The Way of the Blue [Lantern OC]

"This is wild. How'd you get all this to work?"

I'm walking with Aetius and Vera as we go through the engineering tunnels built into the habitat that we're visiting. With the environmental conditions on Psyche so dangerous - all the ash and smoke in the air is good for nobody - Vera has apparently been gathering engineering expertise from around the planet and trying to combine it with the small amounts of magic expertise they have.

"Mostly? Experimentation. But at the end of the day, engineering is engineering and they tend to approach problems in similar ways." Just a little ahead of us, Vera ducks under some cables and comes out of the end of the tunnel, leading us into the unfinished sections of the hab. "We don't always just salvage parts and use them. Any time we can rebuild stuff based on principles, we do. Most of this structure was based on the designs for a few different crashed ships."

"How many of those do you have?"

"What, shipwrecks?" I nod. "Oh, lots and lots. Most of them are beyond all salvage. We have a few working ones but where would we go? They're usually small, too small to move a whole population with the amounts of fuel or power we have. My ring can't fabricate shit."

I hmm thoughtfully while Aetius gives me a curious look. "Oh, I'm just wondering if we could maybe put something together based on scans. I'll have to go visit some of these wrecks."

"Honestly? The technology isn't that amazing. I mean, it's advanced, but most advanced races don't really seem to care about developing the means to colonize with a shipwreck. They build their stuff to specific purposes. We have lots and lots of shuttles and small fighters of different designs, but almost no large ships, frigates and the like."

"Ah, then good news. I do."

"What?" Vera turns to look at me, but I can't see her face. The red sky backlighting her from the unfinished windows behind her are leaving her a silhouette in shadow.

"Just when everything started falling apart, I recovered a large ship buried near the polar cap of Terra. It's currently inhabited by an AI and a couple of cats -" That gets me a 'what the fuck?' shrug from her. "- and mostly they just want an avatar body. I think I could probably design on based on stuff I've scanned here. You should see the ship, they made dozens of attempts at it and some of them are pretty good, but ultimately it didn't have a way to fit the necessary computing systems into something as small as a head."

"So, what, you have scans of the ship?"

"No, no. I have schematics of the ship. Which will probably need a retrofit, now that I think about it. Lots of physical damage aside, we probably have better versions of some of the systems now."

Aetius is meandering over to the unfinished window, stepping up into it and looking out. I follow him lazily as I explain and step up to stick my head out to see what has his attention, but it seems to mostly just be the view. We're at the edge of Vera's territory and the hab is built into the cliff where there used to be a continental shelf drop off. Most of the standing water on Terra seems to have filtered down into the bedrock or is now so toxic that nobody wants to get near it, instead relying on environmental filters.

"That's... a pretty big deal. A ship like that could move a lot of people."

I nod as I look out to the yawning, broken bed of a former ocean, then step back inside. "Yeah, it could. Obi-wan told me what living here is like. I want to provide a way to evacuate people, people who can't cut it here."

"You want us to abandon Psyche completely?"

"Do you want to abandon Psyche completely?"

Vera doesn't answer for a moment, pacing the room slowly and running her fingertips along the pipes and bound wiring, the places where the studs for future walls cover them. "I don't think we should abandon it completely. Part of what I do here is helping equip teams to go out and help people who arrive here, or who end up enslaved, or worse. It's important work. A lot of advanced races end up here and they can't cope with magic, it's out of their experience, so the moment the cultists and arcanists or the demonspawn get to work on them..."

I nod. "What's up with that? The demons."

"I don't know. They're definitely real and I've killed lots of them myself. They control an area the size of a small country on the same continent as Nemesis' citadel and nobody goes there. They recraft flesh... their buildings are flesh, they eat people, corrupt anything in their territory. The unprotected are broken down even if they stay uncaught, the magics running through the place eventually turning them into something like murderous husks and zombies. They try to expand but most of the places around them are just as malevolent and they were mostly just kept in check until Nemesis launched a campaign against them before the Fragmentation."

"So they're gone?"

"Oh, no. No, not at all." Vera shakes her head. "We think there's some kind of portal, or maybe a couple portals, in the heart of their territory. But we've never been able to get close and Nemesis isn't exactly going to just answer our questions if we ask nicely. I have no idea what they found there, if they even managed to get that far."

"Alright. Can you show me your fabrication workshops?"

"Yeah. C'mon." Aetius follows between Vera and I as she takes the lead, keying open the pressure door closing off this section from the habitable parts of the habitat. Once in the corridor, Aetius takes a moment to sweep the area clean. Which is probably good because the rush of air when Vera opens the second hatch is pretty windy.

"Our workshop is actually pretty cheaty. We managed to pull a fabrication unit out of the remains of a broken life pod and re-program it. We're pretty sure it was designed by humans. It can't make a lot, mostly little stuff, nothing bigger than your head, really. But for creating the individual parts of larger machines it's invaluable. All we have to do is find the raw materials and it breaks them down and reshapes them."

"Wow. That's... amazing. How?"

"No idea. Shit ring, remember?"

"Right, right." The corridor itself is pretty spartan, reminding me of the inside of a spaceship. Bleak, almost. The workshop is a little more lively. At one end I can see the blast doors clearly marked refineries, which I'm guessing is probably where they've been recycling things. A half dozen workbenches are scattered around what looks to be some kind of vehicle frame hung on a crane in the middle of the shop.

"You're building a ship?"

"No, it's just a short range shuttle. We're re-building it. This was our evacuation plan before you offered to help."

I nod slowly. "Lucca is a lot bigger than that. Not sure if she has a hanger bay, but if so, that could probably land in it."

"I know. But small is all we could do here, with limited resources."

"They don't have to be." We both turn to look at Aetius, who is looking over some of the work on the benches. "Our little group isn't exactly one that formed over cookies and coffee, is it? We've fought each other a little, know where each other stand. I haven't seen anything here I'd object to helping with. Have you, Ainsley?"

"No."

"There you go. We should work together." He looks up as a chime rings through the room and Vera frowns.

"Comms. What is it?"

"We just had a courier arrive from the mainland. You're gonna wanna talk to this guy."

"Ugh. Fine." Irritation at being interrupted brushed aside, she waves her hand to do it. "On my way."

A gesture to us and we follow Vera out, then to the surface. Since we can fly, moving outside the hab is faster than navigating through it.

"Hey Aetius, where did you leave Fela?"

"She's with Elise. I think they're having some girl time or... something." That makes me frown. Maybe I should get back ASAP. I think he can see it on my face though, because he shakes his head. "No, no, Elise wasn't mad at her or anything. They really are just talking."

"Alright." Landing just outside one of the airlocks, Vera leads us in and I can see her trying to restrain her patience as the cycle runs through. Once the inner doors open she stalks in ahead of us down the corridor, turning to their command room.

"Okay, where is he?" Her tone makes a couple people in the room wince, looking in sympathy at a human man who's raising his hand warily. Vera stomps over to him and gestures. "Well? Out with it."

"Ah, um... I was sent here by the listening post outside the fleshlands. There's some kind of major internal coup going on. They're saying Nemesis is dead and with that, all the factions he was keeping in line have turned on each other again."

Vera looks astonished. "What? That's great news."

Aetius blinks at her and turns to face her bodily. "How is that great news, exactly?"

"Fighting a single, unified enemy is difficult. Fighting lots of enemies who are also all fighting each other is a lot easier to handle. We have a lot of new options now for turning them against each other. What about his ring?"

"We don't know. Nothing has been heard and nobody has been seen using it."

"Well, that's not good news." I frown. "If somebody took it, they're keeping quiet about it, saving what charge he had left. Or they're looking for something to recharge from."

Vera nods. "That makes sense. You think we should prioritize hunting that ring down?"

One of the colors I haven't been able to fix? Hell yes. "I think it might be worth looking into, yes."

She gives me a funny look when my environmental shield cuts out, then re-asserts itself. "Well, that won't be immediate. We need a lead first. I'll send the word out to our informants, but it'll take time. Information moves slow on Psyche. Lots of computers but they don't talk to each other very much."

"What about those guys you found before? The ones Ainsley called Slaaneshi?"

"No idea if they actually worship Slaanesh, but they're not really new. They've been a problem for awhile. They're the natives, the ones who lived here before we purged the continent. Mostly, anyways."

Aetius rumbles. "Purged?"

"Yeah. We killed all of the cannibalistic, rapey flesh cultists. Total genocide." She says it deadpan, staring back at Aetius.

"...Fair enough."

"This isn't a nice place, boys. Psyche chews people up. I've heard it compared to Hell a lot. A lot of times the people who end up here are innocents, but sometimes... sometimes something truly fucked up appears. I don't think this place is the drain-catch for the worst people, I think Psyche is just where you end up by bad luck. But the demons, the abominations? They seem to have all been dumped here, leaving Val and Terra mostly untouched."

"Alright." I take a deep breath. "In the short term, I think I'll go get Lucca. We'll fly back here and I'll find a place to land her out here. Aetius, you willing to help with the refit?"

"Yeah, but I don't understand any of it."

"Don't have to for manual labor. Let the engineers do that." He nods.

"Alright." Vera nods too. "Looks like we have an accord, then."

 

I'm a little nervous to find out what has happened with Elise and Fela while we've been busy. Walking through the blue keeps halls feels slow when I'm used to transitioning or flying everywhere, but since I can't spare the power now, I've been trying to find ways to cut down on usage. At least until I find a blue artifact of my own, anyways.

Elise made her home in the lower garrison where the other genkits are. Since we could do pretty much anything and she had a power ring, she took the time to make hers especially homely. I've only been to the room once, just to fetch her, and the peek inside that I got suggested something like what I might have expected to see in Tovalon. Lots of carpets and drapes and soft surfaces.

That's only a mild comfort, that Elises room is basically entirely padded, so if they've been beating the crap out of each other for some reason, I'm hoping it's not too bad. Coming up to the door I can't help but strain my ears for... something. Arguing, talking, something.

Nope, nothing.

Stopping in front of Elise's door I find myself hesitating, but only for a moment. Then I knock a couple times, firmly, without trying to sound like the police are at the door.

There's the sound of movement and I can hear a little murmuring. Giving the door a curious look, I hook my thumbs in the belt of my monks outfit and wait patiently.

Then it's Fela who answers the door, pulling it open and looking at me. Completely topless.

Ring, take control of my eyes so they don't drift. They're totally going to drift.

Right on that.

I do blink at her and raise my eyebrows. "I was going to say good morning, but that... might be more true than I thought?"

She doesn't seem body-shy at all. "Uuhhhhhh, you might say that."

"Ugh, who is it?"

Fela turns her head to answer Elise. "It's just Ainsley."

"Oh. Might as well tell him to come in, then."

Stepping away from the door I step inside and close it behind me, watching her saunter back and then sprawl out on the bed next to a very-much-naked Elise. I once again find myself thankful for the fur and the ring because wow this would be really awkward otherwise. I have no idea what happened here.

I thought they'd be fighting. This room does not smell like fighting.

"Sooo..."

It's Elise who answers first. "Mmmmyeah. We were asleep."

"Yes I... gathered that. Together." I gesture at them.

"Uh huh."

"I had no idea either of you also liked girls."

Elise snickers, looking down at her lap. Fela just looks awkward. "You know, neither did I?"

"So how did-?"

Fela looks up at the ceiling. "Um. It was..."

"We were arguing -"

"About you."

"Right, about you -"

I raise my hand, pointing a finger lazily. "What about me?"

"Who got dibs."

I don't laugh. I can actually feel the ring suppressing the impulse. Fighting over me? Seriously? I'm pretty sure the amusement is written on my face anyways though, because Elise is trying not to break up into giggles.

"Okay, so, I was kind of yelling at Fela..."

"And she got in my face -"

"- and it was getting pretty, you know, vehement -"

"- and then Elise yelled 'go fuck yourself' at me -"

Elise actually does giggle. "- And the cheeky little shit replies, 'fuck me yourself you coward!'" ... "So I did."

I can't help it, letting the ring let go and cracking up laughing, sitting down on the floor with a thump. I'm honestly speechless, mouth open because I want to say something but the words just aren't there. "I thought I was gonna have to drag one of you to medical."

"If I don't start walking right in half an hour, you might end up doing that."

I give Elise a look and she cracks up laughing again, which only sets Fela off, the two of them giggling like idiots at the sheer absurdity of the whole thing. "And, what, this just... just now?"

"Uhh, yeah." Fela rubs the back of her neck and damn it's hard not to stare at this girl. She's hot. "Um, you woke us up, so we're... kind of... processing this now."

I nod slowly, then bite my lower lip and laugh silently when Elise throws a pillow at my head. "It's not that funny!"

"Oh, Elise, yes it is. Okay, okay." I hold my hands up. "I'm cool with it. Really. I mean, you know, consenting adults." I shake my head, smiling. "Neither of you thought I had a weigh-in on it, huh?"

"Ummmmm." / "Now that you mention it...?"

I just shake my head again. "You two are too much, you know that?"

Elise shrugs with one shoulder, curling her tail over the top of Fela's head and making her push it out of the way with a quiet pbbt noise. "Hey, you weren't biting and it's been a whole year! She was just... you know..."

"Here." / "There."

"Uh huh." I fold my arms and lean back a little. "So, what now?"

"Well...?" Fela gets up, walking over to me. Slinking over to me, really. Ooh.

"We came to the conclusion that this probably wasn't gonna get resolved by only one of us chasing you. And you're clearly noticing us more since you got the orange ring." She plunks herself down in my lap and I move my arms around her hips without even thinking about it.

"So we're gonna share." Elise is getting up too and... okay, now that she's moving around? That fur doesn't hide so much.

"Um...?"

"You won't be thinking about the fur soon." Then Fela is kissing me and I'm being pushed back -

Okay, maybe the ship can wait. Priorities are important.

 

Elise

I feel really good.

While Ainsley and Fela are curled up together recovering I've been making all of us food and just sort of basking in how I feel right now. It's not the sex, though that's... definitely part of it. But three days ago I felt very alone and pissed off about it, the guy I liked seemed to have no idea what to do with me and I had competition. This morning I have everything I wanted and the competition is... well...

Fela is creative. I'm gonna have to step up my game. Like damn.

But the companionship, the intimacy... gods above, I needed it. I missed being in a room completely silent with other people and it's because no one needs to say anything. That shared wavelength, I think the lack of it was doing my head in a little.

Sitting in front of the oven I'm just watching, lost in my own thoughts. I got to have plenty of alone time with Fela but Ainsley hasn't, so they're catching up and that's fine with me. I feel at peace. Calm.

Looking down at my hands, my glowing hands, I don't feel any of the anger at all.

This is probably a bad idea.

Keeping myself in that mental zen space, I reach up and pull on the gauntlet like I did that first day -

- and have to suppress my own hopes as they begin to rise and I can feel the ache beginning but -

Don't think, don't feel, don't be.

- I think I'm -

Don't think, don't -

- the gauntlet comes off.

The other follows it automatically, melting off my hand to rejoin with itself as it reforms into what I recognize as a katar. I saw one once, in New Delhi.

As it thumps on the floor I shake myself out, swaying a bit. It gets their attention though, Ainsley standing up first. "Elise?"

"I'm okay." I can't help but stare at the weapon. "I... I just pulled it off. Just like that."

"What?" He gets up to walk over to us, kneeling to pick the weapon up and then hesitating. "Er... Maybe I shouldn't. Kind of messed me up the last time I tried to touch it."

I reach down and pick the katar up by the handle, holding it. It doesn't re-bond with me the way it did before. "What changed?"

"How do you feel?"

I turn my left ear towards Fela but not my head, staring at the weapon. "Calm. At peace. Content."

"Have you felt like that at all since it stuck to you?"

"Well, no..."

"Maybe that's why?"

I nod slowly. "Could be. Vera said that mastering my rage would let me master the weapon, though. Reshape it at will and such."

Ainsley sits down next to me, within my personal space and I'm already curling my tail around him without thinking. "What will you do with it now? Give it to Vera?"

"Should I?"

Neither of them answer immediately. To be fair though, Fela hasn't spent much time around her. "Honestly? Having a hard time seeing anything really objectionable to what she's been doing. I want to fly the ship over there and borrow their expertise in fixing it up, then start evacuating her refugees back here."

I nod at that but Fela looks surprised. "She has families living there? I thought it was some kind of hell world?"

"Oh, it is." I nod along with Ainsley as he replies. "But it's also where a lot of high technology ends up, like somebody decided to pit magic against high tech. The whole world is a war zone and there are innocents all over getting caught up in it. She's been trying to help them."

"I don't want it." I'm saying it before I'm really even thinking about what I'm saying. "I think I kinda hate it, actually. But if we give it to her... I don't think it should be right away."

"Oh?" Ainsley tilts his head at me.

"No. Not until we find you an artifact. You can keep charging off Fela but then that puts her out of action."

"Some kinds of action, anyways."

"I heard that!" I pbbbbt at Fela who sticks her tongue back out at me.

"I've been thinking about that, actually."

I turn to look at Ainsley, taking a moment to look him over. That ring of his did good work. "Oh~?"

"Yeah." He nods, kind of staring off into space. "First, the ship. We'll get it fixed up and get the AI a body avatar. They did most of the work already and I got some great computer scans on Psyche." He looks at me. "You gonna ask for the green ring back?"

"Will... is Aetius gonna want to give it back?"

"I think you should probably talk to him about it." ... "Not naked, though."

I giggle, picturing the look on Aisha's face if I actually made a move on Aetius. She'd be so mad.

"No, no. One of our tigers has her eyes on him. Not sure if he's noticed it yet." I nod. "I guess I should ask. He's still in Zero, right now."

"How's the city holding up?" Fela stretches as she gets up, meandering over to check the oven I've stopped paying attention to.

"Better. There was damage but nothing major. The location is pretty bad, but once we figure out how to use magic to make teleporters for everyone, we can just link it to Durjak."

"Elise, why don't you come with me to meet the ship? You're the only one of us three who has ever worked with an AI, ever."

I smile at that, then nod. "I think I'd like that. But first, samosas!"

 

Aetius

The ship was marked out clearly to him after he dropped out of warp, a glint of light floating in the darkness all around him. He'd never flown in space before, didn't even know it existed before Elise and Ainsley. The sun - half an AU away - was twice as large as it would be from the surface, standing in Durjak. The warp dropped him with his back to it as he faced the ship, keeping it from blinding him and allowing him a moment to appreciate the endless night sky in every direction. As he looked outward he noticed a lack of starlight twinkling, tilting his head and wordlessly inquiring to his ring about it, structuring the question without verbalizing it in his head, exactly.

On the surface of a planet with an atmosphere, the weight of the air above and around you impedes and interferes with the light reaching you on the surface. Air scatters light as water scatters sunlight at the bottom of a pool, only with a far weaker effect.

He nodded as the ring answered him. That made sense. Just another thing that seemed completely obvious in retrospect, but he had never really thought of air in those terms before. Never even thought of it as a material thing, not really. As he picked up speed to 300m/s the ship grew quickly in his vision.

He thought of something his brother said to him once. "There are things undreamt of in your philosophy.". He had no idea where Lucien had picked it up from. Probably some book or another. He'd had a tendency to memorize quotes and pull them out to make himself seem wise, a way of putting on airs to impress people. Thinking about his brother made him profoundly sad and he was quietly thankful that grief and sorrow didn't interfere with use of the-

Suddenly the air was yanked from his chest and his eyes hurt and he couldn't breath and then the environmental shield kicked back in as he forced himself to focus on it being there. He hadn't actually slowed down to a complete stop and had kept drifting, so he let himself bump into the hull lightly as he focused hard on figuring out what the fuck just happened.

Use of the ring was temporarily shut down due to interference from a strong emotional impulse of another color.

What color? Had he forgotten one? He thought he remembered all of the ones Kuri told him about...

Unknown.

That made him shake his head a little and frown. The ring had never, ever returned an 'unknown'. He'd had it tell him it lacked data, or there was insufficient data, but never unknown. He'd even had errors at the spatial distortions but he mostly just took those as coming with the territory of those... things.

Ring, find me the nearest airlock and make contact with the ship.

Immediately. Connection open.

Hello? It's Aetius. Can you let me inside?

Rather than answer in words he got a HUD marker created by the ring as it translated a set of co-ordinates given to him in response by the ship. Probably an automatic answer of some sort. The ship seemed oddly curvy to him as he proceeded to the hatch at the top. As he got close it opened and teal-blue light spilled out, changing color as he got inside and added his own green to the mix. The hatch snapped shut above him and he could hear air cycling into the chamber before the wall seemed to open and he realized he'd mistaken a door for a solid surface.

"Welcome. I am - was - Lucca. You'll find the others down this hallway, just go forward and take the first left."

The voice seemed to come from all around him and he blinked, looking around for a speaker or a person or something. Nope, nothing. Shrugging to himself, he trotted down the hallway at a light jog and into the room at the first left, only to stop up short and blink.

Elise and Fela were not avoiding each other. No, they were right next to each other, going over some computer menu together, in each others personal space, even. Elise wasn't glowing red, either. But the thing that threw him the most was that there was a glowing blue Tovari girl in Ainsley's outfit humming music and swaying in circles around what looked like some kind of mechanical construction project being assembled in mid-air. He could vaguely recognize a body shape, but that was pretty much where it ended and he was a little more focused on the person doing it.

The girl had black hair that seemed to just explode everywhere in curls, partially masking the black cat ears. She was as Caucasian as Ainsley had been but with a tanned complexion, like she'd been out in fields most of her life. Her tail was fucking massive, almost as large as she was herself, flowing around behind her while she moved around and he could tell just from looking at her that if that really was Ainsley, nobody had bothered explaining anything about bras.

He should probably ask Elise to do that at some point, before the humans get twitchy about it.

"Uhhh...?"

The girl suddenly stopped, the blue-and-indigo robes swaying as she spun on the spot and stared at Aetius with something like mild horror, like somebody who had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

"Hhhhhhi, Aetius."

"Is... Ainsley? Did you...? What did you do?"

She made a so-so motion with her hand at him. "Playing around with the rings ability to let me shape shift. I completely spaced out that you were coming here and was not counting on you seeing me like this."

"Like... ever?"

"I don't know?" She shrugged. "First time with boobs, personally. I like it though. I feel lighter, somehow."

"So, why did y-"

"Elise." / "Elise. " / "Totally me." Elise held one hand up without actually looking, then turned around. "I dared her. Needled her about it, even. I mean, why not? Only reason I didn't do it is because of the concentration thing, I couldn't picture it to make it happen."

Aetius tilted his head, giving Elise a curious look. She sounded oddly non-angry. Chirpy, even. It was strange to him. "Well, okay. Whatever makes you happy, I guess. Listen, something weird happened to me just before I got in here."

The body being constructed by Girl-Ainsley was nearing completion, though the chest was still open as critical systems were being picked out by the ring, fabricated and installed. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I was thinking... back." He looked away from them, at the wall. "Bad memories, my mind drifting a little. Thinking about my brother. I let it get to me, cuz I didn't think letting myself feel it would mess with me, but it did. ...Also what the hell do I call you like this?"

"Try Aisling."

"Ash-leeng?"

"No, Aisling. You were close, less emphasis in the eee noise. Ash-ling."

Aetius pinned his ears back, tilting his head to the side a little in puzzlement. He didn't really get the difference, but okay. "Alright. So, what do you think?"

She looked thoughtful, crossing her arms in front of her stomach and tapping her chin. "You know, I'm not really sure. We were pretty thorough about asking the rings we've gotten access to about the other colors and we've seen all seven we thought we knew of."

"Do you think maybe there were ones they didn't?"

He watched Aisling pace around, thinking. "No. No, I can remember times when I- " A nearly imperceptible pause there. "-saw somebody in the midst of powerful grief while they wore a ring. Or at least sadness. It didn't interfere."

"Well it does now. I lost my environmental shield and was breathing vacuum for a few seconds. It hurt a lot. Something has changed."

As the last of the components were sealed into the chest of the gynoid Aisling was building, the room lighting flickered and a cable unlatched from the wall. With a filament, Aisling pulled it towards her and connected it to the base of the gynoids neck. "Lucca, are you ready?"

"I... I think so. I will try."

The gynoid stiffened, holding up its own weight as Aisling put it on its feet. It was clearly not an organic body, but it somewhat resembled the dead genkit one they'd found that Lucca had claimed was once hers. Apparently Aisling had built this body based on it, yet he could clearly see angular, artificial fur coloring and markings. Alike, yet clearly different. He wasn't familiar with the species but it resembled Kuri in a genkit sort of way, probably based on the same race. But Kuri's legs were digitigrade and this gynoids legs were long and straight, like a genkits would be. Its 'fur' was white with black markings, a complex swirly pattern no living person could have without an incredibly expensive and intensive dye job. He'd never seen anything quite like it.

A few seconds after the connection was made it stood up straight and reached back to disconnect the cable. "I think we can call this a success." She raised her arms, looking herself over. "This feels.. strange. But not as strange as being disembodied. I definitely prefer this."

Aetius approached her, walking in a circle around her. "Fascinating. How do you feel right now? What are you feeling right now?"

"I'm still connected to the ship." Lucca looked up, eyes flickering around the room. Bright yellow eyes, almost... No, they were glowing. It made her seem almost powerful, barely contained. When he saw it he took a step back, his tail puffed up. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, I just... didn't expect your eyes to be so..."

"So what?"

"Intimidating. Eye contact was a dominance thing as I grew up and only one person had eyes that glowed yellow."

"I... don't understand?"

He nodded. "It's okay. Don't worry about it." He gave Lucca a smile. "So, what do we call you now? You're not a robot, not a genkit, not a ship..."

Lucca looked thoughtful for a moment as Aisling hovered backwards in a circle to land next to Aetius, pulling him into a one-armed hug. "Hey, you alright?"

"Yeah! Yeah, I'm okay." He nodded. "Don't worry, it's fine."

"Dwelling on sad memories, then getting reminded of that guy? I'm not sure I believe you." She put her hands on her hips, giving him a skeptical look. "We're not gonna have to turn you into a girl to get you to open up, are we?"

He laughed, shaking his head. "No. Elise." When he called her name out, Elise stood up and turned around to give him her attention, eye ridges slightly raised. He raised his hand, showing the ring, then raised his other hand and made a show of removing it.

"Are you sure? I was going to ask, but I wasn't sure how to bring it up."

"I've felt like an imposter every moment I've worn it since I put it on." He let go as the ring drifted back to Elise while she held her hand out, focusing on calling it to her. "Take it back with my blessing. The armor is in its subspace pocket."

As the ring reached her hand, Elise flickered and the black armor he hated so much appeared on her. Only it... didn't look like his armor. He blinked in surprise, Elise's suit faintly resembling genkit combat armor instead. "Huh. I didn't know it could do that."

"Neither did I, it always took the same shape for me. Is today just surprise day or something? Did I miss a memo?"

Aisling clapped him on the shoulder. "Nope, just another day at the shop for us. C'mon, lets go sit down so you can tell us about Zero."

 

Emil

Things were not going according to plan.

He'd thought he had a pretty good plan, all things considered. Strike south, go to Tovalon, make contact with the natives, find a way to call a ride home. He liked simple plans. He'd been told once that anything with more than 3 factors was a pretty bad plan so he tried to keep things easy enough that even a Purist might be able to understand it, if they strained a little.

So the fact that they were standing in front of some kind of earth elemental the size of a small mountain shaped like a gorilla was somewhat dismaying because it made his nice, simple plan really complicated.

"Don't... move." He was trying to stay very still himself as the ground shook with the thing slowly moving towards them.

"Mmmhm." Ren was quiet besides him and he turned his head just a little to look at her, seeing a sort of grim determination that he'd never seen in her before.

"It will not harm us."

"You sound pretty confident of that, Anakin."

"I don't sense any..." The electronic voice trailed off. "It just wants to pass by."

The stone gorilla began to pass over head, the vibrations in the ground making it hard to keep their footing. Except for Anakin. Somehow.

What was this guys deal?

Ren growled softly besides him as the gorilla passed by, its foot swinging above them high but large enough that they felt a wake of wind in its passing. Then it was past them, shambling away and taking absolutely no notice of them whatsoever.

Emil took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "What... and I think I deserve to put a fair amount of emphasis on this next part, THE FUCK."

As the ground tremors went from nearly violent to almost tolerable, Emil and Ren stayed low to the ground, crouching. Anakin kept watching the elemental, instead. "I do not think there is anything nearby."

Ren stood up first, helping Emil to his feet. "How do you know?"

"I would sense it. There's life here, but it feels either very simple or alien in a way I cannot describe."

Brushing his suit down, Emil nodded to Ren as she picked up their bag of supplies. Supplies which are dwindling far, far too quickly for Emil's taste. "You a telepath?"

Anakin turned to them, the strange robotic mask. Emil wondered what he was under that mask. "What is a telepath?"

"Our kind are sometimes gifted with the ability to touch another persons mind. To them it's sort of like a dream, or a computer interface, or a book. Some have described it like a matrioshka doll. Telekinetics are able to move things with their minds. The overall term for these skills is 'psionic'."

Anakin nodded, slowly meandering towards them. "Yes. I can do some of those things. I was once part of an order of monks who all possessed skills like these."

"Once was?"

"They... no longer exist."

Emil nodded slowly, then turned to look at Ren. "How's our inventory looking?"

Ren sighed, then shook her head. "Maybe half a day of water left. It's no good, boss. Everything's just so far."

Emil hung his head while Anakin simply watched them silently. "You're sure? Not just saying that to push this?"

"No. I mean it, man. I get the reasoning, even kinda respect that you're honest about it now, but if we don't use it we're probably fucked."

"Use what?" Now the black-clad mandroid was looking at them in confusion.

"An... artifact that I have." Emil took a deep breath. "I really don't want to do this. It was really intense when I used that teleporter."

Ren just shrugged helplessly at him. "It's either that, or you give it to me or mister I'm-totally-not-a-villain-just-kinky."

Emil didn't see it as Anakin tilted his head back slightly, clenching a fist and then relaxing. "Will it allow us to escape?"

"Yes."

"Then please use it. Discomfort is a small price to pay for..." He trailed off a moment. "...success." It sounded to Emil like he was going to use another word there. Not suspicious, no, not at all.

Emil thought about it for a moment, then sighed and reached inside his armor, drawing the violet ring out and holding it tightly while remembering the self-professed telekine next to them. Bringing his other hand up he pulled the glove off, then slipped the ring on, feeling it resize itself to him before he put his glove back on, feeling the seal close.

He took a moment to go inward, take stock of himself. How did he feel? Fairly normal, actually. It wasn't anything like the raw intensity of using the teleporter had been. He looked over to Ren, watching her watch him a moment.

"You're glowing."

He clenched his fist, thinking of Elise. "Yeah. Said it runs on love, right?" He nodded to himself, focusing on the memory of coming home to Senya and Elise when she was a child. He had been on a trip and gotten home to find them waiting for him, waiting to spring a surprise party on him.

As the cables of violet light reached out towards them, it picked up Ren with no resistance. Anakin, however, stepped back and suddenly activated some kind of laser sword -

Connection lost.

-severing the construct cable and causing some mild feedback.

"What is this? What are you doing?"

"It's not an attack, I promise." He held his hands up as Ren floated up and let herself be pulled by his flight aura. He rose off the ground slightly. "But I can't carry you if I'm not carrying you. Please. Let's go."

He could see the man hesitate, the laser sword humming as he contemplated his options. Then he deactivated it, clipping it to his belt and nodding to Emil.

Extending the cable again he picked Anakin up and suddenly the ring became incandescent, shining brightly enough to make Ren turn her head away. Forming as a violet construct a woman stepped out of the cable of light connecting him to Anakin and then suddenly he could feel everything Anakin felt for... whoever this was.

"No... You can't be her. You're not her."

The constructs mouth was moving, but he heard nothing. In the grip of his flight aura violet crystal began to form around parts of his limbs, creeping across his chest, slowly covering him.

"RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

And then the crystals shattered and the suit broken apart revealing a man. A thoroughly ruined man with skin ashen pale and what looked like horrific wounds burning with violet light as they regrow parts of him. Emil suddenly remembered what Ainsley had told him about his own transformation and focused on relief from the pain, pretending it was Senya who was hurting in his care. Anakin slumped in the air as the violet light completed its repairs.

"Hey, he dead?"

"No... far from it, I think."

"What just happened?"

He gave Ren a withering look, as if he had any more information than she did. She made a 'point taken' gesture at him. As she did, Emil pulled Anakin over and the construct-woman dissipated. "Hello? Anybody home?" Ring, fabricate him something dignified. He said he was a monk, give him Ainsley's outfit but in black.

Done, love. Where to next?

"Now we go find our daughter." He said it quietly, speaking to the ring, but Ren heard him and gave him a weird look. "The rings voice. It's my wifes voice." Ren nodded slowly and he turned his head west.

Senya, do you know where Durjak is?

No, I don't have a map for this place. But there aren't many large settlements and I can detect only one city with a large population to the west. Shall we go there?

Really? Only one?

Afraid so.

Then lets go.

Anakin was shaking himself out, coming to and blinking as he looked himself over. "I'm not in p-!" He was cut off as the three of them suddenly cut loose at just below supersonic, his words lost in the wind as he gasped at being yanked into the air along with Ren, who was laughing like a complete maniac.

The ground below them became a blur as the heavy greenery of Skal whipped by them, passing over places where volcanic activity had burned away jungle, blacked ground with flowing molten rock and wildfires. Passed over patches of brambles that tried to grab at them from the ground, despite having no chance of possibly catching the group as they flew by. Passed over swamps and through clouds of insects, leaving Emil glad that the ring protected them from splashback.

When they broke into the mixed forests and plains that surrounded the Durjak countryside it was a relief. Then suddenly they were there, hovering above the city, only now from a birds-eye view Emil had never seen before.

"What...? What! WHAT." Anakin gestured incoherently at them for a moment and Emil took a moment to really look at the man. "EXPLAIN."

Emil nodded. "I'm sorry, honestly. The ring repaired you. I have no idea what that thing with the girl was, truly. This is Durjak and it's our destination."

The man looked completely at a loss for a moment, then covered his eyes with his right hand before suddenly staring at his right hand like it surprised him that it was there. Emil didn't say anything, just letting him take it in as they lowered toward the ground and let them land on their feet.

Run began hamming it up, waving at people like a pro wrestler making a comeback. "Hell yeah, people! Guess who's BACK!" The crowd was a mix of various types, not just the humans who had mostly made the town up before. Even a few genkits, but nobody he recognized right away. Then one he did recognize began pushing his way through the crowd and Emil rose up and hovered his way over to meet him.

"Emil! Powers above man, we thought you were dead!"

"Mason!" He couldn't help but genuinely smile as he landed and clasped the mans hand to shake it. "Damned good to see you. Do you know where Elise is?"

"Yes, she's with Ainsley and that girlfriend of his." That made Emil lean forward a little, tilting his head. "It's a long story. Can't you just talk to them with that ring?"

Emil blinked. "They can do that?"

"You didn't know?"

Emil suddenly felt like the biggest idiot in the world, but when Anakin put a hand on his shoulder, he suddenly remembered the man was there. "Yes, of course. Sorry. Mason, this is Anakin. He's some kind of psionic warrior-monk and he hasn't tried to stab us in our sleep so I brought him with us." The man gave Mason a wan smile, like he wasn't used to doing it or something.

"Emil says you're alright, you're alright. Listen, we're expecting the others back pretty soon, they're taking that ship they found and using it to evacuate some folks from Psyche. Why don't you give them a call while we find your friend here somewhere to stay and some provisions?" Mason patted Anakin on the shoulder and gestured to him, leading him away through the crowd.

With that taken care of, Emil raised the ring in front of him. "Senya, can you contact Ainsley the Blue?"

"Sure can, hon." A moment later, a... womans head appeared above his ring, making Emil blink. She looked Tovari, having the signature animal ears and the strange irises.

"What the...? Who are you?"

The womans eyes widened. "Holy crap! EMIL!"

And then the construct widened to show both the woman AND Elise, mainly due to Elise having full body tackled her.

"DAD!"

 

As the ships bridge doors opened for us, I couldn't help but blink at the change. "I see you've been doing some work."

Lucca smiled next to me as she walked ahead of us and Elise hugged me from behind, resting her chin on my shoulder. Aetius wandered out, stepping to the side and walking a circle around the room, looking everything over. Far from the torn up, industrial nightmare I'd found the first time I was here, the bridge gleamed. Every surface looked polished, black metal and something that looked a little like plastic. When I ran my fingers over it I found it etched with fine lines that glowed a soft blue in the wake of my fingers, as though it were absorbing a little of the blue light. Circuit lines, flickering and vanishing again. Soft music was playing as we entered.

The consoles were blank but as we came into the room they began to light up, forming displays and controls. Lucca raised her arms theatrically and the lights from the front of the room to the back flickered out in a wave, then re-activated with the soft blue light I'd seen when I entered the airlock. As it did, a three dimensional holographic display lit up the front of the bridge in lieu of a viewscreen. Sitting in one of the console seats were Jay and Holly, the two cats bounding up and trotting over to them the moment we entered the bridge. I couldn't help but smile as soon as I saw them, extending filaments to them to grant them ring translation for the others.

"Who people? Whowhoyou?" Jay was the first to reach me and I leaned down, letting him sniff my hand. "Know smell not know smell. Confused."

"It's okay. Remember the blue man? That's me. I'm just a little different now."

"Blue man nice man. Blue human good humans." He walked past me to Fela, who leaned down to pet him when he rubbed up to her leg. Holly did the same to me, then curled around my feet to go investigate Fela as I stood back up.

Lucca was grinning at me like a little kid showing off her science project. "What do you think?"

"This is really impressive. What happened?"

"I just needed power reserves. I don't have any fuel, but sunlight and solar wind are just energy. Once I'd gotten enough, I could tear up a few asteroids and use them as raw materials to repair myself. Simple as cake." Turning, she threw herself into the newly rebuilt chair, the same one she'd died in. "Feels good to be back."

"Did this ship have an AI before you died?"

"Nah. I just did it all manually." A lazy gesture and the main screen in front of us changed, showing a HUD of the local star system and its planets. "Behold, our prison."

I raised my eyebrows as I walked past her to look at the display, turning my head to give her a 'really?' look.

"Yeah, I know, sounds daft. Space, right? Watch this." The lights flickered out, leaving the bridge washed only in light from our environmental shields and the displays, which flickered out a second later. All around us, the surfaces of the bridge stopped having textures and started to project the stars around us, the sun blotted out by a black disk that lit the corona like an eclipse, making it... wow. That's beautiful.

Then suddenly the sun skipped, beginning to shrink as Lucca made the ship move. Slowly at first but ever increasingly the sun began to fall away from us as we headed outward, though not at anything like breakneck pace. "I thought you have FTL systems? We don't have much trouble doing it."

"I do, but space-time in this system is so unstable that I'm not actually sure I can use it safely. Long-range FTL systems involve creating a wormhole point in and around the ship, then jumping from one part of the galaxy to another. A big dump of power all at once punching a hole through the universe. Does that sound like a good idea to you?"

I nodded. "Point taken. So what're we doing right now, then?"

"The ship is compressing space-time in front of us and stretching it behind us. We're not actually moving so much as sort of sliding forward on the surface of the universe, like an ant being pushed by a bubble under a sheet."

I made a soft 'huh' noise. "Interesting." Everything seemed to have fallen away, leaving us awash in stars. "It's fast in sub-light terms but this doesn't really seem that fast in absolute terms."

"It's not. Flying like this will take us a couple hours to reach the edge of the system. The interesting part is when we get there, but going there is mostly so I can prove what I'm telling you." Another gesture and the main display is back, imposed over the starfield surrounding us. I could see the angles of the surfaces as the ship struggled to project the starfield on them. A little strange. "If you try to fly away from the star, you just end up somehow approaching it again. Every angle, every direction, space sort of curving back on itself. We can see stars all around us but I'm not actually sure they're real."

I hmm'd, then looked down and behind myself as Jay suddenly decided to step on my tail. The new, alien sensation caught my attention immediately - I'm really not used to having one yet. He appeared to be trying to decide whether to lay on it or not, kneading it and making me laugh-exhale through my nose, smiling. "We kind of knew about that. Tried it before and Nemesis mentioned something about it once."

"Right. Good." Lucca looked a little... not put out, but put off her stride. "I wasn't expecting you to know that."

"Sorry?"

"No, no." She waved idly. "It's fine. This course will take us past an asteroid cluster, I'll just stop there and eat them for materials instead."

"Eat them?" Aetius turned suddenly, looking a little concerned. "What's an asteroid?"

"Rocks." I made a small construct to show one, closing my fist and dismissing it a few seconds later. "I mine them too, sometimes. That's how Durjak got its start."

Just to my left, I could see Fela sitting down on the floor with Holly in her lap, her attention entirely on the cat. Elise was running her fingertips along the surfaces, her tail dragging slightly behind her as she used it to touch the floor, keep her orientation. Once she found a seat she plunked herself down, looking a little shaky. Understandable, all things considered.

"The ship has a nanofield that lets me effect repairs or break down materials. It's how I did all this. Used to be that I'd just put it on automatic but now that I'm tied directly to the ship, I can prioritize certain things or break down others for replacement or rebuilding. Much finer control now." She turned to face Aetius. "I think I have an answer for you."

"Hmn?"

"You asked earlier what I should call myself. I'm a Replikit."

He gave her a slightly confused look, gesturing with one hand to elaborate.

"The reason I ended up having to struggle to interface with the ship wasn't that I was injured, it was that I was injured and my digital interface damaged. I had to manually connect to the ship to download myself into the memory core. But the cybernetics that let me do that? I had those for decades. All of us did. When one of us died, the implant could be retrieved and planted into a ship or facility. Then they'd be able to access avatar bodies while the ship handled the processing issues."

I nodded. "Okay, with you so far. You couldn't do that here?"

She shook her head. "I was supposed to have help, right? But I didn't, it was just me alone. Nobody to pull the implant, so I had to do it myself and I'd never actually installed the system to let me interface with an avatar body because I'd never needed an avatar body. So I didn't have the high-speed data connection required for that kind of remote processing, which left me stuck. Thank you for that, by the way." She grimaces. "I'm really grateful to be back in a body again."

"Quite welcome." I smiled, feeling Jay lay down on my tail. "So a genkit in your era who dies is reborn as a 'replikit'?"

"Yep. Most of my existence would have been in cyberspace, construct-realities built for us. No such luck here. Didn't have the software."

I could see Aetius wince at the edges of my vision. "That sounds kind of horrible."

Lucca shrugged nonchalantly. "Over with, now. So, once I can finish patching up the external offensive systems and get the full shields back online, what's next boss?"

I glanced at her. "Boss?"

"I do kind of owe you my existence at the moment and you seem like good people. I'd also really like to know how and why you have genkits in your group. Since you do have them and they seem to be following your orders, you can't be all that bad. So, for now, you da boss."

I nodded slowly. "Okay. You need to finish fixing yourself up first, right?"

"Strictly speaking? No, I could fly wherever, just wouldn't be much good in a fight right now."

"Then it might be a good idea to get you fixed up first. Does this ship have guest quarters?"

"Yepper. You want to go lay down or something?"

I nodded and the bridge door opened, lights flowing down the hallways in a path. "Thanks, Lucca." I gave her shoulder a light squeeze before turning to head down the hallway, letting the group marvel at the wonders of spaceflight. Jay hadn't gotten up but the floor looked pretty clean so I just let him slide along while laying on my tail, dragging him behind me. He didn't seem to mind at first, but after about ten seconds got up and trotted up to walk next to me instead.

"Blue human explore play?"

"Blue human wants to sleep a little. Maybe work on some outfits, I didn't design this one with this body in mind."

"People fur change fur strange fur. Jay come with for nap time."

I leaned down and picked him up, folding one hand under his back feet and letting him lean into my chest and shoulder. "Sounds good to me."

As I followed the lights I finally came to a door which helpfully opened itself as we approached. The quarters weren't large by any means, but all the basics were there and that's all I cared about. An L-shaped couch formed a path next to the door, forcing us to turn left. That side of the room had the bed, a cot built into the wall, and was the path around the couch to the other side of the room, where a kitchenette was. A small stall was built into the wall next to a storage locker and table on the side of the room the couch partially blocked off, presumably the washroom. The whole room was compressed in the way traveling trailers were.

Perfect.

Closing the quarters door, I let Jay down onto the bed so he could explore it and began unwinding the cloth robes, rather than just subspacing them like I would have before. Trying to save a little power. Once those were off I stepped into the washroom stall, only to find it had a small shower with a body mirror.

Stepping in front of it I looked myself over, head to toe. So different. Well, mostly. But the overall shape of my hips and the way the my center of balance changed took a little getting used to.

Did I want to change back? I'd mostly done this at Elise's suggestion, since she found males pleasing but also really liked female body shapes. It wasn't like I was obliged to just be one or the other and the added sensory feedback from certain parts of my body - especially the tail and ears - were pretty distracting sometimes.

But standing here and looking in the mirror, there's a lack of... not dissatisfaction, I was never unhappy being male. Something about this fits better than that did in a way I'm having trouble articulating.

"Blue human hugs?"

I blinked, Jay bringing me out of my reverie. I smiled at him a little. "Yep, you're right. I should curl up and nap like I said I would, not stand here staring like a fool." Wandering back over to the bed I laid down and he got up, headbumping my face and making me smile.

This was home for a little bit, but I wouldn't have it any other way right now.

 

As I watched Psyche grow in the forward hologram, I tapped my fingers on the back of Lucca's chair.

"Aren't you supposed to slow down as you approach things?"

"Oh, don't worry."

I watched as the planet slowly turned from a red point hanging in space to something the size of a beach ball, enough I could begin to see places where the smokey cloud cover had breaks to allow sunlight through.

"That's looking awfully large -"

"Stop worrying!"

As the planet suddenly exploded to full size in front of us the ship cut out of its sublight cruise. Psyche filled the entire forward display and we were close enough I could see surface features where the cloud cover broke. When I turned my head to look at Lucca she had the biggest, smuggest grin on her face I've ever seen on a non-human.

"You should see your face right now."

I jabbed a finger in the air at her. "That was not funny."

"Haha! Yeah, it was." She waved flippantly, getting up and walking forward to the display. "Man, that place is kind of a mess, isn't it? Oh, that's interesting."

"What is?"

"There's something filtering the atmosphere to keep it habitable. Something artificial. There's less carbon dioxide than there should be for the level of geological activity going on down there."

I hmm'd quietly. "Not really relevant to why we're here, though. You have the co-ordinates?"

"Hey." I turned to look at Elise as she leaned over one of the consoles. "I think Vera is under attack."

Beside us Lucca nodded and the view of the display began to flip as the ship rotated, the view expanding around us in the way the starfield did before. A HUD marked out the destination on the wall and a second holodisplay brought up a schematic of some kind of cyborg. I could see the jedi fighting as the view zoomed in, the signature laser swords marking them out as they used the blades to parry some kind of energy attack the cyborgs were using. Why weren't they attacking them?

"Lucca, how long until you can shoot at those things?"

"Depends on how much splashback you want. Kinetics? Now. Energy weapons? Not now."

"Target and sweep everything in front of those guys without touching them, if you can. Where are those coming from?"

"We should get outside." Standing up, Elise turned to head for the bridge door, the glow of her environmental shield intensifying.

"Go, you can talk to me just as easily outside the ship."

I nodded. "Remind me to see about getting you access to a ring if we ever get spares."

"Aisling?"

"Yeah?"

A blindingly white pulse of light and I found myself just outside of the ship as it tore away in front of me, air resistance slowing me down compared to its forward engines. Half a second of confusion later I began following and about five seconds after that I could see the glow of Elise leaving the top hatch of the ship.

As Elise and I slammed down next to the fighters -

Synchronization complete. / We're synched!

- she swept her arm in an arc in front of her, a paper-thin wave of green light shredding through the cyborgs in front of her, bisecting them. Half a second later my shield sprang into place in front of us, just in time for some kind of sustained beam to hit my construct with a weird mix of heat and localized gravity shear. It hit the construct and began to cut through it, forcing me to form layers of shield and push the damaged layer forward before it collapsed.

"Get to the ship!"

"What ship?!" Pel looked sweaty, exhausted. As Elise formed construct cannons to stick through my shield layers, she turned her laser sword off. "Oh."

Above us, Lucca swept in and slowed, casting a massive shadow above the crowd of cyborgs. A second later, blue spears of light from the wings began tearing apart the crowds of cyborgs, sweeping through them and annihilating them in burning lines that left a wake of blue fire that slowly turned orange a few seconds later. Several hundred of the cyborgs were vaporized immediately before they began to use some kind of personal shield and the ships weapons began to become ineffective.

Behind us, the civilians and Vera were getting together in a crowd, clustering. Usually a bad idea in combat, but just what we needed right now. As the ships weapons ceased to work it switched to kinetics, not targeting the cyborgs, but the terrain around them. A few seconds later and a combination of impacts and heat had turned the ground into molten slag, slowing down the advance.

Turning, Elise gave up the offense to go talk to Vera, probably about why she wasn't fighting. Letting another layer of shields collape I started making more, covering our position as the crowd began flashing in white pulses, whatever teleporter Lucca used on me coming into play as she began evacuating the crowd.

In front of us, the cyborgs ceased trying to fire and started to work on getting past the terrain, trying to move around the damage. Relentless, but not particularly directed. They were like ants, working on a directive rather than being directed by a mind. Either way it allowed me to drop the shield constructs, turning and bolting towards the crowd.

Before I could reach them, another light pulse caught me and I found myself in the hold of the ship, flying straight into a wall. I couldn't help but oof as I hit it and bounced off, shaking myself out. "Lucca!"

"Relax, you're fine." Her voice seemed to come from everywhere at once and with a final few flashes, the last of the crowd appeared in the hold, including Vera and Elise. I moved down to land next to them.

"I know you said you didn't want to abandon this position but -"

"I know! Fucking assholes! Fuck!" The anger wasn't directed at us, at the very least. "They've destroyed everything!"

"How much power do you have?"

"Not enough. Two percent."

"Elise?" I met her eyes and she nodded, then turned and started running while Vera looked at me in confusion.

"You're getting the weapon back." I pointed at her. "Don't make us regret it."

"Who the fuck are you?"

I dropped my arms, giving her a 'really?' sort of look. "Vera, I'm like a character in a comic book. I always wear the same thing. Seriously?"

"Ainsley?"

"Aisling, right now."

"You look like Mina."

That put me off my footing. "Okay, well... Mina is... actually really attractive. So thanks, I guess?"

That made Vera roll her eyes at me. Around us, people were getting together in groups, doing head counts. Out of the mix Obi-wan finally appeared, walking over to us.

"Your timing is impeccable. I've never fought anything like that. The lightsabers worked at first, but then they began using some kind of personal shield generator. All of our weapons worked, at first... then they didn't. We were running out of options when you arrived. You know, I can't place it, but have you done something with your robes, Ainsley?"

I tilted my head back, sighing a little. "I'm going to get jokes like this forever, aren't I? You heard what I said to Vera."

"Yes." He was smiling, but there was no malice to it. "Where will we be going now?"

Vera rubbed her forehead, turning away from us and moving to sit down. All at once I could see exhaustion and stress hitting her and I walked over and sat down on the deck next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Hey. There are quarters for a crew of four. We didn't plan to house everyone, we'll be going right back to Terra for now, but you're about to fall over. Do you think you can sleep?"

"I don't want to do anything else. Show me to a bed."

I nodded and the cargo bay door opened, Elise coming back in. Still in the form of a katar, the weapon was being held in a green construct, Elise clearly reluctant to touch it again. Getting back to my feet I helped Vera to hers as Obi-wan backed away to make space for Elise without getting close to the artifact.

Vera grabbed the katar, which immediately reformed into a gauntlet around her forearm and hand, spiked fingers and hard ridges. She nodded to Elise, who seemed more than happy to get the thing away from her.

"Follow my filament, you can use my quarters. Don't mind Jay, he'll probably try to curl up with you."

"Who?"

"The cat. Go on." Vera gave me a look of mild confusion, then turned to follow the thread of blue light out of the cargo hold. Watching her go, Elise and Obi-wan both turned to look at me at the same time.

"I don't think we should leave without finding out where those things came from." Obi-wan was shaking his head. "I don't like it. If they have a source and we can eliminate it, we don't have to give the settlement up at all."

"We'll find some way to work around it. A gateway or something to Psyche so we can run operations there. But for now, it's just not feasible." Elise shook her head. "I'm sorry, I know it sucks to lose your home, but we have a much better chance at taking care of these people back home."

Obi-wan shook his head. "There are others, we had scouting parties and the two knights we sent out before you arrived never returned. We were going to look for them, devote resources to finding them once the civilians had been made safe." He grimaced.

I clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll work it out. I need to get up to the bridge, maybe we can get you some information on what those things were. For now, take stock of what you guys have and need and then just ask Lucca. She won't be in the room with you, but she'll hear you if you speak to her like she is."

"Thank you. Also, that seems... unsettlingly non-private."

"Needs must when the devil drives." That got me a confused look as I headed towards the cargo bay doors with Elise following me.

"You plan to retake the settlement?"

"No." I shook my head. "No, I think it might be easier to just carve out another portion of the planet and rebuild there, but I don't think Vera is going to listen to reason if we suggest it right now. I sent her to our quarters to sleep."

"Bet Fela will love that."

"I think Fela will take one look at her and understand immediately why I did it. Either that or she'll already be on the bridge."

When the bridge doors opened and we walked inside, Fela was standing behind the captains chair and I gave Elise a 'you see?' gesture and a smile. I could see her laughing silently, tail twitching behind her.

"Looks like we have everyone." The bridges weird, projected transparency showed the planet falling away from us as we rose back up into space. "Should be a nice, smooth ride h-"

A large, green projectile rose from the surface behind us, slamming into the ships shields and sending it on an uncontrolled wild spin. I could see Lucca fighting to regain control of its course as several more rose from the surface and the ship began maneuvering to evade, spinning and jooking around them as they flew past, then started to arc around and turn back.

"Enough of this shit, another hit like that's going to damage my shield emitters. Buh-bye!"

Behind us, Psyche skipped and the projectiles vanished as we began to leave the planet behind.

 

Long ago on a distant world, humans had built an empire they named Rome. Vast, militaristic and powerful. It expanded and grew until it collapsed under its own weight, bound by the state of the technological advancement of the age. Without widespread state indoctrination and with the passing of several hundred years it finally fell apart, splitting into smaller states, so on and so forth. As is the history of humanity, forever upon all worlds.

Except for one version of Earth.

Long ago, a version of Rome found itself on Val, a section of that empire dropped into the lap of a chaotic world of humans of all sorts, none of them particularly advanced. The defensive walls of the small city-states had served it well for defense in the inital 'welcome' attacks that typically happened when new arrivals dropped into the world. Soon enough, consolidated in their power, they did what romans were famous for. They came, saw and conquered.

As Mina sat on the roof of the villa she marveled at how little had changed in the intervening centuries. The architecture was recognizably the same, though adapted to the climate. The culture, in many ways, resembled its progenitor. The fact she was sitting on a whorehouse and could hear everything going on below her attested to that. And the curious lack of disease she'd found taking place here.

Having spent several months now on Val she had taken the time to reshape herself, taking on the appearance of a human woman. A humanized version of how she looked before. It offended her pride a little, hiding what she was, but telling herself it was temporary was good enough for now. She did miss her ears, though. She couldn't move human ears, she had to turn her whole head and it changed everything. She couldn't easily ignore one side of a room and listen in on another anymore. It had changed her erogenous zones too, the base of her tail and the front tuft of her ears were now completely... normal. It felt almost numb in some ways.

She pursed her lips, pouting a little at herself as she daydreamed. She'd nearly run out of charge twice now, forcing her to go home and ambush another ring user, hope they had charge left. Three rings but only one of them with any power, she needed to find an artifact soon. It wasn't sustainable and she'd probably made enemies doing it.

So frustrating!

She'd been wandering and trying to find information for weeks and weeks and gotten nowhere. Every lead she had dried up. It didn't help that she kept getting distracted with how openly loose all the humans were here. It was a strangely opposite version of most of the human societies she'd seen, which tended to stack taboos on physical affection. Not here. Not by a long shot. For her it was thrilling at first, doing anything she wanted out in the open, but now it was just whatever. Everyone took it for granted. It was sort of interfering with her mission too, sidetracking her. She needed to stop getting so... tied down.

Taking a deep breath and drawing her shoulders up, she sighed and let herself slouch a little, blowing her hair out of her face. If she had to seduce or mind control or intimidate one more merchant prince, what of it? One of them had to know so-

Alert! Avarice detected.

-mething. She sat up instantly, glancing around and then dropping herself off the roof, landing silently with a little assistance from the ring. Wanting to know the direction of the source, she turned and bolted towards it, not even pretending to pretend to be human. Rather than waste power on flying she used the environmental shield to give her sprint a boost, carrying her far with each stride. She jumped to turn a corner, sailing over a woman and her child, startling them both and hitting the wall above them feet-first, running down it and dropping to the ground again. A moment later she jumped, sailing twice her own height in the air to clear obstacles and fences and people in her way.

Two more jumps like that and she was back on the roof of the building she could feel the source in. Another lightsmith? It felt strange.

"Ring, state charge."

"27% power remaining."

Not enough she'd want to burn it needlessly, but for the chance to recharge... Yes. She extended a thread of light down, under the roof, finding its way into the window to form a tiny eye. She found a young man inside, in the arms of his mate, the two of them resting together, whispering secrets and other things in the dark. She was lucky they were so focused on each other. The glow of her thread stuck out.

On the mans hand was some kind of glove. She could see the glow of the orange lights sigil on the back of his hand, the faint glow of it in the dark. Dismissing the eye she took the risk of him detecting her and looked at their desires.

Oooh, this would be easier than she thought. The man was rather devoted to himself and his own hedonism, the girl really more of a party favor to him than his actual mate. He'd gotten the artifact and used its power to fight, the gauntlet serving in much the same way Vera's weapon had. A simple shape-making power, constricted to weapons and armor. But it was enough.

She considered how to go about this. If she fumbled it, she might get into a fight and be forced to burn power, hoping to take him down before she ran out. If she approached as a friendly, he might work out what she is. Trying to assimilate him ran the same risk - he might be able to fight it. Same with branding, though she still struggled to do that even in ideal circumstances.

That left only one option, really. The gauntlet didn't provide him with an environmental shield.

With another thread she fabricated a small brick of dust, releasing and expelling it into the room, allowing it to rain down on the two. It didn't take long for the effects to kick in. When Mina entered the room - environmental shield intact - she found them writhing on the bed, staring into space.

She used a construct dagger to kill the man, pushing it through his chin and finishing him instantly. His body took a few seconds to realize it had just died and he began to shake on the bed, forcing her to hold him down and cover his mouth so he'd die quietly. Beside him the woman took no notice at all.

Once that was over with she dismissed the knife construct and touched the gauntlet to carefully, carefully remove it -

Alert! An external mental influence has been detected!

- only for it to liquidize and flow from the mans hand to hers, taking the form of a chain around her hand and binding itself to her middle ring. It didn't feel any different than usual. Point of fact, she didn't feel much of anything about what she'd just done, merely a sense of satisfaction at finally getting what she wanted.

She took a moment to walk around the bed, leaving the corpse there and looking the woman over, sitting down next to her. She pushed the woman down by her shoulder, running her hand down the womans body, admiring. She did look delicious, it's true. It had also been some time since she took a new toy and this one was nice, enthusiastic. Experienced.

And a complication, because she'd need to deal with her being around or assimilate her and be done with it. That took all the fun out of it.

She sighed to herself, patting the womans stomach. "Oh well. I suppose you'll be blamed for his death and spent forever in jail, or put in the stocks for public use. Or put in the stocks in jail for their use. You know how it goes." She patted the woman on the forehead. She'd stopped writhing and was just sort of drooling now. Mina vaporized her with the ring, doing her a favor. Wouldn't do to be rude and just leave her to it.

Standing up she hopped out the window lightly, clenching her fist. Recharge.

The chain on her hand shimmered as the ring drew from it, its shine dimming to a burnished, dull glow. She could see the orange light flow up through her hand into the ring.

63% remaining charge.

She smiled to herself. Time to leave, then. She stepped off the windowledge into open space but rather than falling she shot upwards, the ground falling away from her sharply, the curve of the planet becoming visible as the darkness of space took over the endless twilight that enveloped Val.

She went to warp, racing towards her home. Soon Tovar was in her sights and she was an arc of orange light, a meteor dropping downward.

The cities below her had been built with fortification in mind. Soon she was being chased by others, the remaining orange lightsmiths trying to close in on her. She smiled and sped up, racing towards the center of the city. Behind her, construct slaves began dropping out of her rings, all the beings she'd assimilated rising up behind her to slow down her pursuers. Not having construct slaves of their own was the price they had to pay for their moral ambivelance. She had an army.

Her entrance into the citadel at the center of the city was nothing less than catastrophic, the impact shattering the roof as she bulleted through to the chamber within. She stopped above the center podium and for a moment time seemed to slow and she began hyper-aware of the debris falling around her. The shocked faces of the senate surrounding her. The guards already raising their weapons to fire at her, enchanted to bypass her defenses and strike her stupid.

She wouldn't let them.

The construct slaves poured into the room after her as time sped up again and the screaming began. She ignored it as her constructs began eating the senate around her, forced assimilation carried out by those she'd already assimilated. She completed her descent to the emperor's platform in the middle of the room.

"Do you really think you're going to just kill me and take over? Just like that?"

"Our people respect strength." She took the time to look around at the carnage surrounding them. "Do you really think honor is going to save you?"

"You should never have been given a ring." He scowled, a dark look on his face. For a Tovar he was old, face worn, the edges of his ears gray. A canid, so killing him felt natural to her as a feline. When she was a feline.

Be fixing THAT soon.

"Tragically for you, I was. Honestly though, you all just waste their potential so much. It's offensive."

"And you think you can do better, is that it? You spit in the face of everything we stand for."

"Mmmmno. I know I can do better. I'm going to turn us into the rightful rulers of this pathetic fucking planet and then when we're done, I'm going to own Val. Then I'm just going to glass Psyche into oblivion and start looking for ways to shatter planets, I think."

He stood up in outrage and she pushed him down, using the ring to augment the strike and caving his chest in doing it. He hit the seat with a gurgling noise and began shaking, clutching at his chest.

Pulling the crown off his head, she spun it on her fingers, raising one hand to command her construct slaves.

"ALL HAIL EMPRESS MINA."

 

Durjak glowed at night. When the sun set, the darkness was stifling with the exception of a clear sky and full moon. The streets were being lit now, solar-powered LED's that would recharge themselves and turn on when it darkened enough. Fabricating them had been a team effort, each of us expending a little power to fabricate them, then letting the townspeople install them. At night, Durjak glowed a deep red, enough to let you see, but not enough to ruin night vision.

But it wasn't all bloody. Light spilled into the streets from a thousand windows, mixing with the redness until the majority of the city ended up with a sort of deep, reddish orange light at night that didn't reach the roofs of the buildings. It was though the ground had been set afire almost, but for the lack of flickering that flames always have. They backlit the town while the roofs of the buildings melted into the night, giving everything a ghostly look.

You wouldn't know it from the people. The town never seems to sleep, now. It wasn't that difficult to go unnoticed, since most of the town doesn't know I've changed bodies and I'm not wearing my usual robes. Instead, I'm sitting on a barrel in front of the local inn, cross legged with a long, wooden Gandalf-style pipe. The quality of the cannabis here surprised me - these people know their stuff. Either that or the fact this is the first time I've had any since arriving here means I'm a complete noob in this body. It's probably that, but I don't mind.

I've been watching the crowd, wandering around or loitering here on and off. I'm not wearing the ring, but it's in my pocket on a chain right now and I'm not really expecting to get into a fight or anything. I've been running around trying to hero so much that I don't really know what has been going on here as a whole. Mason and Zack have been running the show while we were off saving the world.

I have to admit, they've done one hell of a job here.

There's still a lot of humans, but there are others too. Species I recognize when I see them, as though jogging my memory. That has gotten significantly less spotty since I arrived here, seeming to improve every time I repair my connection to another color. Thinking back on anything involving my personal life feels like a blank, but I can now clearly remember details about the world I originated from before getting here. I've begun to recognize things that ought to only be in stories, yet they're here anyways. I can't explain it.

Pulling on the pipe, I let the smoke drift around my face, eyeballing an elven boy who's eyeballing me. He doesn't stop walking, but that's... pretty new too. Nobody recognizes me, I'm just another face, so that makes me free game as far as everyone who wants to flirt is concerned. It's honestly pretty flattering, though it feels like a cheat. I got that sometimes as Ainsley but there was never the reciprocated sense of desire, before. It's nice to feel wanted.

No, I wouldn't roam around on Elise and Fela. I really do care about them. Though they clearly don't have an issue with polygamy, apparently. I strongly suspect they're going to have other people between them when I'm not included or whatever, but I don't think I actually care because it'll always be me they come home to. Probably a pretty alien way of doing things to anyone who grew up in a couples-only society but...

I take a look at a dwarf riding some kind of large beetle while a couple Skal on a scooter are towed behind it because they've lasso'd it with a rope.

Yeah, I don't think I have to worry about 'normal' anymore.

I can honestly say I'm happy here. I love what the city is becoming. I'm not seeing the casual bigotry the Red Swords were infamous for, it's pretty peaceful, there's a bustling trade market happening here. Parts of the city are becoming cultural districts, especially the Skal, who seem to slowly be transforming a corner of the city into some kind of hybrid between town and forest. They're being helped by some wood elves, which is resulting in buildings made of living trees, burrows they can really pad and add luxuries to in a very hobbit sort of way. The trees, though planted apart, have been melded together so that a network of branches extend across the tops of the regular buildings, allowing for the installation of wooden boardwalks and platforms which gives even more room to build small structures. The Skal district was three dimensional, stacking upwards as the trees progressively grew. A lot of elves and other tree-dwelling races ended up there.

The dwarves have completely taken over every aspect of the local forging, artificing and fabrication. Seeing their version of spellscript cut directly into items has been fascinating. They're also one of the few races who seem to have anything like a workable knowledge of magecraft, though they seem to favor enchanting items and devices more than anything like classical wizardry. When I showed them the rune knowledge manuscripts I had scanned I'm pretty sure one of them began to drool.

This has been the first week I've been able to just be sort of normal. To just kick back and live life, wake up in the morning and have absolutely nothing interesting happen until I go to bed that night. What does it say about my life that that has become something to look forward to?

I don't think I'd give it up for anything but sometimes... sometimes I need to just stop for a few minutes.

Tapping the ashes out of my pipe I got up, unfolding my legs and then stretching my arms up, arching my back. It felt oddly good, doing that and then relaxing suddenly. I started meandering, walking away from the inn, towards the gate leading outside the walls.

The genkits seemed pretty outnumbered now but I didn't recognize any of the ones I've seen. New ones from Zero arriving, our original crew going home for a bit. As the most stable modern race, they've become the go-to people for technology and reverse engineering things. They seem to really have a knack for that last one. Their whole schtick seems to be 'everything you can do I can do better'. Every time I bring them a new scan or data or an example of some technology, it's like giving candy to children. Extremely excitable, mildly reckless, incredibly intelligent children whose attitude towards science is somewhere between solemn lawful duty to the truth and a redbull commercial involving explosions.

I'm honestly a little afraid to see what happens if we ever meet a race of tiny mad scientists. There are so many examples I can think of from fiction now that I'm afraid to dwell on them, lest they actually show up. The folks we already have on hand are a... handful. I can't help but snicker at myself.

"Hello there, stranger."

The sound came from my right and I turned my head to find a tovari boy walking next to me, wearing a sleeveless vest and no shirt, despite the cold. He looked a little like a feline, a little like me, actually. I'd never really anticipated the idea of just looking like another person that way by accident. Huh.

"Hi. Whats up?"

He shrugged languidly. "Nothing, really. Same as you, just wandering around. What's your name?"

I smiled a little in amusement. Pretty sure I know what his angle is, here. "Aisling. You?"

"Fanto'mi. Everyone just calls me Fan, though. I've never seen you before, are you new to the city?"

"Mmmmno, you could say I've been around for awhile, on and off."

He lights up. "Ah, a lifer! That's good. I'm new here and don't really know my way around. Mind if I join for a little while?"

I shook my head. "Nah, I don't mind. But I should warn you, my girlfriends might get jealous."

"Ohoo, girlfriends, is it?" He nods. "You're not into boys?"

"Let's say it's uncharted territory for me and go with that."

"I think I understand." He nods. "I've never met somebody from the segregated clans. You grew up around only women, then?"

I shook my head again, smiling. "No." And then declined to elaborate further, giving him a look.

That made him raise his eyebrows. "Well, aren't you mysterious? So where would you recommend that I stay for the night?" He made a lazy circling gesture with his finger pointed down. "Could be anywhere, but what do I know of the city?"

I nodded. "Mmm, you know, I used to be a guy. I've had this conversation before from your side of this."

He looked surprised. "Really? You have...?"

"Uh huh."

"But you don't...?"

"Nuh uh."

"Both?"

"Custom job. I actually designed this body."

He started giving me a look of wary respect combined with something else. "I applaud your taste in aesthetics. Whoever changed you did excellent work."

I did a little spin as we walked, then bowed slightly, only remembering the cleavage once I'd straightened up again. Oops. "Thank you. Are you really new to the city, or was that a feed line to try and make it into my room for the night?"

He laughed, tail twitching behind him. "No, no. That was actually true. Not going to deny the rest, though."

"Hey, no promises. But I can always just call and ask them."

He gave me a funny look. "Who are you, really?"

"The blue lightsmith."

His jaw dropped. "No way!"

"Yep."

"Wow, I can really pick 'em." He looked almost impressed with himself. "I thought you we- right, you just told me that you used to be male. That's wild."

I giggled at that. "You know, I was sitting here thinking about how insane my life actually is? You meeting me is the most normal thing I've had happen... ever, I think, since I arrived here. That conversation could've been anyone in the city."

"Is your life really that interesting?"

"Sometimes! Mostly it's just a jumble of barely controlled chaos as we struggle to survive. It's a mixed bag."

He nodded at that. "That's a little more familiar to me as well. How'd you end up in Durjak?"

"I dropped into the world nearby. This was the first settlement I came across and I showed up before the raiders got to it. The rest is history, really."

"That's incredible. Just like that, a random new arrival changes the world."

I couldn't help but give him a look of surprise. "That seems a little..."

"It's not. Actual cities are very rare. I came here for the safety, the stability. I've been a nomad my whole life. Why not try something new?"

"I think the Skal feel like that too. They're not used to cities or towns or settlements in general, but they're making a real try at it anyways."

"It's a big change." He shook his head, smiling wryly at himself. "If this had gone the way I'd hoped, in an ideal world, I'd have spent the night with you wandering the city and learning from you before retiring to your bed and finding excuses not to sleep until morning. I've been reliably informed you can see hopes, so I may as well be honest about it."

And no reason to mention it only works when I have the ring on. "I sorta figured. I'm not offended, you know. What makes you think you failed?" That gets a surprised look from him. "New to me too, you know. I've never just done this. Just been normal. I won't do anything to hurt the girls, but we're not exactly monogomous. I'm allowed to flirt with other people and have fun. Hang out, get drunk, do dumb things."

He clasped his hands together, pointing his index fingers at me. "So you're saying I have a chance?"

I laughed again, play-pushing his shoulder and turning my body towards him to do it, using the arm furthest away from him. Intead he caught my wrist, pulled me over with a surprising level of casual strength and-

Oh. I've never kissed a boy before. It's only a few seconds and then it's over and we're face to face with him in my personal space.

"Am I going to be a playful bad decision tonight?"

"Convince me."

The second kiss lasted much longer.

 

"-then, the bridge collapsed. They were trapped there, together, with the beast. It was the first time they'd seen it clearly." Kuri's tone is grim, her voice carrying clearly around the crowd, the bonfire behind her. The nightly fire was something of a custom of theirs, a drum circle where they spent an hour or two just bonding as a community, dancing and making music and telling stories.

Fan is sitting next to me on top of a wagon. We're not the only ones who had the idea, either. The two of us flew up here but several other Skal managed to climb their way up and sit or sprawl out with us to listen in. One of them had slowly gravitated towards Fan during the story and he was idly rubbing behind the cats ear, making him - her? - purr. It's REALLY hard to tell with some of the Skal races sometimes and I don't wanna burn too much power.

I'm using the ring, but it's mostly to translate for the non-Skal who showed up tonight. Usually, they can't understand the stories being told. The Skal common dialect was a mutt of different slang pieces of several of their clan languages, not entirely unlike English. It made learning it a nightmare for outsiders, but was usually the only commonly shared language among all the Skal, which necessitated a certain requirement in using it for things like this. Apparently Kuri is running language classes. When I first met her, she didn't know English either.

"The beast was massive! Ten feet high, it towered over them!" She jumped suddenly, kicking off a post and balancing on the post next to it, looking down at the crowd. "Scales like armor, it was a walking arsenal of knives. Claws sharp enough to tear stone! It's eyes... red as blood." Her tone dropped on those last words, ominous.

"They knew they had no choice. They could not be enemies here, not now. Not a word was spoken between them when they began to circle the beast from both sides..."

When I glance over at Fan I can tell he's enjoying the story. He doesn't seem to have heard it before and Kuri is really hamming it up as she tells the tale. The crowd is really into it, especially the younger Skal, the more dire parts of her stories getting gasps and shrieks from them at times. The sense of community they have here is really astounding. Why didn't humans do things like this?

"Darmok knew he could slay the beast, he could see the soft points of the scales. His days as a hunter gave him insight on where to strike and how to escape again, but the beast was smart. It had proved that before. They couldn't take it unaware. As he circled behind it, the beast struck for him, turning away from Jelad."

"Jelad, he siezed the moment. No longer afraid, ready to die, he rushed the the beast from behind, thrusting with the makeshift spear he had brought. When Darmok fell, he fell with his blade in the beasts soft underarm, the strike from behind distracting it just long enough for him to strike true."

That gets a disappointed noise from the crowd, sad at the death of the character.

"The trap had succeeded. The beast was dead and could threaten them no more. When he returned, he returned as the First Shaman, the beasts token of power serving as his trophy. Broken into three pieces, the seal to never again be brought together."

The crowd begins to clap as her story ends, a little bittersweet. I lean over, into Fan a little. "You seem to have made a new friend there."

"I think they're asleep. Is that snoring or purring?"

"From the lack of response? I'd say snoring. Think you can escape?"

He's already carefully moving the little cat off him, letting them down gently. Nope, out cold. "Like trick, ta-daa~"

"You look like you've done that before."

"Everyone raises the children in our culture. We all care for them, whether we know them or not. It works."

I nod at that, poking him and then rising off the wagon, pulling him along in my flight aura. Only for a moment though, so we can land gently on the ground.

"Not going to tour me around the skies?"

"Thought I'd give you something to look forward to." I grinned and nudged him. "You don't think you'd panic being high in the air?"

"No idea. I've never done it. Cliffs are scary like that too. I don't really like to climb, but the view is always an experience and the danger is part of what makes it thrilling."

"Seems a little reckless. Risking your butt just for fun?"

"To be fair, it is a fairly nice and relatively intact butt."

"Yuh-huh. Is this how Tovari court?"

"There isn't really a rulebook, actually. If there is, I probably lost it. Or maybe I sold it."

"Living the life of a rebel, huh?"

As we meandered out of the Skal district, the lights began to change from the firey orange of the torches they favor to the bronze LEDs. A few were out still wandering around despite the hour, mostly the nocturnal folks. Some of the elves were like that, a few of the Skal. The night market was less busy than the daytime one, but it existed. Carefully monitored to make sure it didn't become the black market.

"Gotta get my kicks somehow, right?" He shrugged. "It's pretty rough out there. Sometimes you don't have a choice but to take the risk and hope for the best." He blinked suddenly, hard, turning his head upwards. Then I felt it too.

I extended my environmental shield around him just as the rain really began to fall. He took a look around, then at himself, then me. "How are we dry?"

"I'm hoping we stay dry. Simple as that."

"Hmmm. You are so strangely... alluring."

I laughed. "Alluring?"

"Sure. You're mysterious, attractive, powerful. Kind." He reached up, running his fingers through my hair an- ah!

I can't help but tilt my head when he runs his thumb in a circle just in front of the fold of my left ear, a shiver going down my back and passing through me like a thunderbolt. "AaAaAh?"

He seemed to realize something and moved his hand away. "I'm sorry, are you alright?"

"Uh huh." I felt flush. What the hell was that?!

"I've never seen somebody react that way just to their ear being rubbed. It feels nice, but...?"

I gripped his shoulder and leaned into him a little. "Fanto'mi, I've never had ears like that before."

Dawning comprehension on his face. "Oooooh. I might as well have started feeling you up, huh?"

"Don't tempt me." I took a deep breath, shaking it off. "I'm gonna have to get used to that. All the extra nerve endings. I really probably should have thought of that earlier."

"What do you mean?"

"I wanted to heighten my sense of touch, so I added more nerve endings to some spots. My fingertips and palms, certain... other places." I did my best to look innocent.

"I'm sure it'll be quite fun finding them all later."

I brought my own tail around and smacked him with it, making him chuckle. "AND my ears was one of those spots, because I wanted better hearing. I didn't consider the fact that all the nerves in the face are interconnected. I felt that in my toes."

"I'll definitely have to keep that in mind." I don't think he's stopped smiling the entire time we've been hanging out. "Don't you live in that big castle?"

"Sure, but I'm slumming it tonight, remember? So I figure I'll crash at the inn. Seems like just the kind of place you might end up, yourself."

"Seems so." He nodded in agreement. Then he leans in, pulling me close. "What else can that ring do?"

"All kinds of things. Shared sensory feedback, for example. I'm really only limited by imagination."

He almost whispered it at me. "And how good is your imagination?"

"Who ever had fun being good?"

His face was close to mine and I could see him smile as he brushed his lips past mine. "Great answer."

I stepped back and pulled him along by the front of his vest, making him stumble a little and laugh.

The town was quiet now, the rain drowning out all other noise. Everyone else had gone to shelter, leaving us wandering down the streets by ourselves in the dark reddish night. "It's almost a little spooky, isn't it? But nobody seems to mind."

"They know the town is safe. The dark isn't quite as terrifying when you're here to shine on it."

"How long have you had that one in your pocket?"

"About half an hour. Been waiting for a good opportunity for it."

I gave him a wry look as we turned down an alley, walking on a cobblestone sloped path upwards. "You know, I don't think I've told Bradley about my change. Do me a favor and keep mum about it?"

He smiled at me, then placed his hand over his mouth. Mum's the word.

As we got under the ledge for the inns front door I slipped the ring off, pocketing it and slipping it to the chain inside. Fan followed me in and the noise washed over us as much as the heat. It was downright hot inside, the fireplace roaring as much as the patrons. A whole gang of dwarves were having a group sing-a-long, drunk as they could be without immediately falling over. Both of us pinned our ears back as we got close to the bar.

Bradley was still there, though his clothes were now a bit nicer. So was the bar, now that I'm here to notice it. Seems he's been doing some renovating. The man himself was on the other end of the bar and as we approached he came over, nodding. "What can I do for you?"

"A single room please." Fan's tail twitched beside me, at that.

"Sure, no problem. That'll be thirty silver, you get it 'til lunch tomorrow."

"No problem. Any local news we should know about?"

"Well, markets pretty busy these days. City guard might be hiring, if you're fighters. No offense, but you don't look like a fighter." Bradley give me a skeptical look.

"Never underestimate the power of flashing your opponents to distract them at a critical moment." Absolute deadpan delivery and I even managed to maintain eye contact with him doing it.

He doesn't say anything for a few seconds, then looks at Fan and nods. "Yep, that's fair. Don't break the bed, alright?"

I rolled my eyes at him and wound my arm around Fan's, headed towards the stairs with him.

"He knows you?"

"Mhm. One of the first people I met here."

When we get upstairs, there's only two doors and one of them is closed. Not hard to guess which room is ours. Slipping inside it's actually pretty cozy, the smell of fresh wood filling the room. The bed looked bolted to the wall, which made me chuckle under my breath.

"Wow, this is... really nice." Fan was actually looking a little impressed, inspecting the room, completely distracted.

While he was doing that, I took a moment to slip out of the blouse and skirt, then laid down on my side on the bed, just watching him. He seemed completely fascinated by the wooden joints of the furniture, which didn't use nails. After nearly two full minutes he turned around to say something to me and realized I was laying there naked.

"...How long have you been-?"

"Does it matter?"

"It really, really doesn't."

 

Saxali

She'd said her goodbyes, packed the things she'd brought with her and some things she'd acquired during her time in Durjak. The morning was crisp enough she could see her breath, the trees finally turning for autumn. The strangely long lasting seasons on this new world had thrown her at first. That first winter was hard. But she'd come to appreciate nearly eight moons of spring and summer, had developed a knack for plants, especially flowers. It was something she'd shared in common with Sammy, the little Skal that hung around Kuri. He'd taught her a surprising amount of herbology.

Her traveling cloak was heavy, the jacket and sweater beneath it a little lighter. Clasped at the shoulder, she had to push it out of the way to use her left hand, but it kept her warm and it had a lot of pockets inside. She'd been in love with the cloak since Noah first gifted it to her, worn it every winter and refused to give it up no matter how many times it was accidently torn or muddied up. She just had it repaired and kept it anyways. It had become her traveling cloak and although it was covered in patches of several colors and the bottom hem of it was nearly always stained with mud, she still loved it as though it were brand new.

Not many of the Tovari were keen to leave Durjak, but some just couldn't help but roam. The vast, open countryside this side of Skal called to them, now that they could access it. She felt the same, wondering what was over the horizon, but trying to wander would leave Noah waiting for her for months, possibly a year. Too long. Instead she was joining a caravan home, going the long way rather than having one of the lightsmiths fly her back.

She was sure she'd probably regret it at some point while traveling through Skal, but the wanderlust never left her and the trip would assuage it a little. She'd never traveled on foot through Skal - nobody did - and since the trade route had opened, she'd never had the opportunity to travel it herself. It was said to be pretty safe, although in Skal 'safety' is a nebulous concept, difficult to grasp and hold, slipping away like smoke in your fist.

[Protection]

It wasn't a clear word, exactly. She got a conceptualization instead, a string of memories of times in her life that her elemental had come to her defense. She smiled, shaking her head. "I'll be fine. There are too many of us for a serious threat."

[Reassurance]

It was always a little distracting, having the elemental communicate to her. Many preferred to develop some sort of signal system, sign language. The mental intrusion was something a lot never grew to become comfortable with. She'd felt the same way at first, but forced herself to stick with it, grow used to it. Now it was like a background noise, the way one might listen to somebody speaking to them when looking around. It had also given her an advantage in that she didn't need to externalize her elemental during combat. She could stay merged with it, channeling its attributes directly through the tattoos across her body. Faster, a little more versatile.

It helped that the cold didn't bother her much either, but that didn't matter to her, because she always had her trusty cloak. During the summer she wore it too, but her partner helped to keep the air inside the cloak cold, giving her a kind of walking air conditioning system. No matter the weather, she was always comfortable.

She could see that wasn't the case for everyone. Some of the people who had arrived for the caravans departure weren't properly equipped for it. It was fortunate for them that the spiders - refugees from Allasfere who Ainsley has purportedly rescued at one point - were such capitalists. They had become the local weaving guild and their work was both cheap and good quality. It helped when you made the silk yourself. It also helped that they were effectively soft armor, turning all but enchanted blades if struck. The spider silk was very, very tough.

She'd brought a chest of money with her, though it just looked like any other ratty old chest in her wagon. She hadn't told anybody what it was for, but she'd suspected something like this might happen. Once she joined the back of the caravan she pulled her jorka's reigns and brought it to a stop, then tossed it a chicken leg, waiting for it to snap it out of the air before climbing into the back of the wagon. The lock was pretty decent and she didn't want to keep the chest open for long, opting to grab one of the coin bags she'd prepared for the journey rather than rifling around with the coins. Locking it back up and taking a moment to check it over, she hopped out of the wagon, heading towards the spiders.

The first to greet her was fairly large. It's forward body arched upwards, almost like a 'taur, only the 'humanoid' bit of it was just more spider. They couldn't speak worth a damn, but a chalkboard next to it with some pre-written responses and a blank space covered that. It pointed to, 'hello traveler, how can I help you?'.

"I wish to pay ahead for the people in the caravan. Do you have enough to outfit everyone here?"

It took a moment to write swiftly on the board, figures and estimates, prices. Some fast arithmatic and an estimated cost. She nodded and opened the coin purse, the spider tittering and moving side to side a little in what she presumed to be excitement over the fact she seemed willing to spend so much at once. Pulling out a stack of platinum coins she put them down, only for the spider to make them vanish immediately.

"Your entire stock. Everyone who needs the warm clothes first, then whatever it left over to the rest, understood?"

It tapped on 'yes' and turned to its partners, clicking and dancing around as it relayed the requests. By the time she was headed back to her wagon they had begun to hand them out. Less than a dozen wagons, there weren't that many who needed the stuff critically so soon enough nearly everyone in the caravan had at least a silk shirt. Only the ones who chose not to take one went without, leaving extra for the rest. It would protect them, at least.

She didn't make a point of mentioning who had paid for it. Once she was back in her wagon she kicked back and waited. It didn't take long. Only one other wagon joined the caravan before they began to move out at a slow pace, letting the countryside roll by.

As they began down the ridge towards the bottom of the mountains she could see the plains Durjak lorded over spread out in front of them. Patches of woods broke up the grasslands, the trees feral looking and wild. Old growth. The grasslands themselves were dotted with thousands of small bushes, nascent trees, boulders. The trees had turned from solid green and gold to pale green, gold, red, even purple. Wildflowers were taking up the rest of the open spaces, fighting the grass for dominance in the plains. To Saxali it was quite beautiful and she was sad to be leaving it.

The caravans first night was pretty uneventful. The wagons had been drawn up into a circle and they'd spend a few hours around a campfire. With unfamiliar land they'd posted sentries, but nothing had approached them in the night.

By the fourth day of travel they had become more sure of themselves, anticipating arriving at the borders of Skal. The caravan wasn't fast by any relative means and anybody on foot could outpace the wagons at a jog, but speed was never the point. The wagons ensured that people could move while resting but the caravan was only as fast as its slowest member.

The fifth day, they were hit with a snowstorm. It was sudden, unexpected for months, still. They were forced to draw the wagons together, covering the jorka in quilts to protect them from the sudden cold snap. None had brought winter harnasses because winter was supposed to be six months away. Huddled with the others and the Jorka, seeing how many were wearing the padded silk clothes, she was glad to have spent the money. It wasn't especially comfortable, but nobody froze and the jorka were fine.

Traveling through the resulting blanket of snow was trickier. Without proper gear the jorka would freeze, lacking the specialized coats meant to protect them in weather like this. Though shaggy, it only protected them so far and they weren't a species that had grown up in cold climates. It grounded them, forcing them to wait and hope it warmed up within a reasonable time span. A double edged sword, it slowed their progress but also gave them time to cook and smoke meat, gather from the countryside and set up a couple yurts for the travelers to sleep in, with one for the animals.

It didn't take long. The temperature rose a day and a half later and soon they were underway again, the snow melting around them when they got moving once more. An hour into the trip and the snow cut off suddenly in a straight line going on for miles across the terrain. Where the snow ended, the land had changed.

A large patch of what had been grassland was now regolith. When they began to move across it they found it irritated their feet, forcing them to stop again and wrap the jorkas feet in cloth. The constant movement kicked up a dust which forced them to bind their faces in cloths. After one of them injured her eye from the dust, they wore goggles as well. Thankfully the regolith didn't last long.

When they finally reached the borders of Skal, the regolith gave way to old growth forest. Again with a weirdly angular barrier between the biomes, they passed into the trees which loomed overhead, blocking out the light and forcing them to travel in a sort of dark twilight where the sun barely reached them.

The first clan they met were the Setting Sun clan. They reminded Saxali of little bears with red fur and ringed tails. They were unusually friendly for Skal, even dressed like outsiders. Usually Skal didn't bother with clothes at all, or used them as status symbols alone. As their guides through the territory they seemed to relish showing off the land to outsiders, especially when they got to point out some particularly dangerous species.

Only once did the caravan come under attack, though not by raiders. A wave of pseudo-insects tried to ambush one of the Jorka and she, along with two others, were forced to use elementals to fight them off. They still lost the jorka - during the fight the insect-things dismembered it and began hauling it off in pieces - but prevented anyone else from being assaulted. The now animal-less wagon was hitched to another and its cargo tagged and dispersed across several others to lighten it for the poor animal that had to cart two wagons now.

She was tired by the time they got halfway through Skal. Most of the people in the caravan were miserable as well. The insects, the constant danger, needing sentries and sleeping in shifts had worn them down. The Setting Suns, to their credit, were doing their best to help. They even seemed to thrive on the pressure.

None of them expected it when it happened. The spatial distortion didn't begin on the ground, so they hadn't seen it. In the sky above them, a section of the atmosphere was replaced and the entire region blanketed in a dense, reddish-orange fog. Heavier than air it drifted down and spread across the forest - including the travelers - eventually thinning out and dispersing.

In the morning, nobody in the caravan could stop coughing. Most of them suffered an itch that none of them associated with a chemical reaction. It only lasted a few hours but was maddening while it did. When it passed, not a single person in the caravan could remember who they were.

 

Neil

His world was pain. Existence was pain. His first moments of awareness were agony, his body still broken. He found himself on a bier surrounded by cloaked figures. The room was stone, torch-lit, the fire an ominous green. That was probably a good sign because it meant that the people doing this were his. Probably.

The figures were chanting and next to him a man was thrashing violently, cut open as though being autopsied. He was chained down to the bier opposite him, his entrails arranged in a pattern which looked suspiciously like sygaldry. The table the man was chained - and now that he was looking, physically nailed - to was carved with runes glowing red with blood magic.

Neil hurt but he had a sense of what was going on, now. Sympathetic resonence feedback through the spell as whoever these people were forcibly drained their sacrifice's soul to re-empower his own. He ought to be dead, but he'd been forced back and now the victim would ensure he stayed there instead of just dying immediately. He could see parts of his own wounds closing, the stump of his arm turning into acidic fire as the magic rebuilt him nerve by nerve with no regard to how he felt about it.

As the man across from him died, he felt it as a final surge in his fingertips as his hand returned. The pain suddenly cut out and he found himself panting, trying to get up. It didn't work. He found he himself was bound in chains, now.

"What are you doing? Release me!"

None of them took heed. The chanting continued as they got up, moving behind him. He tried to twist around and see but the chains limited his range of motion. He could hear a scraping noise, stone on stone, then something... bubbling. He didn't like the sound of that.

Abruptbly the bier he was on tilted back and the chains went slack. Immediately he tried to get up, only to find that while his injuries were regenerated, he was still weakened. He nearly collapsed, only prevented from falling over by the cultists grabbing him, then dragging him forward. His head hung at first and he tilted it up, trying to see what lay ahead.

A chamber had been opened. They appeared to be in some kind of temple, a mix of stone and flesh. Organic growths were creeping their way into the corners, some of it fungi, some of it formerly people. He could see faces, make out body parts where the unwary - or perhaps unworthy - had been given over to it. The architecture was sharp, angular, almost aggressive. The bubbling noise appeared to be coming from what looked like a pool of blood in the next chamber.

As they dragged him inside he could see the bodies hung above it. Explained where they got the blood, anyways. He didn't think he'd be donating to the pool, there wouldn't have been much point in healing him in the first place if they were just going to kill him again. He didn't understand and his efforts to get up under his own weight didn't meet with much luck, his legs disobeying what he wanted them to do. He felt sluggish, almost numb, as though his limbs were half asleep as he tried to do things.

At the edge of the pool they stopped, holding him on a short ledge just over the blood. He couldn't really see behind him anymore, but it looked as though they'd been inscribing something on the walls in chalk. For a few moments nothing happened, save for him finally getting his foot flat on the ground. He tried to push himself up, only for the cultist holding him to casually kick it out from under him again, forcing him to drop.

The chanting suddenly stopped and he began to suspect he was about to find out what was going on. He could suddenly hear a sizzling noise, like meat being seared. When he turned his head he could see the chalk inscriptions at the edge of his visual field. They appeared to slowly be turning red.

Some kind of crucial point was reached and the red spell inscriptions explodes across the walls of the room, lighting up everywhere, showing writing he couldn't understand. Runes? Glyphs? Some school of magic he didn't know? He only recognized one symbol out of all the rest, having seen it before. When it lit up with the blood magic he understood.

Then they threw him into the pool.

He tried to scream but all he got was the blood filling his mouth. He didn't feel a need to breath. Only the need to scream as he thrashed and writhed. He could almost sense the memories he'd recovered being stripped away as the shape of his soul began to change and the memories that didn't fill him with burning rage began to seem a lot less important. His hand struck the ledge and he tried to pull himself up out of the pool-

A boot kicked him in the face and he was back in again.

Now though, his rage was the rage of somebody wronged, giving the spell an inlet. He tried to thrash his way back up but it drew him down deeper as he allowed the indignant rage he'd channeled for so long as a fear of appearing weak to flow through him without restriction. In that moment, if he'd gotten his hands on somebody, he'd have torn them apart with no more thought than a feral animal. Less amusement than a cat with a bird, but with roughly the same level of callous.

The wrongs he felt he'd suffered, the betrayel by Vera's hands when he'd made the stupid mistake of trusting that fuckmothering stupid whore, his mind being consumed by bad memories and a need to strike down his enemies. Strike down anything in his way. To get revenge.

In the moment that he broke, the pool began to drain.

He was barely aware of it. The blood felt like it was forcing its way down his throat, into his nostrils, his ears, up his ass, through his skin. He could see it coagulating and festering in front of him as something formed out of it. When it finally ended, the last of it snapping up into him or the battery in front of him, he fell on his face and the battery landed next to his hand.

Above him, the cultists did nothing. Simply watched, then left the room.

He wasn't sure how long he laid there. Everything was agony. He kept twitching, his limbs refusing to work properly. Pushing himself up on his arm would cause his arm to start twitching violently as he felt like something under his skin was shifting around. He felt as though his blood were on fire, his own heartbeat loud in his ears as a background thrum.

He could see the battery glowing weakly. Part of him knew it should be stronger. When the pain finally began to secede to a dull ache and his body began to do what it was told, he reached for it and dragged it over to him. Turning over onto his back felt like a triumph, followed immediately by new pains as his weight shifted.

Everything hurt so fucking much.

The pain didn't vanish but suddenly, it seemed less important than it had a moment ago. He pushed himself up off the ground and stood up, the lip of the pool a few feet above him. Rising up to it wasn't difficult. He found the sacrificed man still in place, the cultists waiting for him on the other side of the room.

Staggering a little at first, he stomped his way in there, scowling at them. "Which one of you festering fucking genetic mistakes brought me back?"

The one at the center stepped forward, pulling their hood back. A woman, one of the Sanrome. Her face and scalp were heavily flensed, ritualistically combined with tattoos. She had only one eye, the other a dark socket. A scar went from the corner of her mouth to it.

He stared at her a moment, letting the urge to rip her limb from limb surge, then even out. The fear ring was less intense, this felt far different, but he knew he'd be unbalanced and didn't follow through on immediate impulse. "Good job. You get to live."

He formed a gladius in his free hand and walked past her, ignoring the screams as the other cultists tried to break and run for it. It didn't help. He took his time killing them, making a game of it, forcing them to suffer as he'd just suffered. The woman watched impassively as he dismembered and tortured them one by one.

It took the better part of an hour until he was finally finished. When he finally was he wasn't using the construct anymore, having forgone it for simply ripping them apart with his hands at some point. He hadn't been paying much attention to how he was doing it.

"Your forces have fractured in your absense. The coalition is currently in the midst of a civil war. There is no sign of the assailent who defeated you. He appears to have gone to ground."

He spun on her when she began talking, but listened until she finished all the same. He didn't do anything at first, flicking blood off his hand as he tried to clear his mind enough to plan, strategize. After a few minutes he felt ready to try.

"Trying to stop them like this is futile. Who began it?"

"An outside force. Some sort of cyborg, they appear to be turning anything made of flesh they come into contact with into... more cyborgs. They're surprisingly persistent but seem vulnerable to certain kinds of magic. The Sanrome blamed the techno-priests who then attacked them for the insult, which kicked off everybody else deciding that both of them were now free to raid. It only got worse from there."

He clenched his fist, growling softly and pacing around, ignoring the entrails he was stepping in. "How many are still loyal to me?"

"Counting me? One."

"Why you?"

"You just slaughtered the others."

He made a quiet hnnnng noise at that. "Suppose we'll just have to scrounge up some more."

"You may find that difficult. I had hoped that performing the full ritual would give you a working battery, but that does not appear to be the case."

He held it up, looking at it. "Might be useful later. Vera's weapon, what happened to it?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, exactly."

"Vera has some kind of artifact weapon that's based on her color. She used it on that stupid ferret bitch at the temple. Fucked up everything. I owe her a visit."

"Her settlements were the first to fall. It's not really clear whether they all died, were taken or escaped."

"I'll improvise. There are enough mages on this fucking planet that somebody will be able to track her. Don't you fucking dare tell me there isn't, or I'll just start from scratch."

"I don't know enough magic to say. Your citadel is still there, however. Is there anything you require from it before we depart?"

"No."

"Then let us go."

She turned, opening part of the chamber wall with a gesture, the stone scraping as it was pushed aside. The only light ahead was the red light pouring off him and he focused on how much he hated Vera for fucking his plans up to strengthen it, providing a little ability to see as they walked into the dark together, the torches behind them slowly going out.

 

"Are you sure about this?"

Standing with Fanto'mi at the gates between Tovalon and Tovar, the sky was overcast above. It had stormed here, recently. Parts of the sky were still an ominous blue-gray, threatening more rain. The occasional crack of distant thunder set the mood nicely. The gate itself, wrought from local stone, wasn't anything to speak of in terms of complexity. It was a vertical slab hung on a rope with a wheel, a wheel large enough it apparently required a jorka to move it. The big shaggy thing had taken a few sniffs of us, then gone back to napping.

We were down in the bottom of a small valley winding through the feet of the mountain range separating Tovalon and Tovar from each other. The ground here didn't seem so friendly to plants. The grass had gotten yellow, then scarce as we got closer. The ground around the gate itself is barren and it's obvious the gate was once part of a fortification, its ruins framing the pathway up to it. Despite part of the fort having collapsed, Tovari still manned it, watching the border to make sure it wasn't invaded or... whatever they do. Honestly, I wasn't that concerned.

Under the dim sky the torches surrounding the gate were throwing some light, casting the whole area in a mix of blue shadow and yellow light. It made my environmental shield stick out all the more, despite having turned it down as much as I could. Both of us were wearing light traveling gear. While he'd gone for long sleeves and pants, I went for shorts and a tanktop. He looked experienced while I looked like a newbie, or maybe a groupie or something. Misdirection.

"No, not really. But I've been putting off visiting here for too long, I think. This whole country is basically a question mark to me and it's where Mina originated from. Besides, I still have her orange ring. It still has some charge."

"I'm not saying you can't handle yourself. But this place, it's not gonna be what you think. It's not nice."

"You don't have to come with me, you know."

"If I don't, you'll make mistakes and out yourself without too much getting done. They don't like outsiders. If they don't attack you on sight, it'll be because they have an agenda. If they do, they'll only treat you with any kind of respect if you can force them to. You'll be made to fight, made to show your hand. You think you can handle yourself without constructs?"

"The ring isn't limited to those. It has other, subtler uses. Perfect co-ordination, stamina, a lack of a need to sleep in the short term, healing injuries, I don't get dizzy, don't get sick, can exist in any environment and I can store things in the rings subspace pocket. If anything, it'll just look like I have an artifact and I can fake it just by making a construct glove or something."

He gave me a slightly side-eyed look. "You don't look like the type to be... cunning. I don't mean that in a bad way, I just didn't think you would be so fast to go straight to deception like that. That's not our way, but you might do better in Tovar than I thought."

"Uh huh. Just stick with me, okay?"

When the jorka eventually began to move and the gate lifted, we strode through, walking fast. No flying for this little adventure and without mounts, it was feet or bust. Not that the company was all that bad.

On the other side of the gate lay a large paved space with a clearly marked stone path down, stark contrast to the Tovari side. Everything on this side looked meticulously maintained. The braziers were burning as though attended to regularly, but no guards were in sight as we followed the path down to where it eventually became a semi-paved road leading upwards to a ridge framing the gate inside a geological bowl. We had to climb out to reach the plateau above.

At the top was a small bunker, low to the ground and partially dug into it. We could see a fortified entrance leading down. It reminded me a little of the terran bunkers in Starcraft. Gray, boring, shaped in the most pragmatic way possible. There were slats that they seemed to be able to open, suggesting the presence of ranged weapons. That got confirmed as soon as a guard stepped out of the bunker.

They looked to be wearing body armor, but it looked a little more like traditional plate armor than the genkits pseudo power armor. Instead of mail it was some kind of weave between plates that reminded me of backpack straps. The armor itself was inlaid with a little spellwork, something I took a quick scan of. It didn't seem related to the rune dictionary I got. In their hands was something that looked like it had been taken out of sci-fi. It was clearly a gun of some kind but the barrel was... weird. It had some kind of rotational wheel spinning three white rods around a central, more machinized rod. White energy discharges occasionally connected the wheel rods to the middle one. I had no goddamned idea what that thing was supposed to do and I wasn't sure I wanted to.

"That's far enough, outsiders. Explain yourselves and then leave."

"We're travelers from the west. We've come to have a look around."

The guard spit, looking disgusted. Then he began to raise his weapon-

-just in time for a spear of ice to impale him from the ground, lifting him up and backwards, hanging there and twitching as he died. When I looked to my right I found Fan's feet covered in ice, his eyes looking dull.

"You alright?"

"Probably ought to secure his weapon." He sounded disappointed, perhaps in himself. I did walk over and pick up the weird gun thing, though. It had stopped spinning and dimmed when the guard dropped it but picked up again as soon as I picked it up and I could feel a strange... pull down my arm as it 'charged'. I wondered what the thing even did.

I got my answer a few seconds later when the bunker opened again and a second guard charged out. I snapped the gun up and fired before they could get their bearings. The shot hit the guard head on, causing them to stumble, flash white and then explode backwards, painting the inside of the bunker with a mix of blood and entrails. It was like a bomb had gone off in the mans chest, a shaped charge pointed back into the bunker.

I held the gun away from myself and looked at it with a certain level of consternation. They were giving these as standard issue weapons to guards?

"That's... ugly." Fan grimaces as he comes into line of sight of the remains. "I was going to suggest taking a look inside but that... no. Let's not do that."

"Yeeeeah." He hefted the gun, moving to subspace it-

Alert! Power reserves not high enough to store object.

-and then blinked when it failed. Huh? "That's weird. Ring says it can't stash the gun, it would take more power to do that than I have left in charge right now. You know why that is?"

"No. Maybe it's the nature of the weapon. Tovar are obsessed with weapons, a whole culture of collection and sharing and fighting over them. It wouldn't surprise me if these were custom or artisan pieces."

"Damn." Still, pretty powerful. With a scan of the hanged guard I fabricated a holster for it, then flicked what I thought was the safety and caused the spinning rods to stop and fold inwards, letting me slide it in. That done, I winced at the guards. "Seems wrong to just leave them here like this."

"More trouble to stay. C'mon, we should cover some ground."

I couldn't really argue the point. Hopping the stone path we left the road, passing into the open yellowed fields of dead grass. The trees here seemed to be past autumn, already stripped of leaves or mostly bare. There were bushes, underbrush, but it seemed hard somehow. As thought it had had to fight for its place in the sun. None of it offered any effective concealment, not really.

We moved parallel to the road but out of sight of it when possible, keeping an eye out for anyone moving along it. With a few minutes to sit down I took the time to fabricate us some clothes, copies of the guards uniforms.

"What's this?" He looked surprised when I tossed his to him, then began to strip down. "I mean, I'll take any excuse to see you naked, but..."

"Change. It's what their guards looked like, we'll stand out less."

"Ah." He nodded, then began to do the same.

Soon enough we were moving again, though night time was creeping up on us by now. What had been dim daylight darkened now to barely visible. Moving to lower ground we took partial shelter under a ledge of rock, providing only one wall against the wind, but better than nothing. Pulling a camoflauged shelter out of the ring we struck camp and dug in. It didn't take painfully long, but we couldn't risk a fire, so in the end we both ended up inside the tent, practically buried in blankets. I had a lot in the ring.

By the time night fell the dark was oppressive and we stopped looking outside of the tent, closing it up. I turned my environmental shield up a little, giving us enough light to see each other by while we settled in.

"That thing with the ice spike was surprisingly ruthless. Where'd you learn to do that?"

Laid out together I could feel him tense up, then relax. "I first used it for taking down things bigger than I am. I don't really make a habit of attacking people."

"I figured, that's why it surprised me."

"He was going to shoot you."

"I'm not convinced he'd have had any luck with that."

I could barely see the outline of his face as he shook his head. "I'm pretty sure those weapons are at least partially magical. They don't... we sort of merge with elementals. They bind them, use them like tools. The elementals hate it but they do it anyways."

"The weapon is a bound elemental?"

"Probably. Or something like that."

"How do I free it?"

"You don't. You'd have to unwork whatever spells they've put on it. Destroying the vessel just destroys the elemental along with it."

I sighed, resting my head on his arm. "It's never easy, is it?"

"You'd know better than I would." He ran his fingers through my hair, a surprisingly relaxing gesture. "I still think you're crazy for coming here. I'm probably crazy for following you here. What do you even expect to find here?"

"Answers, maybe. About Mina, about the orange lightsmiths. The fact there's apparently a bunch of them. Who these people are. The guns alone suggest they could be powerful allies if they're not completely evil."

"What if they are?"

"Then we... show them... how to not be completely evil?" I shrugged. "I haven't gotten that far yet."

"Aisling, I... I understand what you're doing. I do." He sounded hesitant. "But I'm not sure you understand what it is you're signing up for, here. These people are brutal. The stories of the things they did to our grandparents..."

"You've never fought them?"

"No. We've avoided each other for a generation. Why would we talk to them? They're vicious barbarians."

I leaned up and kissed his chin. "We'll only know the truth by trying."

I could practically feel him working to not argue with me about it, but soon it was forgotten as we drifted off to sleep.

 

When we approached the town, we did it on the road, walking openly. The uniforms would make us stand out even more if we weren't on it. The town itself appeared to be a walled one, reinforced with wooden beams. The gate was much like the one that had let us in with a lifted vertical slab as a solid portcullis rather than a swinging door. None of it was flourished. The architecture was pragmatic, gray, boring. The guards at the gate wore the same uniforms as us.

The one on the left stepped forward, weapon pointed away from us. "State your intent."

Fan took point. "We're not from this version of Tovar. Parallel universe."

"Walk to the adjutants office at the end of the road. Wait for him." When the guard spoke it sounded almost lifeless, monotone. Apathetic maybe? Like she was bored. She waited and watched us pass before moving back to her post, then dismissed us entirely.

It was a very strange mix. Once inside the town we could see regular folks, most of them wearing some kind of uniform. My first thought was 'uniform' but as we got further in, I began to realize that they just kind of all dressed the same. It was like encountering a race out of a low-budget TV show that all wear the same clothing. Each person had small signs of individuality, usually with hair or jewelry or something, but generally the cloth cuts and styles were very same-ish.

I noticed that we were getting odd looks, too. Our hair didn't match the locals and my eyes glowed a faint blue. They seemed to be hanging out together among racial lines. Cats were standing with cats, canids with other canids, so on and so forth. There also seemed to be less variety in the animal types I'd seen before. Perhaps the others just didn't live in places like this?

It wasn't difficult to work out where the office was. It was the only building with torches in the front and faced the street directly. Instead of a direct entrance inside it had a small gate like the one at the town wall, giving it a defensible courtyard. There were wooden platforms for fighting over the walls. Even after we got inside the architecture was bland and boring. I was beginning to feel like I'd entered the high-res version of a low budget video game.

Fan spoke quietly beside me as we looked around. "Not big on flourish, are they?"

I shook my head silently in agreement as we approached what could only be a secretary. He looked like a guard, but he was standing at what seemed to clearly be a help desk. When we entered he straightened up, a looking of slight concern as he furrowed his brow. "Hello. Why are you here?"

My turn this time. "We arrived from a parallel universe. Unfamiliar with this version of Tovar. It's different."

He stared at us a moment, then nodded. "You have a bound elemental?"

"No. Ancient relic. Allows me to fight better in melee distance and keep a hidden arsenal."

That got him to raise his eyebrows a little. "A hidden arsenal? That's... strange." He frowned at the last word. "And you?"

"Merged with an ice elemental."

"Like the nomads?"

"Ours didn't entirely leave. The practice still stands in some regions."

He hmphs. "Well, as long as you manage not to be too crass. You have local currency?"

I shook my head. "Shouldn't be a problem. I can hide things besides weapons. We have assets."

"Unacceptable. What assets?"

"Gold, high purity. Platinum, high purity."

"Show me."

I slipped a hand into my tunic and pulled a cookie-sized brick of gold out of subspace, turning it in my fingers a couple times before handing it to him for inspection. Once in his hand he reached into his desk and pulled out a small hammer, tapping it and nodding. "Impressive. Do you know the technique your smelters used for this?"

"I do not."

"Disappointing. We're unable to purify gold to this degree. Heartening to know it's possible, though. Once I report it I'm sure a research team will be dispatched to work on the problem." As he spoke he turned away, leaving the gold on his desk and muttering quietly as he opened a lockbox, taking out a sack and opening another. Doing some counting back and forth, he closed it up and turned back to us, holding out the bag. "Our local coin is the Crown. That slab is worth about 500. The coins are enchanted, touch one to any coin you recieve and they'll verify each others authenticity." Once I took the baggie he opened a drawer and held a compass out to Fan. "Proceed north-west until you come to the walls of the city. Do you have any mounts, vehicles or golems?"

We both shook our heads.

"You may acquire one at the northern gate. You'll see the shop just before the wall. Good day." And just like that we ceased to exist. He sat back down, going back to work. Turning around, Fan and I walked out in lockstep, glancing around as we left the office.

The northern gate wasn't far, we'd walked most of the way there already. Leaving the office we swung a left and took the corner, walking down the bend in the road towards the gate. Even from there we could see the 'shop'. It was the only thing different about the entire street. Several vehicles were lined up outside it and as we got closer I could see they resembled speeder bikes. Some kind of hovering truck was parked next to them and across from them, what could only be described as a giant, mechanical cat. It was 'asleep', or turned off. The distinction wasn't very clear.

Coming into the lot we could see the shopkeeper, an older woman from the looks of it. Her hair matched her clothings gray as she walked out to greet us. The overcast sky only made it worse, making everything look like a black-and-white film, almost. The only hint of color was the vehicles themselves and the dust that had accumulated in certain corners.

"You've come to buy a transport?"

"That depends on the cost."

"A very reasonable one. What kind are you looking for? Speed? Agility? Strength?"

I took a moment to think about it. "Hmn. Agility, I think."

The woman nodded. "Very suitable for hunting, but if you wish to hunt elementals, you may wish for speed."

"No, nothing like that. The cost?"

"Hm. I would recommend one of these for you, each." She gestured to the speeder-bike styled ones. "They have a good rate of turn and a small passive shield around the vehicle. It should protect you from impacts if you lose control."

"Interesting. You didn't answer me, though."

"A hundred crowns each."

I winced internally, but then reminded myself that it only meant getting more gold exchanged later. "Done."

"This way, then." She led us back to the overhang she'd been sitting under, to a small table with a lockbox. While Is sat down to count out the coinage, Fan took some time to look around, studying the vehicles. Especially the big cat.

The old woman watched him, grinning a little. "Like that, do you? That's my own design, that one. The elemental I bound to it sputtered out a long time ago and I never did get around to sticking another in there. Be a pretty good town guardian if it came down to a fight, though."

"Yes. I imagine it would be formidable. Aisling?"

"No, you cannot have the giant mechanical kitty." I'd almost finished counting out. "I don't think we have enough for it anyways."

"I like how you think, but no. Have you ever driven anything like this?"

"Mmhm." I nodded, the old woman watching me. "Don't worry, we'll be fine."

Once I'd paid I got up, taking a quick look around before getting on the blue-gray bike. Fan took the gray-orange one. I looked around for something like an on switch while the old woman watched. "It's on the steering bar."

I nodded and the bike thrummed to life, lifting slightly beneath me. It was like a heavy, wavering, bass heavy hum running through me as whatever engine it used ran. I took a moment to experimentally tap the controls, the bike jerking forward. "Does it incline upward?"

"Red button. Pull back when you use it. Only goes about three heights, though." Presumably of people. So about 20, 25 feet. Not terrible. "Don't try to scale the walls with it. That would be stupid."

"Yes, obviously." Plan to scale the wall - failed. Oh well. "Fan?"

"Yeah, I think I'm good to go." He'd wiggled his bike out, turning it. Moving ahead I followed him out as we let the bikes cruise slowly out of the lot, turning them to go through the gate.

"That went a bit easier than I expected." It was as though I'd activated some kind of automatic curse. Just as we passed through the gate, a thundering crash got our attention and we brought the bikes to a stop, turning to look.

The giant mechanical cat was getting up, eyes glowing - no, burning - orange-red. It stalked out of the gate, glaring at us. "Invaders."

Then it began to charge us.

I could see Fan beginning to tense up as I got off my bike, waving at him like 'nah I got this'. I could feel the vibrations of its footsteps as it barreled towards us. I could also see towns people spilling out of the gate to either back it up or watch.

Transition. Transition. Transition. Transition. Flight, reinforce the environmental shield!

It probably looked a little confusing, to an outside observer. I began to flicker around erratically, moving a little closer to the cat each time, causing it to break it's run. On the last flicker I darted forward and then simply punched it in the face, using the ring to hit it hard. It probably looked a lot like a flash step technique out of anime right up to the point where I decapitated the golem and crushed its face.

The impact spun the thing, throwing it off its balance and sending it sprawling. Half its face was ruined but it didn't seem out of the fight, getting back up opening its ruined jaws to use some kind of flamethrower effect. Another transition and I was beneath it, uppercutting into its belly.

Destruction.

The pulse of energy eviscerated it and whatever containment the woman had hobbled together in the few short minutes gave out. The blue energy pulse was lost in the greater explosion of the golem, tearing it in half. I could hear Fan yell out but he stopped once he saw me walking out of the golems corpse, the smoke giving me a screen. I made a show of coughing and waving in front of my face, as though trying to clear the smoke, then broke into a light jog back towards Fan and my bike. I gave him a grin as I righted my vehicle, mounting it.

"What the hell-?"

"Told you I don't need constructs. I can just pretend to be an incredible melee fighter and not tell them where the power comes from. Let's get out of here before they decide on round two, yeah?"

He nodded and kicked in the acceleration just in time for the woman to get close enough and begin screaming curses about the destruction of her prized invention.