care of actually important problems. You should have taken account of the situation and came up to your own decisions.” “Oh sure, I’ll start being better at planning once you learn to be more creative.” “Ah, well.. about that…” Rosa was flustered at this onslaught of critique from Kori, a fluster which started to grow into frustration. Kori herself was still in a daze, taking account once again to the exact terms that had caused her to even lose consciousness.
“I would have you know that I actually did some repairs to support the healing instruments there too. Mheridz had things in order before I left, but leaving you to sleep there any longer would have been outright stupid and inconsiderate. I’m certainly not going to do nothing at all for you when there is an opportunity to actually help you. All things considered, I still don’t see it as a dumb decision either. Like Mheridz said, we would have things to clean up here, and we certainly do. I know I was out of commission as you busted your butt out there, but I can darn well show you that I can carry my own weight. Here, watch, you get things in order and I’ll go show our enemy a thing or two about what I can do out there, maybe then…” “Shut up, please! You’re both getting carried away here, and I’m sorry but I’m getting the worst feelings of deja vou here. This is a really really bad scene we’re painting here, and I would really hate to revisit it. In all considerations, I simply couldn’t take it. Kori, please, fix this somehow.” Rosa stopped her angry rant at Velvet’s sudden outburst, of all things. Rosa had not expected Velvet to suddenly get set off so explosively, but the girl was outright pale as a ghost and visibly panicking with uncertainty.
“Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah, Mheridz told me that story.. I can see the similarities here. Rosa being away from the action, I get left shouldering too much of the burden, she shows up eager to make up for the lost opportunities. Yeah, that’s exactly the same way Rosa had died.” “I.. what?” “Velvet’s timeline, that’s the basic circumstances behind your death. Because you’re always one to go flying off the hook when provoked like that.” “I don’t think I was alone this time, I got to see the wake of your own work. What in the hells did you unleash?” Kori took the opportunity to go over the details of her efforts while Rosa had been left to recover, leaving Rosa to go pure scarlet. Velvet wasn’t even fairing much better, such certainly wasn’t something she would have expected Kori to resort to. “So you opened a black hole on the moon and forced it into the temporal plane?” “Uh, yeah, basically. I quite honestly hadn’t expected such a dramatic reaction from a spanning rift, but I had to.. how did you put it.. get creative.” “Black holes are dangerous and life threatening. That world doesn’t even know black holes, so I don’t even know what such a disaster of a failing rift would have ensued.” “Apparently it wrecked massive destruction in the temporal plane.” “Hells, no kidding, such probably is destruction no matter where you put it. We had agreed that there would be no sacrifices, that includes you, by the way!” It was Kori’s turn to feel a bit flustered and offended by Rosa’s critique, herself determined to be in the right there because she had been as careful as she could have been, given the circumstances.
“A time rift.. that’s ridiculous, I hope you know that. Blasting time distortions to appear in many places at once, shouldering everything because you could then do many things at once, you’re being as bad as your sister makes you sound.” “Hey, I will have to point out that I did get Mheridz’s help. Our brainstorming did wonders for coming up with a dramatic plan of action.” “A full out offense, dramatic? Maybe I do need to show you up here, show you how to actually be careful. No one is going to die this time, in fact this time I’m going to see about keeping this stupid med bay unused too, this or any other. No one is going to need it, not if I have my way.” “People get sick eventually, forever is a long time.” “I don’t mean forever, but for at least my assault. Then maybe we can talk about how to actually be careful, avoid sacrifices, and do things properly.” Rosa still sounded stern, but not nearly as flustered, Kori was actually impressed by how composed Rosa seemed. However, Kori wasn’t impressed by these unfair comparisons, not considering how she knew that things here couldn’t possibly get as bad. Everything especially dangerous had already been taken care of, Rosa wouldn’t have any threat quite so challenging to deal with.
“Holi, it’s time to get dramatic. I need full command over all of our fleets.” “Right away, ma’am. Done.” Rosa nodded to Holi who had made a physical presence there with them. Velvet had herself gone pale, realizing that administrative access had been claimed once again. “Rosa, this might be going a bit too far, certainly you can…” “I am calm, don’t worry. Sure, I might be a bit new to this planning deal, but I did just make an agreement. Kori, you’re going to be needed outside, so make sure your ionic drive is recharged. You might want to recharge your trance inductor drive too, it certainly wouldn’t hurt. Velvet, could I get your help recalling the entire fleet, we’re retreating.” Kori almost choked at Rosa’s sudden statement, not certain how to put the stubborn expression to the plan of fleeing. None of this so far had anything close to a Rosa feeling to it, Kori had no idea what Rosa was up to here. However, in all considerations, being prepared for anything sounded like a really smart idea right now, so she quickly fled to her own arrangements.
“Rosa, what in the world do you think you’re even doing?” “Right now? I’m going to make sure I have enough fuel of my own, I hope you don’t mind.” “Not that, I mean…” “I’m taking charge of the situation. We need to keep everyone safe.” “Safe, but there is still an enemy to worry about. We can’t just…” “Patience, there isn’t any reason to just get all panicked. Things will happen, we just need to bring order to this chaos.” Velvet stumbled backwards, Rosa’s resolute expression with unfurled wings really drove quite an intimidating display she had never gotten to witness her entire life. This was an untempered ferocity she had never seen before. Velvet rushed to Rosa’s heels, following along as Rosa restocked her own ions and made sure all forces were on retreat. Standing in the main control room, the crew suddenly uncertain at the spontaneous shift in control broadcasted by high command, she noticed everything was at least going rather smoothly.
“This is Epsilon here, contacting control. We’re a bit confused at the sudden request to retreat and wondering if we got our orders mixed up here.” “Hello Sophie, it’s great to hear from you again.” “Sis! What are you doing there?” “Oh, I’m suddenly in charge, that’s all. Don’t worry, this won’t take long.” “Wow, nice one. Even Drew seems to approve here, by the way. Okay, yeah, we’ll trust you know what you’re doing.” “Thanks for the vote of confidence, I won’t let you down.” Sophie disconnected the transmission leaving Rosa with a warm smile. It was nice to have a family that so openly trusted her to get stuff done. Velvet meanwhile was starting to feel like a third wheel to the current timeline, with things going even more wildly awry. She however still could not dispel the underlying dread of the circumstances, that this was still feeling far too much like the foreshadow of Rosa’s demise. This completely stopped Velvet from sharing in such blind trust, to instead worry how things might go so terribly wrong.
“Perfect, we’ve broken orbit and have fallen far enough from Aluna’s presence. Begin a broadcast to Kori. Kori, you’re to make your way to the loading hanger, be ready for dispatch. End. Velvet, I need you watching the helm here while we work.” “I’m not coming too? I would really rather come too.” “Wow, spoiled brat much? Fine whatever. Grab EMP-safe gear, you’ll need it. Holi will be following you, but only a small cluster, things will get rough on her if we need an EMP.” “By.. EMP.. you mean…” “Well, of course, if you’ve got any instruments handy, those might be useful too.” “.. and you don’t mean the musical variety. Well, I did make you promise not to do such stuff on the battlecruiser.” “Oh, that has nothing to do with it. Okay, it might have a little to do with it, but there simply is no room here, the battle cruiser is far too small.” “Sm-smal-..-all!?” Rosa made her way over to some charts to provide her with a few final calculations, while Velvet rushed to get her own stuff in order. Nothing here had been lost to Velvet, neither in how Velvet was demonstratively being treated like a child of her own childhood, nor how an elemental shift was going to be a paramount part of Rosa’s plan. What flew wide from Velvet’s understanding was everything that came before and after. She still had no idea why they were retreating.. and she had even less about what grand scheme Rosa might be up to. By the time the two reached the loading hanger, they had found Kori waiting impatiently, having arrived quite a while ago.
“So what exactly are we doing?” “Patience, things are all according to plan.” “Maybe, but we had an agreement, being aware of what each other was doing was part of that agreement.” “Ah, that is true, I shouldn’t forget about that. Okay, so.. as we know, chaos is no longer impairing any solar arrays from reaching Aestus. The lights are back on, so maybe it’s time to bring the full scope of galactic might against our foes.. from a safe distance.” “And we’re doing that by…” “Remember how you said that an elemental composite of sand and ice could manipulate light elementals that pass through the glass frame? Even Yhndae’s light remains a formidable presence in an otherwise void. So we just need a glass lens in an elemental field that captures light and augments it into a controlled form before setting it loose again as standard solar might. I expect we could even do a heat transfusion to get the fire elementals properly converted to and from light in the entire reaction. The impact, of course, would be far more heat waste in the reaction, but that’s almost ideal.” “..and we’re doing this.. why?” “Chaotic augmentation in a controlled manipulation to process a heat warp into a sunburst. We’re going to scorch the moon in a thermal reaction.. aimed decidedly away from Aestrus too.” Kori looked at Rosa as if she was outright.. simply insane. She knew this idea had absolutely no chance of working, it was outright foolish, but had no idea how to get stubborn Rosa to accept that reality. Velvet was way ahead of Kori there, being likewise concerned.
Rosa however was gone from the battlecruiser with the end of her briefing, her wings shifting again to boosters once back into open space. Kori sighed before blinking away in a lightspeed burst out the door, knowing that she would be left to drift in space through much of this as she could only move in bursts. Velvet got into her chosen fighter, setting up a variety of protective instruments to help out in the event of an.. unexpected EMP. Of course, keeping a sufficient distance would probably help for her, but that wouldn’t give her much room to jump in if things went decidedly wrong. She even had instruments to provide a fire elemental alternative for thrust, and an instrumental override for guidance. Instrumental weaponry and shielding were viably inferior to her technological alternatives, but she could deal in a pinch. Getting outside, she scanned around for where Rosa and Kori might have rushed ahead to.
“Testing, testing. This works, right Holi? It does? Great! Okay, so I expect you two can hear me. I’m going to get in position to begin the shift and start construction. Velvet should make sure to not be in the line of the lens, you’ll even get a call from control if you are in a bad area. Kori, we need to be at the sides too, but I’m going to need you to sand everything as I lay out the frost framework for where it should go, mostly so that everything is properly suspended. I’m going to then invert the frost into heat to cause an instant reaction, capturing everything in a perfect design. Yes, I know you can’t make sand here, you’ll need to tap into your familiarity and touch it up with some chaos. Gravitationally produced sand should make enough sense chaotically for it to work. Yes, I know that statement doesn’t make sense at all, but we are talking chaos here. Anyway, I’m going to start on our canvas, keep an eye out for it. Kori, be ready to shift to gravitational movement soon.” Rosa’s voice faded from the fighter’s broadcast speakers, at least for the time being. Of course, once the shift occurred, communication would become much harder. At least she would still be far away enough to transmit back to the battlecruiser, she was a good ten thousand kilometers away.
“It’s time things got hot! Chaotic me, are you ready!” 「This may be the most alarming self-reference I’ve heard between the two of you. Chaos has tapped into the connection you just completed successfully, the same effect is reproducible during a chaotic spread, but only within the reach of that same field.」 “Good enough! Time for some real sculpting, let’s make this lens an artwork to be proud of. Functional.. but chaotic.” 「In case this matters, there is no voice broadcast occurring at this time.」 “Well, yeah, that would have been embarrassing. Come on, don’t tell me Kori has never done this sort of thing before!” 「Such would not be wrong, self-discussions have indeed happened before.」 “Great. And are we close enough to the moon to draw from all that chaos you talked about before?” 「A connection tapping into those reserves has also occurred, you are both ambient in chaos.」 “Good, because there is so much to do and so much to use. As they say, go big or go home, and everyone seems to have a problem with that second option.” Rosa braced herself in her position, ready to unleash her shift. Things were going all according to plan.
Velvet rocked in her vessel, the entire thing suddenly powering down. She made a dramatic search for the cause of the unexpected failure.. before noticing her instruments activating. Ten thousand kilometers, a distance that could envelop all of Aestus, Velvet was suddenly far more worried that Kori.. might have been the one wrong here. Even Velvet had accounted for the idea that a giant lens would have been insufficient to wield enough density to pull off anything close to Rosa’s plan.. but this wasn’t exactly only giant, this was looking planular in construction. Making use of her instruments, Velvet even witnessed the growing plane of frost spiralling outwards in an all too obvious growth, even from here. Kori however was close enough to not be aware of the overall size of the shifted field, so she just noticed the spiral of growing frost. Kori was supposed to set sand to it.. despite all logic valid to this world, scientific or elemental. Sand was Axln’s thing, not Kori’s. However, tapping into her chaos, she found a nigh mighty unfurl waiting for her, a deluge of no insignificant might.
「This is a density of chaos that is very threatening to principled control.」 “I know, that’s why I said that I want our own chaos to simply be used as a guide, we need to avoid direct exposure. A spark that commands a surge, much like that conduit generator. Avoid overload, while directing all of such chaos so that we can drain the moon as a result.” 「The given flow of drain would be having an imposed impact on all chaos still present on the moon, actively causing collateral drain.」 “I fail to see how that’s a bad thing, we want it all gone anyway.” 「The gates to the temporal are locked, but the chaos within is still watching. They will be aware of this impact.」 “Still not seeing a problem. If they’re going to give us all of this stuff to work with, we might as well make use of it all, right? Anyway, things are progressing, so time to open communications.” Rosa took a moment to compose herself as chaos progressed the expanse of it’s outreach. Things were really going slower than she would have normally, but the grand scale design was itself thrilling, she could only be proud of her accomplishments, like a great performance.
“Testing testing, is this thing still on?” “Shit, Rosa? How the hell?” “Oh, hi Velvet. You caught within all of this too? Here, I’ll get your engines back online.” “Backups are running already, how would… Shit! Everything is on now.. engines and instruments..” “When one world isn’t enough, use two. Hold on, I’m trying to get Holi online too, she’s a lot more complicated to build principles for.” Rosa tapped into further chaos to channel into her shifted domain, causing her shift to layer over itself to half exist and half not, equally. The chaos of chaos, chaotic by even the perspectives of chaos. Rosa knew this was just what was called true chaos being properly exhibited, so everything was cool. Through this, her uninterrupted connection across worlds due to the lockdown of the temporal, she was tapping into so much. She was outright proud of how well this was really going, undeniably so.
“Rosa, this is kind of weird. This is starting to really feel like I’m using…” “The gift? That’s because you are. When one world isn’t enough, use two. I’ve managed to tap into our gifts as well within the shift, you have complete access to both your sand and shadow aspects in addition to your gravitational instrumentation. A painter can’t paint without the right tools, right?” “Wait, how much more do we need, this is starting to feel like it’s just going on forever.” “Of course things won’t go on forever, that would be asking too much.” “I know, it was just an exaggeration. Just feels hopeless when it’s a very grand display of wasted effort.” “Oh come on, stop being so critical. Seriously, you’re finally working on a plan that isn’t of your own design and suddenly you’re nothing but endless critique.” “I’m just being honest, a silly lens floating in space won’t amount to anything.” Kori was feeling decidedly uneasy at Rosa’s dramatics. She had enough assurance that things were indeed safe.. but her calculations made this entire project look impossible. The magnification capabilities wouldn’t have enough generation to yield any sort of real impact, making the grand design feel insulting. Even without such a failure project, weaving worlds like this was remarkable, something which could be much better applied to actually viable solutions.
“Kori, I think I’m starting to see things Rosa’s way here, you might want to lay up for a bit and look at the big picture. Supposedly, you were always good at missing the big picture, and I’m absolutely certain such is true now.” “What ‘big picture’ are you talking about? What are you claiming I’m missing this time? I’ve checked my calculations repeatedly, I should be missing nothing.” “According to your calculations, what is the maximum size of the lens?” “Maximum? Well.. uh, wouldn’t…” “Yeah, you’re making assumptions. As you know, I’m caught in the current bubble of Rosa’s shift, and I’m starting to see why she moved the fleet over fifty thousand kilometers away from the moon. I’m about ten thousand myself, clearly stepping on Rosa’s canvas here.” “Fifty thou.. fifty thousand?” “Okay, yeah, so I wasn’t far from the edge, so it’s only just over ten thousand kilometers away. You two aren’t making some tiny lens, you’re making something planetary in size, something about four or five times bigger than the moon you’re targeting. This is going to have some serious gravitational influences…” Velvet really was still worried, even though she knew Kori was wrong. Velvet was worried because of what it would take for Kori to be wrong.
“Oh right, gravity. Kori, can you ensure that your command over gravitational forces negates any gravitational impacts caused by this creation? It should still be rather light, considering it’s not exactly round, but more safeguards would never hurt.” “Rosa, how big is this thing going to be?” “Well, by my calculations, I needed to be at least four times bigger than Aluna. I’m going to at least start with that, but we could keep going if things look viable enough. Hey, watch it, you’re slowing down suddenly, I need you to keep up.” “Keep up.. my word. Sometimes, you ask too much.” Rosa’s project was still seeming unbelievable to Kori, even though it was getting harder to doubt. To think Kori had just finished working with Mheridz to try to think like Rosa in order to project the actions of primitive chaos. This was instead an applied demonstration that proved that Rosa’s actions far exceeded the chaos of pure chaos, being so unpredictable simply by the nature of being too wild. Rosa clearly had even her sister beat in that one, an intimidating display of a wild nature that denied all reality.
Velvet continued to watch the growing display as the overall size reached into the thousands.. and then doubled.. and then doubled again.. and then once more. She could only imagine what this sort of sight would look like from Aestus, a vague crystalline body of a slight ripple, itself looking like a third moon that was somehow wildly.. huge. It wasn’t glass-like yet, so the overall sand cluster would be casting the most fearful shadow over the entire world. With that done, she turned her focus to the creation, a spiral of frost shimmering as a flame ignited in a ring around the disc. However, such was not enough to cause such a massive creation to have a proper heat reaction, Rosa’s plan had seemed to have not accounted for this one. Of course, it was too big, the heat required for such a massive undertaking would have been substantial. Even so empowered, there was only so much two girls could accomplish in all of this, some things were simply too much.
“Rosa, your signal would have been received successfully, though I can not establish a connection to other nanites to substantiate that claim. There is however sufficient evidence to prove that your signal is being processed.” “Wait, what was her signal?” “The ring of fire, obviously.” “No, I mean.. what was it a signal for?” “Limited resources have detected that ATALS is powering up to fire as requested. An anomaly is being observed in the system in the process, as the heat being generated by ATALS far exceeds standard estimates in its overall emissions. The station is not exhibiting dangers with the overall threat, but the heat beam being generated will certainly be itself beyond dangerous. Estimates yield that the point of impact will exhibit temperatures greater than a thousand degrees. Recommend clearing the impact zone and path of trajectory.” Holi made it infinitely clear that Velvet needed to be more than just not in the path of trajectory for this heat beam, she needed to be far away from it. Making use of the equipment she had handy, she ensured that she was nowhere close to the marked danger zone. She was especially considerate for the red light from control going away, saying that she was in a safe space.
“A thousand degrees, that’s well within acceptable limits. Time for some heat calibration. I need this lens to draw an inverse reaction to the frost, decimating it with a heat that quadruples the overall fire elementals. Kori, I hope you can help with calibration.. you should find enough chaos on hand to apply as void to manipulate this lens as an instrument. I’m going to infuse this entire thing with chaos, to give it a complete void layer. That will provide an augmenter while allowing us to trap in the resulting heat. Once done, can you work on the back? I want it ready on that side to trap light, we need this thing fully charged.” As Rosa sent instructions, all of them could see ATALS outright glowing in its intensity. This was really going to be a hot take. Not long after, a surge of thermite flame burst into the lens, the heat rippling heat waves through space. Even from Velvet’s supposedly safe distance, her alarms went off as the engine overheated. By the time Velvet got things recovered, she was able to witness the light having been restored as well, Rosa’s creation finally visibly a glass-like lens that glowed with a solar intensity.
“All crew is maneuvering as instructed for the next projected trajectory.” “Perfect, please let me know when they are safely in the right angle and no less than fifty thousand kilometers away. Oh, and while you’re there, could you please get Velvet into a safe course? She’s going to need to be at least fifteen thousand, hopefully twenty thousand. However, she did make a stern demand that she wanted a front-row seat in all of this, and I’m certainly not going to just send a capable woman like her off to some distant safety when I know she’s fully capable of taking care of herself. However, don’t say I never warned you.” Holi was very obviously talking with Rosa, though it was obvious that the conversation was designed for waiting ears. Velvet knew far too well that it was intended for her to hear this, especially that last part. In all of the circumstances she was suddenly finding herself in, the familiarity of having Holi practically babysitting her in this insanity, Rosa’s kind gesture of understanding.. of not being dismissive.. such was something Velvet caught too. This was so much like what Velvet’s mother had done.. except that Velvet was being invited along for the ordeal. This was where things became entirely unfamiliar.. and why Velvet was infinitely thankful.
With everything finally in position, Rosa worked with Kori to get the entire thing angled correctly towards the moon itself, the fleet waiting safely on the far opposite side.
“Solar projector fully charged and ready to fire. You two brace yourselves, this is going to be quite the thing. Principle projector cannon, firing.” Rosa’s final signal unleashed a torrent of unrivaled elementals which instantly passed through the shifted field and resolved into a natural solar intensity. It was like unleashing the might of a small sun upon such a little moon. The massive concentration of ordered principles was overbearing, scourging across the entire surface with an unrelenting fury. Every single remaining fiend upon the moon perished in that incident, and the temporal plane was abuz in a frenzy of concern. The lockdown was still strong, but it was as if that attack was aimed at their very plane, the lockdown the only thing keeping them safe from such an attack.. so soon after the last. Chaos was resolved that it had instigated the wrath of the principled, and it appeared this undiscovered power was far more than chaos could hope to endure. This side.. this side would have to remain locked for a long time, however long it took for such a great power to fade away. However, the other.. they might endure not having to wait quite so long.
However, such chaos was not the only ones left in a fluster of concern. Velvet’s systems had gone completely offline, even though they were just beyond the reach of the shifted field. That meant that she was pretty stuck, not even having instruments that would help her at this point. A quick overview, it was as if an energy burst had overloaded everything.. similar to an EMP. Wait, Rosa had warned her that she had to be ready for an EMP.. that wasn’t even a joke? Well, her system would take about ten minutes to finish restarting properly, she would have to just get comfortable. Rosa however was around quickly, visibly giggling out there beyond her fighter. She however did lend a hand, bracing a holo to the fighter as she lent her own thrust for a bit of an initial cruise, while Velvet waited. Velvet felt like this was two timeline’s worth of an ‘I told you so’ given in one simple package.
Both Velvet and Kori were left in agreement, Rosa had delivered exactly what she had promised. A dramatic and complete calculated plan that creatively delivered resolution without leaving anyone open to danger, the med bays completely empty.
Luminaeris 