After a brief back-and-forth, Glory Girl suggested meeting on the roof of the Forsberg Gallery. Her reasoning was that the building is big enough that nobody will be able to overhear us from the ground, it does not have roof access from inside, so we won't be interrupted, and there is no surveillance system, so nobody will even know we met.
...I'm not really sure how she knows that last one, but I get the feeling it's an "ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies"- type situation, so I plan to just hold my tongue.
Getting out of school without being seen turned out to be much easier than I anticipated. Out of curiosity, I checked the roof access, knowing the door to be locked.
Indeed, as I approached the door, I found a decent-sized chain secured with a sturdy-looking padlock. Additionally, one of those cheap external deadbolts is placed just above the handle.
As I take in the scene, my brain short-circuits for several seconds as I try to figure out how, exactly, the chain prevents me from unlocking the door.
Eventually, I come to the conclusion that it does nothing whatsoever. Just to check, I twist the knob and, yeah, it's unlocked. Rolling my eyes, I undo the bolt and quietly exit onto the roof, the ballast stones crunching under my shoe soles.
The door was doubtless the creation of some senior who wanted to smoke on the roof. Knowing Winslow, it's also doubtless been that way for a decade, at least.
Anyway, I give Glefe's sensors a check to confirm that, yeah, there's nobody else on the roof, and nobody is looking from any of the surrounding buildings. Then, in an alcove between an air-con unit and a raised skylight, I set up, and rocket straight up a thousand feet or so.
After all, it's just like that one cop said: nobody in this town looks up.
I set off towards downtown at a fair clip, the mana-generated windshield flickering into existence for the first time outside of image training as I accelerate.
That bit was a fairly new development; one of Glefe's exercises to get me used to the additional partitions was a timed, long-range flying course, so I needed to maintain a heading while focusing most of my attention on something else. I'd complained of the slip-stream as I'd been flying, and Glefe mentioned that most flight spells intended for cross-country use had some sort of allowance for shielding the caster from the effects of supersonic flight; something that Fligerflosse, intended for tactical mobility on a battlefield, lacks.
That's another whole bucket of worms; apparently, the only thing stopping me from breaking every window in the city with a sonic boom is that I've never had enough of a run-up outside of training.
Anyway, after a quick discussion, we determined that a modification to Fligerflosse would be more appropriate than me getting used to an entirely different flight spell used for travel. So, now I have a teardrop-shaped windscreen which gets generated whenever I exceed about 60 miles an hour.
As I approach the Forsberg Gallery, Glefe's sensors immediately spot a single contact pacing back and forth on the roof. That must be her.
As I slow to a more appropriate speed, I call out in greeting. "Hey, Glory Girl!"
She immediately ceases her pacing and looks up at me, offering a weak wave. "Hey, yourself." She jokes, but without enthusiasm in her voice.
My feet alight on the tar-paper, and I take in the perturbed expression on her face. "I guess you didn't want to talk because you had good news, huh?" I observe.
"Yeah." She says, her frown deepening. "We should probably sit down for this; up there work for you?" She nods at the roof of a square ventilator cover jutting six feet or so from the otherwise flat roof.
"Sure." I say, and the pair of us fly up and plop down beside each other.
We sit in silence for a while. I watch as Glory Girl, several times, opens her mouth as if to speak, before seemingly thinking again and closing it again.
I'm content to let her collect her thoughts; clearly, whatever it is she wants to say is important.
Finally, quietly, she begins to talk. "You know about the Unwritten Rules, right?"
"Generally, yeah."
"Well, there's something of an… extended version. It's only really followed by Heroes, but think of it like a… social contract, that says how we should treat other heroes we might not know personally, in a few situations."
I narrow my eyes at the slightly older hero.
"The problem with them being unwritten, of course, is that people don't really know about them unless you get sat down and told about them." Glory Girl continues. "One of the things it covers is the sort of things you should do if you come across the civilian ID of another cape." She looks at me meaningfully.
I… can't really say I'm surprised. "So you did find me, then."
The other cape simply nods. "In this situation, the protocol is clear: I unmasked you; I'm expected to unmask to you. But, well, you already know who I am, so that doesn't work."
I nod, gesturing for her to continue. She inhales sharply, and I can almost see her brain working, trying to find the right words.
"You put your trust in me, so it's only fair that I reciprocate. Before I do, though, I have to impress on you the importance of what I have to say: this has to do with civilian IDs; Protectorate IDs. It's a federal felony to discuss this stuff. I'd ask you not to act on this if I didn't know you wouldn't listen. I'll settle for just asking you not to tell anyone about this, ever."
"I can do that, but why tell me at all if it's so dangerous for you?" I ask.
She sighs. "Glory Girl wouldn't. But as Victoria? I couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I didn't."
Now, it's my turn to sigh. Clearly, whatever this is, it's big, and it's eating her up inside. "If that's what you think, then lay it on me."
Glory Girl closes her eyes and inhales. "Taylor, Shadow Stalker's name is Sophia Hess."
…
…
"Motherfucker!" I shout. "That's why she kept getting away! They were covering for her!"
Waiting to let my raving fade, Victoria continues. "Shadow Stalker came into the Wards as a probationary member; she was caught heavily injuring an Empire member, and she agreed to join rather than go to Juvie. Her PRT probation officer apparently viewed her 'rehabilitation' as quite the feather in his cap, and succeeded in keeping her out-of-costume activities from the PRT at large in order to protect his own reputation."
"So it wasn't the whole PRT then?" I ask, almost desperately.
Glory Girl looks almost sick to her stomach. "About that... The PRT took control of the police investigation into your assault. Their main concern is making sure it doesn't become public knowledge, ever. That will probably mean quietly dropping it."
"So, they'll just get away with it?" I squeak.
"Shadow Stalker won't." Victoria declares. "If they think she can still be rehabilitated, she'll be transferred to Los Angeles, to attend Alexandria's 'Summer Camp'. If they don't, she'll be assigned to a Quarantine Zone. In either case, she'd probably have preferred Juvie."
"But the others…"
"Will probably walk, yeah." She affirms my fears.
I deflate, burying my head in my hands as tears begin to well in my eyes.
This always happens. I'm always the one to pay for others' mistakes. Why does it always have to be me?
I sniffle, then begin to sob. Glory Girl wraps an arm around my shoulder, pulling me in.
"What should I do, Victoria?" I manage to force out.
I feel her chest fall as she sighs. "I think…" She trails off. "I think that anyone who tells you there's something you should do is lying. But, I can tell you what I'd try to do in your place, if you'd like?"
"Please."
"This world's a piece of shit, Taylor. The Endbringers, the Slaughterhouse, Heartbreaker, the Empire… Villains are running rampant, and some of them even call themselves Heroes. Given power, they use it to enrich themselves, and with every sin they break the world just that little bit more in the process. In the face of all that, what can we do? We do what we can, that's what. When we see injustice, we right it. When we see evil prevail, we fight it. And if the whole world's against us? We dig our feet in and stand our ground. That's what it means to be a hero. You asked me what you should do? I think you should be a hero."
We sit there in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of the city continuing around us as my tears fall.
Victoria offers no more words, but somehow it feels like that strong arm around my shoulder is enough, for the moment, at least.
After a while, my tears have dried, and I feel ready to respond. While I can't say I agree with her dramatic speech 100%, it did do its intended task of getting my mind off the past, and onto the future.
"Thank you, Glory Girl." I eventually reply.
She looks into my surely still-bloodshot eyes. "You can call me Victoria, Ritter."
"Then, Victoria, call me Taylor."
In a much more comfortable sort of silence, we sit for a while longer. At least, until Glefe buts in.
[Alert: Magical activity detected, unknown distance north of your position. Suspected Lode Pearl activation.]
I sit up stock still, surprising Victoria.
"What's wrong?" She asks.
Say what you will about her somewhat ditzy public-facing personality, but her voice immediately drops into a business-like cadence.
"Trouble, maybe. North of us." I waffle a bit before continuing. "Back me up?"
"Of course." She replies, slowly floating into the air.
I look down, picking up Glefe from where I'd left her leaning against the aircon unit. "Let's go be heroes." I state, determination filling my voice.
Glory Girl and I set off with me in the lead, but her setting the pace. As it turned out, she was a significantly slower flier than me.
[What are we looking for, Glefe?] I ask, as we go.
[I detected a major power spike, which lasted approximately 15 seconds before fading. As I said, I think a Lode Pearl activated.]
[So, nothing else? Do you have any idea where?] I press.
[Negative, the spike overwhelmed my sensors; I don't have any ranging info.]
I frown before turning back to the other hero. "Glory Girl, I want to take a look around; let's get above the roofs?"
She replies with a thumbs-up, and I climb a few hundred feet.
With the city laid before me like one of those toy rugs with the roads, I scan ahead for anything amiss.
After a few seconds, I find something.
[I've got a smoke plume on our 12, say, a mile or so out.] I report to my partner.
[It was a big surge; a small fire wouldn't be out of the question.] Glefe muses. [It's worth checking out, certainly.]
"Breite Bereichsuche" I intone, a single iridescent sensor orb popping into existence by my hand, before rocketing off into the distance.
"Whoa- What was that?" Glory Girl shouts, and I slow up to allow her to approach.
"Another set of eyes. You see that?" I point a finger into the distance, pointing at the plume of smoke on the horizon.
"See what?" Victoria asks, squinting in the direction I pointed. "Oh, smoke?"
"Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's where we're going, but I want to make sure."
"You're good to keep going?" She asks.
"'Course." I reply, and we shoot off once again.
About a minute later, my sensor arrives at the location. I'm looking at a single-story warehouse, deep in the docks; ABB turf. I watch through the drone as a few of the Christmas-themed gangsters flee from the front door, as thin grey smoke begins to waft out of a broken window. Inside, the situation is much less clear. Screaming and sporadic gunfire echoes out, but the only thing the sensors can make out is a single active linker core darting throughout the building.
Then, suddenly, a dim shape bursts out from one of the sheet-metal walls like a cannonball, trailing smoke in its wake. It dashes across the street before disappearing between two buildings.
In the map room, the feed reverses, pausing on a still image of the creature as it passed the road.
It's generally humanoid in appearance, but upon even a cursory examination, all comparisons to a typical person fade away. Most obvious are the limbs; far too long for the length of the torso, almost looking like a badly photo-shopped image. Its skin is an ugly grey with hints of blue, deep wrinkles creasing nearly every surface. It ran in a quadrupedal gait, almost like a great ape, and its hairless head contains no visible eyes.
"Damn." I curse, causing Glory Girl to look at me. Rather than respond verbally, I pop up the image on a holographic screen, causing her to start.
"This fucking thing came out of the burning building. I'm going to fly ahead, head for the smoke, and then follow the sounds of battle."
With my declaration, she leans in and inspects the photo, paling.
"Will you be following in behind?" I insist, breaking the other hero from her reverie.
Still shaken, Victoria nevertheless nods, and, happy my backup is still coming, I head off like a shot.
[Alert, Linker Core locked.] Glefe reports.
My breath hitches. [Is it like the cat monsters?]
[I believe it is under the influence of a Lode Pearl, yes. ...My lady, I believe it is a transformed human.]
I gasp. That thing was a person? [Can it be reversed?] I desperately ask.
[Scanning… It's possible. The transformative effect is being actively powered by the victim's linker core. If you knock it out, I may be able to sever the connection. On a mage, that would be a horrific injury, but since he isn't using it anyway...]
[That's a plan, then. Confirm that Training Mode is on?]
[Affirmative, my lady.]
I streak towards the monster, which is still being shadowed by my Breite Bereichsuche drone. I watch as it plows straight through the roller door of another warehouse.
Screaming erupts from inside, and I realize that, to my horror, there's a small squatter encampment within.
Pouring on the speed, I accelerate towards the thin metal roof, crashing through at high speed. "Panzerschild!" I cry, one of my triangular arrays snapping into existence just as the beast lunges at one of the squatters. As I rocket in, I watch as the monster bounces off my shield like a rubber ball.
Moving way too fast to stop, I instead pivot around mid-air and plant Glefe's butt into the monster's side, eliciting a snap of breaking bone and a spray of black blood against the cracked concrete floor. Having successfully arrested my momentum into the monster, I turn to the more human occupants of the warehouse.
"Run!" I call out, urgency in my voice.
The squatters don't need to be told twice, scattering for the building's exits about as fast as I've seen anybody move.
"Just us now, you ugly prick. Let's see what you've got." I taunt, succeeding in getting the thing to lunge at me, rather than chase any of the fleeing homeless.
"Lichtbajonet!" I shout, the manablade snapping into life just in time for me to narrowly dodge what I now see is a taloned hand, my enemy managing to turn my square strike aimed at its shoulder into a grazing hit on its flank with its own evasion.
I immediately follow up with a Gewehrkugel shot, but the homing effect just isn't strong enough; the fiend twisting its body unnaturally to fit itself through the spread.
"Slippery one, ain't you?" I call out once again as I reset my position. It responds with another roar and a lunge, which I pirouette around.
Clearly, this isn't working. All that means, though, is it's time to get creative. I wind up heavily for a big swing, and close in, causing my opponent to sidestep my obvious attack-
"Panzerschild!" I cry, igniting an array that the monster's evasion crashes directly into. Knocked off-balance, there's a moment of scrambling limbs as it tries to regain its footing, which I take advantage of by launching my actual attack, carving a line of glowing red down its chest, as training mode melee attacks do.
Darting up to evade the inevitable follow-up strike, I reset and try for the same combo, but my opponent responds with another wild lunge at me, forcing a parry with Glefe's haft.
Yeah, figures that would only work once. I continue trying to hem it in with speed-cast shields and Gewehrkugel shots, but I can't seem to make much headway, now that it's wise to my tricks.
The tide of battle changes once again, though, as a blonde missile crashes through the roof, sending the enemy into the ground with enough force to send spiderweb cracks through the ground.
Wasting no time, I loose a spread of bullets, which this time mostly strike true.
The beast roars, twisting from its attempted follow-up attack on Glory Girl into a dodge, but I'm already in motion, flying so low the metal parts of my Knight Armor spark along the ground as I set up an attack on its belly, bullets pelting in all the way.
Running it through with my blade, once I run out of body to slash, I pull up into a circular path around the torso, continuing the cut all the way. Terminating once I get directly above it, I slam it down at spearpoint into the already-cracked ground.
I feel as the Lichtbajonett spell's mana consumption spikes sky high, and with a grimace, I redouble my supply.
After a few seconds, something… snaps, for lack of a better term, and the mana flow returns to normal.
[Target neutralized. Attempting disconnect; please do not move.]
I let out a sigh in satisfaction as Glefe's gem begins to glow as she sets to work.
"Holy shit! You fight like that?" Glory Girl exclaims, landing beside me.
"I seem to have made a habit of attracting the wrong kind of attention, yeah." I reply, shrugging.
[Completed, my lady. Stand back.]
I raise Glefe back up to a more neutral resting position as I take a few steps away, gesturing for Glory Girl to follow.
"Two steps back, come on." I firmly say, when she doesn't immediately begin to move.
Before she's even able to vocalize a response, the limp body of the monster begins to glow a brilliant crimson, motes of light appearing all around and beginning to drift up towards the ceiling. Finally, Glory Girl recognizes the danger and flies up alongside me.
As this happens, the body seems to… deflate, almost like a balloon having the air slowly let out of it. Once the light fades, what's left is a naked man, who looks like he's in his early 20s.
"What the fuck?" Victoria exclaims.
"Wow, that worked… a lot better than I was expecting, to be honest." I say, observing the scene.
--
It doesn't take long for the shock to wear off, and we're back to work. Victoria, though she clearly wants answers, nevertheless busies herself checking on our guy, while I keep an eye on a pair of people cautiously approaching the warehouse from across the street.
"He's alive, right?" I ask, as Victoria kneels next to the no-longer monster.
"He's breathing and has a pulse." She replies, doubt clouding her voice.
[Glefe?] I ask.
[His linker core is disconnected from his body; it will require several days at least to heal, during which he will remain unconscious. There should be no long-term health consequences.]
"I think he'll be fine." I relay, and Glory Girl looks up at me, narrowing her eyes.
"What makes you say that?"
"The explanation will take too long, so call it a hunch."
It's then that our visitors make themselves known. "Good, because we'll be taking him."
Victoria tenses, but I simply look up, betraying no surprise, because I had none.
Yep, they're definitely ABB foot-soldiers. Well, that, or they're cosplaying nautical navigation lights.
"Let me guess, a friend of yours?" I ask, but the silence stretches without an answer. It doesn't take a fortune teller to guess they want to take their fellow somewhere safe, and quickly running the numbers brings me to the decision that forcing a confrontation over it is probably unwise.
Still, though, I'm not willing to just hand him over if they're not going to provide the care he needs. So, I press on.
"He might be out for a few days, and he'll need food and water until he's back up. Wherever you're planning on taking him, can you provide that?"
"We ain't telling you shit, pig!" One of the men shouts.
"I'm not asking where your safe house is, I'm asking if he's going to fucking die if I give him to you." I snap back.
The two share a look before the one who had shouted responds, more softly this time. "He's our boy, we'll take care of him."
I sigh, doing one more mental calculation, before replying. "Then I suggest you hurry, the PRT will be here soon. Oh, and do you mind passing on a message?"
"...What's the message?" One of them asks.
"This is bigger than the cops-and-robbers shit we usually play at. Get the word out that, if you find a weird red rock, you leave it the hell alone, or else this is what happens."
"...I think we can do that." The other replies.
Victoria rounds on me. "You're just letting them go? And what the hell is happening?" She demands as I usher her away.
"Being in a gang isn't illegal, Glory Girl. And I'm pretty sure getting turned into a monster isn't, either. To answer your second question, we still have to find the thing that did this to him, and I'm pretty sure I know where it is. Do you mind if I explain on the way?"
"I guess, but you'd better give me some answers." She scowls.
I fly back up, and exit through the same Taylor-shaped hole I entered the warehouse through. I re-cast Breite Bereichsuche, and send a sensor off toward the burning building in order to confirm my suspicion, as I wait to be joined by Victoria.
I don't have to wait long before she's by my side, and I proceed to follow my drone at a Glory Girl-compatible speed.
"So, answers." She firmly states.
Yeah. She needs to know, but how the hell do I describe this without also explaining magic?
"Okay, so short version: there are these things, they're called Lode Pearls. They… collect energy, and then when they have enough, they enter a stand-by mode. In that state, if they are interacted with, they dump all that energy into whatever did the interacting. I don't know what they're supposed to do, exactly, but they seem to like mutating things into giant monsters. Like, those cats that got Dauntless? I'm pretty sure they were normal cats that activated one of these Lode Pearls."
"So, that sounds bad..." Victoria seems to waffle, but pushes on. "But what, exactly, are they?"
"Would you believe me if I told you they were artifacts from an ancient society of wizards who live in space?"
She snorts humorlessly. "Good one." She narrows her eyes.
"We'll just call them 'Semi-autonomous Tinkertech', then, because I honestly don't know more about them than what I've told you."
"Okay, well, how are you keeping them stored if they're so dangerous?"
"One of my powers is... a spatial pocket. In the short term, I'll be keeping them there, where there's no risk of them activating. Longer term, the source I got most of my information on them from; the Tinker who discovered them, will be studying them, and working on a way to either neutralize their threat, or figure out a way to store them that won't put anyone else at risk."
"And what makes this tinker a better option than the PRT?"
I sigh. "Can you honestly say that the PRT, given access to one or more Pearls, won't try to weaponize them? You've seen where that road ends today."
Victoria clearly wants to continue to argue, but can't quite articulate what it is she wants to say. I'm happy to let her think as I set about finding my target.
While we talked, my drone had managed to locate the signature of a Lode Pearl, which is, as I suspected, inside the still-burning warehouse.
"Sorry to interrupt, but our suspect is in there, in case you haven't guessed." I say, gesturing to what is now an inferno.
"We can't go in there." Glory Girl states.
"You can't go in there." I correct. "I'll be fine, as long as it's only a few minutes."
"If you say so…" She replies, unconvinced.
"Just trust me on this, okay? I just need you to watch the perimeter, make sure, like, Lung doesn't turn up while I'm inside, yeah?"
"Sure, I can do that." She nods, clearly not quite satisfied but also not wanting to press the issue, given the circumstances.
That's a shame, because I don't know if there's anything I can say that would legitimately satisfy her curiosity.
Shaking my head and putting off those thoughts until after the Pearl is recovered, I fly through the hole the monster made to exit.
The warehouse is an old structure; old enough that the roof joists are made of wood, and by now they're totally engulfed in flames. In fact, a few joists and the tin roofing they supported have collapsed onto the floor…
And yeah, that's where the Pearl is. Further triangulating the position as I move around, I become fairly confident it's trapped below one particular beam. Frowning, I grasp it, the still-smoldering embers on its flank nothing more than a warm glow to my Knight Armor's barrier.
I grunt, managing to shift the heavy beam a few inches to the side. As I reposition myself to take another swing at moving it, Glefe chimes in with unwelcome news.
[Alert: Unknown Aerial Mage inbound.] She reports.
Wait, what?
I... really need to get this moving, now, huh?
Screw subtlety, I think as I cast a Gewehrkugel bullet, launching it at the center of the beam, and launching a fusillade of still-burning splinters across the warehouse floor. The beam, though, is broken in half, and I find the lighter load much easier to move.
As I work, though, I watch in the map room as the unknown contact approaches, Glory Girl flying up to meet them.
Okay, Pearl. Come on, where are you? Ahh, There!
Buried in a pile of embers and ash is the Lode Pearl. I hurry over.
[Glefe!]
[Jawohl!] She replies, the gem swiftly disappearing in a shower of light.
With no time to lose, I zip out of the building, Glefe leveled at the newcomer, ready for a fight.
My eyes lock on those of the hooded figure. They're clothed in a form of Knight Armor-equivalent that I don't recognize, consisting of a black hooded cloak over a red, full-sleeved leotard, criss-crossed with black belts, looks down at the building, and up at me, before flying away at moderate speed. Unfortunately, the shadows cast by the long hood over their head obscure their face, and Glefe's sensors aren't up to the task of peering through the murk.
They incline their head slightly at my appearance, but rather than the fusilade of shooting spells I'd expected, they simply zip off, the glowing violet of her mana discharge lingering in my persistence of vision.
Glory Girl briefly tries to give chase, but they prove too quick. I realize a couple of seconds late that an autonomous Breite Bereichsuche pattern might better follow the other mage, but the salvo is just too thin, and the search comes up empty-handed.
"Damn it." I curse to myself. At least we got the pearl.
I fly out in front of Glory Girl's field of view, and make an 'Up' gesture to try to indicate that our quarry got away.
After a couple of attempts, she seems to have gotten the picture.
"Any idea who that was?" I ask of Victoria once we regroup.
"No idea; don't suppose you have a stalker, or something?"
Giving the idea some thought, I wonder if they belonged to some mage faction trying to press-gang me. If that were the case, though, they would have sent a lot more than just one mage, and they would have been better at staying undetected.
"No, they-"
Glory Girl cuts me off. "She."
"She?"
"Yeah, the costume was pretty tight, and unless it's a guy padding his chest, that was a woman."
"Okay, well, she approached the building that the Pearl was in, and then immediately broke off when she saw us coming." I state. "I think she was after the Pearl, but didn't know we were there."
"I don't suppose she's with the Protectorate?" Victoria asks, but her scowl betrays that she already knows the answer.
"They would have sent a recognizable hero. No, she is a third party."
"Well that's just great, isn't it?" Victoria mutters. "I don't suppose you're willing to work with the PRT on getting these things before… whoever else is looking does?"
I sigh. "I'll be honest, Victoria? Before you told me about Shadow Stalker, I didn't trust the PRT not to blow themselves up with the things. But now? The idea of someone like Sophia getting their hands on the things…" I shudder. "No. They have to get tracked down, and it has to be me who does it."
Her expression softens. "I figured you'd say something like that. I... am going to have to report this to my family, you realize. If nothing else, so that none of us get turned into freaky horror movie monsters. Do you have, like, a picture of one I could show them?"
[Glefe?] I ask, and two holo-screens pop up, showing the picture she'd already sent to the PRT, as well as a slightly-grainier image from her sensor feed of the one we'd just nabbed. Once again, Victoria starts, but less so than last time.
"This is what they look like. I can text these to you if you'd like?"
"That'd be great." The other hero replies, and I jab a holographic button with my finger, eliciting a buzz from her pocket.
"Oh!" She exclaims, clearly not ready for it to happen so quickly. She flips out her phone, hitting a few buttons on the keypad. "Yeah, those will do just fine. If, uhh, we find any of these things, I'll let you know, alright?"
"I- ...thank you, Victoria, I'd really appreciate that." I finally reply. I'm pretty sure they won't be finding any, as last time I checked, nobody in New Wave has any sensory powers, but I guess it's the thought that counts."
"It's nothing." The blonde hero replies, lowering her voice as she closes in. "And Taylor? Don't be a stranger. Remember, you're not in this alone."
I inhale, tears beginning to well up in the corners of my eyes. "Thanks, I'll… try to remember that."
We just stay there for a while, though the distant din of sirens makes me acutely aware of my time limit.
For the moment, though, I just enjoy being in the presence of someone who, despite everything, I'm pretty sure I can call a friend.
---
CONFIDENTIALITY: ORANGE / PRIORITY: FLASH
BEGIN MESSAGE
Timestamp: 1187Z 1/4/72
From: Midchilda/COMDIMNAV
To: Commanding Officer, ARTHRA
Subject: New tasking
Background Information: Following the neutralization of the Book of Darkness, a TSAB listening post was established on Unadministered World 97. One week ago, this facility detected a magical signature consistent with a Lost Logia Activation Event. The signal, however, was dimensionally distant and strangely distorted, suggesting the involvement of heretofore unknown phenomena in the Dimensional Sea. Yesterday, the facility detected a second LLAE, with the same dimensional effects observed. The listening post, whose staff numbers 3 enlisted and 1 officer, none of whom are combat-rated mages, is not equipped to independently investigate these readings.
Orders: ARTHRA, as the only TSAB warship to in Sector 97, is to immediately suspend your current objective, and proceed to UA97 at best speed. Upon arrival, utilizing ARTHRA's sensors, you shall investigate the unusual readings detected by the listening post. Your Command should assume Condition Yellow: if a Lost Logia is encountered, neutralization attempts should only be made if ARTHRA and her crew are not put in undue danger.
Follow-on objectives: Sensor data on the anomaly, and, in the case that a Lost Logia is located but a neutralization attempt cannot be made, information on its behavior should be reported on this downlink. Until that time, reports shall be expected daily at 0800Z.
Good luck, and good hunting, COMDIMNAV sends.
END MESSAGE
CONFIDENTIALITY: ORANGE / PRIORITY: FLASH
Eyes flicking over the screen as they had repeatedly over the past few days of transit, Chrono rubbed his temples, mussing his spiky short black hair in the process. "It's always UA97", he thought to himself, "the Jewel Seeds, the Book of Darkness, unreasonably powerful mages, and now whatever the heck this is. The entire area must just be cursed to make the most insane things happen with regularity."
"Ready to jump, sir!" The navigation officer's call rings out over the bridge.
"Thank you, Lieutenant." Chrono replies, before thumbing a button on the armrest of his captain's chair, causing his voice to ring out throughout the ship. "All hands, prepare for Dimensional Transfer."
Waiting the customary fifteen seconds or so, he assures himself that his order has been followed and utters, "Yamaguchi-san, take us through."
"Aye, sir." The helmsman replies, throttling up the Arthra's thrusters as a disk of normal space appears just before the bridge's viewscreen, a single island of stability in the maelstrom that is the Dimensional Sea.
It grows and grows until, with a gut-churning lurch, the Asura pops back into realspace, in a high orbit of the blue planet he's come to form so many memories of.
"Alright, sensors; pop up scan, how do we look?" Chrono calls out.
"Standby… Scope's clean, sir. Just expected broadcasts on EM from the locals."
"Excellent, configure for and run that search protocol we briefed. Nav, where are we?"
"Looks like 23 klicks off-target. I think that's a personal record!"
"It's why we pay you the big bucks, Allex." A grin creases the usually-serious Admiral's features. "Engineering, any luck on that ACS fault?"
"'Fraid not, sir. Transferrence wasn't bumpy enough to get a good reading."
"A shame, but you'll get it eventually. Mary, how goes the search?"
"...Dimensional Sea in this area is seventeen flavors of fucked, sir. I don't know what's causing it, but I'm getting echoes of UA97; hundreds of them."
"Hmm…" Chrono thinks back to his Dimensional Geography class in the academy. It's not uncommon for Dimensional conditions to be such that a sensor pulse can loop back in on itself and generate false readings, but that would cause one or two echoes, not hundreds. "On screen?" He asks.
The Sensor Officer punches a short button combo into her terminal, and immediately the image of the world is replaced with a mirror of her console, showing the array of planet-sized contacts stretching out of range.
"They're arrayed in three axes; usually echoes need five or six to form a loop." The Admiral observes, rubbing his chin.
"It is really weird, sir. No clue what's causing it." The Sensor Officer agrees readily.
Chrono comes to a decision. "If we assume they're real contacts, how long would it take you to pin down the location of one for a jump?"
"Ballpark… a couple of minutes, I'd say?"
"Do it. Ensign Jacobs, will you fetch the Enforcer? We may need her experience."
"Right away, sir!" Jacobs says, with a salute.
Before he even makes it to the door, it slides open of its own volition, revealing the form of the Enforcer, her blonde twin-tails billowing behind her like a cape.
"Oh, Fate, I'm glad you're here." Chrono sighs.
Enforcer Fate Testarossa-Harlaown pauses, shooting a quizzical look at the Admiral. "Is there something the matter, Chrono?"
"I'm afraid there is, Fate. Lieutenant Aiz is getting strange sensor readings off UW97, and we suspect Lost Logia involvement. As the ranking expert aboard, would you mind taking a look?"
Fate frowns. "Of course, but what…"
"That." Lieutenant Mary Aiz gestures at the main viewscreen, and the still-growing number of planet echoes populating it.
"Hmm…" Fate hums, taking in the data. "To do this, our scrying arrays would need to be actively jammed. I'm not aware of any known Lost Logia that would have enough knowledge of a Midchildian array to do that, but it's not out of the question..." She taps her chin with an index finger. "...The only way to prove definitively that these readings are the result of jamming would be to go to the dimensional coordinates of one of these echoes."
"I've already directed that, actually," Chrono replies. "Mary, how long until we can jump?"
"Right… now, sir. Pushing coordinates."
"Excellent. Lieutenant Wallace, plot us a course?"
"Brachistochrone trajectory laid in, sir. I'm showing a travel time of… two-eight seconds in the Sea."
"Very good." The Admiral replies, before once again thumbing the intercom button on his chair. "All hands, stand by for another Dimensional Transference; reemergence in two-eight seconds."
As they wait, the bridge crew busies itself with preparing for the jump.
"Helm, match pointers and take us through."
"Aye, sir." The reply comes immediately, and the ship begins to maneuver, the telltale hum of the inertial compensating arrays increasing in pitch with the movement.
"On course, on speed; initiating transference… now." The Helmsman reports, flicking open a button cover on his right joystick with a thumb, and jabbing down on its red face.
Just as before, a disc-shaped rent in space appears in front of the Arthra, and with a stomach-lurching sensation, the ship slips back into the Dimensional Sea.
After about ten seconds, Aiz pipes back up. "I'm reading expected movement from the contacts. If it's jamming, it's damn good, sir."
"Thank you, Lieutenant." That would imply the contacts are, in fact, real, but there's no time to ponder the implications of that before it's time to jump back.
With a pop, the ship reemerges into real space, and Chrono begins calling out orders.
"Emily, another pop-up scan, please."
The order is not repeated.
"Lieutenant Aiz?" The Admiral tries again.
"On screen." She commands, rather than replying, and the main viewscreen shifts to reveal a planet.
Unlike UW97, though, this planet is barren: grey, irradiated soil allowing only shadows from the local star to mar its surface. Much more concerning, though, are the six huge, continent-sized crystalline slug-like beings draped over its form; continental crust shattered under their no doubt immense weight.
"What the fuck is that?" A voice is heard over the bridge, yet nobody acts to reprimand the speaker.
Chrono is the first to recover. "Helm, maintain distance from the planet. As low a V-rel as you can manage without firing up the impulse thrusters."
"A-aye, sir."
"Sensors, give me a scan of those things, as high fidelity as you can manage with passive-only observation."
"Aye aye."
"Amy, prep a message back to HQ. Include logs of all our sensor scans since we arrived, but don't send until we're back in the Sea."
"Wilco, sir."
He then turns to Fate, staring dumbstruck at the viewscreen. "I don't suppose you have anything, Fate?"
The woman shakes her head, not taking her eyes off the strange crystalline beings. "Whatever did this? We aren't going to be able to take care of it ourselves. I think we're going to need a lot more ships, Chrono."
The Admiral couldn't agree more.
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