Ephemeral Duality
With everything resolved on one front, the two girls bid their farewells before switching back to the other front. Back at Izheelq once again, the two girls individually made their descent from orbit in their own individual ways.
Axln touched down on the ground first, her rift having been the quickest solution. She was not only on stable ground, she was actually back inside the rift room of the citadel. A quick review spelled out that she hadn’t missed much that she hadn’t expected from Lyun’s report of things before setting off to find Mheridz. The rift instrument was still down, though that was supposedly the easiest expectation, the thing would be inoperable for no fewer than days, if not worse. There was no intent that things would endure quite that long, so it wasn’t fruitful to worry about such at all. Instead, she turned her attention to everything else ongoing. The citadel as a whole looked to have gotten back up to normal operations once again.. which also prevented her from finding gaps to rift through to reach wherever the others would be right now. With a bit of wandering, she eventually encountered an Ersatz who guided her over to the workspace Mheridz had been using for healing. There, she found Lyun already having a conversation with Ezhyrae, the woman having recovered in the meanwhile. Mheridz caught wind of Axln scowling in the doorway, surmising that there was some disappointment in Lyun having arrived first.
“She became surprisingly quick, didn’t she?” “Surprising.. yeah. Did she share any stories about what we just did on the other side yet?” “She said things have been taken care of, so you two could focus on things here. How long do you expect things to have been contained on that side?” “At least twenty generations, unless something unexpected happens. Of course, if things go wrong here, it could be even less. If things go quite well here, it might be a lot longer.” “Wait, generations? Then…” “Yeah, something about a principle projection cannon, more like a planetary satellite inferno. She did some cross-world weaving to build a lens four times bigger than the moon. Pretty much turned that to gather solar might mixed with thermite intensity and… Yeah, none of those things remained.” “Well, don’t worry, I suspect that was just the easy part. We started getting a lot of sightings of voidspawn around here too, but they’ve grown rather timid. Whatever you did to fix things here did more than just restore our good fortune, you’ve broken our enemy’s will.” “Both sides would have lost contact with the temporal plane, but this side got to witness why. The other side was lost and confused at the disconnect.. but now remains silent. Apparently, not only has the temporal plane gone into lockdown though, they’ve also driven to disconnect for now entirely. Rosa’s demonstration had been enough to show that they need not watch further, there would be no primitive chaos survivors on either principled fields. The ones here then are thus simply waiting to be eliminated.” Mheridz was visibly impressed, having never considered that Axln could have ever made this day come at last.
“Want to join me on a scouting party, so that we could finish off what remains? This was your fight in the beginning, you might as well be around to finish it. Then you would get to rest at last, right?” “Uh, yeah, right. Sure, I guess, things are already going quite well here. Drew and Xwyhr both recovered, by the way, but they are currently sleeping. Lyun it seems was saying she would help with any of the repairs she had walked away to as well, and everyone else would be soon returning to their fallen siege-mantle. Luna it seemed had already been assigned to handle repairs there, she’s already out with a bunch of the local ersatz, with several more due to follow once people are healthy enough here to return. If you had been a few moments later, that might have already happened, so we can expect to return to such a tranquility.” “Lyun’s going to follow them, hopefully after making sure the citadel is locked down. The place is a fortress though, so there wouldn’t be any threat to worry about here. When we’re done then, we should go meet up with them.” “Are you going to let Lyun at least know before we go what you’re doing?” “Oh, I passed her the idea quickly, she understands. Something about leaving me to finish up my uncompleted work, while she looks after anything which might distract me in the process. Also, about being careful.” “Ah, the irony, it’s always that one who seems to never know what careful means while you yourself proceed with minimized risks.” “People surprise you, never just assume they won’t change.” Axln sounded caught in reflection to Mheridz there, though it was a message Mheridz could certainly respect. Axln however did need to have her arm repaired before she left, something one of the simple ersatz had helped her with, the same one who was also offering to guide them out. Of course, she didn’t feel as if the results were that good, and she would certainly be asking Lyun for better repairs later, but it would do for now. She was thus still reflecting upon such a conversation as it would relate to Lyun while they both made the remaining stretch out the main entrance, leaving their guide behind once again.
“You might have a point, even in your case, you have certainly surprised me. To think that all of this would finally be ending, and all within this very timeline. We had asked for your surrender, and you never did, instead you turned everything around and achieved what should have been impossible. Certainly, this isn’t time to rest just yet, the two of us being still present means that there remains a chance that history could still repeat itself. However, I believe even I’m fine with giving this timeline its chance at redemption. Velvet would be even less resistive, so you no longer have anyone asking for your surrender. Of course, while we remain, the chances our request would be required remains too, so I would ask that you keep such a time travelling option at least on your mind. Meanwhile, I’ll keep in my mind the potential this timeline might finally bring forward. Fair trade, right?” Mheridz sounded like that admission took a lot for her to complete, the girl was outright admitting to being possibly wrong over all this time. Axln was certain it was genetic, admitting one was wrong was just difficult for the family. As such, she was similarly awkward in trying to form a decent reply, just nodding her acceptance silently still in deep thought.
The two of them confronted a couple of fiends who really put up very little resistance, the pair dealing with the threat without even putting up a sweat. Of course, most of the whole thing was simply Axln’s doing, Mheridz had simply kept them occupied so that Axln could obliterate them. Mheridz recalled the studies she held diligently of her mother’s fieldwork.. this was nothing close to the same. The ferocity of efficiency Axln was exhibiting was making it seem like these lessers wouldn’t even naturally be a threat, dealing with each of them in a single calculated strike. Her mother was a vanguard of their defense, this Axln was more a heroic legend of impossible potential. Mheridz could still remember all the times she had tried to deal with such a woman, an act which seemed outright foolhardy at this point. Mheridz had been unable to stop chaos, chaos had been unable to stop this woman. As a result, what hopes did she have? In fact, if she was forced to go back in time due to any unexpected failure, Mheridz was certain she would try to shape this same outcome.. only making sure there would be enough extra strength to deal with whatever obstacle still remained. There was absolutely nothing Mheridz could achieve at this point that Axln simply couldn’t do better. Even so, she was still proud to have played a hand in this shining glory beyond the ages.
Axln quickly adopted a routine of slaughter, rending fiends after fiends without remorse, leaving Mheridz with little to do in turn. Such didn’t matter to her, not really. She was getting to witness the end of despair, given the chance to behold the greatness that would come from such anguish. All of Mheridz’s torment, it had all been for this, and it was ever so worth it. To be of the bloodline of heroes.. she really had started quite the path to greatness. Mheridz however was still uncertain what sort of life her successor would have, having to live with the blood of heroes in a future captured in tranquility. She could only hope it was much better than her own upbringing, even if it was a huge reputation to stand up to. Maybe this time.. maybe she wouldn’t be alone. Actually, considering this inclusion, getting to actually go around doing this sort of thing with Axln.. instead of being left behind to only study it.. she didn’t expect a life of solidarity either. Then, as their last fiend fell, Mheridz wiped her eyes as they witnessed the resolution of a lifelong dream and the ending of a lifelong nightmare.
“I’m.. I’m still here.” “I suspected that might happen. We’re not done yet.” “What else might be left?” “I’ve still been charged with a responsibility, one that involves discovering Ruixse’s hidden weakness. Until I accomplish that, the threat has not been resolved. Our enemy is gone, but they might still return without that final accomplishment. However, I suspect this might be a bit much for me to do alone. We should return to the others, and seek a solution in complete unity.” Mheridz gave no doubt for Axln’s claim, far beyond certain that Axln had an understanding of everything that vastly exceeded her own. However, that then brought her attention around to what would then still be left to accomplish. Having resolved that Axln’s understanding exceeded her own, her confidence was all too shattered in her ability to share anything that would be relevant.
“I guess.. but even that might be unlikely. After all, if such is beyond your own understanding, then I’m uncertain how much more our world could offer you for brainstorming. Compared to you, compared to your cross-world knowledge.. embodied with chaos.. there is only so much our world could offer you.” “My word, that’s brilliant. Mheridz, you’re a genius!” “I.. I what?” “When one world isn’t enough, use two. We can even make this work, because we’ve proven we can. There is still plenty of vagrant chaos left, we just need to bring people together and maybe collect some sparse added resources. Yeah, this should actually be fine.” Mheridz was suddenly even more uncertain of her own understanding and even more aware of Axln’s impressive understanding over everything. Trusting that things would become more obvious, Mheridz followed Axln over to the crash site of the academy’s siege-mantle, finding everyone had indeed arrived as expected.
“Lyun, I need your help with something. I’ve got a plan that would let us plan a plan.” “A.. what? My head hurts. Too much planning. What are we doing this for anyway? Was cleaning up chaos too much work?” “Oh, no, that’s done, it wasn’t even hard. Mheridz could have probably done everything else on her own, they really didn’t put up a fight at all.” “Oh, so you’re saying I sort of overdid everything.. well…” “Hey, I’m not saying anything like that. It was a brilliant idea, and I think we could continue to make use of it.” “We.. what? I know we agreed to explain stuff, but you’re really not being clear at all.” “Exactly, things aren’t very clear right now, so we need to amass all of our information in one spot. To depend on everyone, you know?” “No, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” “Okay, fine, maybe it would just be easier to show you what I mean.” Axln dragged Lyun off from her craft repairs, searching next for Luna who would also be needed for her master plan. Mheridz meanwhile was left stuttering her unspoken objections, certain that none of the work they had just done would have been nearly as simple with just her alone. Not only taking much longer, she was certain the only reason the fiends didn’t put up a real fight was because they were each obliterated in a single strike. At least Mheridz understood why, the mass concentration of elementals returning here provided plenty of might to unmake the void remnants scattered around, but tapping into that natural might still remained a bit too complicated for her alone, not without chaos which could shape such stuff.
Mheridz however couldn’t give any claim for understanding where Axln might be going with everything now. She was even still having problems wrapping her head around what might be the terms of success still required. Heck, she was still wrapping her head around the idea that success might be so close. Of course, there would be plenty else for the people who remained to work upon, even after she faded from this timeline, the broken siege-mantle was a clear sign of such beginnings. However, such would itself only be a matter of time too, one of the ersatz taking Lyun’s place in administering repairs. Mheridz wasn’t skilled at such repair work herself, so she turned to leave such efforts to those better skilled in the field, turning to figure out where Axln had rushed off to. She eventually found Axln and Lyun working with Luna on some strange instrument she couldn’t quite place. It looked like the siege-mantle’s communication gear, though it already had some of the citadel’s stuff hooked into it. Her best assumption was that this would be used to establish a connection with Ruixse, but for what purpose? At best, it would be a call to the academy, because she highly doubted they would have concerns with the foundry. Even so, there would be easier ways to accomplish such a purpose, solutions which wouldn’t require such anomalies.
What Mheridz did not know was that the citadel equipment installed contained an intricate combination of terran mythos artifacts along with key components of a rift assembly. The aspiration of this goal had existed long before any of them, originating from a world from another part of the Atrieyn Cosmic Layer. Luna however knew where all of the parts which existed from such past projects had been stored, and had offered them to the inheritor when it sounded like such parts would comply perfectly with the self-same goal. There was even a subtle part of the barely animated ersatz that felt aspiration in this moment of realization, a fragment of an essence it hadn’t held for generations. After all, this was not a communication link that would return to the world they left behind, it would be a meeting of the minds that had not been reached since the dawn of the instrumentation era.
“So, next I’m going to need you to weave that interworld logic thing you did on the other side while I breach chaos with a rift that resolves into another breach of interworld logic on the other side, bypassing temporal interference with chaos.. mostly because the temporal side is locked tight. This gate can open clean, but we would need information equipment to broadcast through such a link. Luna fortunately has plenty of terran-styled information equipment.. stuff that just happened to be sitting around the citadel for some reason, so we don’t need to worry about having something that could safely pass through such a gateway. This equipment seems to be really good at breaching rifts beyond our plane too, even though I can’t find any record of instrumentation in that field. Clearly though, it was made for Luna, even has that crescent moon mark on it that matches her hairpin. Things couldn’t have been set up for this any better.” Axln sounded proud, even though she remained the only one certain of what exactly was going on. Lyun was wondering if Axln had landed a head injury while away, as whatever was going on sounded outright insane. Worse, it sounded like a slightly creative insanity, a mad genius project which really was nothing like Axln. Even so, Axln had gone along with Lyun’s previous project, so she was going to give Axln’s a chance too.
Lyun however stumbled when the suspended time hit, not having expected that to be part of the equation. She needed to do all of her stuff in suspended time? Mheridz was also visibly surprised, but kept her distance, knowing better than to get in the way of the experts. Lyun rebuilt her mixed principle design, even though there were no sure signs of it while time was suspended. With such a thing completed, Axln turned on the instrument.. which did nothing in suspended time.. and then injected a rift into the rift’s design, wrapping chaos around the non-existent design with the same influence that she would use to open a gate to this side of the world. With the combination of principles, there was only one possible source that could lead to this destination.. and the outcome was suspended in a principle of passage. Axln then cut the time suspension, causing the rift device to come to life, stabilizing the rift already created for it by its own principles. However, because the passage was practically ethereal, there was no visible passage for this rift. Axln then revised the functionality of the communication instruments with her own gift, having it make use of the rift provided to pass through communication in a very specific wave form.
“Hello? I wasn’t expecting any open links in this design, especially coming from the surface of the moon. Who exactly is this?” “By the divine, is that Holi?” “Oh, wow, Rosa.. I thought you were currently absent from this side.” “Oh, uh, actually, I am. Also, I’m technically Lyun right now, which gets even more complicated with this cross-world communication.” “Actually, that makes sense. You sound very similar to Rosa.. but not exactly so. I recall you would be an elf there as well, so your genetic strands are decidedly distinct. Knowing how you two are together, I suspect Kori is with you.. but also going by another name?” “Oh, yeah, she seems to be working to make sure this thing stays stable, from what I can tell. Here, her name is Axln.” “Very well. Considering that Axln, there, would be especially familiar with the routines needed to establish communication with me, I can tell why she would have reached out to me specifically. However, I doubt she was so inclined to only end such an outreach with just that. Would you want me to forward this communication link to others who might be interested in hearing from you both?” “Oh, wow! Yes please!” Holi seemed to understand the plan even more than Lyun did, though Lyun was quite loving where things were going. Lyun didn’t miss that this was an underlying portion of Axln’s personality that had just shined out, the need to breach the distance between people and worlds, to reach out in a social manner. Everything they had done had just yielded what was needed to make such a thing happen, after all.
“I heard some shouting over here, did anything go wrong?” “Oh, Xwyhr, quite the opposite. It seems your sister has finally taken to your example, reaching out to people of her own accord.” “I feel my example got lost somewhere before it became official. My way was much more impulsive, and not always following the rules.” “Yeah.. yeah, that. Absolutely unexpected, breaking every rule of reality in the process. Seems we’re going to have an absolutely unplanned social gathering, right here and now.” “We.. what? Okay, do go on. I totally want in on this, whatever this is.” “Then maybe you could bring Jhez and Ezhyrae, they would love to check this out too. Once in a lifetime experience and everything.” Xwyhr ran off to quickly complete Lyun’s request, as her interest peaked. However, while the girl was still gone, Holi completed her side of the process.
“This is Epsilon, reading you clearly.” “Sophie, don’t be a stick in the mud. Just because you’re a ship captain right now doesn’t mean you can’t relax once in a while.” “Wow, Kori?” “Axln, as I am on this side. Lyun is here too, not going by Rosa either.” “Shit, so you’re calling from the fantasy world or something.” “Yeah, I never did like that name, considering that side is basically this side’s fantasy world. But yes, that’s the basic idea. Anyway, I was hoping you could gather the others for a bit of a meeting. I suspect we’re going to need some of HyperTech’s insight here to get everything resolved.. but at this point I think it’s novel enough to simply introduce one set of our friends to the other before we even get started.” Sophie was then promptly off to ensure a gathering on Epsilon for Axln’s cross-world meeting. By this point though, the other sister had already accomplished her side of the gathering process.
“Axln, that voice.. it used the accent of the Terran Mythos. Who were you talking with?” “My word, this is going to blow your historian mind, Jhez. We’re going to be holding a meeting here across two moons, and I’m not talking about Hyxeelq. We’ve got a once in a lifetime connection with the terran side right here and now. Hold on a bit though, they’re still gathering people for this one, things have been moving rather quickly.” “By the divine, that’s remarkable. You will certainly have to explain to me what you did, but I expect making use of such innovation would have priority over explaining it. If the parts used for this process have no use afterwards, I do hope you’re willing to have the entire thing delivered to the archives.. it would become a priceless artifact of the ages.” “Ask Ezhyrae, we’re using her communication equipment. Well, part of it is her’s, the rest is.. I guess mine? You can have my part at least, I see no problem with that.” Jhez was almost bursting from his contained excitement at Axln’s news, this proximity to a lifelong dream made real becoming almost too much for the guy. Even so, his thoughts jumbling into a clustered mess, Jhez voiced no further inquiries while waiting.
Eventually, Sophie managed to return with Drew and Tristine, sparking the beginning of a long conversation spanning worlds. Introductions evolved into stories and a plentitude of idle chat, going over so many distinct ideas and inquiries between both worlds. Of course, as a result, most of the discussion revolved around the two girls, with plenty of initial confusion as people remained uncertain at when to use one name or the other. Of course, both girls had a solution to that problem, it was the same one they had painted over this enter experience. The world to the name, so stuff they did on this side got the names of this side, while stuff they did on that side got the name of that side. Of course, when it came time to consider them as a person, the facts that were mutual to both sides, that’s when there was unresolved uncertainty. Both parties simply opted to refer to each by the name they had always used, at least being familiar with the reference when it changed for the other party.
Moments quickly spanned hours as the conversation appeared unending. With this being possibly the only chance for such a cross-world venture for the people involved, there was so much everyone wanted to accomplish with the opportunity.
Luminaeris 