For a moment, they locked eyes. Neither of them moved, they stood and looked at each other across the street. Then the lady continued talking to the other ladies in her company. She stood with others dressed in the same uniform but blue.
Lantern keepers, a organization formed during the wars, unlike the military police and enforcers, these were exceptional practitioners tasked with extermination of the tarnished. They were chosen after surviving one of their brutal trials, which was about to be held here at the university. Ethan's sister was part of the lantern keepers, even so he never expected to see her here.
'What is she doing her?'
He asked himself as he quietly walked away, he never even bothered to answer Noir. There wasn't much of an expression on his face but Noir could tell that this encounter stirred something in him. They walked in silence. Both of them didn't say a word to each other as they arrived at campus.
They parted ways, Noir stood and watched as Ethan walked back to his dorm. But a few steps later he stopped and turned.
"I'll come by later in the evening."
Noir with a less enthusiastic expression waved.
"And thanks for the breakfast, I really enjoyed it." He added as he turned to walk away.
Noir smiled and continued to walk over to one of the main entrance of the library.
•••
It's evening, crimson light sips through the clouds above. Nothing out of the ordinary. Students finishing up and heading out, some going back to their dorms while others went to the workshops, library and labs to brush up a couple of things.
Even Ethan had plans as he left his class. He headed towards the building on the left side of the administrative building. As he walked he flipped the golden coin in between his fingers, suggesting he was thinking about something.
As he made way to the entrance he saw some of the blue coats( the lantern keepers in blue uniforms.)exiting the building. Students would gaze at them with admiration. It was an honor to be one and it earned you respect. But he wasn't charmed.
He made his way into the building's left corridor. It was well kept, as it should be. This building was huge, with corridors left and right. An uninformed person could get lost in a second. As he made way deeper the hallways where lit with lanterns ,flickering as he passed by. No outside light reached here.
For what seemed like 5 minutes he arrived at a door with a label that read, "Mechanical Animatronics Club". He then place the coin in his pocket as he reached for a bunch of keys in his right pocket, took one and unlocked the door.
It was a mess, nothing seemed to be in place, he took a long hard look at everything and then sighed. Shutting the doors behind him as he took a seat next to the workstation on his right.
The room was filled with metallic part and pieces, gears, springs, tools and some what seemed like robotic prosthetics. Most of the tools were hung on the wall near the workstation but untidy nonetheless. Above him was a crystal lantern, used in mines. They operate by adding a little water on them, the lantern had a mechanism inside that constantly added drops of water now and again. Affordable but produced a dull light creating a dimly lit environment.
The room was spacious enough and on the floor there were a couple of books scattered around. On the far end of the room you could spot a large sheet of oil stained cloth covering something large. It appeared to have a height of about 2 and half meters. And not much could be attained from it's figure except it looked humanoid.
He picked up one of the books on the floor and began flipping the pages one by one, he was just passing the time.
After quite sometime, their was a knock on the door followed by a bust as Noir stumbled in holding the crystal sphere wrapped in blue cloth. She hurried up and placed in on the workstation pushing of all the junk on it's surface. Stumbling backwards as she caught her breath she smiled at Ethan.
"Hello, It's done." She said as she gestured at it.
He got up and began to inspect it, careful not to make contact with it. For a while he gazed intensely at it but by the second the edges of his mouth began to curl up. His face brightened up as he faced Noir.
"You did it, you actually did it."
"We did it, this was a team effort."
Noir laughed a little looking at the large cloth at the end of the room.
"Can we test it today?"
"Yes, but we are going to need to wait till nightfall. Right now it's still too busy and people are still passing by."
"Ok." She answered as she took another chair and sat down.
For the next few hours they made small talk as they reorganize things, cleanin up and putting away the tools and metals scattered around the room.
Ethan would randomly say the most outrageous pieces of trivia, maybe it was because of his influence growing up in high nobility. An ordinary person couldn't tell but he had a habit sharing important and cryptic bits of information. Maybe as to take the weight of his chest or as a game to see how much the other person knew.
This time he was glancing at a crest on one of the books, he shows it to Noir and then continues to stack it with the others.
"If you look at the old noble houses and their attachment to power, you'd laugh. Many revere the emperor and his power, yet he thinks nothing of them. I think centuries of fighting and old age have gotten to him."
"Well he's the only practitioner to ever archive immortality, maybe he seeks other ways to archive his conquest."
Ethan smiles a bit, then Shakes his head as if what Noir said was a joke.
"If only you knew."
Noir heard him say that but refrained from continuing the conversation. She had known Ethan for sometime now and she predicted that asking about it would lead into her finding out about a publicly unknown factor that would send her spiraling. She changed topics and proceeded to clean up.
Hours passed, by this time they where sitting around doing nothing, Ethan was flipping his coin while Noir was sitting near the workstation gazing into the crystal, it's purple radiant light gently reflecting in her blue eyes.
Then suddenly Ethan cleared his throat.
"I think It's about time."
He got up and approached the tha large sheet at the end of the room. Pulling it he revealed a mechanical humanoid animatronic. It hung by the neck, from a crane-like arm attached to the mechanism on the ceiling, it's arms and legs hung down. Most of it's body was covered in shiny steel but a few parts were not fully covered exposing the gears and hinges that laid down beneath it's metallic casing. A circular slot was on it's chest. And it's eyes, lifeless and devoid of any consciousness.
As Noir began to set up, Ethan looked at the animatronic gently running his fingers across it's cold face. He wore a pair of leather gloves and then signaled to Noir. Handing over the crystal sphere, she took a few steps back and and equipped her circular goggles.
Ethan gently gripped the crystal sphere with both hands as he slowly inserted it into the slot on it's chest. A shiver passed through their skin as the ball clicked into place.
The floors began to rumble as the ball's purple glow illuminated the entire room. Mysterious runes flowed from the ball's core and danced throughout the air as all metallic pieces produced a humming melody. As if responding to the melody they began to float with the runes in unison.
Noir watched in jaw dropping amazement, she hadn't seen something so magnificent before, even in her wildest dreams. She reached out to see if she could touch them, but they would swiftly dwindle and then collectively form up once more.
"Amazing."
That's all she could say. On the other hand Eren seemed focused not on the mesmerizing sequences taking place , but on the animatronic itself. Streams of electrical outbursts appeared stretching all throughout the animatronic's metal body. It's eye just lifeless a few minutes ago began to exude a faint purple hue. Without warning the electrical outbursts raged with intensity.
Ethan stumbled backwards as a surge of purple energy created a shockwave, throwing him and Noir across the room. All the floating metals came raining down on them.
Standing in the clearing of the dust storm created by the crash was the animatronic, disconnected from the crane that secured it. It gaze fixated onto Ethan. They both got up, uncertain and looking at each other. Ethan looked at it and uttered these word.
"The phase 1 of the plan is a success."