Weeklylife.bat, Final Cycle, Part 2
Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
You know what I kind of regret?
Completely wiping the Fate Shop, because I had some decent ideas there, they were just kind of… square peg, round hole.
I coulda used it somewhere with less of a firm grip on reality, at the very least.
"Ooh. I know that look. That's your thinking look." Your mother teases you, breaking you from thought.
"Wh- I don't have a 'thinking' look."
"You do! It's this dark, brooding thing like somebody's just shoved a peeled lemon in your mouth."
"{It's true, you're one chin on a fist away from looking like an angry Mistrali statue.}"
Et tu, Blue?
"Quiet you! You've still got stuff to fix!" Your mother shouts at your sword, drawing a yelp from it.
"{Yes ma'am!}"
She grins as her new whipping… entity, flits back off into the house, repairing the wall behind it, then turns back to you.
"Seriously though- Lien for your thoughts?"
"Nothing too big. I'm just thinking over what you said, and… I think I'd be better off with using the Transistor most of the time. I'll just, get something to use as a backup. You know, in case something locks it up again."
She winces, no doubt remembering the last time the Transistor crashed.
If Juniper wasn't an absolute saint and hadn't volunteered to be the first person to have her Semblance scanned, you'd still be paying your neighbours for the damages.
"Is… that likely?"
"No, I can't think of anything that would be that much of a shock to the system. It's a lot more robust these days. Still, I think a backup weapon would be a good idea if nothing else. A knife, maybe a mace."
Thoughts flit through your mind of a shield-shifting arm piece and shortsword combo but is immediately cast aside upon remembering certain images you may have found when curiosity around the subject last came up.
Formshifting armour is... something you would need to really, really sit down and think about, before committing any time, money, or body parts to i-
Oh Gods weapons cost money. They are goods that must be acquired via the exchange of currency.
Your mother must see something else in your face, and claps you on the shoulder.
"Yeah, money is a problem. How much you got?" She asks you.
"6400 Lien."
"Well, that should be enough for a hunting knife or a mace, or- oh, stop that, I'm just messing with you." She relents after a moment of watching your face fall further and further. "You can always claim from Signal's weapon budget, you know."
Wait, what?
Signal's weapon budget was sitting pretty at about ten million Lien a year, sure, but…
"Isn't… it a little late for that? I thought you could only claim it in first year."
Your mother gives you that little smirk that tells you she knows more than she's letting on.
"No, but almost everybody does claim it in their first year, and that's not the same thing, and they can't spend it on anything else by law until the student it's allotted for leaves Signal."
You blink, letting that sink in while your mother finally gets up, offering her hand to you, which you take and pull yourself up.
"Still, don't worry too much about it- if you phone up Professor Moss, he'll take you through the application process. Though I have to ask- all this time, and you've never mentioned Crocea Mors. Why is that?"
Ah. You wondered if/when this would come up.
"... You talked about giving it to Jasmine with Dad. Crocea Mors isn't mine to take."
"Ah. Sometimes I wonder why we bother trying to have private conversations in this house." Your mother snarks at you good-naturedly. "Still, you know, so that's one awkward talk nipped in the bud. Even so, Signal starts a couple weeks after Beacon, so, if you do want to borrow it for the Initiation…?"
She shrugs a little.
Still, you keep it in mind. More options is always a good idea.
"You up for another round?" She asks you, picking up her sword and clicking a hidden switch. You watch as the coil of wire disappears into the hilt, and the entire thing sprouts another few feet. "It's been a while since I fought somebody with a spear."
Grinning, you pick up your sword and shield, and take up form.
It might not be your main weapon but damned if this isn't kinda fun.
|||
Lumen is currently staring at you over his fingers with an intensity you didn't entirely think him capable of, those prismatic eyes narrowed at you in every sense of the word. Ada's sitting next to him, looking irresponsibly smug, 02 in her lap and watching you as well.
"... Do it." He asks you.
You snap your fingers and feel the twinge of an energy-matter reaction above your fingers as a third Cell comes into existence, gently landing on the table and ambling over to him, chittering the entire way.
Lumen stares at it for a second, before nodding solemnly, reaching into the breast pocket of his shirt and pulling out 200 Lien. He places it in Ada's outstretched hand.
"I'm so sorry I doubted you."
"I forgive you, but only because you just bought me dinner."
|||
It's on the train into the centre of the commercial district that you realise you have no idea what exactly you're going to talk about with your friends. Obviously, giving them all Cells, sure, but… after that?
{You could always just dick around in the city centre for a few hours. You know, like normal teenagers.}
True…
{... But you get the feeling that's not how this is going to go.}
Look, you haven't had a day out recently that's not ended in somebody pouring their heart out to you, and while you're, kinda accepting of the fact that, yeah, you're a damn fine shoulder to cry on, you're getting just a mite short on the matter.
… And if you talk to anybody about it, you'll be doing the same thing you're complaining about, agh-
{You're not a therapist, Jaune. And nobody's expecting you to be one.}
… Ok, yeah, that's… fair.
{Look at it this way, all the problems people are shouldering on you- at least they're practical problems. They have tangible solutions that can be put into place.}
In the form of creating a city-spanning molecular deathtrap. Kind of all-encompassing, that.
There isn't a problem that can't be solved by the right application of energised nitrogen plasma.
Vacuo's economic crisis on account of rampant corruption anywhere outside of the academy.
Make glass from all the sand. Sell it. Track the money. Shoot anyone who shouldn't have it. Problem solved.
Pfft.
Bracket's gone and grown himself a sense of humour. It's a work in progress, but it's certainly there.
Your stop is announced over the intercom, and you get up, making your way to the train door, the Transistor silently floating out of the above-head luggage compartment and falling in behind you as you step onto the platform.
It's a five-minute walk from there to the small shopping centre everybody agreed to meet up at, and at this rate, you should be a bit early- early enough to sit down and get some outside coding done. You arrive there with little issue, sitting on one of the granite blocks that pass for seating, and just take in the day for a moment.
A gentle breeze flows past you, taking the weight of the late July sun off your back. Barely a cloud in the sky.
The day's almost beautiful enough for someone as anti-outdoors as you to enjoy it.
Despite your earlier scheduling, instead of programming, you find yourself watching the Cell alternate between sunbathing, playing in the fountain, trying to make friends with the birds around here, and only managing to scare them off.
"Oh my God, it's just as cute as it looked!"
The sudden yell makes you jump in your seat, and you turn to realise that Creme has joined you, curls bouncing in time with her heels as she quite possibly loses the ability to compose higher thought just from looking at the Cell.
You genuinely didn't know somebody could have this much of a weakness to cute things.
"You approve, then."
She nods furiously at you, dopy grin splitting her face, and it's all you can do not to laugh. You silently call 01 over to you, picking it up and holding it out for Creme.
"This is 01. Don't worry, it doesn't bite."
Tentatively holding her hand out, 01 hops over with a tiny hup of effort, and she brings it close, cupping the tiny robot in two hands as the excitement in her eyes turned to genuine wonder.
"... It's… warm." She murmurs, completely enraptured by your new friend.
The two of you play with 01 for a while, Creme treating it like a puppy and having it act like one in response, getting much the same fright as Ada did when it proves it can talk, and you calmly explain to her the very basics of what the Process is.
While the two of you are playing, you notice a look of mild conflict flash across her face as she glances at you when she thinks you don't notice. You get the feeling she may want to say something to you, but before you can ask her anything, you spot Lumen coming down the street, gently crouched as he moves towards Creme.
He spots you spotting him, and lifts a single finger to his lips, his brow furrowed with an unusual seriousness for the boy. The only thing that assuages your concern something unsavoury is going to happen is the dopey grin that splits his face as he moves behind her.
With a feeling of practice to the motion, he firmly taps Creme on the shoulder, drawing a panicked yell from her, ducks and shifts to her other side as she turns to see what just got her, and holds a finger directly over her other shoulder. When she turns to look over her other shoulder, she smushes her cheek against the outstretched finger, staring at the smug git, confusion and the beginning of outrage on her face.
"Hey, Creme. Long time no see." Lumen says casually as if the first thing he did after not seeing her for almost a month wasn't messing with her.
She slaps the finger away, the hard frown twisting into a little smirk.
"Yeah, not long enough."
He gives her a look of mock hurt, his hand coming to his chest in shock. Before he can continue, he finally notices 01.
"... Huh."
Completely forgetting about the bit with Creme, he walks over to it, his eyes gently pulsing between wide as dinner plates and pinhole narrow. After a second, he turns to you, his eyes returning to normal for a second.
"Do you mind if I-?"
"Go ahead. It doesn't bite."
You mentally coax 01 into his hands, and watch with great interest and mild horror as, after a few moments of focus, one of his pupils widens so far that they actually subsume the whites of his eyes, while the other shrinks to to a point, leaving them looking like a pair of snooker balls. The overall effect is… disturbing, to say the least.
"Oh, God, that's not nice to look at," Creme mutters from behind her hand, looking more than a little nauseous.
Lumen ignores her, still entirely enraptured with 01, gently turning the tiny robot this way and that, trying to view it from every possible angle.
"...It's… perfectly coloured. It's exactly the same shade of white all over. I've never seen anything like it."
"The perks of perfect atomic structure, I imagine. See anything else interesting?"
You have to admit- you're actually quite curious how Processed matter looks to somebody like Lumen.
"Well, aside from the monoshading, it keeps giving off very slight pulses in low paryl- sorry, in the low microwave range, at least, as far as I can tell." He explains, blinking back tears in one eye. "Agh, fuck I shouldn't have done that outside-"
Lumen clutches his face, doubling over in pain.
"Oh my gosh, are you ok?" Creme asks him, only to be waved off.
"I'm fine, I'm, fine, just… opening my iris as far as it can go, the sun is right there, not, not my brightest idea."
You and Creme both give a little 'ahh' of understanding, and then kind of, stand around awkwardly, waiting for him to recover.
Incorrect- pulses are in the HF radio wave range- part of long-range scanning protocols. Enhanced eyesight must be on the very edge of the radio wave spectrum.
… Huh.
Before you can do anything with that info, a text from Ada pops up in the corner of your eye to tell you she's just off the bus and less than five minutes away.
Seven minutes later, you spot her walking around the corner, 02 trailing at her heels, and wave her over. You can't help but note how dishevelled she looks- her waist-length hair makes her look like she's been dragged through a bush, and her clothes, including her poncho, are slightly torn in some places, dark stains spattering the light shirt underneath her poncho. As she gets closer, you note with some alarm that some- no, most of the stains on it are in fact blood and that her eyepatch is holding on by a bare thread.
"Sorry!" She calls out, jogging over to you. "I got called into work, it was an emergency, and I only just got off! I'm not... late..." she comes to a stop, looking over the three of you. "... Oh come on, I don't look that bad, do I?"
"Ada, you look like you lost a fight with a Loxy." Lumen tells her bluntly.
"As I said, work emergency. Look, can we, like, go get a coffee or something first, then we'll talk? I really need a seat."
The general consensus is a worried but positive one, so after you offer to repair her clothes and eyepatch, the four of you make your way to a café, which, in Vale's commercial district, means you take ten steps to the left, and then you're inside one.
Honestly, you'd think the things were breeding.
|||
"So, what do you work as anyway?" Creme asks Ada after you've warded off the management with medical forms and grabbed your drinks of choice, taking a patio seat since the day's shaping up to be a sunny one.
"Well, Lumen wasn't wrong- I'm an exterminator. I deal with Loxies for farmers, Ratkings, Rapier Wasps, actual pests like racoons and hornets, more than once, er, just that kinda shit. It's good work, it can just get… violent, sometimes." She explains, before taking a bite of her cake.
Oh.
You, honestly never would have guessed, but you suppose the job kinda fits her.
{Hey, extermination's good money. It's just not the kind of thing that you can freelance.}
He means farmers tend to object to people firing off plasma in their fields.
{That too.}
"And, that emergency you were called into?"
Ada mumbles something before rushing to chew and swallow so she can answer properly.
"Ok, so, you know how Grimm get stronger and smarter the longer they live, right? That's why Goliaths are like, 90 years old and don't attack humans the same way as like, a Beowolf does?" She asks, waiting for a general sound of understanding before she continues.
"Well you see, the thing about Loxies is, yeah, any kid with a rock and a good throwing arm can drive one off, but that's all they do- drive them off. So, they just keep getting pushed off, they go off and lick their wounds, and eventually…"
"... They get strong enough to pose an actual threat," you finish for her.
"Exactly. I was getting ready to come out, next thing I know I'm getting a call from my boss saying he's coming to pick me up because there's a full plate Loxy in someone's barn. I got there and found two dead cows and a guy with a torn up arm. That was cow blood, by the way, not mine. But yeah, I spent like ten minutes trying to kill the damn thing, until I eventually just phased through the plating and ripped its fucking heart out. And I only got that far because Terry here pulled a goddamn laser pistol out of his ass and blinded the damn thing." She finishes, gesturing to the Cell on the table, which tries to puff out its nonexistent chest with pride.
"... So, a rough day, then?" Lumen asks blandly.
The tiny girl sighs, leaning in to rub her eyes with a finger before resting her head in her hand.
"Rough enough to wish I was stupid enough to drink, yeah."
You raise an eyebrow at that, but don't press any further.
"So... what do you guys do for work, then?" Ada asks you all after a few moments of silence.
"Freelance programmer. People hire me on an as-needed basis instead of hiring on someone in a more permanent position, or if they just need somebody to pad out a team. It's pretty good money, I enjoy it." You offer, still mildly anguished over losing so much money in a single day.
"Oh, er, I, don't actually have a job," Creme mumbles nervously. "I-I dunno, I just, never really... thought about what I would do. My Semblance makes most physical work pretty dangerous, and I really don't like the idea of being sat behind a desk all day... God, it'd kill me."
You nod in understanding. For someone who enjoys your job as much as you, you don't think you could stand it if you were stuck in one place all day.
"My sisters and I make jewellery." Lumen joins in. To demonstrate, he brings his palms up, fingers curled and held together. With a sort of rippling motion, a chain of deep, burnished yellow appears in his hands, with green and blue crystals dotted along the links in an alternating pattern, which he quickly connects together into a bracelet, before adding a heart-shaped charm made from ruby-red... luxin, you guess, and handing it off to Creme.
"Oh, wow. That's amazing!" She says, examining it. "How'd you make it look so close to gold?"
"Cores of perfect yellow luxin, sheathed in very thin green and orange for colour. Took me months to get that perfect. Dot in some blue and green-doped sub-red charms for accessories and keep it from running out too fast, the red charm's coated in superviolet so it doesn't lose its shape. It's an art, is what it is. The whole thing should last about... 8 months before it completely decomposes?"
You listen, genuinely interested in listening to him talk. Lumen's Semblance is incredibly interesting to you because the stuff it creates makes no sense.
It's... like hardlight, but, with texture, with colour, with a smell? How can solidified light of all things have any of that?!
{And the way it destabilises on contact with light is weird too. Stuff shouldn't instantaneously decompose like that.}
True... agh, you hate having more important things than your own pet peeves to worry about.
"So, you use a little bit of everything?" Ada asks him.
"Sure do. Need to, otherwise, the whole thing doesn't look right. Granted, Marcie and I are the only ones who can actually do this, the rest of my family has to make do with coloured lenses and fewer colours at their disposal, so... it's less a family business and more a 'tiny subset of the family' business."
Noting the distaste that flashes across his face when he mentions the rest of his family, you choose to exercise the little tact you have and stay silent. A sort of topical void comes over the group as you eat and drink, as everyone tries to talk about everything but the elephant in the room, even getting to the point of giving Creme and Lumen their own Cells before discussing it, but eventually, one of you has to breach it.
And eventually, Ada does.
"Thank you," she says. "For, everything, all of you. I just... I don't know what would have happened, if I hadn't, met you all, when I did..."
She trails off for a moment, taking a measured breath.
"I just... I guess I can't really... believe that you're all so ok with staying around me when I'm probably going to get you into a lot of trouble. So... I just, want to be sure, so let me ask you one last time."
You listen, watching intently as she stops again, trying to order her thoughts. You watch as she wrings a handful of her poncho, trying to bring herself to look at you all.
"... If you help me... you're going to be put into a lot of danger. You're, going to be in the firing line of one of the worst serial killers in Vale's history. It's, not even a matter of if he's in the city for me anymore. If he comes here... I'm going to fight him. I don't, I don't know if it's going to be because I'll look for him, or if it'll just be a coincidence that we meet, but I know, somewhere deep in that pit in my stomach, that I am going to fight him when he comes here. And, if... if you don't, want any part of that... I won't hold it against you."
Her head drops for a second as she huffs a laugh, a sad little smile on her face.
"It's just... last night, it... God, it hit me like a fucking truck, the fact that, I'm genuinely going to face the worst thing that ever happened to me, and that I'm going to stab him in the face. Probably more than entirely necessary. Then I realised that I was dragging you along with me, and that's... that's not fair, unless I really, really knew that you understood... what you were doing. So... I want to ask you, just... once.
... Are you sure you want to help me?"
You sit there, honestly stunned. All three of you do, staring at the tiny girl who can't bring herself to look you in the eye, silently waiting for your answer.
It stays like that for a while, nobody really... knowing how to react.
"... You already know my answer." You tell her, breaking the silence. Ada looks up at you, eyes misty, and you realise that she needs to hear it.
"Ada Doyle, I created a god to help you kill that man. It might need some time to grow up, but... you're the reason it exists. So is he. I'm not going anywhere."
She sniffs a little, but a little smile pulls at her face anyway.
"I ain't going anywhere either," Creme tells her, reaching over and placing a hand on Ada's shoulder. "I dunno how much use I'll be in a fight, but I wasn't raised to leave a friend out on their ass just because I got scared."
Lumen stays silent for a little while longer.
"... When you put it like that, yeah, this is absolutely insane." He says after a while. "Like... I'll be honest with you, Ada, if I didn't talk to Jaune, and find out the statistics for myself, I'd still be hoping that you were lying through your teeth, but... you're for real, aren't you?"
Ada's smile tightens as she nods slightly, agreeing with him. You notice she hasn't stopped wringing her poncho for all it's worth yet.
"Yeah. Unfortunately."
Lumen's face hardens a little, slipping into deep thought for a moment.
"I..." he trails off, pinching his brow for a moment before gesturing to Ada. "Look, I like you, I, I really do, you're honestly one of the best people I know, but... if it wasn't for Jaune shitting a god on Saturday, I would not be with you, on the whole, fighting Lee deal. I don't, know if that sounds bad, or not, but... it's the truth."
"I am a rather reassuring presence, aren't I?" You comment mildly, getting a small laugh from everyone and a joking 'piss off' from Lumen.
"But... yeah. I'm with you. If, nothing else, then as a friend." Lumen finishes once the laughter dies down.
The smile on her face makes Ada look happier than you've ever seen her.
{Honestly, it's probably the happiest she's been since she heard the news.}
You lean back for a moment, looking at the only three people you can really call friends, like, normal friends, friends your age, friends that are human...
And you serious find yourself wondering... are these three the ones you want to spend the next few years of your life with?
... That, sounded less polyamorous in your hea- when you didn't think it out loud.
(This is an out of character vote dressed as an in-character vote. You are quite literally choosing whether or not to beat chance into a pulp.)
[X] Yes- ... Yeah. Yeah, you're ready for that kind of commitment. Again, less polyamorous when you didn't think it out loud. (Guarantees the formation of team JACL during Initiation. All other characters will be left to chance.)
[] No- They're good friends, but... you don't really want your relationships with them to go any further than that- you are not doing this on purpose you swear- (Leaves all characters up to chance.)
Completely wiping the Fate Shop, because I had some decent ideas there, they were just kind of… square peg, round hole.
I coulda used it somewhere with less of a firm grip on reality, at the very least.
"Ooh. I know that look. That's your thinking look." Your mother teases you, breaking you from thought.
"Wh- I don't have a 'thinking' look."
"You do! It's this dark, brooding thing like somebody's just shoved a peeled lemon in your mouth."
"{It's true, you're one chin on a fist away from looking like an angry Mistrali statue.}"
Et tu, Blue?
"Quiet you! You've still got stuff to fix!" Your mother shouts at your sword, drawing a yelp from it.
"{Yes ma'am!}"
She grins as her new whipping… entity, flits back off into the house, repairing the wall behind it, then turns back to you.
"Seriously though- Lien for your thoughts?"
"Nothing too big. I'm just thinking over what you said, and… I think I'd be better off with using the Transistor most of the time. I'll just, get something to use as a backup. You know, in case something locks it up again."
She winces, no doubt remembering the last time the Transistor crashed.
If Juniper wasn't an absolute saint and hadn't volunteered to be the first person to have her Semblance scanned, you'd still be paying your neighbours for the damages.
"Is… that likely?"
"No, I can't think of anything that would be that much of a shock to the system. It's a lot more robust these days. Still, I think a backup weapon would be a good idea if nothing else. A knife, maybe a mace."
Thoughts flit through your mind of a shield-shifting arm piece and shortsword combo but is immediately cast aside upon remembering certain images you may have found when curiosity around the subject last came up.
Formshifting armour is... something you would need to really, really sit down and think about, before committing any time, money, or body parts to i-
Oh Gods weapons cost money. They are goods that must be acquired via the exchange of currency.
Your mother must see something else in your face, and claps you on the shoulder.
"Yeah, money is a problem. How much you got?" She asks you.
"6400 Lien."
"Well, that should be enough for a hunting knife or a mace, or- oh, stop that, I'm just messing with you." She relents after a moment of watching your face fall further and further. "You can always claim from Signal's weapon budget, you know."
Wait, what?
Signal's weapon budget was sitting pretty at about ten million Lien a year, sure, but…
"Isn't… it a little late for that? I thought you could only claim it in first year."
Your mother gives you that little smirk that tells you she knows more than she's letting on.
"No, but almost everybody does claim it in their first year, and that's not the same thing, and they can't spend it on anything else by law until the student it's allotted for leaves Signal."
You blink, letting that sink in while your mother finally gets up, offering her hand to you, which you take and pull yourself up.
"Still, don't worry too much about it- if you phone up Professor Moss, he'll take you through the application process. Though I have to ask- all this time, and you've never mentioned Crocea Mors. Why is that?"
Ah. You wondered if/when this would come up.
"... You talked about giving it to Jasmine with Dad. Crocea Mors isn't mine to take."
"Ah. Sometimes I wonder why we bother trying to have private conversations in this house." Your mother snarks at you good-naturedly. "Still, you know, so that's one awkward talk nipped in the bud. Even so, Signal starts a couple weeks after Beacon, so, if you do want to borrow it for the Initiation…?"
She shrugs a little.
Still, you keep it in mind. More options is always a good idea.
"You up for another round?" She asks you, picking up her sword and clicking a hidden switch. You watch as the coil of wire disappears into the hilt, and the entire thing sprouts another few feet. "It's been a while since I fought somebody with a spear."
Grinning, you pick up your sword and shield, and take up form.
It might not be your main weapon but damned if this isn't kinda fun.
|||
Tuesday
Lumen is currently staring at you over his fingers with an intensity you didn't entirely think him capable of, those prismatic eyes narrowed at you in every sense of the word. Ada's sitting next to him, looking irresponsibly smug, 02 in her lap and watching you as well.
"... Do it." He asks you.
You snap your fingers and feel the twinge of an energy-matter reaction above your fingers as a third Cell comes into existence, gently landing on the table and ambling over to him, chittering the entire way.
Lumen stares at it for a second, before nodding solemnly, reaching into the breast pocket of his shirt and pulling out 200 Lien. He places it in Ada's outstretched hand.
"I'm so sorry I doubted you."
"I forgive you, but only because you just bought me dinner."
|||
Tuesday (but earlier)
It's on the train into the centre of the commercial district that you realise you have no idea what exactly you're going to talk about with your friends. Obviously, giving them all Cells, sure, but… after that?
{You could always just dick around in the city centre for a few hours. You know, like normal teenagers.}
True…
{... But you get the feeling that's not how this is going to go.}
Look, you haven't had a day out recently that's not ended in somebody pouring their heart out to you, and while you're, kinda accepting of the fact that, yeah, you're a damn fine shoulder to cry on, you're getting just a mite short on the matter.
… And if you talk to anybody about it, you'll be doing the same thing you're complaining about, agh-
{You're not a therapist, Jaune. And nobody's expecting you to be one.}
… Ok, yeah, that's… fair.
{Look at it this way, all the problems people are shouldering on you- at least they're practical problems. They have tangible solutions that can be put into place.}
In the form of creating a city-spanning molecular deathtrap. Kind of all-encompassing, that.
There isn't a problem that can't be solved by the right application of energised nitrogen plasma.
Vacuo's economic crisis on account of rampant corruption anywhere outside of the academy.
Make glass from all the sand. Sell it. Track the money. Shoot anyone who shouldn't have it. Problem solved.
Pfft.
Bracket's gone and grown himself a sense of humour. It's a work in progress, but it's certainly there.
Your stop is announced over the intercom, and you get up, making your way to the train door, the Transistor silently floating out of the above-head luggage compartment and falling in behind you as you step onto the platform.
It's a five-minute walk from there to the small shopping centre everybody agreed to meet up at, and at this rate, you should be a bit early- early enough to sit down and get some outside coding done. You arrive there with little issue, sitting on one of the granite blocks that pass for seating, and just take in the day for a moment.
A gentle breeze flows past you, taking the weight of the late July sun off your back. Barely a cloud in the sky.
The day's almost beautiful enough for someone as anti-outdoors as you to enjoy it.
Despite your earlier scheduling, instead of programming, you find yourself watching the Cell alternate between sunbathing, playing in the fountain, trying to make friends with the birds around here, and only managing to scare them off.
"Oh my God, it's just as cute as it looked!"
The sudden yell makes you jump in your seat, and you turn to realise that Creme has joined you, curls bouncing in time with her heels as she quite possibly loses the ability to compose higher thought just from looking at the Cell.
You genuinely didn't know somebody could have this much of a weakness to cute things.
"You approve, then."
She nods furiously at you, dopy grin splitting her face, and it's all you can do not to laugh. You silently call 01 over to you, picking it up and holding it out for Creme.
"This is 01. Don't worry, it doesn't bite."
Tentatively holding her hand out, 01 hops over with a tiny hup of effort, and she brings it close, cupping the tiny robot in two hands as the excitement in her eyes turned to genuine wonder.
"... It's… warm." She murmurs, completely enraptured by your new friend.
The two of you play with 01 for a while, Creme treating it like a puppy and having it act like one in response, getting much the same fright as Ada did when it proves it can talk, and you calmly explain to her the very basics of what the Process is.
While the two of you are playing, you notice a look of mild conflict flash across her face as she glances at you when she thinks you don't notice. You get the feeling she may want to say something to you, but before you can ask her anything, you spot Lumen coming down the street, gently crouched as he moves towards Creme.
He spots you spotting him, and lifts a single finger to his lips, his brow furrowed with an unusual seriousness for the boy. The only thing that assuages your concern something unsavoury is going to happen is the dopey grin that splits his face as he moves behind her.
With a feeling of practice to the motion, he firmly taps Creme on the shoulder, drawing a panicked yell from her, ducks and shifts to her other side as she turns to see what just got her, and holds a finger directly over her other shoulder. When she turns to look over her other shoulder, she smushes her cheek against the outstretched finger, staring at the smug git, confusion and the beginning of outrage on her face.
"Hey, Creme. Long time no see." Lumen says casually as if the first thing he did after not seeing her for almost a month wasn't messing with her.
She slaps the finger away, the hard frown twisting into a little smirk.
"Yeah, not long enough."
He gives her a look of mock hurt, his hand coming to his chest in shock. Before he can continue, he finally notices 01.
"... Huh."
Completely forgetting about the bit with Creme, he walks over to it, his eyes gently pulsing between wide as dinner plates and pinhole narrow. After a second, he turns to you, his eyes returning to normal for a second.
"Do you mind if I-?"
"Go ahead. It doesn't bite."
You mentally coax 01 into his hands, and watch with great interest and mild horror as, after a few moments of focus, one of his pupils widens so far that they actually subsume the whites of his eyes, while the other shrinks to to a point, leaving them looking like a pair of snooker balls. The overall effect is… disturbing, to say the least.
"Oh, God, that's not nice to look at," Creme mutters from behind her hand, looking more than a little nauseous.
Lumen ignores her, still entirely enraptured with 01, gently turning the tiny robot this way and that, trying to view it from every possible angle.
"...It's… perfectly coloured. It's exactly the same shade of white all over. I've never seen anything like it."
"The perks of perfect atomic structure, I imagine. See anything else interesting?"
You have to admit- you're actually quite curious how Processed matter looks to somebody like Lumen.
"Well, aside from the monoshading, it keeps giving off very slight pulses in low paryl- sorry, in the low microwave range, at least, as far as I can tell." He explains, blinking back tears in one eye. "Agh, fuck I shouldn't have done that outside-"
Lumen clutches his face, doubling over in pain.
"Oh my gosh, are you ok?" Creme asks him, only to be waved off.
"I'm fine, I'm, fine, just… opening my iris as far as it can go, the sun is right there, not, not my brightest idea."
You and Creme both give a little 'ahh' of understanding, and then kind of, stand around awkwardly, waiting for him to recover.
Incorrect- pulses are in the HF radio wave range- part of long-range scanning protocols. Enhanced eyesight must be on the very edge of the radio wave spectrum.
… Huh.
Before you can do anything with that info, a text from Ada pops up in the corner of your eye to tell you she's just off the bus and less than five minutes away.
Seven minutes later, you spot her walking around the corner, 02 trailing at her heels, and wave her over. You can't help but note how dishevelled she looks- her waist-length hair makes her look like she's been dragged through a bush, and her clothes, including her poncho, are slightly torn in some places, dark stains spattering the light shirt underneath her poncho. As she gets closer, you note with some alarm that some- no, most of the stains on it are in fact blood and that her eyepatch is holding on by a bare thread.
"Sorry!" She calls out, jogging over to you. "I got called into work, it was an emergency, and I only just got off! I'm not... late..." she comes to a stop, looking over the three of you. "... Oh come on, I don't look that bad, do I?"
"Ada, you look like you lost a fight with a Loxy." Lumen tells her bluntly.
"As I said, work emergency. Look, can we, like, go get a coffee or something first, then we'll talk? I really need a seat."
The general consensus is a worried but positive one, so after you offer to repair her clothes and eyepatch, the four of you make your way to a café, which, in Vale's commercial district, means you take ten steps to the left, and then you're inside one.
Honestly, you'd think the things were breeding.
|||
"So, what do you work as anyway?" Creme asks Ada after you've warded off the management with medical forms and grabbed your drinks of choice, taking a patio seat since the day's shaping up to be a sunny one.
"Well, Lumen wasn't wrong- I'm an exterminator. I deal with Loxies for farmers, Ratkings, Rapier Wasps, actual pests like racoons and hornets, more than once, er, just that kinda shit. It's good work, it can just get… violent, sometimes." She explains, before taking a bite of her cake.
Oh.
You, honestly never would have guessed, but you suppose the job kinda fits her.
{Hey, extermination's good money. It's just not the kind of thing that you can freelance.}
He means farmers tend to object to people firing off plasma in their fields.
{That too.}
"And, that emergency you were called into?"
Ada mumbles something before rushing to chew and swallow so she can answer properly.
"Ok, so, you know how Grimm get stronger and smarter the longer they live, right? That's why Goliaths are like, 90 years old and don't attack humans the same way as like, a Beowolf does?" She asks, waiting for a general sound of understanding before she continues.
"Well you see, the thing about Loxies is, yeah, any kid with a rock and a good throwing arm can drive one off, but that's all they do- drive them off. So, they just keep getting pushed off, they go off and lick their wounds, and eventually…"
"... They get strong enough to pose an actual threat," you finish for her.
"Exactly. I was getting ready to come out, next thing I know I'm getting a call from my boss saying he's coming to pick me up because there's a full plate Loxy in someone's barn. I got there and found two dead cows and a guy with a torn up arm. That was cow blood, by the way, not mine. But yeah, I spent like ten minutes trying to kill the damn thing, until I eventually just phased through the plating and ripped its fucking heart out. And I only got that far because Terry here pulled a goddamn laser pistol out of his ass and blinded the damn thing." She finishes, gesturing to the Cell on the table, which tries to puff out its nonexistent chest with pride.
"... So, a rough day, then?" Lumen asks blandly.
The tiny girl sighs, leaning in to rub her eyes with a finger before resting her head in her hand.
"Rough enough to wish I was stupid enough to drink, yeah."
You raise an eyebrow at that, but don't press any further.
"So... what do you guys do for work, then?" Ada asks you all after a few moments of silence.
"Freelance programmer. People hire me on an as-needed basis instead of hiring on someone in a more permanent position, or if they just need somebody to pad out a team. It's pretty good money, I enjoy it." You offer, still mildly anguished over losing so much money in a single day.
"Oh, er, I, don't actually have a job," Creme mumbles nervously. "I-I dunno, I just, never really... thought about what I would do. My Semblance makes most physical work pretty dangerous, and I really don't like the idea of being sat behind a desk all day... God, it'd kill me."
You nod in understanding. For someone who enjoys your job as much as you, you don't think you could stand it if you were stuck in one place all day.
"My sisters and I make jewellery." Lumen joins in. To demonstrate, he brings his palms up, fingers curled and held together. With a sort of rippling motion, a chain of deep, burnished yellow appears in his hands, with green and blue crystals dotted along the links in an alternating pattern, which he quickly connects together into a bracelet, before adding a heart-shaped charm made from ruby-red... luxin, you guess, and handing it off to Creme.
"Oh, wow. That's amazing!" She says, examining it. "How'd you make it look so close to gold?"
"Cores of perfect yellow luxin, sheathed in very thin green and orange for colour. Took me months to get that perfect. Dot in some blue and green-doped sub-red charms for accessories and keep it from running out too fast, the red charm's coated in superviolet so it doesn't lose its shape. It's an art, is what it is. The whole thing should last about... 8 months before it completely decomposes?"
You listen, genuinely interested in listening to him talk. Lumen's Semblance is incredibly interesting to you because the stuff it creates makes no sense.
It's... like hardlight, but, with texture, with colour, with a smell? How can solidified light of all things have any of that?!
{And the way it destabilises on contact with light is weird too. Stuff shouldn't instantaneously decompose like that.}
True... agh, you hate having more important things than your own pet peeves to worry about.
"So, you use a little bit of everything?" Ada asks him.
"Sure do. Need to, otherwise, the whole thing doesn't look right. Granted, Marcie and I are the only ones who can actually do this, the rest of my family has to make do with coloured lenses and fewer colours at their disposal, so... it's less a family business and more a 'tiny subset of the family' business."
Noting the distaste that flashes across his face when he mentions the rest of his family, you choose to exercise the little tact you have and stay silent. A sort of topical void comes over the group as you eat and drink, as everyone tries to talk about everything but the elephant in the room, even getting to the point of giving Creme and Lumen their own Cells before discussing it, but eventually, one of you has to breach it.
And eventually, Ada does.
"Thank you," she says. "For, everything, all of you. I just... I don't know what would have happened, if I hadn't, met you all, when I did..."
She trails off for a moment, taking a measured breath.
"I just... I guess I can't really... believe that you're all so ok with staying around me when I'm probably going to get you into a lot of trouble. So... I just, want to be sure, so let me ask you one last time."
You listen, watching intently as she stops again, trying to order her thoughts. You watch as she wrings a handful of her poncho, trying to bring herself to look at you all.
"... If you help me... you're going to be put into a lot of danger. You're, going to be in the firing line of one of the worst serial killers in Vale's history. It's, not even a matter of if he's in the city for me anymore. If he comes here... I'm going to fight him. I don't, I don't know if it's going to be because I'll look for him, or if it'll just be a coincidence that we meet, but I know, somewhere deep in that pit in my stomach, that I am going to fight him when he comes here. And, if... if you don't, want any part of that... I won't hold it against you."
Her head drops for a second as she huffs a laugh, a sad little smile on her face.
"It's just... last night, it... God, it hit me like a fucking truck, the fact that, I'm genuinely going to face the worst thing that ever happened to me, and that I'm going to stab him in the face. Probably more than entirely necessary. Then I realised that I was dragging you along with me, and that's... that's not fair, unless I really, really knew that you understood... what you were doing. So... I want to ask you, just... once.
... Are you sure you want to help me?"
You sit there, honestly stunned. All three of you do, staring at the tiny girl who can't bring herself to look you in the eye, silently waiting for your answer.
It stays like that for a while, nobody really... knowing how to react.
"... You already know my answer." You tell her, breaking the silence. Ada looks up at you, eyes misty, and you realise that she needs to hear it.
"Ada Doyle, I created a god to help you kill that man. It might need some time to grow up, but... you're the reason it exists. So is he. I'm not going anywhere."
She sniffs a little, but a little smile pulls at her face anyway.
"I ain't going anywhere either," Creme tells her, reaching over and placing a hand on Ada's shoulder. "I dunno how much use I'll be in a fight, but I wasn't raised to leave a friend out on their ass just because I got scared."
Lumen stays silent for a little while longer.
"... When you put it like that, yeah, this is absolutely insane." He says after a while. "Like... I'll be honest with you, Ada, if I didn't talk to Jaune, and find out the statistics for myself, I'd still be hoping that you were lying through your teeth, but... you're for real, aren't you?"
Ada's smile tightens as she nods slightly, agreeing with him. You notice she hasn't stopped wringing her poncho for all it's worth yet.
"Yeah. Unfortunately."
Lumen's face hardens a little, slipping into deep thought for a moment.
"I..." he trails off, pinching his brow for a moment before gesturing to Ada. "Look, I like you, I, I really do, you're honestly one of the best people I know, but... if it wasn't for Jaune shitting a god on Saturday, I would not be with you, on the whole, fighting Lee deal. I don't, know if that sounds bad, or not, but... it's the truth."
"I am a rather reassuring presence, aren't I?" You comment mildly, getting a small laugh from everyone and a joking 'piss off' from Lumen.
"But... yeah. I'm with you. If, nothing else, then as a friend." Lumen finishes once the laughter dies down.
The smile on her face makes Ada look happier than you've ever seen her.
{Honestly, it's probably the happiest she's been since she heard the news.}
You lean back for a moment, looking at the only three people you can really call friends, like, normal friends, friends your age, friends that are human...
And you serious find yourself wondering... are these three the ones you want to spend the next few years of your life with?
... That, sounded less polyamorous in your hea- when you didn't think it out loud.
(This is an out of character vote dressed as an in-character vote. You are quite literally choosing whether or not to beat chance into a pulp.)
[X] Yes- ... Yeah. Yeah, you're ready for that kind of commitment. Again, less polyamorous when you didn't think it out loud. (Guarantees the formation of team JACL during Initiation. All other characters will be left to chance.)
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