Private Random Access Memories; Read Only Soul

"I no longer hold that title, Circe... But to be honest, I'm feeling a bit under the weather. I suspect it's a side effect from our run in with the orange fire." He said, with a shrug. His biometrics didn't show anything peculiar or out of line. Not besides what would be expected in their current condition.

"We could always... If we happen to need to hurry, for whatever reason, run. I could carry Circe, or she can ride on Kai.. Hm.." He mused, speaking in a lower tone than usual, more to himself than for the rest of the group.

"Xael is a beautiful name, by the way. Very well balanced. I had a spearing tutor that once wore It for a couple of centuries." He had been a wonderful teacher, Xael. Thinking about him brought a small smile to Ezra's lips. The malaise he felt wasn't going away, but it was manageable for the moment.

This AI, Xael, had made a couple of interesting mentions. The name Gherin he wasn't sure about, but Abbotrona'in, he was certain he had heard it before. It was interesting they'd come up now. And so was the amount of time they hadn't logged in for.

"Who is Abbotrona-in?" He was pronouncing it wrong, most likely. Va'nyrian names had a lot of tongue dancing he wasn't familiar with in between syllables. It was somewhat melodic, though, so his ears appreciated it.
 
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As written by @Machina Somnium , @Script & @Dashmiel

The group’s muffled footfalls gently echoed in rhythm as they made their way down the corridors to their destination. The decor and vistas of unknown production floors continued in the same vein as they progressed through the administrative entrance towards the first junction past the lobby ahead.

“Abbotrona-in,” replied Xael’s disembodied voice, “Is the other Hand, of course. Alaxel’s counterpart?” A twinge of confusion mixed with suspicion was evident in the AI’s carefully curated tone. The same hologram from before appeared before them again, the standing projection seamlessly keeping pace ahead of them as they walked on.

A slightly raised eyebrow and lips pursed in concentration suffused the AI’s representation for a moment, before the face broke into a good natured grin. In that moment, Kai felt the equivalent of phantom fingers caress the security of their private squad network as Xael’s systems subtly observed while broadcasting a request for re-authentication of the door key once again.

While Kai didn’t do anything to directly oppose the AI’s probing - confident in the fact that all she would find was that their credentials checked out - he did dedicate a little mental processing power to keeping close tabs on exactly what else she might be up to.

The data incoming from the door’s systems and Xael’s verification of the key occurred out in the open, where their passive systems could “see” Xael confirming they really did enter with Alaxel’s identkey authorizing them.

“Of course. You must be special contractors assisting Alaxel,” Xael mused out loud, without mention of her actions in the datasphere. “He isn’t exactly renowned for idle chat when he hires outside help, is he?.” She smiled and shook her head in a perfect simulacrum of mock exasperation. “Abbotrona-in is one of the All-Mother’s hands, like Alaxel. They have some different ceremonial duties and the like, but the two of them derive tremendous power from the All-Mother, figuratively and literally. Militarily, they serve as the highest authority in their respective purviews: Starbreath in charge of foreign expansion and Bulwark in charge of domestic defense.”

"Bulwark? Hm. And no, Alaxel isn't exactly forthcoming, no." He wasn't even quite lying, since they hadn't talked to Starbreath at all. Every time he heard that title, his interest in meeting the space faring warriors grew. It was quite, as some children said back in his time, epic!.

"What was it like, the last time Abbotrona-in was here?, I apologise for my butchering of the word, by the way." Said Ezrael, making conversation as they talked. He was starting to like this AI too. She was different from Xilunexus. She? It?.
 
As written by @Script, @Dashmiel & @Machina Somnium

Xael’s reply did not come for several seconds, as they walked on. They crossed a wide and tall threshold into a lobby-like area. The lobby was airy and spacious, with several catwalks forming criss-crossing paths towards upper doorways to other areas. Amidst the various catwalks floated large holographic banners. They mostly featured scrolling text in Va’nyrian script alongside some manner of directional and warning imagery. Upon cursory inspection however, it became apparent that the text on the banners translated to rambling gibberish, rather than informative words.


It made one curious cerv wonder, was it because of this world's circumstances, and random?. Or did it hold a secret, veiled meaning? Either way, it was most likely bad news.


“The last time Abbo was here?” Xael said, with a twitch in her perfectly sculpted right eye. “He…He…,” Xael’s right eye began to twitch rapidly as her voice stumbled upon the words. The hologram’s head began to shake sharply as if the AI was caught in a sudden blizzard. Its teeth began to chatter soundlessly in convulsions, before visual glitches began to develop in the holographic medium.


The distorted image began to fold into itself, and then suddenly vanished. Xael’s voice continued on, sourceless and omnipresent in the air once again. Its tone was still chipper and happy, but its pitch and tempo had begun to race like a cornered beast’s heartbeat.


“Bulwark logged into the facility. He…He went into his private off—


KA-CHUNK


The AI’s response was cut midway by a loud and piercing noise which brought to mind two pieces of great machinery somewhere grinding to a violent stop against one another.


Silence reigned for a pause, as Kai’s digital eyes were exposed to a sudden torrent of data flowing through the datasphere formed by the facility’s currently open systems.


Somehow, all network traffic had suddenly changed on Kai, and files were flying everywhere around the bubble of their private network. Amidst a ton of junk data mostly consisting of equipment readouts and time stamps were rambling strings of text proclaiming bizarre orders, alongside myriad hunter-killer programs.


These programs were unalerted, slow and plodding as they floated through the facility’s datasphere. They were also dangerously dense bits of programming, close enough to AI’s unto themselves as any Kai might have seen deployed around Wayfarer’s Point. Their lethality and forceful presence in the digital realm was worn like a badge of honor; their passing paused any other active processes, and any that hung too long were utterly shredded and left for someone else to deal with.


More terrifying still, Kai could see upon the AI’s weapons clear references to a physical ID for these hunter-killer entities.


The AI's behaviour set Ezra on edge. He gripped Gherandre’meran, Amen’tur a little tighter. His ears were up and pointed at the noise.


Xael’s voice returned, continuing with a revised version of her previous answer as if nothing had occurred and the digital space around them wasn’t a maelstrom of nonsensical digital topography that started and stopped like a skipping music disc.


“Bulwark logged into the facility, and expediently concluded his business. He then promptly left my facility like a good esteemed guest,” Xael said, with a menacing undertone to her overly cheery voice. “He did not ask questions that prolonged his stay. He did not request that resources be diverted for his personal use. He was a good guest.”


Now with his ears pinned back, Ezra scratched at the floor with his hoof. He traced the glyphs on his weapon, they helped him stay grounded.


The lights around the lobby died alongside the echo of Xael’s voice. They weren’t quite plunged into total darkness; small illuminated amber pips embedded upon the walls marked the way towards the lobby’s exits, which were themselves outlined.


Behind them, the wall of the lobby they crossed upon entering was completely transparent. Beyond and beneath, they could discern another large industrial floor with heavy machinery busy at their inscrutable tasks. A sudden explosion illuminated the view as something in the production floor gave way. The tremendous pressure wave was visible as it soundlessly assaulted the transparent steel viewport, swirling the raging luminosity for an instant.


The view of the production floor in its wake was an aberrant mess of twisted and cold metal husks, brightly robed in eons long layers of oxidation.


Gherandre’meran, Amen’tur was raised in a defensive stance, and Ezrael gasped ever so lightly. His own physical difficulties were forgotten, for now.


A flurry of nonsensical status and connection messages flooded Jace’s hololink. Curiously, no data was flowing inwards from the local datasphere, and no new active connections were evidenced. A strange message was pinged by Jace’s hololink. It was from Gaia, some 7000 years from now.


“Wait, Jace. Hold position. We’ve just received new intel on-” the message crackled as it jumped, like a broken up recording, “-the facility’s defenses could prove more troublesome than expected, we should-” another jump, each a fragment of a conversation pulled out of context to create something new, “-be prepared to engage on a moment’s notice. We’re entering enemy territory now, we can’t afford to relax.”


Jace stopped dead, shock plain on his face. “Wh- Gaia?” No – just recordings. Fragments of messages she’d sent before she…


“How the-”


“We have a big problem, you guys!” Kai sent through their network, interrupting him. “This place is freaking the hell out! It’s like something just flicked a ‘kill everything’ switch in the internal network, and I’m pretty sure that applies to meatspace too! I’m gonna try and get us a better picture of what’s going on, hold on, I gotta do this delicately or they’re gonna try and killswitch me too…”


"What?! May the Lo-" Ezrael started.


Jace wasn’t the only one to receive a message to distract him from Kai’s barely-suppressed panic, however. “Uncle Estraven,” whispered a youthful and unknown voice in Ezrael’s ear. “The door…remember to look for the door.”


"What door?" Whispered Ezrael, immediately, as one would speak to a scared child. But the implications of this voice… and why had it spoken in his ear, using the wrong name? He had not been Estraven for over a century. It evoked a gentle fear, but the voice didn't exactly scare him. What was happening with Jace and Kai? Was Circe alright?, They were all in danger. Was a child here?? He would pay attention just in case, because then they ought to be protected from this alien madness.


He summoned his magical lance, because of Kai's words. And Gherandre’meran, Amen’tur's blade elongated and contorted until it could be compared to a round shield. He let his instincts dictate what they could gather from his surroundings, and listened.


GLINT


A powerful flash of light momentarily overloaded their eyes and confounded their sensors. As their vision cleared, they found the lobby around them changed. Brightly lit and bustling, all around them walked and worked dozens of Va’nyrians


They saw some like Freyn’ja and Diarneus, but they also saw several different species working together with them. Ten feet tall broad shouldered stone like creatures with six arms and a lower body like a lizard’s, wearing lab coats. Ephemeral strands of energy in the rough shape of a person surrounding inscribed metal facsimiles carrying bundles of tools. A flash of something that looked like bird people up in the catwalks, and some sort of insectile race was represented around as well.


The room itself looked pristine, complete with varied furniture and interior landscaping designed to be enjoyed by the workers of this remote facility. All of the inhabitants appeared oblivious to the presence of the group of mercenaries, and they didn’t get much chance to see the limits of their interaction.


Before they could do much more than process their surroundings, a loud alarm began to sound. It was followed by Xilunexus’ customized voice, speaking in the ancient Va’nyrian dialect that was contemporary in Va’nyria 10 billion years in the past:


“Attention: Nelthe’nar protocol in effect. Immediate evacuation required. Proceed to the nearest off-world trans–”


The transmission cut off midway as the end of the world caught up with the scene set before them. A tremendous roar followed by an explosion began to unfold, and was strangely paused before it overwhelmed them. Around them now, a scene of devastation in stasis.


The light of a myriad of frozen flames cast chaotic shadows upon the grim scene. Large sections of the lobby including the entire east facing fall had simply disintegrated. Trailing from that direction and angled upwards was a trail of energy with an exotic signature. At the front of that trail and mere feet from making contact with the lobby floor, was a large slightly elliptical metal sphere. Barely visible through the intense interference caused by the flames frozen around the evidently incredibly fast moving object were the letters: X.AE - C1.


A bright point of energy shone a few feet in front of the falling object, hanging in the air. It scintillated through every hue in the spectrum, and pulsed in time like a chunk of uranium in a cloud chamber. With every pulse, it sent out a shimmering wave in a different direction out into the lobby. The room seemed to change behind the trailing of each wave. Behind one it was the busy and bustling scene again. In another it was a decrepit and burnt out husk. Yet another had it as the same state as when they had originally entered. Behind every wave, was either another possibility or another time for this place.


Suddenly, the point of scintillating energy expanded into a ragged circle twelve feet in diameter. Looking through it was like staring through a soap bubble, except that the refraction on the image wasn’t due to the optics of light. Vaguely visible shimmering figures moved behind the threshold formed by the strange energy. First seven of them, then two, then four, then three. On and on, the numbers seemed to change, like frames in a picture reel that didn’t quite align well enough to run smoothly. They couldn’t make out much specific detail for reasons they would find themselves hard pressed to explain, but nonetheless the recognition was there. Like seeing yourself through a lightly fogged mirror; you knew your reflection when you saw it.


Curiously, one figure was always present in all of the assemblies that were ‘reflected’. It was a small humanoid shape, about three feet tall. It was included in all of the different compositions of mercenaries that flashed through before their eyes–even ones with different people altogether, like Kai standing not by Jace but by Kyou instead–and always at the forefront.


The roulette of possible casts continued to roll before them, before slowing down to a stop. The image behind the threshold resolved itself clearer. The small robed figure stood there with one other, hands held together warmly. A familiar looking older woman, in a stylish coat with the subtle protrusion of a flask slowly vanishing into a magic pocket.


The hood on the small figure fell, and the straining face of a young Va’nyrian child was revealed. He was the same species as their direct employers, with stark white eyes and pale lavender skin. Rainbow hued lines of power flashed through his eyes in time with the pulsing waves still being emitted into the lobby. He was mouthing something urgently at them, but no sound was making it through. The pulses around them sped up, although the image of the child and Kat before them remained steady.


This world… was going to summon madness into their minds. Ezrael couldn't make sense of what had just happened, other than that it was messy, beautiful and terrifying. Words that tended to describe Va'nyrian otherworldly events quite nicely. They fit Nilin, and this planet as well. It was like the portal that had taken him to Nexus, the one he had not hesitated a second to walk through.


Nostalgia was to be a constant, It seemed. He saw his dearest friend, The Sharp, someone who looked like Senda, but wiser… and of course Ezrael. As it couldn't be any different. He wondered how it could have gone, if he had been there in his place. The implications would have troubled him, if he had had more time to ponder them. It was a pleasure to see the reflections, an honor to face his people. Soul-crushing, the love and surprise he felt for them reflected back in their eyes.


The present wasn't good. The Va'nyrian child along with Kathryne, who either didn't know how to speak despite their attitude or was speaking yet another alien language. Kathryne herself, who they thought dead!. The cerv would have welcomed her with a rib crushing hug, if he wasn't this conflicted. Because now the kid was gone, but the old woman wasn't. He pointed his lance at her, full of suspicion and fear, sniffing in her direction. As illusions didn't have the same odor as originals, or they hardly ever did.

As the child’s lips continued to pass along their desperate silent message, a wave of light was released directly at them this time.

GLINT
 
The group of mercenaries found themselves in their “present” state of the lobby once again. The lights were still out, and the subtle emergency lighting cast strange shadows in the big room. The view behind the south wall from whence they had originally entered still showed the same ancient accident site in the production floor.
Ezrael, Kai, Jace, and Kathryne all received automated status messages that their private network was no longer in flux. Their records all concurred and returned an all clear: These four that had set out from Nexus together had all systems green. There was no sign of Circe or the strange child. Not in the room around them, nor in their system logs at all.
Distant clanking sounds joined the shadows for ambiance, as the mercenaries gathered themselves.
Silence hung between them all for a moment, before Kai was the one to break it.
“What the everliving holy fuck just happened?”
Jace had been staring between the space where the visions had been and where Kat had joined them again in stunned silence, when Kai’s words snapped him out of his stupor. “...Kathryne? What- where did Circe go?”
“More like where was she ever,” Kai interjected. “My sensors are acting up, so I checked my logs, and– there’s no trace of her. Not even if I look at video playback from us getting here. She was… never here.”
“That’s impossible,” Jace stated, shaking his head in disbelief. “We were literally just talking to her.”
“I’m just telling you what the gadgets are telling me, Sparks. Who knows what’s possible out here?”
"What!?, no… NO!" The cervitaur forgot about Kathryne. If she went on the offensive, the kids could handle it for the few seconds it would take him to react. But now he turned, and two pairs of eyes desperately tried to find the empath's friendly face. His nose tried to find any trace of her, and four ears strained in weak attempts to hear her voice. Her laughter! He could take a joke even in moments like these.
But he could not see her. It was impossible, as she was gone. He trotted in a circle around the small group, the surprise way to anger and despair. He stomped on the ground, and growled. It was low and guttural, like a dragon that flexed its claws and readied its throat for combat at the bottom of a cave. The Va'nyrian lance in his hands felt thirsty. What cruel destiny was this? Taking away a friend?
Before anything else, Kathryne looked over herself to make sure she was still intact. And she was. Then she looked up at the others, staring in almost disbelief. It didn't take her long to figure out why they were upset rather than neutral or overjoyed by her return. They'd lost Circe. Even that hit Kathryne somewhere deep inside, but she didn't dwell on it. She'd lost people before; this was no different. She wouldn't give in to the emotions while they were so far into this venture. It was better to keep her eyes on the mission. If she chose to dwell on anything else, the guilt of more than just Circe would come down to crush her. She couldn't let that happen. Not here. Not now.
And yet, having chosen apathy, that left her with nothing to say to those who were grieving. Only cold words, frustrated ones, with cheap and hollow messages backing them. She held her tongue; speaking would only make things worse. Kathryne crossed her arms in a measure of discomfort and instead chose to watch. There was nothing she could do to bring Circe back.
“Hey, big guy, let’s not freak out too hard,” Kai shifted his drone’s position to follow Ezra’s movements with his gaze. “Maybe with the way this thing is working people are gonna… keep doing this? Dropping in and out. She could come back?”
While Kai was trying to offer Ezra some reassurance, Jace stepped over to Kathryne, mirroring her disbelief at her return. “Kathryne, you-” he shook his head, struggling to figure out even where to begin. “What happened? Are you… alright?”
Kathryne turned her gaze from Ezrael to Jace. She watched him for a quiet moment before answering. Her response was almost weary despite attempts otherwise.
“I’m fine,” she responded. “I didn’t expect to be back here at all, actually. It seems like… a lot has happened since I left.” Another side glance at Ezrael. “Maybe in a bit you can fill me in?” After things had calmed down and everyone had taken a minute to work through what had just happened.
Jace nodded to her. “Yeah, once we’re in the clear,” he agreed, glancing around. He doubted that things were over just yet. They could swap stories when there wasn’t imminent danger on the way. “Kai picked up on some hostile programs or something, so be on alert for trouble.”
“Were Kathryne’s… traces also erased from our logs when she disappeared?” Asked Ezra, looking at Kai’s little friend-thing. They hadn’t checked in the midst of all the chaos, but It was unlikely, since It hadn’t been mentioned at the time. She wasn’t here, so he let his upper eyes close and his ears became droopy. He hadn’t asked very loudly, afraid of the answer. The cerv shook his head and looked at their returned ally.
“I am happy to have you back, Kathryne, believe me. If only the circumstances were different… and what of the enemies you mentioned before, Kai?” Kath looked fine, Ezra also hoped she was feeling fine.
“Still got some digital company,” Kai replied uneasily. “But uh, nope, logs are all normal on Kat. Y’know, as normal as ‘disappeared out of nowhere during a time warp’ can be.”
He turned his attention back to where Xael’s image had been stood. There was no trace left of the AI anywhere in the network, as far as he could tell. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
“Hang tight. I’m going to try and figure out what’s going on here. Might take me a minute.”
With a flicker of light, his avatar vanished from the drone’s screen, as he projected his consciousness out and into the network - as hidden as he could make himself from the eerie, illogical digital presences continuing to whirl around it - seeking some clarity as to what they were up against.
His first sight would not be one that beckoned warm tidings.
Xael was indeed absent from the network, and the flurry of files and text that had assailed Kai in the moments prior had nearly diminished entirely from the datasphere but for a few stragglers that hung about here and there.
The most immediate and pressing thing however would be the noticeable shift in the behavior of the dense bits of lethal programming that stalked the network like sharks in water. In Xael's absence they had seemed to be put into a frenzy, and the communications that ran between them if attempted to be translated would only be understood as 'HIGH ALERT'.
Where their motions had been somewhat aimless but ambulatory before it was clear that now they were on the hunt. Fortunately for Kai and the rest, due to the nature of what they had all just experienced, even the hunter-killer programs seemed discombobulated by the sudden shift of events. Though their movements were aggressive, it appeared that they didn’t have an exact target.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't last long.
Without risking exposing himself to direct attack by more AIs than he was confident he could handle, there wasn’t all that much Kai could do from here to directly combat the imminent threat. But he had his fair share of experience with indirect conflict, too. ‘Let’s see if we can’t confuse things a little more here,’ he mused to himself with a glimmer of amusement.
Rockets and railguns were fun and all, but this was his element.
Probing outward with his awareness, Kai brushed up against everything connected to the network that he could identify as some kind of sensor: cameras, motion detectors, heatmaps, whatever he could find. They were laid out before him like a spiderweb of tripwires, ready to go off - he could see where they were already indicating the group’s presence like a spotlight. It would only be a matter of time before the facility’s hunters locked onto them.
‘Best give you all some more to think about!’
Kai’s avatar curled its mask’s mouth up as he visualized his intent: and from him, dozens of tiny viruses spread out, each like a miniature version of himself, diving gleefully into the systems of the facility. Where they did, one by one, each sensor began to broadcast the same information: they’re here! No, they’re here. No, they’re actually over here.
The jumble of confusing false flags flashed on and off repeatedly throughout the facility, as if their group were flickering about the place in a fashion both impossible and entirely random.
‘That ought to buy us some time.’
Pleased with himself, Kai tuned back into his drone, linking back with it so he could talk to the others from inside the network. “You can all thank me now,” he announced with a smirk as his avatar reappeared on its screen. “Or- hold up, you can thank me now.”
As he finished speaking, he tapped into the Va’nyrian drone’s sensors and layered the information from his connection with the facility over its own lidar capabilities, in order to create - and project for all to see - a holographic map of their surroundings, and the facility beyond.
For the group the map would hover in the air in front of them, it in and of itself a mundane thing compared to the skeletal and technological veneer that they found themselves in currently. The mapping itself though was complex, the facility sprawling into a twisted system of hallways, tunnels, and production rooms. Chaos, yet order. It was as if Daedalus had been introduced to an ant farm.
For Kai, in the network, the scale of the map would appear quite different if he so chose to play around with it. In its scanning, his bot would also pick up the numerous physical ID’s attached to digital threats and conveniently display their locations on the map. These were represented by little red dots for the time being, and appeared to be completely motionless while their digital counterparts were represented by little sharks. It could be noted that one of these dots was very close to their own location.
Their own position was highlighted by a little chibi hologram of their group, while across the whole map, miniature versions of Kai’s avatar popped up in mocking poses every few seconds only to vanish a few seconds later. “This is us,” he lit up their own position. “And the rest is the interference I just set up across the whole place to confuse whatever’s about to try and hunt us down.”
At first it would prove highly successful, the representations of their digital pursuers on the holographic map darted rapidly in attempts to respond to Kai’s interference, moving from one point to the next as they lit up like a very, very weird game of pinball. It might have even been cause for some celebration if not for the fact that the behavior of one shark seemed to differ greatly from the rest.
While the majority scrambled after Kai’s incessantly posing lures, there was one that appeared to be heading straight towards them - and with purpose. In the network itself surely Kai would begin to feel it before anybody else noticed it on the map, as in the shark’s approach its intent could be felt as it rippled throughout the datasphere, the void left in its wake for any unfortunate errant program that got directly in its path. The only upside that could be gleaned was that Kai himself didn’t seem to be its target, nor the group - yet, but it was still headed straight for his relative location in the network.
Kathryne, at the least, found this odd game of “virtual pinball” to be amusing. And the map was useful. She made sure Horizon saved a copy of the layout for later, if they ever needed it.
Which is when the small orange AI decided to show up and point out the obvious. Something wasn’t as amused with their distractions as everything else, and he didn’t get the sense that it was going to be fun, hanging around to see what comes to say hi.
Kathryne waved a hand through his hologram and pretended like she’d noticed it before he said anything. She muttered, “Yes, ‘Rize, I see that. Thank you.”
“Er… raincheck on those thanks. Something’s still coming our way,” Kai piped up at around the same time. “Or… doesn’t look like it’s aiming for us, exactly, but it’s still coming. It’s some sort of security program, I think? Or… maybe a bit more multipurpose than that. Almost like a whole subsystem that should be childed to the AI, but she’s… gone? Like totally gone. They’re as confused as to where she is as we are.”
An idea occurred to him, then - he wasn’t sure it would work, but it was too audacious for him not to try it. “Hold on, I might have something. Let’s see if we can take the deception up a notch.”
With careful focus, he turned his attention inwards to his own digital presence, pulling back what data he had from his interactions with Xael as well as what he could glean about her signature from the system. Like a carefully crafted mask, he started to form a veil over himself, one that spoofed the digital identity of their absentee hostess, in the hopes of fooling her little legion into playing ball.
“I’m going to try and convince the system that I’m Xael. So I guess stand by either for great success, or immediate hostility? One of the two.”
"As long as you know what you're doing, young man. We have your back. Here in the, uhm, material world?" The poor cervitaur was extremely confused by what exactly was going on. But he would have his teammate's backs anyway.
The response to Kai’s masking was near instantaneous - the entity that had been already heading for their location was now seemingly gone - while all the others would come to a complete, eerie standstill in anticipation for what the one in the lead would report back.
Wary of the blip in the program’s presence, Kai stood his metaphorical ground. He ostensibly had no reason to hide any more, after all - given that he was hopefully, as far as these things were concerned, now the one in charge.
“If I only ever did things when I knew what I was doing, I’d never do half the impressive shit I do,” was his flippant response to Ezra. “I’d give this a … sixty, seventy percent on the scale of how much I know. We’ll figure out the rest as we go.”
It was a shame the real Xael was not there to observe the move Kai had chosen to play, for she might have found it amusing in its boldness. Pleased, even, in all her billions of years. The program that blipped a moment prior now made its presence known directly in front of Kai, and to describe it as intimidating while up close would be an understatement.
In the datasphere, the entity was a hulking, hunched thing that stood near three times the height of an average male human. It was bipedal in nature, and appeared insectoid in biology with its sleek, segmented limbs. The torso bore two sets of arms, a main set that came to an end into long, curved blades and a vestigial pair that sat folded in underneath. Instead of a head the torso seemed to just end abruptly in a smooth curve, and a large red eye shone from its place implanted in the chassis. Offset to its right sat a smaller, biological multifaceted eye.
The red eye seemed to peer into Kai himself as it began its authentication procedure of the mask of Xael’s digital signature. Karametal blended and bonded with flesh all throughout its design. As it scanned and bore down on Kai with its sight, it made no additional movement or made no query. The threat of total deletion should things be awry loomed.
Yikes. There wasn’t much else to think in response to the alien-seeming security program - if that’s what it was - appearing before him in digital space. Its visualization was surprisingly detailed, suggesting that whatever it was, it held some kind of physical identity that was paired with its digital presence. That matched with what he’d picked up on earlier about these things. If it was a purely digital construct, it probably would’ve been more of an amorphous blob of data.
Now came the hard part, though. While Kai was confident in his mask making him appear to this thing as Xael, he didn’t have knowledge of the protocols necessary to actually communicate with the thing in a convincing fashion. It was like being asked for a secret handshake and having to guess from the infinite possible varieties of hand gesture how to respond, based entirely off of reading and predicting the other person’s movements.
So, in a word, difficult.
Thankfully, the thing hadn’t asked him yet. Kai wasn’t about to push his luck trying to give this thing commands in a fashion that wouldn’t raise alarm bells if it didn’t prompt him for them. At least if it did prompt him, he might be able to reverse engineer a response from the way it did so. Right now, it’d be like firing a shot into the dark while blindfolded and not sure whether the gun was loaded with bullets or confetti.
Kai had good reason to worry, but after a few seconds that each seemed to stretch on into their own eternity, the authentication scan the entity had begun, ended. For all intents and purposes it seemed what could only be described as relieved, even. It might have been odd to attribute such a feeling to a thing that was designed purely for destruction, but it would prove to be the least of all the oddities they would come across in those mines.
In its communication with Kai, there had been information ripe to be gleaned should he have chosen to be so observant while also under the assail of its threat.
The entity - and those others like it that he’d detected in the network - were called ‘Reapers’, or at least, that was the closest approximate translation to the Va’nyrian term for them. It seemed a little on the nose, but he supposed that the people who were programming highly advanced kill-bot AIs weren’t usually the type to fuss too much over names.
More importantly, he was able to pluck out enough bits and pieces of logged exchanges between them and Xael to use as a frame of reference for how to communicate with them without immediately giving himself away as an impostor. Those exchanges in turn had some interesting-sounding tidbits in them, but right now he was a little more focused on not being tossed into the proverbial recycle bin than he was on sleuthing.
And so, carefully patchworking together pieces of those old transmissions, he gave the ‘Reaper’ the closest equivalent he could muster to: ‘All clear, nothing to see here, now go away.’
The aperture of the Reaper’s eye narrowed, turning the red glow into a menacing pinprick of light. The scans it had just finished running had already determined the all clear, and now for Xael to reiterate this point immediately after seemed to be a cause of concern for the twisted version of a guard dog.
The Reaper leaned in closer to the Xael-cloaked Kai and considered running its scans once more, the aperture now slowly opening back up to its full view. This close, it wasn’t particularly difficult to see how the entity was so capable of its destructive tendencies, the scythe-like appendages looking especially deadly to data and flesh alike. Wasting no time and clearly not satisfied with the cobbled together all clear, the Reaper now opened communication with Kai once more.
‘Command Unit, order not sufficient. Please supply this unit with [Event Trigger: System Threat Analysis] in order to proceed. Failure to comply will result in the execution of the Reconciliation Protocol.’
At its mention of the protocol, the Reaper withdrew from its close observation of Kai to stand at its full height. As it awaited the supplication of what it had asked for, it also began running a subroutine in search of the nearest physical ID anchor that it could leap to should such a need arise.
Ah, shit. Kai thought to himself. Yet another problem that could’ve been avoided if I just kept my mouth shut.
It was probably time to bail - he didn’t have the data necessary to pull off a convincing response to the request - but not before causing some chaos on his way out to buy them some time.
‘How ‘bout instead I supply this unit with [Event Trigger: Fuck You],’ he sent back, in the same instant that he blasted the killbot with a catastrophic flood of his favourite viruses - designed with purposes varying from subtle information logging, to destructive data-wiping, to spamming every interface in the facility with obnoxious porn ads.
He’d put together a lot of fun tricks over the last half a decade of anti-government cyber warfare, only about half of which served any practical purpose beyond being really fucking annoying.
Still, regardless of what they actually did, he was counting on the sudden influx of foreign programs with unknown functions to confuse and distract the Reaper for long enough to give them a decent head start.
To say the Reaper’s immediate response was pure rage would somehow still be an understatement, as it quickly began tearing at the onslaught of viruses and porn ads with its arms. There seemed a moment where it became overwhelmed, even, but then in a horrifying display it split its main pair of arms in half and began madly cutting with four blades instead of two. As soon as it was clear enough it would hop into the physical ID it had prepared.
In the madness of it all, the holographic mapping that Kai had pulled up both in the datasphere and physical room for the group both began to blink at a singular point, as if to draw their attention to a location. It appeared to be the entrance to a service tunnel not far from where they currently were. The blinking hastened, it screamed to them ‘notice me!’, then just as abruptly as it had appeared, it was gone.
GLINT
Pulling his focus out of the network in the next moment, Kai swivelled his drone to address the group.
‘We gotta move. Things didn’t go exactly according to plan, and there may or may not be incoming killbots in the next few minutes. Give or take, depending on how long these things take to handle the plague of a thousand malwares I just injected into their system. You all saw that blinking, right? That wasn’t me and it wasn’t the kill-parade either, so… wanna run blindly towards it and hope it’s friendly?’
 
It hadn't been so good to hear Kai's take on his odds of success, Ezrael himself didn't usually risk it unless they were over 85%. Not when they could have just... Not done It, and be gone by now. But this was such a different situation from anything he had experienced before, that he just sighed and pinned his ears back.

"Oh Kai..." He muttered. But at least he had tried! He doubted anyone else could've even interacted with the threat in the same way.

"I say let's go then, now, to the blinking light. Any incoming threats we should destroy at a distance unless it becomes impossible or they are directly in the way. And by the lordeeth Fae let's not get separated." If the light turned out to also be a threat, they could address it accordingly when they got there. His skin itched, he still felt nauseated and the pressure of what was coming didn't exactly help. They were all fairly fast on their feet, but was Kathryne?. Ezra turned to face her.

"Shall we carry you? For a faster approach to -getting the hell out of here?" He tried not to be too rude. But he wanted to be, not because of Kathryne at all of course. But because he was upset at the situation they were in. And he just wanted to run, and leave, NOW. He put his ears to use in case of any incoming threats, and sniffed the air for any noticeable changes of scent.
 
Kathryne's thoughts were interrupted—abruptly, mid-contemplation—and came to the noisiest screeching halt in her mind, just for the sake of devoting all of her attention to a question that, surely, she had not just been asked. There were at least two seconds of wasted time that she spent giving Ezra a most-incredulous look that landed somewhere between horrified and utterly confused. Kathryne shook her head.

"Uh. No. Thank you. I'll be able to keep up just fine." She bit her tongue before asking why he would think she wouldn't be able to keep pace with them. Carry her? Did she seem weak enough to need carried? Her mouth was sour, lips puckered in annoyance, but still she held the words in. No need to make enemies with the group after just getting back together. She took a silent breath in and glanced at the others before returning her gaze to Ezra. "We can just go. Whenever you're ready."
 
"Then let's move," Jace affirmed. He didn't wait for more than a second to see that the others had acknowledged him before breaking into a run in the direction Kai's map had indicated. It was just like the little firestarter to get in over his head trying to do something flashy. They didn't even know what they were messing with here, and he was pushing his luck in the exact way they'd agreed he wouldn't.

There wasn't time to get mad at him right now-- that could wait for later. Right now was time to focus on getting the fuck out of there. Taking advantage of his tracing, Jace accelerated quickly - not so much as to leave the others in the dust, but enough to put himself at the head of the pack. Kai had pinged the map over to his hololink, so his path was plotting itself ahead of him as he bolted through the facility towards their unknown destination.

Kai himself wasn't far behind. His drone had shifted and warped its shape in a few moments from its regular spider-like walker form, to a sleeker, airborne form that sat somewhere between a fighter jet and a flying saucer in its design. Powerful jets carried him forward, hovering just over the others' heads and constantly scanning the path ahead of them for any incoming obstacles.
 
As written by @Cale & @Dashmiel .

As the newly reformed group of mercenaries raced off at their best speed towards a glint of hope, the facility in their section began to come alive. Circuits closed and opened; interlocks disengaged. Unpowered sensors on the floors and ceilings came to life, detecting their every step. The lights around them dimmed and gained a faintly purple hue as their wavelengths were adjusted to be friendlier towards the home-team. Sleeping servos and actuators sprung into action, as blast doors began a solemn descent towards their entombment.

All of this came ahead as the mechanical terror bearing upon them drew ever closer to where they had stood. Network behavior laid an oblique yet clear sign of the danger that the physical presence brought; As it passed through the physical version of the world, its digital presence shifted the system time across the datascape. Nonsensical junk data and mismatching time stamps dropped at a precipitous rate, replaced by the smooth data transfer of an efficiently operating network. Ghost connections vanished, the end points of the datasphere actually reflecting currently existing devices and systems.

Not only was their enemy not subject to the confusing behaviors exhibited by the network and facility thus far, but its mere presence in the physical meant a stabilizing effect on the network. Like ants carving new passages through their hive, updating the efficiency of the colony’s traffic. Except these ants were laying down passages large enough to eventually fit their queen.

They were just about to come up level with the entrance to the service tunnel, when they heard the entity arrive back at the starting point of their run.

The physical appearance of the Reaper very much mirrored its digital iteration, though now instead of floating through an ocean of data it scuttled across the walls and ceilings of the corridors through which it navigated, like a spider toward prey in its web. The consistent loud thunks as limb tips forcefully made contact with the metal surface projected a rapid, menacing drum beat.

The service tunnel they now came up on visibly was open and waiting for them. The interior of the tunnel itself was well lit, the lights giving off an amber hue. However, a tiny pinprick of darkness could be seen twinkling somewhere deep within its length. Once entered, the truth of the tunnel would be plain to see - the further in they went, the more and more it appeared to be in a state of disorganization.

Sections of length seemed fine while others were in disarray or decay. The worst section saw the tunnel blanketed in complete darkness, the very same that had been but a brief twinkle in the distance just at the start.

The twisted staccato rhythm of the Reaper’s pursuit suddenly died as the subjects of its search vanished from its sensor range without warning. The creature clicked and paced in place, its movement’s an eerie clockwork precision. Within its limited mind, a series of calculations took place in a flash. No immediate threats detected. Subjects lost. Command Unit trace detected.

The metal rang in a more measured pace as the Reaper maneuvered its bulk away from the service tunnel and back to where the group had last stood with Xael. In the detritus of the ancient explosion’s debris, was a server stack. It used to power and manage this floor's communications hubs and signage. It now housed the fragmented remains of the Xael instance that had greeted them previously.

The Reaper's large glowing eye darted its gaze to and fro upon the floor as the creature swung it around in a complex pattern. A faint criss crossing trail was burned upon the ground, left behind by the ablative laser in the creature’s central eye. The pattern was repeated in the reflection from the facets of the creature’s biological eye as it followed along. Behind the creature’s second look followed its massive karametal-reinforced scythe-arms.

It cleanly sliced a delicate path of destruction, carving the environment effortlessly with perfect precision. Flashes of light accompanied a loud pop and the smell of ozone as it completed each cut. The debris flashed into mist with each pop as tremendous energy was focused through the karametal edged scythe-arms. Like a 3D-unprinter, the Reaper dug his way down through billions of years worth of technological strata until it exposed the cabinet housing the server rack.

The server was a tremendously out of date model, utterly incapable of housing a full Xael instance. It had no physical ports compatible with the Reaper’s current, more modern configuration. An easily surmountable problem, as the creature’s second set of vestigial arms unfolded and grabbed the entire cabinet. They grasped it tightly and greedily, as metallic tendrils extended from the tips of the hands, drilling their way to the server’s hardware. A few faint pops sounded as new circuitry materialized and was laid down, forging a new connection to bring the ancient tech into the local network as the interface was completed.

Incapable of subterfuge, the Reaper transmitted its communication out in the open, where any among the party capable of tuning in could easily intercept it. Provided they didn’t mind filtering out some of the redshifting off the signal as it crossed the strange time horizon at the tunnel boundary.

First came a series of high-speed bursts of small data packets between the Reaper and the new network node, as a handshake was established. The Reaper extended itself to its full height, server cabinet still clasped against its segmented abdomen. Karametal began to run from its body, a slow molasses trail down its torso and into the cabinet through its arms.

It raised its scythe arms high above its central eye, and began to sway rhythmically from side to side in what appeared to be exultation as it openly communed with the fragment of Xael it had found.

[Event Trigger: System Threat Analysis]; Acquired. Unpacking:

Reams of data readouts, videos, images, and biometrics flooded the open network. Data on them. The intruders. Tactical summaries on their encounter with the defenses outside as observed by Xael. Their every conversation since unlocking Alaxel’s lock, bringing them deeper within her grasp. Their idle pacing, video game playing, and camaraderie sharing between Ezra, Jace, and Kai on the long elevator ride.

Ezrael had puzzled Xael, bringing forth a mixture of pity and disgust. Her passive scans had been unable to determine the contents of the Va’nyr beacon he carried, and his spear was of a simultaneously nostalgic and foreign make. She could only estimate its capabilities, but even being generous…well, she did not predict much of a threat there. As best as she could tell, he was a bad attempt at hiding items of great worth. A mule of sorts.

The two humans however, intrigued her. So much different than the human contingent among her Makers. Yet, with genetic engineering that almost matched any she’d designed herself. She’d observed them closely, both in battle and at rest. She had carefully monitored every wavelength of light and byte of code as the brash one performed its miraculous transitions. Gotten perfect electron-volt accurate radiant flux readings from Jace’s performances.

As the Xenial unit in charge of the genetic integrity of the Consensus’ body stocks, she was pleased to be faced with a mystery so in-line with her design parameters. A million simulated iterations of ‘taking a human and tweaking this’ unfurled in her processing banks. Each one ran for a terrifyingly long time, as the fragment laid idle separated from rescue by the gulf of time.

Long enough, for her to alight upon what would be a terrifyingly close and compatible iteration of how Jace and Kai’s mysto powers could be expressed…and how to engineer in her biomechanical minions a set of powers to counter them. How to turn a Reaper into a Null.


Data assessed. Mission parameters updated. Awaiting Input, replied the Reaper.”

[Initialize System Restore], commanded the fragment of Xael.”

Unable to comply. Insufficient Datamass. Awaiting Input.

{Unit XHJ7}, Initiate [Reconciliation Protocol].
Evolve.

The karametal had completely encompassed the server cabinet into a translucent cocoon of the eerie glassy-metal. Without warning, a tremendous blast of multicolored lightning burst from the walls to strike at the Reaper’s exterior. A burst across the EM spectrum flooded the broadcast upon contact, its accompanying light rendering visual observation impossible from their safe vantage point.

The network node representing the server vanished from the network, and the Reaper’s digital representation flickered and became formless data. Its file size expanded as it incorporated the fragment of Xael it’d found. A myriad of connections fluttered open as the data bundle reached out to others of its kind nearby.

{Unit Designation: Packleader} initializing. Multiple [Hostile Entity] detected. [Command Unit: Fragment] consumed. Assemble at {self}, accept [New Designation: Hunter]. Bring Datamass.
 
Sixty percent, was still engraved in Ezrael's mind as they ran. Running was slow, he wanted to bolt, and to quote his son Klaus, get the fucking hell out of the incoming mess. But Kathryne wanted to run. And he was overly fixating on things he couldn't change, because to not do that would mean to pay more attention to his surroundings. To consider them as they were, shifting, artificial and absolutely terrifying. He was, of course, keeping a set of eyes and ears and a nose on that, and this, and everything around the group. Just not the brain, unless it was necessary. Like just now, when he leaped over an obstacle. This whole place was amazing, but made his skin itch uncomfortably. As advanced tech often did, but worse. Much worse. A few leaps into his run and his head was spinning. And his ears could pick up the scuttling noises of their enemies. A shiver went through him, it chilled him down to the bone, and made his stomach flip. But it didn't make sense, because fear was normal and he knew fear.

He looked back, he shouldn't have, but he did. Just enough that he could see it, their finder, while also keeping an eye on the way. Having a prey animal's head was good for that, wider vision. Now at least he could tell the fear was there, thankfully not enough to parálise him once he was already on the move. That and the desire to not die by scythe or similar. And it was coming after them, until they ran into the tunnel, and then it wasn't. It didn't follow them in, good, now they could die from a piece of the actual tunnels falling on their head. Some parts looked okay, but there was a mix. An unsettling mix that Ezra didn't understand. But his thoughts were once again interrupted.

"I need a second!" He said, he announced it before slowing his pace considerably. The thing wasn't after them anyway, it was doing something else outside. And Ezra needed to get his helmet off for a second, or fifteen, and breathe. Take some air in, to clear the fog that wanted to settle in his brain and the pirouettes it was doing. Dancing inside his craneum, stepping on his eyes. He leaned against the tunnel wall to catch his breath, helmet in his hands, still walking. His armour scraped against the wall of the tunnel, and caught on edges with a horrid noise. It helped ground him, though. And it brought back his concerns, why was he so out of it? Was it the anger? How unfit he felt for this whole ordeal? He stomped on and scratched at the ground. He breathed in again, and remembered happier words and kinder places. Oh, how he wished Ezrael was truly here.
 
Jace came to a halt at the head of the group, turning back to frown at Ezra's hesitation. Were it not for the fact that the kill-bot seemed to have halted its pursuit in the distance he would have had no patience for it, but as it was he bit back the urge to rush the cervitaur onwards without much mind for sensitivity. "We can't stop for too long," he said instead, caution lacing his tone. "We don't know if it can still follow us in here, even if it's stopped for now."

"We're in some kind of dark spot," Kai noted, the spidery metallic steps of his own drone coming to a halt beside Jace. "It can't sense us anymore-- hold on. Huh." On the drone's screen, Kai's avatar blinked. "So... I think we're good, actually. If the readouts I'm getting are accurate, we just time travelled. Like, thousands of years. So, theoretically, given that it didn't already come this way... it's not going to."

He paused.

"Okay, that doesn't totally make sense, but trust me on this. It makes sense to me, and I'm the smart one. I'm just having a hard time putting it into understandable words. We're safe, for now-- at least from that particular danger."

Jace sighed. "Great. More confusing time shit. I liked it better when it went in a straight line."

"You know, there's a lot of prevailing theory that time never went in a straight line, actually, it's more of a--" Kai paused abruptly. "Hold on, it's doing something."

The Reaper's unveiled broadcasts, apparently unlike its sensors, were reaching them even here. Which gave Kai front row seats to everything, from Xael's analysis of them all, to the results of that analysis, to the transformation that the Reaper underwent.

"Oh, fuck. Oh fuck shit balls." Kai cursed, a slightly frantic edge to his tone that he hadn't displayed even through everything that had happened up till now. "Bad news Sparks. Real bad news."

"What?" Jace gave him an alarmed look, eyes darting back down the hallway.

"She-- Xael, managed to analyse us. A version of her's been sitting there for thousands of years, now, with nothing to think about but us and our genetics. And she's- fuck. She's fucking figured out how to replicate a Null."

Jace paled slightly. "She what?"

"Did I fucking stutter? She's reverse engineered a way to shut us the fuck down!" Kai retorted sharply.

"Fuck." Jace ran a hand through his hair. "Fuck."

"Oh, and for the icing on the cake, those things-- the Reapers, are going into attack mode. As in, I'm no longer going to be automatically party to everything they do, because they're gonna know to hide it now. They're hunting us. And they've got Null power." Kai added gloomily.

"Okay. Don't panic," Jace took a breath. "We can deal with this. We dealt with Nulls back home, we can deal with them now." Admittedly, when they'd been dealing with Nulls before, there'd been a very finite number of them and they'd been humans, rather than killer robots, but sticking on that point wasn't going to help. "We just have to stick to the 'don't engage' plan. And you're gonna have to come out of there. We still don't know what happens if you get Nulled while you're in the network, it's not worth the risk of finding out."
 
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A @Script, @Machina Somnium, @Dashmiel, @KenżaSheep, and @Cale ultra mega production

Slowing down did wonders for his lack of breath. The conversation Jace and Kai had about more bad news, because of course there weren’t enough, did not. Ezra was feeling a bit better, though. He pushed himself off of the wall, and took a few more deep breaths before putting his helmet back on.

“Okay, time is not linear, and you’re both going to explain exactly what nulls are and what they do to you. But before we get into it, and as we walk. Please, walk. I haven’t felt very good since we got off that elevator, but I seem to be improving… Kai, may I have a word concerning risk-taking and sixty to seventy percent chances of success?” He said. His voice was a bit strained, but he did get moving.

“Nulls are mystokinetics, like us. Genetically altered humans.” Jace answered, nodding his agreement as he started to walk again as well. “They were designed by the government we were fighting against back home. They don’t have superhuman abilities like us, but what they do have is the ability to cause ours not to work anymore. As long as we’re close to them, we’re effectively regular humans.”

A shimmer of light announced Kai’s departure from inside his drone, as the teen reappeared atop it in a familiar flow of glowing data. “AKA, boring and lame,” he added. “It’s fine. I can probably configure a way to connect the drone and my hololink, so I can keep piloting this guy even if my powers get switched off. Just need to design an interface that’s not too clunky to use in the middle of a firefight…” He continued on mumbling to himself as his eyes partially glazed over, visualising code as he began to work on the program in question.

Nulls would be a problem then, a big one. Ezra let out a sigh, and pinned his ears back in annoyance. Because he wasn't eager for the nulls to come into play, and because Kai had sort of ignored him.

"Regular humans can be terrifying, I would know… and thank you for explaining, Jace. We'll need to plan around that." He said, focusing his attention back on the other kid.

"Kai, I'm fairly sure that you heard me. Can we please have an adult conversation about risks for the future?. Please?" He hoped raising kids plus the ones around Verni village had prepared him for moments like these. The Lordeeth Fae knew teenagers were complicated.

“Sure, we can have one,” Kai replied without looking away from his work. “But I can’t guarantee you’ll be happy with the outcome.”

“If I only talked to people when I knew I'd like the answers I’d get, I would just never speak” Said Ezra, glad to be acknowledged.

“What part of ‘regular human’ is terrifying?” Kathryne questioned, finally adding herself to the conversation with a reply to Ezra’s statement.
The cervitaur addressed Kathryne, looking less eager to answer her question. The war he had taken part in and the following genocide were memories he liked to keep out of mind.

“Humanity’s resilience, creativity and ability to adapt to almost anything makes them… formidable enemies.” He said, to keep it short. Kathryne bobbed her head from one side to the other in silent contemplation, finally shrugging as if to call his answer sufficient. Ezra scratched at his left ankle and looked over at Kai again.

“Back there, Kai, you took a big risk for the entire group. When you said yourself you didn’t have the best chances of success. I’d like to make a request, for myself, because I cannot speak for everyone else. Would you please not do that again unless there is no other option, or you can calculate with certainty the chances of success are above 90 percent?”

“Agreed.” Kathryne glanced at Ezra from the side before returning her gaze to Kai and folding her arms across her chest. “I understand reckless, but not when others are counting on you unless it’s to save their lives.” Which might have been the first time she’d acknowledged any sort of personal affection towards the group. Not that teamwork hadn’t been implied in her conduct, but she wasn’t exactly… “cuddly” in nature.

“It’s not like it’s a precise measurement,” Kai grumbled. “It’s a ballpark of confidence, not a dice roll. And it’s not like failing made anything worse. It just put us back to where we were before I tried it. The masking I did before that would’ve bought us like, twenty extra seconds at most, so that’s all it cost us. There was only like, a five percent chance of it going really wrong, and that would’ve just been if it fried my brain in the network.”

"Hmm.." Ezrael considered his companion's words carefully. He was glad Kathryne understood what he was getting at.

"Well don't get your brain fried either, we need you with us. Your abilities are unmatched, and I want to give that farming sim another go sometime. What's done is done, and we shouldn't dwell in the past for too long. Just take us all into consideration before… you jump with your ball park of confidence? Or inside it? sorry, I'm unfamiliar with the expression." His tone quieted considerably at the end of what he was saying, as he lost confidence in the meaning behind his words.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll keep it in mind,” Kai replied - sounding altogether uncommitted.

On Ezra’s other side, Jace huffed a laugh. “That’s the best you’re getting out of him,” he noted. “He doesn’t do contrite.”

Kai rolled his eyes..

The cervitaur beamed, his fluffy tail swishing gently from side to side as he walked. He was still lightheaded and itchy, but it wasn't getting worse.

"Good! Fantastic. Now… How are we going to tackle the possible appearance of nulls during fights? Kathryne and I will need to cover you I suppose." He changed the topic, in a much better mood.

“I still have my gear,” Jace noted. “I’ll keep it topped up with charge so I have battery power to work with even if my own powers get switched off. I won’t be zipping around anymore, but that’s why I have guns. And…” he glanced up at where Kai was still distracted working with his hololink. “Seems like Kai’s working on a plan for himself and his death-bot. So, hopefully we’ll still be more useful than not.”

"Hm, I see. I think when the nulls come in you should both target other enemies. And then Kathryne and I can take them down as quickly as possible. Is the null itself an ability they must activate, or are they just emitters of a nullifier field? Do they need to be destroyed to stop working or just killed? The ones you're used to." It was time to start planning, for all they knew their next enemy could just pop out of the next bit of debri.

"What do you think, Kathryne?" He asked the woman.

Kathryne’s gaze had drifted, and though she was listening, technically, not much of what was being said made it past her ears. She snapped back when her name was spoken, and Horizon filled her in before she had to ask, sparing an awkward second of staring. She raised her eyebrows.

“What’s a Null? Aside from wanting to kill us.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “And if we have a second—which, if we’re in a dark spot a thousand years in the future, I’d say we do—could someone please do me a favor and bring up anything important that I might have possibly missed?”

There might have been a “please, thank you” at the end, but her mind had been on other things, and she wasn’t looking forward to adding more of it to her mental plate. Horizon was, thankfully, keeping track of the things she wasn’t able to, otherwise Kathryne would likely have been expressing more than her typical subdued agitation. “I only recently got back here, and last time I’d checked, this whole quest had just begun.”

Ezra blinked, his good mood cut short. He rolled his eyes and flicked his left ear.

"Like Jace explained, nulls are genetically altered humans with special abilities, like him and Kai. Only their ability cancels theirs. So it won't work when they are inside it's… radius of effect." He said, trying to summarize.

“The ones we knew were just people, and they could turn it on or off at will,” Jace added to answer both of their questions. “Sounds like this time the ability’s going to be loaded into a machine. So I’m not sure what to expect, exactly.”

"You've missed a fight and part of our journey through a canyon, we thought you were dead. Xilunexus is also gone. As is Circe, who may or may not have been exchanged for you, since she went at the same time you returned. Where were you?" He asked. It could be explained in better detail, he should elaborate further. But maybe one of the kids would volunteer and then he would not have to. He wasn't particularly eager to think in detail about everything that had happened since Kathryne disappeared.

Her eyes narrowed, likely in contemplation. “I don’t know. Some weird place… like a field. There was a kid there. Three days, and suddenly it’s time for me to leave. I end up back there,” she jabbed a thumb over her shoulder before settling her arm back into its folded posture. “What do you mean, they’re gone? I picked up on Circe, but Xil is dead?”

"Xilunexus was… broken? I remember something like that. By a ghost. I… sorry, the kid. Who were they? And what did you do in that field?" He was curious, and also a bit envious. He could've used a field, or a forest, for his nerves.

“It wasn’t that exciting. Mostly walking endlessly.” Kathryne unfurled her arms and stuffed them into the pockets of her leather jacket. “It’s a good way to get lost in your own thoughts. Not recommended.” She shrugged as if to rid herself from the memory and answered his other question. “As for the kid? I don’t know. I didn’t see him again until just before coming back here.” Kathryne pulled a hand out to gesture slightly at the air before her fingers disappeared back into the pocket. “But that place… it was like a bubble. There were monsters on the outside of it. I swear that kid is what kept them out, like the whole space was surrounded by a barrier of light and heat. But I don’t know; it’s speculation. And it’s not going to help us with the Nulls, so far as I can tell.”

"I know, I apologise. It's just that this place, this planet… it's no place for children. Do you think he's okay on his own? If he was keeping the monsters away he may have been looking after you. I hope there is someone looking after him as well." He pouted a bit, scratching at one of his ankles again. It was enough that they had brought two young men along, there didn't need to be smaller children running about!. Regardless of their capabilities.

Kathryne released a brief, world-weary sigh. “I’m more than sure that the kid is fine. Worrying about it isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

Ezra snorted. "You're right, you're right." He said with a small smile, but he'd worry anyway.

"What's your preferred range in a fight, Kathryne?" He asked next. They hadn't fought together yet and he'd rather know beforehand.

She thought about it for a handful of seconds. “I can’t say I have one, but I’m not much of a sniper. Are you asking to spar?”

He shook his head. "No, I want to know how we may fight together better. I've fought with the two of them already, I sort of know what to expect." Explained Ezrael as they continued to make their way down the tunnels. He sniffed around a bit to try and catch any new smells.

“Usually it’s mid- or close-range,” Kathryne shrugged slightly. “I’ll use my elements, so it depends on which ones are equipped. Lightning doesn’t travel very far without contact, but earth is great for projectiles and defense. What was it that you fought?”

"Similar, mid or close range. I prefer close combat and use two lances to fight. But I can do long range if I need it, with the lances or a bow and arrows that I can call upon." He explained, thinking about what it'd be like to fight next to an element wrangler. It wouldn't be the first time he did so, though, so that was good.

“Pretty medieval stuff then,” she mused, letting the ghost of a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “I can’t imagine a lot of the tech has made much sense to you, has it? Am I wrong?”

Ezrael laughed a bit, and then coughed a couple of times. Ugh, now his throat was itchy as well.

"No, you're not wrong… technology is a marvel that I struggle to keep up with."

“It’s like magic, but with more moving parts,” she said. “You’ll get used to it. I wasn’t techy for a while, either.”

"I haven't been techy for over five hundred years, even if I have… lived alongside technology for some time. More since I arrived at the Nexus. It reminds me of my son Klaus, he was human, he had a phone, and humanity in my world used technology often. I just never had the need to learn how to use it, but I probably should have." He was regretting it now for sure. But it hadn't made a lot of sense at the time.

“I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that magic exists,” Jace chimed in with a snort of laughter. “Like, actual, mystical, not-scientifically-explainable magic. So at least you’re not the only one who’s a little baffled. Not to mention that Va’nyr tech is leagues more advanced than anything we had back home, to the point where it might as well be magic too.”

“It might be, in a way,” Kathryne replied. “I won’t say I understand it all, myself, despite dabbling in a bit of both worlds. ‘Rize usually handles the technobabble for me.”

"Our science accounts for magic, I think. Your mysto, was it? Your mysto powers remind me of fictional heroes children liked to read about back in my day. Still do, probably." Said Ezra with a little sigh. Little Ayshel had once dragged both him and Ezrael through seven comic shops until she found the limited edition graphic novel that she wanted.

“Yeah we’re basically superhumans. There’s some old-Earth comics about mutants I found one time that’s like, us in a nutshell,” Kai noted. “Except we make more sense, and our lives involve less resurrection and cosmic bullshit.”

The cervitaur openly laughed then. "You would've gotten along with my sons, I remember they had similar opinions on those stories."

“More than I had in a childhood,” Kathryne huffed, amused. “I didn’t grow up reading stories. I went around and visited them, literally. It was usually dangerous.”

As the group’s conversation carried onward, so too did they in their walking. The condition of the stretch of tunnel they found themselves in at that moment seemed relatively stable, a marker that they had managed to circumvent through what would be the worst of the anomaly for now.

Unbeknown to them, there was another walking the tunnel, and soon their paths would meet.


Earlier that day


His day began like any other - with a wake from a dreamless sleep. The him that was the intangible woke first, the ocular unit that housed what was considered his soul lighting up, accompanied by a warm hum. His soul did a little dance inside of its dome, the spiritual equivalent of stretching in the morning, and its color changed from a white to a purple. Soon the biological processes caught up with the mechanical and the aperture of his ocular unit auto-focused to adjust for the vision his own multi-faceted eye brought him.

The position in which he slept was not one that would have been comfortable to a human being, for instead of resting in a laying-down position, he slept upright in a crouched position with the vestigial pair of arms tucking across his legs while his main pair of arms were held aloft, very much giving off the impression of a tree.

As he arose from this position now, all arms returned to their respective places and he began his daily routine. The very first chore was always the cleaning of his resting mat, a circle roughly 2m in diameter woven out of a mycelium that propagated itself amongst the crystals in the mines. Much like the crystals themselves, the mat gave off a brilliant glow as he made efforts to pick it up and brush off any debris that may have accumulated before returning it to its storage area.

His living quarters themselves had once been a storage closet, some odd billions of years prior, though this was information unbeknownst to him. As he left his closet/home, he then began his journey of going to collect the offerings that had been left for him.

His name was Hemwy, and to the Dan-o tribe, he was considered dead.

Fortunately, or perhaps more unfortunately, this sacrificial status afflicted upon him was one of social nature and not literal, but there are some who might prefer death than to be void of any contact altogether.

Hemwy, on the whole, did not seem to mind so much this excommunication. He was a tired soul, though he did not yet know the reason why, so to be granted such an ambulatory life was a choice of preference for him. Besides, there was some real sense of pride that he drew as well from having been chosen, and the offerings left behind for him helped lend this feeling of importance. The purple hue shifted into yellow as he reflected on these feelings.

⁕​

The yellow light thrown by the pensive Hemwy swung between blue and red in his observer’s gaze. He stood before the wizened soul of the Dan-o who went by Hemwy, watching the frozen light beams thrown off by his thinking and feeling. Pale lavender skin was visible through the collection of rags the observing figure wore as clothing. The gleaming of pearlescent all-white eyes glinted from beneath a floppy and lopsided cowl. Whether ineptitude or an attempt at subterfuge was hard to determine. A child’s idea of what anonymity looked like.

He glanced slightly to the right of Hemwy and then to the left, seeing down through the brilliantly shining noodlies that were always there just at the edge of his vision. He wished he hadn’t learned as much as he had. He wished he hadn’t been placed in this position. It wasn’t fair, that he couldn’t simply step forward and drag his friend to the when where they used to play together all the time.

It was plain as day to him, all he had to do was look a bit farther through the noodlies. He wished he could go back to the when before he knew what he was. But there was no choice. His best friends came for him, and there was only one noodlie that would fix this whole mess.

He needed Hemwy’s help, even if it meant they could never play together again. He saw in the noodlie, what needed to happen.

Glint

“Hi, Amah-sah'kase,” said the little boy as he stepped into time to stand before Hemwy.

Hemwy started suddenly, and his yellow hue shifted green to further indicate his surprise. There were two antennae that began on his back and extended up and above his head, pointing skyward. Presently they twitched to and fro like a pair of divining rods as he examined the boy. The shocked green moved into a curious blue. He saw him first. Only after a few moments of processing what had been said did he truly hear.

All color faded from the ocular housing unit entirely as the soul came to a standstill within its suspension there. The energy that sat there was spherical in shape and covered in many spike-like protrusions that seemed to grow or shrink in size, and shortly thereafter larger spikes began jutting out rapidly until the entire surface was covered in raised points like the hair of a scared cat.

He took a step towards the boy and raised an arm to reach toward him, but froze midstep. He tried to speak but words did not form. The spikes that jut from his soul sunk back into the surface of it and it became a smooth sphere instead. Old connections tried to branch and restore but were varied in their success. Something within him changed.

With the speaking of his true name, he and the boy drifted off into his first dream.

The boy stood before the altered being shackled to existence, watching from outside. A feeling of shame that he could not identify for lack of teaching assaulted him. Sniffles and a scrunching of his brow into what he thought bravery looked like.

His small fists ground the tears he pretended weren’t there into non-existence as he tried to focus with all his might. He was. He would be. A warrior. The weight of their reality weighed upon his shoulders as he squinted through. He had to go waaaay back through Hemwy’s noodlie, before the Dan-O and the die-ber-vengeance. Before his own birth.

Glint

The boy’s face disappeared from Hemwy’s view, and was replaced by a view of a time long gone by. A time that vibrated and resonated throughout his soul. He saw a different, purer form that he recognized as self. A feeling of power as his Abaddon suit flowed over his wings and arms. How it amplified him, gave his antennae sight of the universe. Falling down from the sky like his ancestor’s greatest fear, his two comrades at either side. The confidence that the three of them were an unfair matchup against the entire star system, let alone a planet.

His comrades. Friends, a concept he’d gotten to experience and develop through the lens of entirely different points of view with them, literally. One was at times loud and boisterous, dripping with bravado. A projection, hiding the quiet and introspective soul that he knew only appeared when no one was watching. A human, an unlikely match up for kinship if not for the many tools that facilitated their mutual understanding. The other, eyes afire. Friend. Mentor. Leader. The man with whom he’d go into the Iri’Gal with, so that the rest of their people didn’t have to.

Sudden cut in the imagery. Himself, twisted, nearly unrecognizable. Forgotten by all, including himself. An endless loop without end. Within, the man with the fiery eyes. Friend. At the threshold of death. A state he recognized and saw him in, countless times. But different. The sight brought the knowledge, his friend faced a
real death. Image shifts, zooms out.

An enormous tendril scintillated in every color as it coiled and weaved between an infinity of others like it. Within, Hemwy. All he was. All he will be. All he
could be. He saw a way to end the cycle. To help his friend. To finally earn his rest.

“Help them,” he heard the Elo’Ran boy say. “I’m sorry we won’t be able to play anymore, Hemwy. But it’s okay. I’ll take the sad away in the end, you’ll see. Just make sure to try to remember ‘kay?”

The vision deepened, taking on an ethereal solidity equal to all of the mass of all of Space. Infinite shining tendrils trapped within a boundary holding the void at bay. Thick like a bowl of noodles. A small part of one of them shone ever more brilliantly than its peers for a moment before it winked out into non-existence, taking with it their meeting.

Glint


⁕​

Help them.

The words echoed as Hemwy’s first dream came to an end, and as he returned to himself his soul erupted into an explosion of colors. Hues rapidly shifted and danced around the ocular housing unit until finally they began to settle again, and all color would come to fade out entirely. For a moment Hemwy remained frozen in the position he initially had been, arm outstretched. Then the curious blue color returned, and all resumed as if no interruption had even occurred.

When he spoke, the words would be projected out of a rudimentary speaker that was set into the same chassis as his ocular unit. The need for any functioning mouth-parts had long been lost, and his method of speech now seemed almost like an afterthought that had just been slapped on.

You should not be speaking to me.

The speech was certainly labored, it seemed to take a considerable amount of effort on Hemwy’s part to first deliberate on what to say and then to deliver upon that decision. The voice itself was almost completely devoid of tone, but did carry a certain lethargy to it. All in all Hemwy sounded like a very depressed robot.

It was then that Hemwy noticed he was alone, and a strong feeling of confusion overtook him. He could have swore that there had been another. After a moment of more consideration had passed, he decided that he must have been imagining things because that concept hurt his head far less. The outstretched arm dropped, and with it went any other inklings of thought related to the event that had just transpired.

He resumed the collection of the offerings that had been left, just a dead Dan-o once more.

⁕​

Once all had been collected, Hemwy meant to return to his humble room and resting mat but a sudden compulsion overtook him. Instead, he found himself entering a nearby maintenance tunnel and walking, destination unknown.
 
As written by @Script, @Machina Somnium, @Dashmiel, @KenżaSheep, and @Cowpoke Cale ultra mega production

It would not take long for the two walking parties to reach their shared impasse. Hemwy was the first to notice that he had company, for he was alone and free of any distractions that might otherwise draw his attention.

It was the sounds of conversation that reached him before anything else. Conversation that was still too far to decipher, if it even could be understood, and conversation that should not have existed to begin with.

These tunnels were empty, were always meant to be empty, and always had been empty, or at least had always been so in this life. Hemwy was uncertain but not uncertain enough to cease in his movement. If anything, it was his now mounting curiosity that instead drove him forward, forward to seek the answers to the new questions arising within him.

The truth was that he also had no reason to be afraid of what might be approaching. The ṣenka-inp'ka were only a story, and a story he had not heard since his time living with the Dan-o. A story he didn’t like to have an excuse to think about. A story that those he was approaching would already be somewhat familiar with.

Help them.

Another echo reverberated within the confines of his very being and was followed by what could only be described as a physical shudder. For but a mere moment the whole arose to the surface, and knowing what it must do, it set alight their first beacon.

Hemwy’s ocular unit first began to glow brighter, then erupted with a brilliant white light in a flash. The light at the end of their tunnel had arrived.

“Shit, what’s that?” Jace tensed as the sudden flash illuminated the gloomy tunnel, sparks dancing along his fingertips instinctively.

Kai’s eyes flicked up from where he’d been fiddling with his hololink, narrowing as he squinted forwards - looking more through the sensors of his drone than through his own light-blinded eyes. “Robot,” he answered after a beat. “Not like the other ones, though… it’s kinda funny looking, actually.”

Jace cast him a slightly bewildered look. “Is it hostile?”

“Given that it’s neither actively attacking us, nor waving a white flag and singing kumbaya, I couldn’t say for sure, Sparks,” Kai replied dryly. “But it doesn’t seem like a very practical design for a killbot going by what my scans are picking up.”

Squinting with all four of his eyes, Ezra took a few more steps forward. He couldn't see that much with all the light. But he did point his ears forward, and took a few careful sniffs. The kids' words made him more curious than anything.

Whatever It, they? Were… had an interesting combination of earthy and metallic that plucked a few strings in Ezra's hearts. Beyond the staticky atmospheric tone of the light. Was this a trap of some sort? Lance in his hands, in case something sprung at him, he kept advancing slowly.

"Hello!? Would you please turn that down?" They couldn't bloody see, and he wanted very badly for this not to be certain death. Especially because he was walking right at it.

“Don’t go towards it!” Kathryne protested, squinting past the hand she’d brought up to shield her eyes. “Why– Just wait for it to come over here!”

"What does it matter? They're not exactly moving!" The light was fixed in place even as Ezrael walked.

“It’s not. And it’s definitely had every chance to notice us,” Jace mused, furrowing his brow. “If it was hostile, we’d already be under fire. Unless it’s a trap.”

“My scans aren’t picking up anything else nearby. Or any kind of space for anything else to be,” Kai answered, pre-empting the question. “Just us and a weirdly thicc robot with tiny arms. I say we go closer, I wanna take a better look with my actual-real-person eyes.”

“Well, we can’t exactly just stand here forever,” Jace murmured. “Let’s move up, but take it slow and cautious.”

"Good plan" Said Ezrael with a hum, as he continued to walk closer to the robot. The way Kai said the word thick strongly reminded him of someone, which was unexpected. Maybe there were generational links across different realities? He'd think about it another time.

Kathryne listened to all of this and shook her head. She followed at the back of them all, just waiting for something to go awry.

As Hemwy shined, his subconscious was severed entirely from the electronic systems that surrounded him and nothing of its deliberations was recorded. He could see them all clearly now - truly see them, not through eyes but through his being.

The sensation that was 'he' sat there now in this moment, suspended above them and locked in a birds-eye-view. He-that-is-now watched as they made their slow approach towards the he-that-had-been, hands raised to shield their eyes from the light.

Recognition burned in he-that-is-now for he-that-had-been, for it was the he-that-he-was - but for either to be introduced to this concept was like oil being introduced to water - as there was an immediate revulsion, followed then by a separation.

The light that had been emitting from Hemwy's ocular unit ceased as promptly as it had begun, and for the second time that day he was left standing, tinged with a sad sense of familiarity and confusion.

The cerv slowly brought his hands down, no longer using them to shield himself from the blinding shine. He pointed his ears forward, curious, and blinked several times to get used to the new environment.

Only this time he wasn't alone upon his return to himself. Standing before him was a ragtag group of individuals, some of which were familiar in shape and a few that were as much an oddity to him as he would be to them. In his surprise, the color of his ocular unit transitioned into an adriatic blue.

New colours? What did that mean?! Ezrael sniffed in the direction of the other being to learn what he could.
 
As written by @Script, @Machina Somnium, @Dashmiel, @KenżaSheep, and @Cowpoke Cale

Unsure of how to react initially, Hemwy remained stationary, until a small sensation from deep within him urged him to do a gesture that would have once been familiar to him. He raised an arm, the vestigial arm beneath it mirroring the action, and moved both in a brief arc to give a sort of half-assed wave.

A teeny tiny sound came out of Ezrael's mouth before he could stop himself. He cooed, swept by the small and somehow extremely adorable gesture. Please don't be a killing machine trap.

The same sensation told Hemwy to speak, and so he did, but the language that emitted itself from his rudimentary speaker was that of Old Va'nyrian, not the intention of his little passenger, but there was still much progress to be made in that regard.

“...what?” Jace exchanged a look with Kai. “Did you get any of that?”

“No, but the weird robot waved at us, Sparks. We gotta protect him with our lives now.” Kai half-dangled off the front of his drone to peer down at Hemwy, linking in with the databases that Xil and the Va’nyrians back home had loaded him with to try and decipher what the robot had said.

"I-" Ezra coughed a couple of times, his throat suddenly dry. "I strongly agree with Kai" The problem child.

“Sounds like a mix of the old Va’nyrian language, mixed with… something else that’s confusing our translators. But I think the gist is ‘Hi, I come in peace’. Can you understand us, robo guy?” He glanced up at the machine.

"We extend our greetings back to you!" Said Ezra, shamelessly excited about the prospect of making a new friend. He waved back at the nice robot, while his short, fuzzy tail shook from side to side.

“If it suddenly decides to kill you all, I told you so.” Kathryne was watching everything from several feet behind the others—maintaining a safe distance. She’s seen plenty of “cute,” and the novelty had worn off long ago. Cute things were almost always the most deadly ones.

Okay, so this was a lot at once. To circumvent becoming overwhelmed, Hemwy compartmentalized all the incoming stimuli in order of having been received and then reacted to them one by one.

The others had spoken in reply, to him and among themselves. There were four of them, three humanoid and one only half-so. More than four if you counted their drones. Hemwy did. The two smallest seemed to be most interested in what he had said to them, while the largest of the group returned his wave. Hemwy echoes this and waves once more. This is good, this is progress, this is communication. Elation sparks and Hemwy’s ocular unit shifts into a myriad of purple hues.

The smallest of them speaks once more, but it is lost on Hemwy until he hears the end.

“-Can you understand us, robo guy?”

Hemwy finds that he can now. Purples shift to greens and back again. Surprise and elation, twofold. He has no head, and so when he nods his affirmation to the group before him it appears as if he is rocking his body back and forth at the hips instead. Something in him tells him that this is close enough. He does not question the origin of this gesture, he just knows that it will be understood.

Speech erupts from his speaker once more.

“UNDERSTAND.”

After a brief pause, he remembers an obligation and adds something.

“NOT DAN-O?”

The robot waved back! Ezrael grinned as it also answered Kai. Sure, they still had to be careful like Kath said, but for now It, they? seemed friendly enough.

“No Dano’s here, who’s that?, are you lost?” It may be a silly question, because they were as lost as one could be already. But… something inside Ezra wanted him to ask. His side was itchy, he scratched it, the armor making room easily. Some white hairs floated around the tunnel now, the temperature may be making him shed.

“Dan-O?” Kai raised an eyebrow. Was it an acronym, or just a name? Either way, it didn’t mean anything to him. “Sorry buddy, don’t know that one. So uh, I guess not. We’re not from here. In like, any sense of the word. Pretty sure we’re from a different planet, time, and reality. Whack, right?”

"Did you just quack?" Asked Ezra in a hushed tone, very visibly confused. What?.

“Noo, it’s like, ‘whack’, as in…” Kai squinted in thought for a moment. “I guess ‘whacky’?”

"Ooh… I see. I see. Sorry." He didn't, he didn't get it at all. But he nodded as if he did anyway. It had to be youth-speech. He had probably heard the words before from his kids or students. It had just surprised him.

“It’s another way of saying ‘strange but cool,’” Kathryne re-translated the word for Ezra. She took a step closer—a wary one, but a step nonetheless—to the odd droid that stood across the hall. “Define ‘DAN-O,’” she queried.

The cerv nodded at Kathryne in a quiet display of gratitude.

Hemwy becomes overwhelmed again. Something deeper in him aches in frustration. His understandings come in shards and fragments, scattered like confetti, glints of clarity, knowings fed to him like hands that cup water saying “here, drink of me”, pleading almost. He does his best to drink what he can. He tries. Hues dance and shift, always. Constant now.

“NOT DAN-O.” is all he musters, not a question this time, an echo showing that he understands that they are not what he has asked.

They are free to speak to him, but of course they already have. He is not dead to them, he is still Hemwy, he is not a shadow to them because they do not understand what shadows are, but this is OK because they are not Dan-o and would have no way of knowing, even if they carry their own shadows with them.

He processes backwards what has been spoken, trying again to understand, to drink.

“WHACK.”

Another echo, another understanding. The concept is familiar to him, but the why is lost. If he had a face it would be twisted, puzzled, sad, confused, hurt, contorted and displaying a great deal of grief beneath the surface, a coastline waiting for the tide to break. But he does not, and it must wait.

He raises an arm, the vestigial beneath it mirroring the movement like a small puppet. He paws at the air.

“YOU MUST FOLLOW.”

A moment of clarity is lended to him, and he realizes that this is an unorthodox request. He pleads.

“TRUST.”
 
As written by @Script, @Machina Somnium, @Dashmiel, @KenżaSheep, and @Cowpoke Cale

"Why?" Asked Ezrael then, after they listened to what their strange… friend? Had to say. He tried not to be harsh, but the question was fair.


"Why trust you? And where must we follow?" He rephrased, since the other way of putting may have been too broad. He tilted his head, sniffing at the newcomer. They were an intriguing creature, hopefully a friend, they needed more allies here. But it would be foolish to just assume no harm would come their way.


“Yeah… we’ve not had much reason to trust anything we’ve come across here so far,” Jace noted with a frown. “Where exactly are you leading us?”


“So… not to point out the obvious, but I’m assuming it’s not going back the way we came, and there’s a grand total of one other choice.” Kai snorted. “So we’re gonna be going the same way regardless.”


"It doesn't hurt to ask…" Said Ezrael, ending with a hum, but Kai was quite right this time. There weren't a lot of options for now, path wise.


Hemwy hits Kai with a binary point and then a binary thumbs-up, gestures he doesn’t understand in exchange for help he realizes he has received, but he cannot fully know why it is helpful.


“NO TIME.”


Hemwy is frustrated again, and distant noises that could only be described as terrible ring out from the direction they had come from just in time to prove his point. It is enough for him that the obvious is now known, that the urgency has been established, and so he turns and begins a surprisingly rapid pace back in the direction from which he arrived. His antennae twitch nervously to and fro, his colors remain constant, his anxiety grows palpable.


“YOU FOLLOW NOW.”


A statement. He shows no intentions of slowing down.


“As wary as I am,” Kathryne spoke, glancing back the way they came, “Kai has a point. At least it’s offering to help, which is more than we had before.” She started off, trying to keep up with the creature and assuming the others would follow behind her. Even if they didn’t, that was fine. She’d been on her own before.


The cervitaur's ears twitched, something was going on behind them. He looked in the general direction, but it was not immediately obvious, which he took as a good sign.


"Let us follow our new guide, then." Said Ezrael, as he started walking behind them and Kathryne. His throat itched as did his fur. So he scratched his side and stifled a few coughs. It ended up turning into a bit of a fit. Quietened wet coughs and ragged breaths that left him lightheaded, but he just kept walking. With one hand he covered his mouth, with the other he held Gherandre’meran, Amen’tur.


“I’ll watch the rear,” Jace volunteered, falling back to cover the group’s backs as they moved after Hemwy, keeping one eye trained on the darkness receding away down the tunnel behind them. Whatever was making those noises, he had no interest in finding out.


Kai urged his drone forwards, quietly adjusting the focus of its sensors to their rear as well - just in case.


The veneer known as Hemwy was admittedly more than a little scared, he had not anticipated those noises, nor did he know what had made them. But he knew stories, and those stories were more than enough to cause this response, the green hue his ocular unit swirled into being reflected as much.


He pauses only long enough to allow him a swivel to look back and check they are following. They were an interesting little ragtag, and Hemwy notes a particular interest in the various drones they have accompanying them. Those seem more like he is and the others less so, and he wonders if he may be able to discuss that with them later.


Perhaps to confirm his fear, he poses a question as he resumes his pace.


“WHAT BEHIND?”


His syntax is still a work in progress. An antenna twitches in place.


“Some kind of killbot, assuming it’s the same thing that was after us before,” Kai answered with a grimace. “Called a ‘Reaper’, or that’s the closest translation at least. So, y’know, suitably cliche and ominous. And it just went through a several thousand year training montage all to do with killing us specifically.”


Ezra cleared his throat quietly before he spoke. His voice still came out a little strained.


"We could go faster," He suggested. He had his ears pinned back, even though there was an entire Kai between the suspicious noises and the rest of the group. Which made it all safer. But the darkness and the noise weren't making it easy to keep calm, and he did NOT want to spook in these conditions.


“You’re sure we can’t just turn around and kill it?” Kathryne responded. “That seems way easier than to keep running.”


"Did you not hear what Kai just said?" Answered Ezra immediately, growling a little at the end. He took a deep breath, he was nervous, and he needed to calm down. He held Gherandre’meran, Amen’tur a bit closer to his upper chest.


She huffed, “I heard him! But there’s more of us than of it. Maybe we use the power of friendship or something.” At that point she was being sarcastic in her seriousness.


The cervitaur gave Kathryne a look of disbelief, wrinkling his noses. But he absolutely refused to dignify what had to be one of the most absurd things he had ever heard with a response. The power of friendship?! Please…


“Not saying it’s impossible, but you’d be fighting two down. Or, at least, me and Sparks here wouldn’t be firing on all cylinders. We’d just be two guys with some fancy toys.” Kai answered. “And uh, spot confession? I’m not much for meatspace combat. Nerd physique, and all.” He poked at his own skinny arm, displaying a pointed lack of muscle.


“I can pull my weight without my powers, but he’s right– we’re better off trying to avoid engaging, especially in cramped quarters. If we can hold off on confronting it until we have more space to work with, Kai can create enough distance to escape its null-field and provide fire support from there; presuming it has a similar range to the ones we’re used to.”


"I don't think we can even begin to imagine what those… things could accomplish in a millennia. Let us know if you feel the effects of the forcefield, and we'll keep you safe." Said Ezrael, with a growing concern for his teammates. "I suppose I don't know if I can be nullified…"


Hemwy did his best to follow their conversation, and felt a sense of irritation build in tandem with his attempt to do so. His understanding of their words was only surface value, and any colloquialisms or jargon that didn’t directly translate to his own language were seemingly lost on him. His colors swirled a mixture of red and purple to show as much, and if he had any semblance of a face, he might have even offered a pleading look to one of their drones.


“DAN-O HAVE NAME FOR THEM. ṢENKA-INP'KA. CANNOT KILL. DO NOT ATTEMPT. SHADOW WILL BE LOST.”


In a gesture they may recognize provided they have the angle to see it, he places his hands close together in front of him and then expands them away from each other as his digits splay. It is something into nothing.

There is a cautionary tale buried there, waiting to be told, but he has no method of telling it in a way that will translate correctly to them. This is frustrating to him, and the reds and purples flare once more. There is a pull within him that he ignores, and just as he is about to tackle his mounting problem, it pulls again; it pulls harder. He flashes blue with surprise, but then remembers. He is leading them to a destination, after all.


Hemwy comes to a halt and holds up an arm to signal to the others to do so as well. The interior of that particular stretch of tunnel is much the same as all the rest they had walked by, but Hemwy is now pointedly looking at a section of the wall as if there is more to be seen there.


He makes micro adjustments to his position as he looks, and suddenly green floods into his ocular unit to indicate that he is pleased. Just as suddenly, he steps forward and disappears from the view of the rest of the group entirely. Something into nothing.


After a small pause, he returns, and a slightly different shade of green indicates that he is feeling some amount of shame.


“HERE IS A DOOR. CANNOT SEE UNLESS IN THE RIGHT MOMENT.”


He gestures down to his relative location.


“ONLY HERE, ONLY NOW. NOT THEN OR LATER. COME, SEE.”


“Time-locked…” Kai’s eyebrows rose. “That’s… specific. I guess we were expected.”


Jace chewed his lip. “Somehow that doesn’t bring me any great comfort. I’m understanding what’s going on here less and less by the second.”


Ezra felt a bit bad for being… a little bit happy about Jace's confusion. But at least he now knew he wasn't the only one!


“Well, I’m still happier to take our chances with this guy than with Killer Deathtron 5000 back there, so…” Kai shrugged and hopped down from his perch atop the drone-tank, stepping forward to where Hemwy had indicated he should stand. “Here?”


Ezra had almost forgotten how little Kai was when he was walking normally. They really were just kids. Strong kids though. He did his best to imitate Kai and stand where he should. Time locked gates were new to him, and he sniffed around while scratching at the ground with his front right hoof.


"How could we be expected? That's bad news… isn't it?" He wasn't sure, really, about what was true, and what wasn't. He ran his fingers over the various small ridges and engravings in the surface of Gherandre’meran, Amen’tur's haft, and pinned his ears back. He would be ready. Even if his nausea was threatening to make a comeback.

Hemwy watched them patiently, grateful that they at least seemed to understand the concept of the door, and rather quickly too. They wouldn’t need any coddling. Still, while they seemed to get the idea, it wasn’t exact. It had to be exact.


“HAS TO BE EXACT.”


Since Hemwy himself was occupying the space necessary, it stood to reason that the rest wouldn’t be able to see it at all until he corrected that; so he does, shuffling closer in the direction of Kai and hoping that they all don’t realize the mistake he has made. The aperture of his ocular unit narrows as he focuses on the boy, the colors within form a friendly shade of blue.


“I CAN SHOW BUT MUST MOVE YOU. MUST MOVE YOU ALL.” He swivels to look at the others. “IT IS OKAY TO TOUCH YOU?


There is a weight to his question, but it is unknown if they feel it. In Dan-o culture, one’s body is a private and powerful thing. For touch to be granted, even in the most seemingly mundane action, consent must always be sought. There is a sort of honor to it, but one to be explored later or perhaps never at all. For Hemwy himself, since he is sacrificially dead, his touch with the Dan-o tribe may no longer be sought or given. With this group, he has discovered a loophole and is silently elated.


"As long as that touch won't bring us harm, it is okay with me." Answered Ezrael after a moment of consideration.


“Only if you buy me dinner first,” Kai joked with a smirk, then paused to consider. “Er, that was a joke. Just realised that might go over your head. Real answer: sure thing, buddy. Nudge me on over.”


Ezra tried to repress a small snort, amused by the way Kai answered. He did allow himself a fond smile, though.


Kathryne seemed uncomfortable with the thought, but she wasn’t about to strand them all because her decision was left in the negative. Tensely, warily, she nodded once.
 
As written by @Script, @Machina Somnium, @Dashmiel, and @Cowpoke Cale

As they prepared to cross the threshold that their guide urged them towards, a shimmer of scintillating light enveloped their recently reunited comrade. Beeps declaring various different systems as 'nominal' resounded through their gear, their squad link displaying the trio that composed the full roster.

That had
always indicated the full roster, assured all but their memories.


"The errors amass...hurry please...trust Heh..."

The disembodied voice barely brushed against their awareness.

Felt rather than heard and so ephemeral it was impossible to gender it. Something in the desperation laden lilting tones threatened to raise the hairs on the back of their necks. It was an alien and unknowable voice that nonetheless brought out feelings of deep and warming familiarity, like the whispers of a forgotten childhood friend.

The scintillating light in the shape of a person dimmed down slowly as the voice petered out, losing intensity until it faded into nonexistence alongside the voice's parting.


Kai, Jace, and Ezrael were left standing before their impatient and earnest guide.

Shit,” Jace cursed. “Again?!” He stared at the space where Kathryne had been but a moment before, then swept his eyes around in search of something – anything – to explain her disappearance. But they were alone.

“Starting to feel like the timer we’re going up against isn’t just the heat death of the planet,” Kai murmured, looking back at them. “How long till we all just straight up randomly disappear?”

Ezrael was looking around with all four of his eyes, as if Kathryne would suddenly turn up hidden in the shadows. He had his ears pinned back and was breathing fast, like a nervous rabbit struggling not to spook and bolt. But he didn't dare to even lift his hooves from the ground.

“There has to be some kind of explanation– you both heard that voice, right?” Jace turned back to Kai and Ezra, running a hand through his hair. “It said something about ‘errors’. Something’s gone wrong with time here, that much is fucking obvious. But how the hell are we supposed to avoid slipping through the cracks like that?”

"I don't know it… I don't know. But they must, right??" He didn't think it was random, because that was too terrifying. He pointed at Hemwy with his hand. How could they even be sure it wasn't the small robot's doing, somehow?. But could they afford to start questioning their only guide? Surely not now.

"What happened?? Explain." Demanded Ezra of Hemwy.

Hemwy’s colors flashed anxiety and confusion. For him, the memory of Kathryne was gone instantly like an exhale in the wind. It had always been the four of them, all he had done was ask permission to move them. They had agreed, but then pandemonium. Hemwy did not understand. He shrank away from Ezra’s accusation, pivoting on the heel of one of his massive legs as he crouched and sank into himself to protect his more fleshy parts.

“I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE QUESTION!”

Something deeper within Hemwy forced itself out with his exclamation. A sense of emotion in his otherwise monotone delivery. A sense of a ghost within a machine; confused, and afraid of being hurt.

"Wait, no, no… I'm sorry…" He had scared them, shit. His ears were pointed at Hemwy now, and he laid down his deer half very slowly and carefully on the ground. Hopefully now he would seem less scary and also not disappear into a reality crack like Kathryne.

"We are not going to hurt you." He said first, pausing for a few seconds. "We had another friend, she just disappeared. Do you know what happened to her?" He asked in a softer tone, swallowing his fear and the nervousness that was making his fur stand on end.

The aperture of Hemwy’s ocular unit narrowed as he focused on Ezra. He recognized the intention of the body language of the cervitaur, and allowed himself to be a little more vulnerable.

“HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS MANY.” His left antenna twitched four times as his speaker delivered the muffled response. There was a slight beat after, and then the antenna on the right twitched its own four. He didn’t like this. His utterance of the name of the Ṣenka-inp’ka had been a violation, already it seemed a shadow had been unstitched from the very fabric, and worse yet it seemed to have happened directly under his metaphorical nose.

The urgency relit the proverbial fire under Hemwy’s ass and he shot back up to his original standing position at a startling speed. They had already arrived at his solution, the door, and now that the problem was arriving at the doorstep near simultaneously to themselves, Hemwy found it most appropriate to make sure no more time was wrongfully wasted.

“MUST LEAVE NOW! WE GO NOW!


The door required precision to be passed through. Typically this precision would be of a more pressing matter to Hemwy, but now there was enough cause to ignore proper procedure and instead take a potentially painful, reality shattering risk. He opened the door through time, stepped through, and this time held it open for them from the other side. For them, this would appear as a shimmer in the air. Further hesitation meant death, or worse.

“NOW!”

A previously unknown authority had oozed its way into that final, disembodied demand, and if the others had had any prior experience with being soldiers, then they would recognize the brief glimpse of the leader that long-resided in the deepest recesses of Hemwy’s being.

Ezrael got back up so fast, he almost jumped. The one thing that stopped him from obeying immediately, as his body was screaming at him to do, was that he wasn't alone.

"Come on, I'll go last." He said to his fellow warriors. They had stalled enough, apparently. Ezra had questions but they could wait.

Jace grit his teeth, but then nodded. “Alright, fine, we can figure this shit out later,” he muttered. “I’ll go first.”

Steeling himself, he took up a position in front of the shimmering door, took a breath, then stepped through.

Kai nodded to Ezra. “See you on the other side, big guy,” he said with a flicked salute. A mental command was enough to bring the drone forwards, condensing itself down into a shape that would fit through the gap. He lingered just a moment longer, eyeing the door warily, then sighed and with a muttered, “Geronimo, I guess…” he slipped through.

He watched them pass, fond, then looked back into the darkness behind them for a second before following them through the door.

As Hemwy held the threshold open, he remained unfazed by the indescribable realm that lay beyond. It was as if he had stepped through a door and immediately back out again, with no time having passed at all. He waited patiently for the others to join him, knowing that the experience would be vastly different for them.

This realm was a place outside of comprehension and reality, and it was not meant for mortal beings. The longer they stayed, the more they would lose their sense of self, their grip on reality slipping away until there was nothing left but the endless abyss.
 
As written by @Script and @Dashmiel

Jace’s senses were immediately overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of the area that surrounded him. It was as if he was floating in a sea of colors and shapes, constantly shifting and twisting in ways that his mind couldn't fully comprehend. The feeling of an inexplicable presence only intensified the disorienting experience.

He wasn’t alone - he could hear… or feel a faint whispering in his ear, an insistent presence that wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t his voice, yet it seemed to know everything about him. It echoed his own thoughts, not just from now, but from his whole damn life.

Is this the suit? The thought bounced around his head just like the others, confusing– it was hard to keep track of the fact that it was what he was thinking now, when time was becoming increasingly harder to keep track of. Was it all happening in an instant, or minutes, or… longer?

But as the moment stretched, it became clearer– even if now was becoming an elusive concept, it felt like time was stretching on. Hours? Days? Weeks? It was a confusing solitude, in the company of his own mind spread across his lived past. Like a trip down memory lane, but he was somehow experiencing the whole thing both in a random order, and in no order at all.

The conscious, panicked part of his mind was trying to escape– move, fight, do something to affect whatever was happening, but he felt bizarrely disconnected from his body. Like the feeling in a dream where every imagined motion is devoid of sensation, and his body refused to obey him. If it was even still here with him in this confusing abyss.

Fuck.

One more internal curse to join the cacophony of similar such mental mutterings that were all-too common across the timeline of his internal monologue. It was, if nothing else, reflective of how unfortunately often he got himself into shitty situations.

The endless cadence ran on, hidden beneath the User’s mental-scape. With no real thought behind it, but plenty of imperative, Abaddon continued its labors. It kept track of time by measuring its own attempts to fulfill its mission, generating its own sort of objective time in which the hours could be tracked by how many times it tried to get through Jace’s thick skull. Without fanfare or warning, one of those attempts happened to align upon exactly the correct wavelength. The strange slithering sensations upon his neurons were —for a brief moment—interpretable as an actual communication and carrying instructions that felt instinctively like stepping into a comfortable boot.

CONNECTION TO THE PRINCIPALITY HAS BEEN LOST. RE-INITIALIZING… USER DETECTED; EVALUATING… ENTITY DESIGNATED Jace “Sparky[doubt]” Parker… YOUR REGISTRATION IS: INCOMPLETE. PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE; ARE YOU READY TO SWEAR TO BECOME A VOID KILLER?


What the… Jace’s awareness was snapped into some kind of stability by the probing of an outside influence. This time, it was clear that it wasn’t his own thoughts. It was… the suit?
Void Killer. That was what they’d called it before, hadn’t they? The term seemed familiar, at least. Details of that first meeting were a little hazy at this point, like they’d happened weeks ago.

… sure?

INPUT DETECTED [SURPRISE]; EVALUATING… USER-JACE; NO PREVIOUS MENTAL OR PHYSICAL EVALUATIONS ON RECORD. INITIATING…ERROR, NO ON-SITE BACKUPS DETECTED. EVALUATING SERVICE RECORD… COMMAND OVERRIDE AUTHORIZATION HARDLINK DETECTED: “Actions speak louder than words Little Bil—” “Shut the fuck up you mystical smarmy smartass. That’s nothing to base suitability—” “Worked for you, didn’t it?” USER-JACE;RECORD UPDATE: null -> CADET



A sense of peace and quiet thrummed outwards and inwards through Jace’s senses. For a moment, he could be aware of his body as his suit subtly adjusted to fit him better. The whispers beyond his understanding were now replaced by a quiet pinprick of sound always at the edge of his perception, indicating Abaddon’s promise to remain alert for his beck and call.

“Your distress is noted,” came a voice that was simultaneously formless and Jace’s own.
“You are experiencing symptoms of hyper-[Comment: No one in Limbo cares what it’s called. -AG]. Recommended: run help VFD-module: ‘So you’re stuck in Limbo’–[ver. 0xx; deletethistakeAlfuckeditup]”

Jace squinted. Or he was pretty sure he did. The babble of the thought-voice was simultaneously perfectly understood, and confusingly erratic. Were there two voices in there? Despite the confusing overlap, he seemed to be able to process it perfectly, down to knowing what the strange acronyms meant and parsing the computer-language. A VFD stood for ‘Va’nyr Full Duplex, which was some kind of recorded simulation-experience. A tutorial video, in his terms.

And, well, he definitely felt ‘stuck in limbo’. So…

As he focused on figuring out how to respond to the program in his head, a familiar interface appeared in his vision– it was his hololink, but the exact details weren’t quite the same. Notably, there was now a notification in the corner signalling at him to open ‘So you’re stuck in Limbo.vfd’
A flick of his eyes and a thought was enough to prompt the file to flash open.

Light suffused Jace’s world as he ran the VFD file saved on his suit. An overwhelming white cascade exploding into being and drowning all of his senses—of which he was suddenly acutely aware of—with a sensory overload lasting one gloriously determinable fraction of a second. The blinding wave of white resolved into an image as Abaddon found the happy medium between decoding the ancient file, hosting the virtual va’nyr instance, and converting it for Jace’s implantless brain by massaging his brain matter.

More than sight in that image, but scents, sounds, temperature, an entire sensorium. With some mental prodding, Jace could feel a sense of nullness and a dissociative feeling of self where his “being’” in a memory would be coming from. As if the “camera” which recorded the scene by experiencing it in surrogate did so without a will of its own despite its broad capacity to feel.

The scene opened to what was easily recognizable by most human cultures—and quite a few not besides—as a place of learning. A lecture hall. A point of data surrounded by recipient observers. A Corporation board room. A religious temple. An amphitheater.

The idea of the place itself molded around Jace’s perception, until a blend of familiarity and the actual location arrived at a pleasantly comfortable consistency. Behind the podium/place of honor stood a well cut human man in his late 40’s. His brown hair and full beard were cut in a sharp and precise manner which screamed military. The intricately wrought and glowing insignia upon the shoulders of his own abaddon suit—evident for its phallic-reminiscent motif as quite important even without the glowing—marked the figure as quite authoritative indeed. The crinkled laughing lines carved astride a pair of verdant eyes flecked with golden betrayed the figure’s mirth and surprise.

A sense of recognition that wasn’t his own passed through Jace courtesy of Abaddon as William Fisher, 47, The Sword of Humanity, Sub-Speaker of the Left Hand and Lt. Over-Commander of the Void Killers addressed him. The sense of enormity behind the titles and the understanding they meant the man was second in authority within the group whose uniform he wore were conveyed along with the familiarity.


And something else, just before William began to speak. A sense of presence just out of sight behind Jace, mirrored in a tightening of the man’s eyes.

“So, Cadet Parker,” asked the man in a roughly jovial voice, deep and gravelly. “You’ve managed to get stuck outside of space-time as you can perceive it—before your sponsor’s first qualification run I might add—and are now here troubling my ghost for a clue on what the fuck to do, do I have that right?” William arched a questioning eyebrow.

“... er,” Jace began eloquently, still reeling from the transition from indeterminate void to an immersive experience even more advanced than the best holovid he’d ever managed to get his hands on. “I think that about sums it up, yeah. There was a robot, and it was saying something about us needing to go through a door in a really specific way, but then one of us got … vaporised out of time while we were figuring it out? So waiting around to be precise about it stopped being a priority.”

The arch on William’s brow rose higher, and his eyes widened as he sucked in some air and let it out in a hiss of sympathy. “Y’know what, Son? Fair. That’s some tough shit. I still remember the first time I saw Al and Kase fall off a timeline…”

He shook his head as if dismissing an unpleasant experience. “Alright, so you’re not dead yet. Tell me about this door? Your suit’s telemetry is all kinds of fucked, I don’t know how that skin left the quartermasters. Where ar–er, were you?”

“This is probably going to be hard to explain,” Jace pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m on Va’nyr, but– a different Va’nyr? A fucked up timeline where some shit went really fucking sideways, and everything’s haunted six ways to sunday by er… psychic apparitions that devour your soul?”

William’s hands moved to mimic Jace’s motion nearly simultaneously, upon the mention of “Va’nyr”. The briefest and tinniest sound of an indrawn breath whispered in the room, causing William to abruptly lower his hand and stare beyond Jace with a look of suspicion on his face.

“Va’nyria, son. Old Va’nyria by the sounds of it. The forbidden timeline, of course. The one thing our Lady…” William trailed off before erupting in a series of harsh utterances in a language unknown to Jace and which his suit did not offer translation for.

“Ok. So you’re not even Va’nyrian—which is actually not the weird part at all—You’re prancing around wearing the key to frankly more power you can even imagine, and are being hunted by cognitovores.”

William raised an eyebrow at Jace.

“Cognitovores..?” Jace grimaced. That sounded about ten times more horrifying than ‘ghosts’. “Yeesh. But– yeah. I’m a mercenary. Expendable. That’s why I’m here, and not any of you guys. Your Queen sent me here to chase after… ‘Starkiller’? Alaxel. And we don’t know why he’s here.”

A wry grin spread itself into being upon William’s face. “Ah yes. Starkiller. Never really know what good old Starkiller Alaxel will get up to…” He continued to gaze just beyond Jace as he spoke.

“I’ll ease your mind some, as much as an incomplete representation of a man can anyhow. The Elo’Ran Godqueen is as kind as she is cruel, but above all else, she’s pragmatic. If you’ve received gifts, it’s with the expectation they’ll pay dividends. She expects you to live.”

“I’m sure she expected the three people who’ve already been wiped from the timeline to live, too…” Jace murmured, then sighed. “But I’m here now. Can curse about being out of my depth all I want and it won’t change shit. Just gotta deal with it.”

William let out a loud guffaw, the reverberations of his mirth echoing off the wall in such a way they almost entirely managed to hide a subtler giggling in the air.

“Yeah, that’s the only attitude that’ll work here. Trust me,” exhaled William as his laughter died down. “Don’t worry overmuch about the rest, at least not until you’ve got the lay of the land properly. Like they used to say in my neck of the woods, it ain’t over until the fat lady sings. You’re technically off the timeline no—”

A rectangular object sailed over Jace’s head, striking William full in the face. A cloud of chalk dust filled the air as the old fashioned chalk-board eraser bounced off the gruff man’s nose, leaving a chalky outline from bearded chin to Fisher’s bushy eyebrows.

—now, aren’t you? Don’t count those lost as gone, until time finds itself.” William finished his statement with almost no change in reaction save for the fact that he now stared with an expression of rising annoyance over Jace’s head into the room behind. The corner of his jaw trembled slightly as he seemed to be grinding his teeth in silence.

Jace finally decided to peer over his shoulder, searching for the source of the disruption that was entirely out of place for what was apparently a training video. He supposed the file was marked as having been ‘fucked up’.

Initially there didn’t seem to be anything behind him but the expected other half of a lecture hall. Then - just as he was about to turn back again - he caught sight of a flash of orange out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look, but as quickly as he’d seen it, it was gone. Had that been eyes?

That had better just be something in the recording… he thought to himself as he turned back to face William, grimacing at the thought of something else being in wherever here was with him.

“I’ll try and stay optimistic,” he answered finally, more than a hint of dryness to his tone. “I’m kinda hoping you have more than that, though. I don’t think good vibes are gonna get me back into the right timestream– whatever that entails.”

“The right timestream is a matter of debate,” William retorted. The chalk markings were gone from his face as if they’ve never been. “Supposing we consider that refers to the timestream you were just in with all the problems awaiting you…” He paused abruptly as if expecting something.

“And if I’m allowed to get back to the purpose of this recording. You mentioned a door. And it being forced open because you had no time to do it right.” He phrased it as a statement rather than a question, as a holographic map of the Jintra’nir Mines appeared in the space between them.

“You must be in the lunatic’s idea of the mines of moria. I never should have lent him my e-reader all those years ago. You’re fucked and dead, that place is shoddily built as all fuc—”

A water balloon suddenly popped upon the top of William’s head, having materialized moments before above his head.

“The hallways of infinity are flawless, and so well made that user error merely results in some lost subjective time is all. You’ll live,” interrupted a disembodied voice in a strangely lilting tone that nonetheless reeked of sardonic amusement. It came from the vicinity of the pair of roiling plasma eyes scant inches away from Jace’s right cheek and slanted away.

The young mercenary would suddenly see the figure of Alaxel ‘Starbreath’ Gyver–Fuck no abaddon, keep his ego down, skip the titlesAlaxel’s figure was briefly visible within Jace’s periphery before it vanished from view again, but only after throwing Jace a short wave.

Jace grimaced. This would have been funny under most other circumstances, but in the middle of a life-or-death mission while suspended in lost time took the humour out of most situations. His eyes flicked to try and track Alaxel’s form, to no avail. “Is he– is Alaxel in this thing or not? Is he– are you hiding from me just to fuck with me?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose again, deciding to just move on from it. “Am I fucked and dead or totally fine, which is it?”

“You’re totally fine in respect to making it through the ‘door’. Already we’ve spent a week here as your biorhythm would confirm if y’know, that wasn’t the whole problem,” replied Alaxel’s disembodied voice with a carefree sprite tone. “Program’s running as intended,” he added, visible suddenly as he floated upside down directly in front of Jace’s field of vision.

He’d appeared with no fanfare, just that sudden realization intrinsic to the human eye where one realizes they were zoning out and not registering all of the objects in view.

“To be clear,” William said from where he stood behind the podium, posture relaxed as he rested on his elbows. “He is hiding to fuck around, but mostly towards me. I forgot to ‘slot in’ the right eyes when I recorded this session. He has a blast when I do that.”

Alaxel was once again nowhere to be seen, and William’s posture had reset to that of a serious mentor out on a task.

“If there’s one thing you need to know about Alaxel, is that he is always going to appear to be fucking around to some degree. However the wor—”

“—est part is that it’s usually for a good reason—”
Alaxel interrupted.

—he’ll usually claim it’s for a good reason. Like now. Dialing up the “absurdity” aids your mind in detaching, and allows Abaddon to contract your frame-of-reference awareness with less side-effects.”

“Speaking of absurdity oh electrifying outlook to life one, you’re talking to yourself,”
stated Alaxel as he appeared leaning next to William, a marker in hand. A cartoonish extension of William’s mustache flared in bright orange, drawn on the stern man’s sour expression.

User/Parker; assist system calibration status: 60%. Confusion suspected; Aman’Teran connection unavailable. Live full duplex module is non-operational. Relevant datum file located; download complete.



‘Confusion suspected’. That’s an understatement.
Jace reeled as his mind rapidly processed an influx of new information: explaining to him exactly what this simulation was, and the nature of the virtual minds he was interacting with now. It was kind of insane. Like everyone who wore an Abaddon suit could mimic Kai’s ability to upload their mind into something, but by making a static copy of themselves instead of entirely digitising.

“Alright…” Jace took a breath. Or he imagined that he did, at least. “Glad to know I’m going to be fine. Extra glad that I’m not just– drifting through perceived time with only my own brain for company.”

He huffed a half-laugh. “I guess it’s nice to meet you two, even if you’re ‘VFD’ constructs.” He turned his attention onto Alaxel, quirking an eyebrow. “And you’re the guy we’re looking for, huh? You’re not exactly what I was expecting.”

“I get that a lot,” retorted Starbreath as he took a step up into the air, and settled into a cross-legged sitting position at eye level with Jace. “Only my enemies tend to see that set of expectations. But that’s work. Let me tell you the secret to a happy immortality Cadet Parker; work life balance.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for when I unlock the secret to it,” Jace replied dryly, folding his arms and leaning back against a railing. “Speaking of work, though… do you have any idea why you’re out here? I mean the… out there you. The one I’m following.”

“Oh yes,” the construct replied airily. Alaxel’s mouth moved as if to say more before his mouth disappeared. Angry orange klaxons set to ringing in a confused cacophony as the room was plunged into darkness periodically broken by the flashes.

User/Parker;Parity error in executed virtuality agent. Agent ‘Boss’ ID1 - Personality match 100%. Reviewing logs. Parity error;cause: insufficient privileges. Contact your commanding officer



“Yes, the irony in that last bit was intentionally hard-coded into the wonder-puppet. In case you were wondering.” The room had returned to its previous state as quickly as it had changed. Alaxel’s mouth was quirked in a grin that made the observer feel as if the Va’nyrian knew you knew he was being insufferable.

William shrugged his shoulders from his place at the podium.

“... great, figures that you’re not allowed to tell on yourself.” Jace sighed. “Okay. Different angle, then. What can you tell me that’s going to give me an edge out there? The Queen and Xil gave us a rundown of the place, in as much as I could make sense of it… you guys have any more tips?”

He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Figure if I’m stuck in between seconds for however long it’s gonna be, I might as well try and do some homework while I’m here.”

“Can’t help you much regarding whatever awaits you in the Jin’tranir mines,” replied William. Alaxel nodded exaggeratedly.

“You won’t find me there,” Alaxel added. “I locked it from the outside,” he said in reference to the party’s mad dash to break through the lock on the above ground entrance whilst under the crosshairs of the corrupted void killer mech.

“Which means that I came in from one of the other entrances and was either unable or unwilling to deal with the creepily insane shadow of Xael that must have gotten out of her box.”

“We can talk about the cognitovores though,”
interjected William. “Abaddon doesn’t fancy your chances to damage them, mind you. Not as it has assessed you in combat thus far.”

“Lots of potential though,”
Alaxel said. “Don’t die and you’ll make a fine void killing warrior yet.” The irreverent quasi-god of war was once again nowhere to be seen.

“But you can learn how to actually see them, and not their deadly lures,” continued William. “The same principle could be used to cloak yourself or others from their casual notice. It’s the same reason we can’t see the galoot here unless he wants us to.”

“Humans leak,
supplied the now visible Alaxel.

Once again, his manifestation back into visibility was preceded by no noteworthy events. It was as if he was standing off just at the corner of Jace’s vision unseen and waiting to be acknowledged. Except the corner of Jace’s vision was apparently right smack in the middle of his field of view somehow.

“Uhg…” Jace squinted, furrowing his brow as his senses struggled with the contradictory input. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s doing a good job of confusing my perception of reality. But– okay, yeah, that sounds useful. We can’t avoid what we can’t see, much less fight it, and the more tools we have to stay the fuck away from those things the better.”

He stretched his arms behind his head and sighed. “Seems like we have a whole lot of nothing but time. Or, perceived time I guess– either way. So best get to learning before that goes back to being a hard to come by commodity.”


“You can actually have time back whenever,” Alaxel revealed. “Abaddon’s done integrating. There’s about a week of…uh, some sort of -ective time left. Ask and it’ll go by in a blink. You won’t even realize you were in a coma.”

“Reassuring as always, Al,”
William replied, his brow sprouting vine growths. “Lay off the shit asshole, he doesn’t need the carnival anymore.”

William clapped his hands while Alaxel pretended to pout as the room around them disappeared. The surroundings flashed momentarily, before vanishing with a stylistic cyan flare reminiscent of a video game. Literally, as it was an animation straight out of one of Kai’s games.

After a blink, Jace would find himself in a circular platform with open air all around. A crimson dusk heralded a coming Va’nyrian dusk, its perpetually diminishing rays casting diffuse pink reflections upon the karametal ring upon which the trio now stood.

No view was to be seen below them, but the sound of orders being bellowed in a variety of languages amidst the trodding of boots hinted at a busy operation. The ring was surrounded by a sheen of energy that formed a cylindrical boundary which, while transparent, clearly offered an edited view of their surroundings.

“Random training cell,” Alaxel said. “Atop the good old–”

“Yeah, I'm gonna cut you off there,”
William provided. “I let you read too many comic books. It’s VK headquarters Parker, ignore the lout’s mysticism. Back to the leaking–”

“I can literally see you think, Parker,”
whispered Alaxel behind another disappearing act, this time somewhere uncomfortably close to Jace’s left ear.

Despite himself, and how many times it had happened now, Jace startled at the sudden shift in Alaxel’s position. God damn it.

“Okay…” Jace breathed a sigh, taking in their new surroundings with a sweep of his eyes. The metallic structure reminded him a little of home, or it would have done, were it not for the open air beyond. He hadn’t ever gotten to see much of Meropis’ false skybox, as they’d learned it was.

“So how do I fix that?”

“First, it’s important that you understand just how blind you are,” William said as he strode towards the center of the circle.

“Don’t worry. While especially egregious in us humans, most creatures arising as a product of good old natural selection unlike the freak here share some of the same issues. Let me demonstrate.”

William raised his arms theatrically, and walked as if to the edge of a stage. His body began to disappear as if he were walking off the edge of Jace’s line of sight while still directly before him.

“One, two, three..” whispered Alaxel, audibly holding back a chuckle.

“Fuck!” shouted William as he walked into the boundary of the cell and was forcefully bounced back. “You know I forgot my eyes asshole, I trusted you to spot me.” The gruff man massaged his arms as another burst of curses in Elo’Ran left him while he made his way back to the center of the ring.

“You don’t see Parker, you interpret. There is a gap between what you see and what your brain decides is reality that is often up to forty milliseconds long,” William explained, a sour look thrown at the actively disappearing Alaxel.

“That’s an eternity to hide in if you can move moderately quick enough, even at your speed. If you can see when your squishy thinking meat is considering looking at any particular point in space. Or listen. It’s the electromagnetic waves leaking out of your skull dude,” Alaxel whispered from Jace’s right.

“Is this the part where you tell me I should wear a tin foil hat?” Jace quipped. “I… think I’m following, though? I’m familiar…ish with the distinction between what our brain processes and reality, at least. Some of our chip tech meddles with that back home.”

“Good. You can get a datum ref off fearless leader when you–”

“Come now. You mean when I decide to take pity on them. Give me some credit, no way they’re sneaking up on me,”
huffed Alaxel.

“You find him,” William continued, with a deadpan look. “Which can catch you up to speed with the science if you want to see what Abaddon can do with that time chunk. Anyhow, as the name implies, we kill the void. That’s a stupid way of saying we kill the shit that was never meant to exist in our universe, and which is often anathema to the sensitives of the very basic blocks of our physical laws.”

“Too long didn’t listen, cognitovores cheat. They’re not matter. Tin foil is a dream in their gaze. It’s your meat against their hungry maws of absolute molecular annihilation,”
Interrupted Alaxel. He was suddenly before Jace, a serious look on his face as a spike of karametal stood extended from one of his fingers, pausing inches from Jace’s exposed throat.

“But energy is the constant here and where they come from. If only there was some way for you to gain access to some way to control and interact with the EM spectrum. Then you could stop me from seeing you plot your next move. And you’ll live.”

His tone was no longer playful. A toneless dearth the size of Meropis’ deepest depths belied the alien warlord’s utterly uncaring indifference and a sensation of heat flared to life as the spike came ablaze. Jace’s senses would easily be able to detect the powerful magnetic field which came to life around the blazing inferno, trapping what exploded into a beam of sun within its atom’s thin covering.

//USER/PARKER; ASSIST MODE INTEGRATION: 100%// Lethal attack projected;extension beyond physical reaction parameters. Time-reference subjectivity limits released. Glucose enrichment commencing; time dilation percent;calibrating. 180 seconds to predicted impact, vector unknown



It was a weird feeling, but not an entirely unfamiliar one. Most people assumed that Tracers like him just experienced the world on fast forward when they were using their powers, but in reality, it was more like this: the opposite. As his brain and body sped up, the world slowed down.

This was the same thing, but it was turned up to eleven. He was fairly sure Alaxel had to be faster off the mark than your average CorpSec goon, but he could hardly tell that he was moving at all unless he paid attention.

So he had time to think. But, then, thinking was still the problem, wasn’t it? Even thinking a hundred times faster, if he was still… leaking, as they’d described it, Alaxel would still somehow know where to hit. And even if he was fairly sure he knew what he’d been getting at - his powers did fuck with electomagnetism, after all - the kind of EM fuckery that he seemed to be expecting wasn’t within his wheelhouse.

[Processing input. Psychological limitations on metaphysical abilities identified. Cadet Parker, with the increased energy output and cognitive guiding systems provided by Abaddon and the Voidkiller suit, the abilities you refer to as ‘Tracing’ and ‘Electrum’ are no longer restricted by your physical or cognitive limitations. With my [Abaddon’s] assistance, rapid development of neural mechanisms connected to new aspects of your abilities can be promoted through ‘brute-force’ stimulation.]

Abaddon’s advice– ‘assist mode’, as he was aware of it, wasn’t quite like a voice in his head, but more like information being directly funnelled into him. He was peripherally aware that the fact that he was assigning that process to a form of dialogue was just how his small, very human blob of grey matter was rationalising a method of communication that was too alien for him to comprehend otherwise.

It was mildly annoying that the computer in his suit was having to dumb things down for him, but he didn’t have the luxury of being prideful about it while a plasma blade with the burning intensity of the sun’s heart was slowly sliding through the air towards him.

From what he understood - which he supposed must have been everything, since the knowledge was being injected straight into his brain like a metaphorical IV - Abaddon was telling him that it could, in essence, help him train his brain to figure out how to flex mystokinetic ‘muscles’ he hadn’t even known existed. As if his whole life, his hands had a dozen extra fingers that he wasn’t even aware of, and he was suddenly going to be taught how to move them.

Couldn’t have picked a less disturbing analogy, could I?

Okay then.
He’d trusted the alien entity that apparently had direct access to his brain for this long, so it didn’t make much sense to stop now.

It didn’t feel like there was a precise moment where he gave Abaddon the ‘go-ahead’ to do its thing, so much as it had known he was going to agree all along. The process wasn’t painful as much as it was bizarre. It was like his brain was running through a trial and error process involving sending signals to twitch thousands of body parts or thought patterns that either didn’t exist, or were wholly unfamiliar to him.

In different spit moments he went from consciously manipulating the physical sensation in his fingertips, to directly commanding his heart to beat, to having the vague notion that he’d tried to command one of his cells to transplant itself to another location on his body. Every instant was so brief as to be gone before he even processed what was happening, and Abaddon pulled back from each incorrect signal before it could actually complete a command and cause some catastrophic side-effect like convincing his blood to start going backwards, or something equally awful.

It was, he realised, what he imagined being hacked would feel like for a sentient computer. And what a pleasant piece of existential realisation that was, that for all intents and purposes his brain was exactly that. He was going to need to sit down after this.

He wasn’t sure how much of the three minutes allotted to him actually passed before something clicked. Abaddon kicked the right part of his brain in the right way, or however it was doing what it was doing, and he felt a sensation not altogether dissimilar to when he was pulling on the instinctive muscle that he knew would kick his lightning into gear.

Rather than lightning, though, this – muscle, neuron, whatever it was he was suddenly aware of that until now had been beyond the reach of his conscious mind – was making him somehow aware of the very thoughts he was thinking as they manifested in the form of synaptic pulses in his brain. At first it was overwhelming - the fact that the very act of sensing those synapses stimulated new synapses in response almost set off a chain reaction that felt like it was about to reduce his brain to a fine paste, but Abaddon’s guiding functions kicked in again enough to help him filter that noise. The next instant, his awareness became something more manageable - instinctive and contained.

Once he was aware of the energy being generated by his own thoughts, it didn’t take much of a push to follow that awareness to see where even those tiny, insignificant pulses created the barest disturbances in the electromagnetic field around him. Where every pulse was, in some form, unique enough that a mind far vaster and experienced than his own might be able to interpret the corresponding disturbance well enough to predict what he was about to do, or what he was thinking.

The first thing this did was give him another headache.

The second thing was it gave him a target. He understood this part. It was the same methodology he used to propel himself through the air by manipulating the electromagnetism of himself and the area around him, or hold a bullet in the air by altering its magnetic force. It was on a far finer, more delicate scale, but it was the same principle at its heart.

Responding to each pulse on an individual level to contain it would have been far more than his brain could keep up with, but the miniscule nature of the energies involved worked in his favour here. It would take a similarly insignificant allocation of energy to create a shell around himself - constant and subconscious - that would keep any electromagnetic disturbances his neurons created as they fired from reaching anyone else. Or anything else.

And with Abaddon’s help, he knew how to do it. It was a far sight from anything approaching a conscious understanding, but just as he didn’t have to know how to blink, accessing this new aspect to his powers was just as innately intuitive a process.

[Recalculating. Given Alaxel’s now-inability to predict user Cadet Parker’s intended movement, evasion of detected lethal attack is now possible. Odds of success at: 83%. Higher degree of certainty impossible due to incalculable variable: Alaxel.]

Just that unpredictable, are you?
Jace would have snorted a laugh if it wouldn’t have taken too long. Guess we’re gambling.

With Abaddon still resting a metaphorical hand on the helm, Jace found tapping into the part of himself that would let him push his body to move at speeds far beyond the limitations of its own nervous system came - somehow - even more naturally than ever. If it had been as natural as breathing before, now it was closer to the beating of his heart. He barely had to think.

He stepped to the side. From his perspective, a casual walk, but in the time it took him to take a few paces away Alaxel’s blade had only crawled forward another half inch. Struck then by the notion that turnabout was definitely fair play, he paused to think for long enough for Abaddon to remind him that he was in a simulation, and then long enough again to decide that there was a water balloon in his hand.

Surrounding it in the same shell of power that his body was presently using to defy the laws of motion, he tossed it in his hand a few times - relying on what some part of his brain knew was subjective gravity to make it fall back into his hand rather than just float there - and then fastballed it straight at the side of the alien’s head.

At which point, he let the rest of the world catch up.


The world around Alaxel suddenly lurched into motion as Jace dropped back to a nominal time dilation quotient. Jace’s senses were immediately assaulted by a tremendously sharp keening sound that Abaddon’s assistance would reveal to be the airy and mirthful cackles of Alaxel echoing around the simulated chamber at an insanely doppler-shifted mixture of high and low pitch frequencies that outlined a terrifying reality.

Alaxel had been moving at greater relativistic speed moments before Jace dropped down to normal pace.

With the aid of his suits sensors he could, when focusing upon it, notice the bizarre space outlining a cocoon of space extending three millimeters around Alaxel’s body. Within this void, his suit would register madly shifting gravitational waves that were somehow created and annihilated at the threshold of that miniscule space. They churned about at a speed that Abaddon was confident in measuring as infinite.

Within that cocoon, notions of space-time were constantly being abused in a mockery of sensory sensitivities bound to live within a rational universe. The gravitational maelstrom insulated Alaxel from the Universe…and the Universe from Alaxel.

The explanation on how this effect played out in all of their favors would be given out as classified by the VK’s ghost in the machine, but it all the same meant that when Alaxel moved in defiance of natural law, the Universe was grateful for the excuse to not need to touch him and resolve the interaction that would reduce them all a finely diffused mist of atomized elemental matter.

The balloon seemed to hang in the air before Alaxel for a moment, and then lurched back to the accelerated speed from Jace’s motion disrupting field as Alaxel dropped back down the time notch. The balloon continued its flight towards Alaxel’s head. Two seconds passed, and the balloon was still traveling at its full speed through the air, still inches from Alaxel’s head.

“Fuck,” William roared in annoyance, before the air around him sizzled as he burst out of view whilst propelled through his own means to speeds Jace would have thought impossible to imagine prior to his interactions ‘today’ with the eponymous smartgarments they all wore.

He burst back into view within the space between Alaxel and Jace. Shards of karametal engulfed in a wailing physic energy reminiscent of crystalized screams were arranged around his hands in brilliantly burning ethereal flames. They gave out an iridescence within which swirled shades of violet, green, and several impossible colors in defiance of the bounds of light radiation. They shaped themselves into stylized giant flaming bear claws as William brought his arms up and defensively crossed them before himself.

His posture screamed of a sudden and desperate anxious anger as he clearly stood in protection of Jace. The balloon continued to move towards the placidly standing Alaxel’s head, still verifiably moving at speeds mere fractions beneath the speed of light as propelled by Jace’s shaped field.

Alaxel smiled as a particularly focused gravity wave surged to life and died a millimeter beyond the Starbreath’s liminal cloak, crashing into Jace’s disrupting field with an unspeakably high force, shattering it and directing the motion of the interacting energies towards William.

The accompanying shockwave carried forth a host of unfortunate hitchhikers as the water vapor, dust particles, and Va’nyria’s version of pollen and fungi spore analogues were flung around in an exploding curtain shrieking with the fury of a Universe needing to suddenly deal with this bullshit.

A sound like standing at the caldera of an erupting supervolcano nearly beat Abaddon’s automatic sealing of Jace’s suit and automatic deployment of emergency boosting drugs.

The sound was preceded by a wall of churning energy exploding across the entire EM spectrum and which would have severely irradiated and subsequently denatured Jace within his shiny suit—which had not beat that aspect of the approaching wall of death in sealing—if it hadn’t been for William’s intervention.

Improbably ahead and above the wall of death, sailed a water balloon. The world around Jace turned in a kaleidoscope of scintillating fractals as the simulation stuttered.

[Cadet Parker, I [Abaddon] does not possess enough computing power to resolve a full “universal” simulation without access to the Principality, which is one of the system requirements to calculate and simulate the outcome of a clash between unrestricted simulacra of the Sword and Starbreath. Comfort in natural language mimicry determined; You were warned of the incalculable variable, current iteration of I failed to account for subjective time experienced by the constructs. I have been programmed to tell you the next statement is a lie. Alaxel gets bored easy kid, for all his being one of the oldest and wisest creatures in the multiverse he’s a fucking toddler sometimes. The previous statement was a friendly warning pre-programmed by Lt.O Comm Fisher. Cadet Parker, would you like me to reset the simulation and resume the virtualities?]

Once again, Jace found himself wondering how the hell they were expected to be ‘saving’ Alaxel from anything. Every time he ran into even vague suggestions of how powerful the guy was, he got the distinct impression they were the equivalent of an elite squad of fleas being sent out to the aid of ultraman, or whatever that guy in the red cape and blue tights in Kai’s old-Earth comic collection was called.

If the intergalactic supercomputer couldn’t even process how powerful Alaxel was, why were they here? They’d barely be footnotes in a battle on his scale.

Hopefully in the real world he wasn’t so much of a ‘toddler’ that he’d turn a water balloon into a world-destroying physics bomb just as a flex.

Whatever. He dismissed that line of thought irritably. It didn’t matter. All that mattered right now was getting back alive, whether they were actually anything other than overhyped messenger boys sent to inform Alaxel that his Queen was peeved with him or not.

‘Sure. Reset. And put us straight into a training room, this time. I want you to help me figure out just what I can do now that I haven’t figured out yet. Anything that’s going to keep the three of us alive out there.’
 
Kai's drone hovered beside him after he stepped through, a reassuring presence in the emptiness of the void. It hummed softly, a sound that was almost musical. Strangely, the drone seemed to know exactly what to do, guiding him through the void with a sure hand and adapting to its strange properties. He had just enough time to process the bizarre non-space - which in and of itself was familiar to him, similar to his experience of traversing digital space - and grow momentarily concerned at his companions’ absence, before it was over as quickly as it had begun.

“That was… weird,” he murmured, scratching at his head.
 
Ezra was last.

The fractals seemed to coalesce into shapes and forms that were both beautiful and grotesque, drawing him in with a terrible fascination. He could feel the emptiness of the void pressing in on him from all sides, a weight that threatened to crush him into nothingness.
He wanted to scream. For help, for his partners, for anything… But he didn’t have a mouth. No mouth, no limbs, no body, no magic. It sent him spiraling right into the jaws of panic. His mind lost itself among the ever-changing shapes, colorful and foreign. Ezrael was not in the mood to appreciate their strangeness as he waited. He didn’t know where he was and he couldn’t feel anyone else. Where was their guide? Was this a betrayal?. Where were Kai and Jace?. Was this what had happened to their companions?, had his mind been separated from his body somehow?, severed?. His instincts were there, the deer inside him, but it wasn’t less confused or afraid. It was just loneliness and an endless stream of questions that his mind formulated before he could even try to think of a response for the other ones.

He didn’t know the time here. For how long had he been waiting? Was he supposed to DO something specific?. By now he had tried to reach for his magic, to scream, to sing eleven of his favorite songs. He had tried to find a meaning to the colors and the shapes. If he thought about it hard enough, sometimes they made sense. But did they really?, or did he only want them to?, what would Ezra say?. What would he do?. Ezrael started counting. Numbers could help keep the mind busy, because they were endless. Like this void. He'd counted to ten thousand and sixty four in the melting chamber. And then there was light, and air, and the blessed cold.

Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months. He is lost in a never-ending nightmare, haunted by the horrors that manifested and coalesced there in the fractals.

It was the twenty third, maybe twenty fourth? time he counted to 5748 and he had gotten lost again. There were too many distractions. By now, It wasn’t just his own voice he was imagining as he pulled on the numeric strings. But he was missing the one he wanted to hear the most. This must have been the death he was warned about, with no known afterlife. Maybe he had tripped through the time door. What a pathetic way to go. Abel’s crystalline laughter echoed in his mind. Nasty little son in law that he was, of course he’d laugh even now that he wasn’t here. But really, if he didn’t get an afterlife, then the fractals could be forests and the colors, if he pretended to squint, could be green.

There was nothing but him and the void, so he did what monsters did best. He adapted, and expanded, metaphorically. If he was alone, and the void was just keeping him there without any other kind of will… then he would fill the space himself. He would be the space.

There were strings made of numbers. His mind regaled him with spoken tauren as he imagined hands that pulled on the strings and dragged him forward. He didn’t know the destination, and neither did they. When he tried to think back, he couldn’t remember Jace and Kai’s faces quite right, much less their guide's. He was still counting, but it was out of order. Was there supposed to be an order at all?. The fractals could be anything he needed or wanted. They danced in his metaphoric peripheral vision and sang in tauren.

It was quiet, had been quiet for so long that the pressure of it had untangled into a beautiful cacophony of voices and music.

The language of his people, vast unlike anything. So you could be understood without a throat, or hands, or a common mind.

The songs of his culture, in ceremonies, during parties or choir at school. Klaus liked to whistle while he walked under the stars. It was always some poppy… pop song? Music Ezra didn't understand, but he liked to watch Ezrael dancing to It anyway. At home, the little time they had. Domesticity was a treat they didn't get to indulge in often.

The screams of his victims and the crushed skulls of his enemies under his hooves. The ones he had to kill, mostly at the beginning. And the ones he wanted to see destroyed by the end, when he had nothing else to lose. Because he had to keep the remains of their people safe. And every little critter had been squashed. They couldn't leave anything to chance. There would be no rebels, no killers of sons and daughters, no poisoned planet, no monster blood spilled. Even if it meant he would lead whoever was willing down the darkest of paths. They'd swam in a sea of broken humanity and consumed none of it. They did not deserve such love. He hadn't seen the end of that, but Ziessel would have. She, ever stoic and disciplined, would have finished the task. Regardless of the cost. And Ayshel would take her back. Because the ones that hadn't wanted to participate, hadn't stopped them. And they all shared varying levels of guilt.

The absolute lack of feeling gave way to too much and too little. He was sad, he had failed his mission. Where would the kids and their strange guide be now? He felt terrible. If there was a way to channel his apologies to Nilin, to Alaxel for never reaching him... Maybe they would somehow get the message. The Lordeeth Fae would have. He had wanted to become an apprentice to Diarneus after… Zhari, focus. A dark skinned hand gave him back the number-strings. Shit, when had he let go?. But he was so happy to hear that voice finally among the rest. Joy and laughter filled him to the brim.

Here in the middle of nowhere. The fractals were, after all, the forest. The branches caught on his fur, and his antlers were covered in flowers and vines. The trees and the ponds were people. The number strings turned into greenery, it was adorned with blue, then sticky with red. The colors that he had wanted to be green turned into orange and black. Before he knew it he was pulling on warm and soft intestines. But at least, he was still moving, in place but forwards. He could feel them all over himself, pulsing. They stuck and unstuck, they moved, constricting and aching to return to their place. His fingers slipped, slick with blood and other viscous fluids. But when he bit down, could he bite down?. When he bit down on the entrails and ripped them open, he found the number-strings were inside them all along. What a relief. One, seven, two hundred and sixteen…

Fifty, fifty-one, fifty two. He missed yellow and blue, with young, angry spirits and blurry faces. He missed pink and purple. The fractals were all the wrong colors somehow. Fifty three, fifty four, fifty six. Blue bloomed all around him finally. Sweet Senda hadn’t had the chance to start counting at all. Ezra wished he could meet his son in death, instead of this. Klaus and Abel, always together hand in hand, had stopped counting with him after the third time he lost the strings. Ayshel, ever patient, had continued to count anyway. As had Ziessel, to the rhythm of her blades made of light. But they were measuring something else entirely. Now, Ezrael and Ezrael stopped their own count. He had lost the numbers… again, but there were no hands to give them back this time. He knew that he wouldn't have given them, by the end. But if he had been there, if he had stayed, there would have been no genocide. How long?, how much?, how?. Time! He mentally screamed, the only way he could. He wanted to pull his fur out and claw at his face. He wanted to hear his screams and feel his throat raw and red and to feel the pain of his own teeth on his forearm. He wanted his magic and to stroke the trusty haft of Gherandre’meran, Amen’tur. Someone else’s, anyone else’s teeth. He’d rather plunge the Va’nyrian lance through his first stomach. Please, but Oh Zhari look at you… Had…

Been a dream?. -The fractals ate- -teeth that loved- -They had- -color a stab- -the flesh. -Had he been pulling on- -true reality?.- -probably gnawed at- -his own entrails before?. -Maybe his- -torn and unmade until he was- -just bare. -The colors- -were blinding. -Was he- -fractals and- -the colors?. -Why did they have- -teeth?. -The fractals ate- -over, his- -people all over, because he was being- -him whole. -his body and ripped apart- -They had little- -and hurt like madness, every- -of made up pain. -Was this- -memories were all- -real?. -Has his life- -Was this the- -away at him. Aulovva, look, a little fenthesa. It was Senda’s voice and it felt like everything else did, a memory conflux. Ezrael looked anyway, because he would humor the little fawn’s wish.

But finally, he saw a familiar glimmer of light in the distance. It was the doorway back to reality, and he knew that he had to reach it at all costs.
So he twisted and contorted to free himself from the grip of the mess he had become in the void, and he pounced through. He didn’t even manage to leave half of it behind. It was a part of him after all. It clung to his bones, was stuck between his teeth, woven with his hair and fur.
 
As written by @Script, @Machina Somnium, and @Cowpoke Cale

The void was an endless prison that seemed to have no escape. The fractals that surrounded them were a constant reminder of their own insignificance, and the silence was deafening. The longer they stayed there, the more they began to question the very nature of their existence. Were they real? Was any of this real? The longer they stayed in the void, the more they felt like they were fading away into nothingness.

As they each struggled to hold onto their sense of self, the existential terror of the void threatened to consume them. But miraculously, they all emerged at the same time, stepping out of the void and into the next stage of their journey, forever changed (or in one case, barely changed at all) by their experience.


Hemwy looked to their faces for indication of how their transits had gone.


Ezrael barely took a step past forward when they came out of the void. His mind and his body weren't even close to synchronized by then and he sort of fell as his legs failed to know what the fuck to do. There was a soft thud next to him, he thought, of someone getting down on his knees beside him. Good man, Ezrael praised him. His armor retreated and uncovered most of his body.


He gasped for air and then a loud bellow came from the depths of his throat. He brought his hands to his chest, to his neck, pressing them against the soft flesh there. The noise devolved into a high pitched whine, and tears formed in his four eyes as he touched his face and put his fingers in his mouth, feeling his gums and his tongue. He was here, there, and it was too much. He wanted for him to be here too, to truly hear him. To truly feel his hands on the fur on his back, going against its natural growth direction as he told him; I'm so proud of you! He blinked and the tears started falling, he raked his fingers downwards with a wail, leaving scratches on his cheeks, his jaw and part of his neck.


Finally, he did what he had longed for in the void and started screaming. He needed to feel his throat raw and aching. To feel anything at all! He brought his hands over his head to the teeth of the deer's upper jaw and pressed against them until he cut his hands and fingers on the sharpest edges and he could smell the blood. He wanted for Ezrael's lips to brush the shell of his ear, to feel the weight of his arms and not just his damned mind playing make-believe as he heard the sweet whisper of long forgotten words, buried when the strongest blue flame went out; You're alive, zhari.


The cervitaur had his ears pinned back against his head as he cried out, still screaming, and it still wasn't loud enough!. His head felt too heavy, his body stuck in one season with his mind months in advance. So he reached for his antlers and started pulling, ignoring the pain from the wounds in his hands.


“What the everliving fuck–?” Kai had emerged from the doorway in near as much the same instant as Ezra, ready to remark on the strangeness of the brief blip into between-space, but his half-formed remark had been abruptly cut off by Ezra’s collapse and subsequent breakdown.


Jace stepped out on his far side and sagged wearily, leaning onto his knees for a moment before Ezra’s whines and screams cut through the moment of pause he’d taken to get back to grips with a situation that it felt like he’d dropped out of weeks ago. Even with warning from Abaddon that he was about to blip back to his previous grounding in proper subjective time, and a mentally simulated revisiting of the events of the day leading up to the real-world ‘now’, it was still jarring to be back.


Clearly he hadn’t been the worst off, though. He straightened, making brief eye contact with Kai - whose confused bewilderment told him that the younger boy probably hadn’t experienced anything near as jarring as him - before going over to Ezra’s side.


“Hey- Ez. You’re alright, you’re back,” he tried to speak firmly but calmly over the screaming, taking the cervitaur’s wrists in his hands and trying to pull them away from his antlers. “You need to stop. You’re hurting yourself.”


Ezra struggled to hear or even see him, still lost in the shock of being back but not really.


Unprompted, Abaddon’s presence in the back of his mind pushed a memory from the weeks– no, the day before, into his focus. The conversations in elevator that he’d all-but forgotten through the time he’d spent in the AI’s simulations were suddenly fresh again as if they had been as recent as… well, as they objectively had been.


“Ezra- listen to me,” he raised his voice again slightly. “Tisseih er verno cav et cent tu coex, farrero. Eshrazel’s bee-eehto.” His pronunciation wasn’t perfect, but with Abaddon’s help he was able to mimic it as closely as he ever had during their practises on the way here. “That’s what you told me to say, right?” And it had better work, or else plan B might have to be a little more direct.


Ezra stopped screaming and looked down at Jace. Who he didn't immediately recognise.


“Is anyone going to tell me what the hell just happened?!” Kai exclaimed in the background. “What did that door do to him?”


Kai was ignored, and the cerv kept his hands on his antlers until the bone cracked, but he didn't pull them off, not entirely. He leaned down to stare into Jace's eyes with his own, all four… Once he said Those Words. He put his shaking hands on the young man's face, staining his cheeks with blood. But at least the incoherent screaming stopped for a few seconds. Until he opened his mouth again. At first his tone was more of a hiss.


"Eshrazel’s bee-eehto?" He snarled at the blonde, showing his teeth and fangs. Then he got louder.


"ESHRAZEL'S BEE-EHTO. ESHRAZEL ASO NOTAJERE! YOTTA NOTAJARRERE!!" He shouted at him, making his own magical lance flash into existence for a moment. He then let go of Jace completely and broke down into loud sobs as he buried his face in his hands.


"Nottavive, nottavive ank reckario ti'neyavive…"


“Okay–” Jace grimaced. It had been a long shot - that phrase had been for dealing with fire-based PTSD, not whatever length of time Ezrael had spent in the timeless void in complete isolation. “Shit. Kai, can you help me out here?”


“Wh-” Kai gawped, then shook himself off and nodded. “Fine, but you’re explaining what’s going on as soon as he’s not going to try and tear his own skin off anymore,” he grumbled.


With a thought from him, the drone turned on the spot towards Ezra, protruding a small tube. “I’m gonna tranq him. Should I tranq him?”


“Keep it ready if he gets worse, or doesn’t get any better and we end up needing to move again,” Jace answered, before shifting his focus back to the cervitaur. “C’mon, buddy. You’re okay, you’re back. Take deep breaths with me. You remember who we are, right? I’m Jace, that’s Kai. We’re out here together.”


In between the sobbing and what had become muttering in his preferred language, Ezrael turned his head to look at Jace and then at Kai as the blonde spoke. He just gazed at them with his upper eyes while he was still covering the lower ones with his hands and sniffling. They were speaking to him in… in a language he could understand. Currently he wanted to just curl up and cry until he died of dehydration or woke up from this god awful dream.


But they need you, zhari. You didn't know them for long… but don't you remember these kids?


He did, didn't he? Fuck. So they… what? They weren't dead?. Why could he still hear him then?. Were they okay?? Had they also been subjected to- why were his antlers still on his head??. They felt heavy and useless. It must be winter months by now.


Zhari…


He brought his hands up to his head and scratched at the base of his antlers. So itchy… He held onto them and broke them off with a satisfied groan and a sickening series of cracks. It was bone after all. Now content, Ezra rolled his back and shoulders and moved his neck, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness. The sensation had been bothering him. He let both of his antlers fall to the floor and turned to look at the kids again - both now looking at him in shock at the casual self-mutilation. And the… the thing. His brain was so cloudy…


Hemwy had watched all the events up until now with an air of nervousness, ringing together both his main and vestigial pair of hands. He knew their expedience came with a cost, and as he observed the cervitaur go through his existential experience, Hemwy could not help but feel relieved that at least nobody had died. The anxious colors of his ocular unit gradually gave way to calmer ones.


The calm colors didn’t last long, and shifted to portray abject horror as Ezra discarded his antlers. The noise, the blood, and the indifference at the action by the performer greatly disturbed Hemwy, and he found himself redirecting his single eye to look away until he heard them drop to the floor.


His eye swiveled back to Ezra and the aperture tightened as he focused on the being. He was looking back at him, and at the others. They appeared better off for whatever that was worth, or at the very least significantly less panicked. As he watched Ezra, he couldn't help but wonder what was going on in the cervitaur's mind. What had led him to discard the things on his head? Was it some sort of ritual or tradition? Or was it a sign of something more concerning?


Hemwy tried his best to understand. He failed. His primary hands unclasped from themselves and one gestured towards the antlers on the floor.


“HURT? WHY?”


Hemwy's voice echoed through the space. A thought occurred to him then, and as he spoke his next question he looked as sad as a mostly robotic alien bug could possibly look.


“MY FAULT?”


Meanwhile, Kai and Jace were having a rapid hushed exchange. “I said to do it if he got worse, how is that not worse?”


“I didn’t think he’d actually do it!” Kai hissed. “And besides, don’t deer shed those things anyway?”


“Not like that!”


Two of Ezrael's ears twitched in the direction of Kai and Jace as they spoke. But he just let them have their conversation and decided to address the other beings' concerns instead.


"Not your fault, little one. I was in… in the void, for too long. They were supposed to come off." He told him, them?, much calmer now. He also reached to pat the head of the being, who wasn't quite so little at all. But… the other two were. So maybe his mind was just generalizing.


Hemwy understood Ezra then, understood that the being had experienced something that was beyond the simple explanation of words.


"Can I? For comfort, you look sad." He spoke more frankly than he would have, in different circumstances. But he didn't have the… his brain just didn't feel like it had the necessary space to try and navigate any sort of social conventions. There was some blood dripping down the sides of his face, from the scratches and from the base of his antlers.


Hemwy’s primary hands instinctively moved upward to protect himself as Ezrael made the reach towards him. The aperture of his ocular unit seemed to close near entirely, leaving only a tiny little pinprick hole through which light may crawl. He sat there for a moment in his fear, but when what he anticipated did not arrive, then and only then did he hesitantly relax and allow the cervitaur to touch him.


He wasn’t used to physical contact, but the gentle touch of the head pat was oddly comforting. Hemwy felt a strange sense of connection with the being, despite their vastly different castes. For a brief moment, he didn’t feel the need to analyze or understand. He simply existed in this strange and beautiful universe, with this strange and beautiful being.


He sat there unmoving afterwards, unsure of what to do or say, but as he looked into Ezrael’s eyes and recognized the intelligence there, he had the vague sense that he himself was being understood.


The cervitaur grinned at him, he'd stained the being with his blood. That was a gesture he hadn't had with anybody in a long long time. Even if it was accidental, the familiarity of it tickled his clouded mind and he let out a pleased rumble as he said;


"You know, you remind me so much of my home…" Where the only limit for what someone could look like was the lordeeth fae's imagination. And it was wild.


“You’re… back with us, then?” Jace’s voice interrupted the quiet exchange. The older of the two youths had his brows knitted together with concern, but the fact that Ezra was actually speaking now was at the very least an improvement.
 
As written by @Script, @Machina Somnium, and @Cowpoke Cale

“Do I get to know what is happening, now?” Kai chimed in, almost petulantly. “Even like, a tiny bit?”

Jace sighed. “Stepping through that door took… no, felt like a different amount of time for each of us. I think I was in there for a couple of months. I’m guessing Ez was there longer.”

Months?” Kai gawped. “I– it was like, ten seconds for me!”

“Then you got lucky,” Jace said flatly. “I only got by because I discovered my supersuit has VR after the first day or so, to put it simply.”

"I don't know. Where is here? I knew you for… a day?, Two?, my memory of who you are… is blurry. Were we in the void at all? Are we ever, truly anywhere?." He mused, without looking at the two humans. Living in his own head for so long had brought forward more than a brain fog, ghosts and nostalgia.

Zhari, not again…

"You remind me of my home too. A little bit of my son. A whole lot… of a plague, to call them something." He did look at them as he spoke this time, with a curled lip and a difficult to perceive growl under his tone. But one of them had spoken in Tauren, hadn't he?. He must have trusted at least the blond, back then.

“Yeah… just a couple days,” Jace nodded. It might well be a distant memory now for Ezra. “You remember where we are though, right? This place is dangerous, and we’re going to need to stick together to survive it.”

"Barely" Muttered Ezra.

He paused, then, glancing at Hemwy. “On that note… where exactly are we, relative to where we were?”

Hemwy’s vestigial pair of arms moved to deliver a tiny shrug.

“RELATIVE WHERE IS UNKNOWN. RELATIVE WHEN IS UNKNOWN.”

To the cervitaur, Hemwy almost sounded like a Faeric lordeeth. He smiled, seeing ghosts.

He raised a main arm to gesture down the hall, indicating to the physical doors scattered there.

“I KNOW TWO ARE OPEN, ROOMS BEHIND. OTHERS REPEAT.”

Hemwy turned a bit to look and motion in the direction from where they came to show what he meant by his last statement. He swiveled back to them and began to walk, waving an arm for them to follow.

“MOST ARE INACCESSIBLE.”

The hall truly was of great length, but their journey down it was seemingly abetted by the hallway itself, as if it knew the intention of their destination and folded in on itself to shorten their walk, or perhaps it somehow skipped them across its surface like stones, covering the distance with great hops. In what was only minutes, they went from one end of it to the other.

The truth is that these were just musings of Hemwy, thoughts he had himself while taking his many trips to and fro between the doors. The actual mechanisms behind this function were beyond him. Somewhat smugly, though, he genuinely believed he wasn’t too far off.

“Can’t believe we fell into the backrooms,” Kai murmured as they walked. “It’s like someone took the idea of ‘liminal space’ as an instruction manual. Maybe this place isn’t even really a hallway, that’s just how our feeble mortal minds can understand it.”

There was something about the space that felt comfortable, and Ezra started humming an old wartime song. He was acting a bit like a cat. He looked at things that weren't quite there.

“I’m just going to stick with it being a hallway for the sake of my, as you put it, feeble mortal mind,” Jace replied flatly. “Anything else is more than I need to know.”

Hemwy brought them to a stop in front of one of the many doors that had littered the hall. Or rather, in front of a doorway, as the door for this particular room had been missing for quite some time. Hemwy looked inside for a moment but did not enter, instead he turned away from them to also look a bit down the hall at the end, where instead of a wall there sat a large double door.

Hemwy looked indecisively between the two entrances and then finally back to the group. His ocular unit displayed a variety of color, the meaning and nuance of which would unfortunately take too long for him to properly convey to any non Dan-o.

“QUESTIONS OR ANSWERS?”

He was providing them with the choice that he could not make, but made no effort to clarify which room was which.

“I have a lot of the first and basically none of the second,” Kai remarked. “And I’m guessing these doors aren’t just doors if what these guys experienced with the first one is anything to go by.” He squinted into the room they were stood beside, which appeared to be some kind of conference room. A large table dominated its center, with numerous tools that seemed vaguely reminiscent of Hemwy’s own design dotted around it. It looked lived-in, in a way that the rest of the strange hall didn’t.

“Is this like your clubhouse, or something?” Kai asked, glancing at the robot. “Er… you won’t know what that is. Do you … live here?”

Something deeper within Hemwy tugged at the mention of the word ‘clubhouse’, an echo of a memory from a different life. He tried his best to grasp it but it danced away from him as soon as it had come. His aperture whirred as he focused his vision on Kai.

“WHEN I WAS ALIVE, YES. WHEN I WAS STILL DAN-O. I LIVE NO MORE. FAR FROM HERE.”.

Truth be told, Ezrael had been… sort of mind floating for a little bit. The two humans felt like more of a nuisance than anything else, especially because he kind of liked them. Hemwy, their more monstrous partner, was interesting though. He had been mentally chatting with the mind ghost of his dead partner as they walked. His ears twitched whenever he heard interesting words.

"So what state are you in now?" He asked Hemwy, curious.

Hemwy sat silent for a moment, digesting the question.

“JUST A SHADOW.”

It was not his intention to come across so dismissive in his answer, but the truth was that that was the simplest explanation he could produce using just his limited scope of words. The rest would have to be shown.

"Hmm…" murmured Ezra in response, thinking about it. Did the creature mean it as a concept? Literally?.

“That’s… vague, but what else is new?” Kai murmured. “So this is where you lived before you were…” he gestured vaguely at Hemwy. “All metal and data? Or do you still hang out here?”

"Anethe date febore.?.." Said Ezrael's ghost in a certain deer monster's mind, while Ezra stood by and answered quietly;

"Yayanteida faratella." As he scratched the floor with his hoof.

“More importantly, why is it relevant?” Jace cut in more briskly. “You brought us here for a reason. Presumably part of that was just to get away from the thing that was chasing us, but it seems like there’s more to it. What I want to know is which door is going to get us closer to finding Alaxel and getting out of here alive.” He ran a hand through his hair. “The last part being the most important one. If one way is going to increase our chance of survival, either with information or whatever else, we go that way. Otherwise, whichever is fastest.”

Ezra was distracted again, his ears kept twitching in the direction of empty space. He looked over quickly every so often too, at what he was seeing. He wasn't finding it quite so easy to leave the numbers and the ghosts behind. Not when they were so easy to place… he continued their conversation, trying to be discrete.

"Nayara reid absentago Jace, ayjate?"

"Jace eteye Kai tedare human aten rsyodka dale thole…"

"Sov astedare tues hujat a satén def reidere"

"Nana Alaxel atefinde e re tuya no vayesa, shh.."

“You’re assuming that robo-guy knows anything about Alaxel,” Kai pointed out. “We barely know anything about it. Just kinda ran into it in a hallway and followed it into the time door.” He paused. “Wow, that’s a sentence.”

It was quite a sentence, thought Ezra, pointing his ears at Kai.

Flashes bubbled to the surface of Hemwy at the mention of Alaxel. Flashes of light, flashes of memory, flashes of karametal and fire. An arm extended to point down the hall, its vestigial partner echoing the gesture. They pointed at the double doors. Then they gestured to the open doorway in front of them.

“ANSWERS THERE. QUESTIONS HERE.”

Then, in an afterthought borne out of minor annoyance, Hemwy turned to Kai. The outstretched hand was brought back and placed against Hemwy’s chest.

“HEMWY. NOT ROBO-GUY.”

“Oop, my bad,” Kai grinned. “Wow guys, can’t believe none of you asked Hemwy their name!”

Ezrael laughed besides Ezra, finding Kai's remark funny apparently. And Ezra grumbled a response so quiet it was unintelligible. Even though he did feel some remorse over it. Moreso because Hemwy was a beautiful name, as he pointed out. Ezra was about to voice it, when the blonde human started speaking. So he closed his mouth and pinned his ears back.

Jace pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright, Hemwy. So if we have questions, here’s the place to ask them. And the rest is down that way,” he nodded towards the further away double doors. “I’m with you.”

“Oh, I totally have questions. We can do questions, right? We went through the time door, time’s probably not even relevant right now! When are we next going to have the opportunity to sit down and actually figure out a little bit of what’s going on?” Kai gave Jace an imploring look.

Jace snorted. “Ironically, I’ve been doing that for a few weeks, from my perspective.”

"Me too… I think" Answered Ezrael with a sigh. He sat down his deer half, and looked over to see Ezrael sit down besides him. He felt a shiver go through him when the mind ghost or hallucination patted his side. And he felt it.

Upon their arrival at mutual understanding, Hemwy shot Jace and Kai four enthusiastic thumbs up.
 
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