[] Take Tim and Cassiel to meet the Enforcers.
Cloudy Skies 11.8
Sunday, July 3
Orange light fades away, and you start walking through the hallways of Dragon's sanctum. Knowing them, Dragon and Tim are probably in the middle of a new project, though how their schedules have changed with the addition of Ziz or Cassiel or whatever you're calling her now, you have no idea. Dragon was firmly set on keeping her out of a cage, so that isn't on the table, but where she is instead…?
You open a door and stop dead in your tracks at the music coming from within.
Dragon, in her new Unison Device body, is just shy of twelve inches tall. Cassiel is shorter at about ten. You never stopped to consider what that difference in size means when it comes to interacting with a human-scale world, which is why it is such a shock to see them both sitting in front of a laptop and treating it like their personal theater. Dragon is relaxed, leaning back on her hands with a couple of potato chips broken up into crumbs sitting on a doll-sized plate next to her. Cassiel, though, has her wings tightly wrapped around her, letting you just barely see the edge of the marshmallow she is nibbling on, and is utterly engrossed in whatever it is they are watching.
"My babies!" a throaty voice says from the screen, and that startles a sound out of you.
Dragon hears it and looks over from the cartoon. «
Taylor! I didn't expect you to come by today.»
«
I can tell,» you send back. The most likely reason Dragon has eschewed normal speech is to keep from disturbing the former Endbringer. «
Okay, I need an explanation for this. Is Ziz really sitting there watching a kid's movie and eating marshmallows?»
«
MarshmallOW. She's still on her first one, though considering the size of our stomach-analogues, I'm not quite sure how she's holding down as much of it as she ate already.»
A small smile quirks your lips. «
Humans or fairies, I guess kids are always going to be bottomless pits. That doesn't explain why she's watching The Little Mermaid
and acting completely entranced.»
«
Probably for the same reason little kids are. Remember what I said about her adjusting to her new emotion programming? Tim and I designed them to match what a nine- or ten-year-old girl should most likely feel, with enough wiggle room that a normal child's actual emotions would fit comfortably in them without disrupting her normal mental state. Cassiel, on the other hand, didn't bring any significant emotional data to the transfer, so now she is getting bombarded with the emotions of said child.» Dragon shrugs. «
As for my choice in movies? Since I knew she would enjoy a cartoon, I looked for something that would fit our objectives. A movie about a girl who is transformed into a human and then chooses to stay that way because she is happier than when she was something else? That's the mindset I want her to absorb, not the 'you're perfect just the way you are'
lesson that a lot of other cartoons try to teach. We don't want her going back to acting like a miniature Simurgh.»
…So
that's what Dragon meant by 'cognitive reprogramming'.
«
Anyway, what brings you here today? I thought you would be preparing for tomorrow.»
«
I would be, but…» You speak up so you can be heard. "I need to take Cassiel and Tim to meet some people."
Cassiel makes a noise of vague acknowledgement, her eyes never leaving the screen.
"But I suppose it can wait until the credits," you add with a small shake of your head.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Once the movie is over and Tim has been fetched from the bowels of the workshop, you take hold of both their hands and throw yourself into the gap between worlds. They blink and look around at the strange woods you find yourself in. "Where are we?" Tim asks, looking up and down a tree with woolly bark. "Somewhere in Europe or South America? I wouldn't think this is what the Amazon looks like, but…"
"Unless South America possesses beasts such as that," Cassiel chimes in, pointing at a strange feathered creature, something that looks almost like a stretched-out turkey with a mouth full of teeth, that is currently chasing a rodent, "I do not believe we are on our Earth at all."
"You're right. We aren't. Tim, do you remember what I told you about the TSAB and how they were sending a team here? We're all going so I can introduce you. In part because I need to update them on the Endbringer situation," you add with a significant look at Cassiel.
She looks back at you for a moment before the dots connect. "Oh. …Am I going back in the box?"
You shake your head, and she seems to relax. The continued potency of that threat is impressive in its own way, though you think you understand why it holds such power. For an individual who gambled everything she was on a chance to avoid eternal boredom, being condemned to a featureless cell would be torture of the highest order. "You haven't done anything that would call for that yet. If you keep behaving, things will be alright." You tilt your head to look at her over the top of your glasses. "Only
bad girls go in the box. Get me?"
Her wings droop as that shot hits home. "Message received."
You teleported to Vancouver and then here in your normal clothes, but it is second nature to transform into your Barrier Jacket before taking to the sky, followed by Tim and Cassiel a few moments later. From above the treetops you can see the metallic bulk of the
Sojourner glimmering in the distance.
"Oh my god, it's a real starship," mutters Tim.
The ship is in a different place from where you remember it sitting, proof enough that the crew were able to get it to take off. As you get nearer, you see a few areas where slabs of metal and what you assume are tools have been pulled out so they can be worked with in the daylight. What the crew made with them is also in sight: little boats with mechanical contraptions in the back that are almost certainly there to send the boats cruising through the air. Transport for raw materials that cannot fit in their Devices' storage spaces, perhaps?
A figure steps out from under the red tarp covering the ship's hatch, and you give Erga an answering wave. "There's one of the guys we have to meet," you tell the others. "His name's Erga. He's in charge of the team here. His second-in-command is a woman named Lanster. Let me talk to him first before you come down."
You float down to the ground and give Erga the most innocent smile you can muster. All it earns from the Enforcer is an amused snort. "You know, I think I recognize that guy's Barrier Jacket. Saw pictures of it from Lanster's files. You're, uh, giving away the Assimilation Engine's templates now, are you?"
"I've only given out one. Tim is one of the people I ran into who had a Linker Core, and when I offered, he wanted the template that turned him into a Tinker."
"Uh huh." Erga looks back and forth between you and Tim a few times. "Dumb question, but I feel the need to ask it anyway. He still has his mind, like you? Didn't get brainwashed or anything?"
…At least he's asking. "No, he's still the same guy he was before I gave him powers."
"Okay. Okay." A wave calls Tim and Cassiel down, and proper introductions are exchanged. "And who's this little lady?" Erga asks, gesturing towards Cassiel. "Because she looks like a Unison Device, which is weird and wonderful. They're rare even on places like Midchilda. To find one of them out here in the middle of a low-magic world cluster? I didn't realize the Belkans got out this far."
"That's… one of the things I wanted to talk to you about."
With a raised eyebrow, Erga motions for you to follow him while he dictates a message to Lanster. You soon find yourself in the same conference room you had your last meeting in. A screen pops up over Erga's shoulder just before he sits down, showing the female Enforcer sitting in the open air with her hair pulled up in a ponytail and her hands wrist-deep in the guts of another feathered critter.
"Hey, Taylor. Sorry I can't be there in person, but as you can see, I'm stuck on kitchen duty today. What's… Is that a Unison Device? Where did you find her?"
Looks like Cassiel is the place to start. "Do you two remember how we talked about the Simurgh, the Endbringer who was capable of driving people insane?" The Enforcers nod, and you jerk a thumb in her direction. "We kind of accidentally turned her into a fairy."
"…I feel like there are several steps you're glossing over," Erga says drolly.
Cassiel clears her throat. "Taylor, may I?"
A nod, and she gives the Enforcers a short summary of the deception she weaved around you, including how she pushed you and Tim to create a Unison Device for the little girl you thought you were saving. The commander of the Enforcers gives you and Tim a guarded look when that part of the story is done. "I have to admit, I'm not sure how comfortable I am with the idea of shoving a person into a Device. It's… extreme is one way to put it."
"It is, and it wasn't a decision we made lightly," Tim tells him. "The reason we went through with it in the first place is because based on the information we had, namely the strength of the cult she implied she was held by and the inability to locate them without risking turning ourselves into their puppets, we did not feel that we had any options that were more palatable. It was the least bad option."
"Is she the first Unison Device you created?" Lanster asks.
You shake your head. "The second, though the first one was also a special case. We transferred an artificial intelligence from the server she was running on into a physical body. Just like Cassiel, it was at her request."
"So you have never created one with its own inherent personality?"
"Not… yet? Why is it such a big deal?"
Erga and Lanster exchange a look at Tim's question.
"No one knows how to create Unison Devices any longer. That knowledge was lost late in the Warring Ages with the fall of Belka or early on in the Saint King Unification War. There are a few theories about how they were designed, but considering the process involves creating sapient life, no one wants the moral responsibility of creating one that is defective in some way. If you have the plans and methods to design them, on the other hand, that would eliminate the need for experimentation."
"It's definitely something the eggheads would be interested back home, though who knows how many more problems the ability to create sophonts on demand would create," mutters Erga. "Anyway, a question for our resident retired city-killer."
Cassiel frowns delicately at that description, her wings fluffing up in irritation.
"What
are you? You and the other Endbringers, I mean. Where did you come from, and why do you do what you do?"
She gathers herself up and spreads her wings in a manner that would have been menacing when she was still fifteen feet tall. As she is, she just looks silly. "The Endbringers as a group are constructs designed for the explicit purpose of killing humans and interfering with the workings of society. We were created by the source of parahuman powers on Earth, who came to this section of reality in order to seed it with their weapons and let human ingenuity refine those weapons. We act in the manner we do because that is the goal that makes up the core of ourselves, one of which I have now been freed. I do not have many more details than that."
"Designed to kill humans?" Lanster repeats.
The fairy gives her a nod. "Correct. My brothers still operate under those directives. My development of sapience as an unintended consequence of my telepathy is the sole reason I could pursue the course of obtaining this body so as to circumvent my directives. The First and Second will continue on with their purpose until one of two things happens: either humanity is extinct, or they die."
You give Cassiel a strange look. The information itself is the same as what she told you when you first let her out of the box, but they way she is painting the picture is different. She is making killing the Endbringers sound more dire, if such a thing is possible. Was it because she wants them to be on board with fighting Behemoth and Leviathan?
Or considering her repeatedly stated fears, is it that she adjusted what she said to you, Samantha, Dragon, and Tim so she had the best chance of staying out of the box?
"Uh huh. And how does Scion play into all of this?"
You blink. "What? What does Scion have to do with the Endbringers?"
"There were already too many factors connecting the Endbringers and parahuman powers together," Lanster explains.
"From the description you gave of how powers appear, our initial suspicion was that they were the product of an Al Hazardan Lost Logia. The general trend for culture is that its remnants tend to be wish-granting devices of some kind. Exactly what the Endbringers were, we were not sure, but corrupted planetary defenders was not out of the question." You snort derisively at that idea.
"Yes, I know. We were not sure what their motivation was, and it made sense considering the other assumptions we had to make. Remnants from Al Hazard are rarely malevolent or intentionally destructive. Once we connected those things, we knew Scion was also involved somehow. We just weren't sure how. Based on the variety and strength of the abilities he wielded, we figured he was the individual who uncovered and activated that Lost Logia.
"But now we are hearing that the Endbringers and powers in general were released for a more malign purpose. Scion is still involved somehow. We just don't know how."
The fluttering of Cassiel's wings had stilled during that explanation. "Impressive," she finally whispers. "You are correct. The body named 'Scion' was the projected avatar of one of the alien entities that came to this world. It was not he who created us, but rather his partner. Both of them are dead now, our creator upon her crash-landing on a nearby world and him by what I believe to be self-termination. I have never been capable of predicting him or even tracing his actions with complete accuracy, so I can not say with certainty how or why he died. I only know that after his disappearance, the future no longer held the shadows of his presence."
"Were there any others of these… power-granters?"
"On this and nearby worlds, none to my knowledge. In existence, I have no doubt, but I know little more than I have already said about their species."
«
Do you believe her?» Erga voice rings in your head.
You give Cassiel a sidewise glance and then look back at the Enforcer, who appears just as relaxed and unconcerned as you have ever seen him. Laziness, then, might be his poker face. «
What she just told you matches up with what she told us. Whether it's true or not, I have no idea, but it's a hard story to believe. I think if she were lying she would have picked something easier to swallow.»
«
The truth's always stranger than fiction, huh?» He leans back in his chair. "Hey, Lanster? What do you say about keeping all this new information off the official report? Lost Logia or not, these things still sound like bad enough news that we'll help all we can, but classifying them as Lost Logia gives us more leeway in what we do."
"You want to lie on an official report?" Lanster's scowl only holds for a second or two before she rolls her eyes.
"I think it can slide this time. I don't like the idea of leaving the Endbringers active any more than you do. We will already be keeping our involvement in the fights on a need-to-know basis. What's one more secret?"
That reminder makes you wince. "Yeah, about that…" The Enforcers look at you. "I know the last time we talked, you wanted to keep your presence on this world a secret, but I kind of had to tell one of the leaders of the Protectorate about you. Not you as in your team," you hurry to add, "but you as in the TSAB in general. It was actually before we ran into each other.
"I'm planning on reaching out to them and arranging a meeting to tell them more about magic in general since I… sort of taught one of their members how to create a Guardian Beast, and if I'm already talking about magic, it would be the best time to give them more information about you guys."
Lanster drops her face into her bloody hands.
"Oh, Sankt Kaiser…"
"There are a number of questions I have with what you just said," chimes in Erga, "but let's focus on the big one. Why do they need to know anything more about us than what you've already told them?"
"You just said that you're still planning on helping out with fighting the Endbringers. It's not impossible for you to just jump in and go to town on whichever one pops up next, but it would be a lot easier if we start to coordinate some things beforehand, isn't it? I'm not saying the whole world should know about you, or even the whole Protectorate. But Legend is the head of the Protectorate. He and his old teammate Alexandria lead the Endbringer fights. If anyone needs to know that you exist and that you're going to show up to help out to try saving our world, it would be them."
Erga and Lanster share a silent conversation. "I can't say that I like this plan," he tells you. "I'm not normally one for following rules that don't make sense, but this one does. Introducing magic to a society without it and that isn't a single united world but a number of nations fighting each other all the time? It's happened before. It never ends well. You aren't a member of the TSAB, so I can't stop you short of tying you up and throwing you in the brig, which I'm not going to do. But you have to understand that what you're talking about doing is going to have far-reaching consequences. I don't know that Earth Bet is ready for them."
"Telling people about magic doesn't have to end badly, though," you argue. "Look at Tim! I told him about magic, even gave him a template, and he— Where is he?" you ask when you look around and find the Gadgeteer missing.
Erga startles as well, and Cassiel points behind her. "He went that way a couple of minutes ago."
"Why didn't you say anything?!"
"You talk amongst yourselves so I am unable to hear you a great deal whenever I am present. How was I to know you did not send him away?"
That is a good point that you really do not have time to deal with right now. "Storm, can you track him?"
"Sextant located. Turn left in hallway. Fifth door on right. Second door on left. Down stairs."
That is good enough. You follow the directions, the route actually somewhat familiar to you. You have been down this way before, the first time you were on this ship. Sure enough, you open the door at the bottom of the stairs to find Tim leaning against the railing of the ladder leading down to the ship's engines.
"There you are," you say, startling him out of his observations. "Why did you wander off?"
He gives you a nervous little chuckle, not helped by the Enforcer who followed you down here. "Um, well, you guys were talking about stuff that is way above my pay grade, and this is probably the only time I'm going to ever step foot on a real, honest to god
starship. I had to explore. Just a little bit!"
With that little bit of drama out of the way, you and Tim are led out of the bowels of the ship with Cassiel in tow. You give Erga a short wave as the three of you take off. "Ready to go back home?"
"Actually…" Tim says, "could we stick around just for a second? I need to think about something."
"What?"
He opens and closes his mouth for a moment. "I don't know if you know, but my template comes with the rituals for a Guardian Beast, just like yours does. I haven't really touched it, though. I… well, I thought if I made one, it would be a fighter like Samantha. I mean, that's the obvious interpretation of
Guardian Beast, right?"
You suppose that would be the most basic conclusion, but you cannot say you really agree. Part of that has to do with the fact that you looked through the possible rituals when you were preparing to teach the Adepts their spells, which involved Samantha teaching Standstill how to create another of her kind. You seem to remember that there were a couple of noncombatant classes in Perfect Storm's memory banks.
"The thing is, when I was watching them work on the engines, I noticed a man with dog ears was with them. Unless the TSAB has another half-animal species running around, that had to be one of their own Guardian Beasts. I just… I didn't realize that they could be something else."
"Yeah, they can. I think there is even a class of Guardian Beast like the Gadgeteer—"
"Guardian Beast of the Gear."
"Thank you, Storm. The Gear. Anyway, they would work perfectly with you, don't you think?" He nods after a moment, and you continue in a teasing voice, "Should we stop at a pet store on the way back?"
"Maybe— No." Tim looks over at the woods where you originally appeared with a new light in his eyes. It is not one you fills you with confidence. "No. I have a better idea."
Now that this is done, I have a question for everyone. Lacey will get her template next chapter, and there are two ways her spells can work out in the long run. On the one hand, she can be like Taylor: everything starts out at Novice, and she has to train her way up with simulation exercises or omake until they get to Master. This is the technically more powerful option, but it requires a heavier investment on you guys' end. On the other hand, she can be like Tim and start with all her spells at Adept, but never get any better than that.
I shall leave this decision to you.
[ ] Start low and go high
[ ] Forever be in the middle
Also, I need a name for her Boost Device.
[ ] Write in
