It's amazing how fast flying can become mundane. Thrilling and amazing at first, it quickly becomes just another way to get around. As useful as transitioning is, when I asked about what happens when it's blocked I suddenly found a much less pressing desire to use it constantly. I like all my atoms remaining in place here instead of the Plane of Hope.
Heh. Some lantern SI's never think about that possibility, especially the ones in non-DC universes.
I glance over at Elise, flying in a laying position on my back with my hands behind my head. She's all focused on her reading, which is fine. Before she got that ring I liked her, it's true. Intelligent and focus-oriented towards whatever her goals are. She'd have made a good fit for my own ring color, I think. One of my long term goals here is to forge a second blue ring as part of my journey towards mastering the blue light and originally, I was going to give it to her, but with the green ring in play it may end up going to Samazurasha or Kurishalia instead. Which is fine.
Still, having a full partner now makes it a lot easier, doesn't it?
I look away from her. I don't want to hurt her and I do like Elise, I like being around her. She's a great personality. I'm just not sure if I'm a bigot for not being into her physically or if she's just far enough outside my norm that learning to would take a little work. But frankly what the fuck is normal for me, anyways? I'm a glowing blue man who can change shape at will, fly, fight monsters. Normal fucked off down south a long time ago and is sending me 'wish you were here' postcards in the mail. Maybe I should just try to let go of any considerations for what normal is and just go with whatever happens?
Heh, 'Normal' is overrated. Embrace the strange and wonderful.
"Interesting. You don't consider Pluto to be a planet?"
"Don't... don't start. That argument had been going on for awhile when I found myself here, I'm pretty sure."
I hear Meiou Setsuna is still salty about it in
some universes...
She dismisses the HUD she'd been using to browse and rests her hands in her lap. "Ainsley, I know that. Ren literally gave me orders to be your tactical brain. So we're gonna figure out how to get to this thing safely, or we're not going in at all, because frankly you're too valuable to lose."
Good to see both of them showing that hint of affection. I doubt either of them have missed those flashes, assuming they've learned Empathic Vision.
"Oh please, paper is way too valuable for now. I'd use a stick."
"That's not any better!"
"It is for me?"
True, you need something a
bit sturdier to get through environmental shields...
"Like the phoenix, I'll rise again.
To protect my family and defend my friends.
Let all who stand against us fall,
With this light I'll lift us all."
The green personal battery - which looks a lot like two cones merging into a spherical core with a handle on top - vanishes back into Elise's subspace pocket and I drop the construct box around her protecting her from space as she recharged. Since I did my ring first I'm content to take a moment to let her acclimate as I study what's below us.
An unusual tempo to her oath. But gratifying to see how strongly she feels about it. Fun to have a partner to cover your back when recharging, too.
"Okay, this is what we do. Since its your ring leading you here, you go in but I follow you at a minor distance behind. You take point and I'll cover your back and try to make sure nothing can properly trap you from the inside. Hey, did you scan any of yellows drones?"
"Yuh huh. Haven't built any of my own yet though."
"Sucks. Would've been helpful to have here. Welp, lets go plunder the space castle. Ahoy, matey!"
Ah, min-maxing, genre-savvy
and high-spirited. Got to love that combination.
I pass back through the shield and pull Elise with me. There's resistance now where there wasn't any before and it takes effort to push through it with her, but after a moment we're through to the other side and I let go of her. We fly down towards the structure together and in front of us she creates a green ablative shield, puzzling me for a moment. We lower down towards what looks like an entrance and she extends it out and around us in a shell of hexagonal panels.
"What are you doing that for?"
"The moment you walk into a structure is usually the same moment ambushes happen or defenses kick in."
I sense a touch of personal experience there. Some interesting bits of history for her to share one day...
Then it stops and blue light flows out from the sigil, out from the center of the dome above us. We have just enough time to marvel at it before a pillar of blue light slams us both into the floor!
I can't move. Too much pressure, it's suffocating. Then it's suddenly gone and I can't help but gasp, rolling onto my side. I can hear Elise doing something similar, pushing herself up.
"I haven't been pushed into the floor that hard since I got back together with my ex. The fuck was that?"
Oh, myyy. [/takei] Yeah, she's no teenager, is she? With everything we've seen from her, I'd bet she's closer to her thirties. If nothing else, being second-in-command of the expedition confirms that.
"Beats me."
"It kinda just did."
"Smartass."
I love their interplay. Takes a
compatible couple to banter that easily.
"Oh great, now what the hell is going on?" I form construct armor and produce a pair of railgun constructs, augmenting my armor suit as Elise does the same.
She braces as glowing orange enemies begin charging into the room!
"Avarice calling!" Here comes Agent Orange!
Both of us brace but there's little point as they split off from the door, surrounding us. Some of them are recognizable. Skal are among them and I can see a Tovari but most of them are species I don't recognize.
They're lining up around us, hovering above the floor. One of them strays a bit too close to a wall and the second it touches one of the blue lines it spazzes out and flicks out of existence as though disrupted. Elise is on edge, tail puffed up behind her and I can't say I disagree very much.
At least they're not especially tough, eh? I doubt that was permanent, though.
When the girl walks in, it's obvious who their master is. Mocha skin, black hair, bright yellow eyes, black tail and ears. Tovari. Or looks like one, at least. I'm not sure if I should assume every ring user is a reflection the way yellow was, considering how Elise got her ring. When she strides into the room it's with an imperious, demanding air about her. Looking around the room as though we ought to be bowing or something, looking down at us as she tilts her head back. Her tail lashes once, then she looks up at the central battery behind us.
Nothing says she didn't
take the ring from another person, you know...
"Oh, just an interested party. I'm not here to steal that or anything. Point of fact, here you're rather powerful. It's why we're having this conversation here instead of that quaint little town of yours. It's nice there, you know. I rather liked the food."
"You went to Durjak?"
Ouch, that's
got to set him worrying. Knowing someone this powerful could have just walked into town without any warning...
"Yes, yes. About that." She gestures up at the constructs. "Do you like them? They're the reason that I'm not part of their little group. You see, when you destroy one of my construct-lanterns, it respawns from the ring. It uses a little power, it's true, but it's negligible. What happened with Nemesis was his version of a test."
"A test?" I look over at Elise as her environmental shield cuts out for a second, leaving only her suit to protect her. I make a gesture at her and I can see her visibly try to reign herself in. "He thinks of that as a test? Well I hope he fucking liked it because he lost his whole testing area."
See, children,
this is why you have backups for the environmental shields.
She sighs. "Because he actually wants to work with you and wanted to make sure you wouldn't be dead weight the way Engel was. He tried working with Engel but Engel had other ideas on how we should be going about this and wasn't much interested in the big picture. Nemesis threw him through the same gauntlet he tossed you into, gave him the same escape opportunity and Engel let himself get shot. The whole thing was a big miscalculation on his part."
"So he decided to do it all over again?"
Lord Fear: "It seemed like a good idea at the time?"
"Well, that sounds like you should give me the short summary here and now."
"And ruin the surprise? Oh honey, you really need to teach this boy about foreplay."
"It's a work in progress."
Oh, yes, she's staked her claim. Just a matter of how long it takes Ainsley to realise it...
She clicks her tongue. "And you're making this a condition of your accepting the proposal?"
"Yes. We will only agree to meet if they approach and immediately disarm themselves. My oath that they'll be granted safety while there."
Sensible. And declaring his willingness to play by the same rules is a fair mark of character.
That gets a low growl from Elise, making me wince internally. Mina just shrugs and smiles. "Or maybe not." She snaps her fingers and the construct lanterns flow into her ring. "Do try to behave in the meantime. Oh, and this?" She gestures at the battery. "Don't try to move it. It's less accessible out here and I was only able to breach the shield because when you pulled green glitter here through, you weakened it. You'll understand why it's so important at the meeting. Ta-ta."
In other words, keep your central battery's location under your hat. Presumably bad things happen if it gets damaged...
"Not if we don't put them in the same room. I'll work it out." She waves and then zooms out, leaving me with the central battery.
Now, where to stash this so Mina won't find it again?
Admittedly, she probably only realised where it was because she was either tailing you, or your poking it sent off quite the energy flare...
Emil Tychorus Luther was is not happy.
Standing in the middle of a vast warehouse space, the other infantry around him are lined up in rows, standing relaxed, talking to their teammates. So long as they don't break formation or act disruptively to operations there's no reason to treat them like drones, so they don't. Friends are making cracks at each other, reassurances given, promises made. The few who are theologically inclined among them say quiet prayers but religion isn't something the Zerosi ever really picked up readily and tended to be a good indicator of who had immigrated to Zero instead of being born there.
Ah, Elise's father, setting out to find his little girl? Hope he's thought to bring along spare portal parts, just in case.
Even having Elise, the moment he knew of her, the decision to be involved in her life had never been a decision at all. If Senya had fought him over it, he'd have dragged her through legal hell until he had access to his daughter. That hadn't been necessary and it'd been the main reason he'd agreed to come back to Zero at all, a path which had only led here. If he'd known back then that it would lead to Elise joining the ZMI in his footsteps he probably would have rethought the decision.
Okay, that's the sign of a
good father right there.
"I know you'll find her, Emil. I used to regret it didn't work out with her. Until..." Emil nodded. "She's resourceful and intelligent, she'll be okay. She might be a huge goofball but that's just the Senya in her. She's half you, too." He chuckles. "You're gonna get there and find her ruling a small country or something."
Emil smiled a little. "Knowing her? Either that, or we'll find a giant crater. Do me a favor, Charles?"
...'Or something' indeed. Boy, is daddy gonna be shocked.
"Alright, listen up!" The conversations die out and every person in the room focuses on him. Backs straighten, formations tighten up and the mech pilots sit up and get into position. "This will probably be a one way trip. You knew that coming down here, you've been told time and again. But this is it! This is the last chance! If you're gonna back out, say so now because the moment that gate turns on our lives here are over. Whatever's on the other side of that gate is gonna be it for us. If you want out, say so now."
Nobody says a word to him as his eyes sweep the room. He smacks his tail on the deck behind him and nods. "Good. Button up, get ready." Behind him the gate is beginning to hum, a sound steadily increasing as he's been talking. "It's time to go get our fucking people back."
A good father
and a good commander. It's not surprising none of them turned back here...
He'd fought, begged, bribed, pulled favors, leaned on old guilts and burned every bridge he'd had to in order to be here himself, leading this effort. He'd alienated old allies, pissed off old friends who couldn't talk him out of it. His life in Zero was as over as if he'd died. But it didn't matter.
He was going to get his daughter back.
And if there are gods, they'd better prioritize helping anybody in his way because they'll need it.
Boy, is he in for a surprise... A happy one, but
boy, is his jaw going to hit the floor...
I'm sitting on one of the ledges of my keep, overlooking the valley below. It's a nice evening and with three more days of waiting to do I figured I'd take the time to relax. This particular ledge is a favorite of mine since it overlooks the garden below and has the balcony leading to my living space behind me. I let Sammy go a bit crazy with ideas and he came up with a large outdoor cooking space and dining area with plants lining it. I've gotta admit, the little guy has a knack for this kind of thing. It was mostly me and Elise doing the actual building but the ideas were all his and it got him obsessed with learning woodworking so that's keeping him busy now that the interior rooms are done.
A nice chance to cool down before things get real hot, eh?
Kuri on the other hand has seemingly decided to move in, something which endlessly amuses me. She seems to think it's her role to make sure we're all fed properly and taken care of. I asked Sammy about it and apparently she's always been like this and had to cut back on it when she became a shaman, mostly due to how seriously everybody at home takes shamans. Here, she's getting to be casual with us in a way she can't back home with other Skal and seems to be running it to the hilt. Personally I think she's just having fun coming up with new recipes.
Some girls just
live to mother everyone.
"What is a doctor?"
"A healer based in science rather than herbalism or magic. There's different levels of medical care, doctors are at the top. They examine people and decide what the problem is while medics and nurses apply the treatments the doctors recommend. The genkits have one doctor and a bunch of them are trained as medics. They know humans too, so..." I shrug. "Elise apparently has a degree in psychology and told me to relax today so I can focus better when I need to, so that's what I'm doing."
More glimpses of her hidden depths, eh? I bet he still thinks of Elise as a kid, though...
"No." I shake my head. "I want to save people, uplift people. But I'm still just one person. Even with Elise's help I can only do so much and if I lose sight of that, I'll wear myself out or destroy myself expecting more than I can reasonably do, then be crushed by my own inability to do everything."
Kuri looks thoughtful, then nods slowly. "I suppose that makes sense."
"Which is why I want to train you with the blue ring."
That'd be a definite way to break your ability to use a blue ring, honestly. Good thing he's smart enough not to have a single point of failure in things.
"Well, yes. The ring didn't have much on its memory when I got it. One of the things it did have was instructions on how to build another ring. It takes a long time and I need to be focusing my hopes very intensely to do it, which means meditation on the blue light while I work. But overall I plan to create another blue ring in time and training you before it's finished will save quite a lot of work after it's done."
She looks gobsmacked. "I... Yes, I accept. How do we begin?"
I bet it'll be a lot easier to make new blue rings than any other, too...
"One of the things I've found is that if I'm hoping really intensely, the ring responds to it. I can call it that way, I did it before when I first spoke to the shamans. You have to be feeling hopeful to use the ring, so try focusing on all the good you can do while you have it, the lives you can s-"
The ring flicks from my hand to hers, the blue glow surrounding her and causing her to gasp.
"-ave and... yes. Excellent." I grins at her. "How does it feel?"
Honestly, anyone
else, I could see being
worried about how readily it went to her...
She considers for a moment, then raises her hand in a gesture of habit, but the ring already has ideas of its own, it seems. It begins forming constructs of other Skal but I can't tell who they are because they all look kind of same-y to me.
"Kurishalia. We are so proud of you. This path is yours and you can do far more good here than back home with the clan. Reach high."
She looks awestruck, then nods and... hugs the construct Skal. I'm a little confused, it's the first time I've seen the ring do this and I'm not sure what's going on.
"I will, mother."
Oh, my. Now that's an impressive display of compatibility.
I jink to the left as Kuri fires a crossbow at me that fires like a machine gun. She's never seen a submachine gun or automatic rifle at work before having met us but she and her brother learn so quickly that we're beginning to wonder of the Skal are a race of short-lived savants. The larger the star, the shorter its lifespan, that kind of thing. It's amazing and the first thing I did when I got back with the green ring was scan her but we still haven't worked out what part of her brain is letting her learn like this. The lack of a genetics lab or any kind of AI-driven mainframe network makes it impossible to do a full genome analysis except with the ring but I have no idea how to deal with the results and our geeks aren't quite skilled enough to exploit it.
Maybe the Skal are just naturally more
emotive than other races? Which makes me worried if one gets one of the '
selfish' colours.
A short transition forward and I'm underneath and inside of Kuri's personal space, firing myself upward through her guns dead zone in a tackle. I don't want to attack her, not really. This is about learning mindfulness and defense. Her railguns are dissipating as she reacts far faster then I expected her to, flipping forward as I come up at her and impacting my shoulders with her hands. My upwards momentum becomes her rolling momentum as she flips past me downward while I go upward, a maneuver which takes a bare half a second. I couldn't have done it. Wow.
It's like tag. Tag played at the speed of
thought.
Immediately we both drop the constructs, the grin on my face matching my tail, which won't stop. "I win, woohoo!"
There's clapping from behind me where Ainsley has been watching us, sitting on a rock. "That lasted way longer than the first time. They weren't joking about you learning fast, Kuri."
But there's still room for improvement, clearly. I
don't doubt that Kuri
will make those improvements.
"How am I going to do that?"
"By using the green ring, of course." I grin at him, pinning my ears back. "C'mon, you don't wanna try being forceful for once?"
"Not usually my style." He chuckles. "I suppose it's not a bad idea in the long run, though. Kuri?"
It would take some getting used to, though. So good to get started now.
Ainsley hm's. "I think I agreed to it mostly for two reasons. One, it gives me an idea of their personalities. I didn't banter with yellow much and I get the impression looking back on it he was kind of hamming it up. I don't know red at all and all I know of orange is a five minute conversation. It's not enough and knowledge is power." He shrugs. "Besides, there's three of them and two of us and they're clearly better with their rings within the bounds of their use. More practice. I'm not ready for a direct confrontation and saying no might have caused one."
Know your enemy.
Especially when you're outnumbered.
I shake my head. "I don't really like it." Especially Mina. Inviting yourself to hang out after showing up making implicit threats? That's not friendly behavior. Carrying a weapon to defend yourself is one thing but having a bunch of minions follow you around is another. I can't tell what Ainsley is thinking but he better not be going along with this because she's humanish and has a set of perky tits. I'll smack him if that's it, I really will.
Claim
soundly staked.
"I know. But if there's a bigger problem than just them we need to know about it and there's too much we don't know, too many questions they might be able to answer. Which is why we should have a backup plan for when this inevitably goes sideways and we have to fight all of them at the same time."
I phew internally in relief at hearing him say that. At least he's trying.
Like you said earlier, you're his tactical brain. Sometimes you've got to smack him with the clue-by-four... But it is gratifying when he works it out for himself too.
He might not be a genkit, but he's really trying. I've never really known a human so readily willing to change their entire way of thinking the way he does at the drop of a hat. I just need to get him to stop worrying so much about physical attraction. Pfft, humans.
Maybe we can find him a nice human girl or boy to bridge the gap? Oh well.
Existential threats first, homebuilding second.
Hopefully he catches on
before the violet ring shows up. Could be awkward if
they have to do the aforementioned clue-by-four smacks.
