[b]Isabelle[/b]

“Sad attempt at a distraction. I’ll take the coffee, bring it with you.”

She kicks you out of her way. Not hard, actually, all things considered it’s more of a nudge and relatively gentle for the situation, then strides through the hallway. She snaps a “follow” at several staff, and then she and Marcina break into a sprint straight to the control center. Though right before she rounds the corner, she glances over her shoulder and shouts: “cream, no sugar, and make it snappy!”

And then she’s off. 

***

[b]Dolly[/b]

Tall girl stares at you with her mouth hanging open. Too much whiplash too fast. You were a cute tech fixing something and hitting on her extremely deserving co-worker and now you’re…blocking…the…door?

But, luckily for you, the bonds of adoring fangirl love and whispered secrets (a completely distinct category from whispered promises, which you would never mix up) conquer all. And so Sam is moving a server rack into place, helping you with the lifting, and in a moment the tall girl comes to help too because the immense social pressure of being out of the loop while two people cooperate is way more than she can bear. 

You’ve got the door barred, the servers in place to hold it, and two people who are game to go along with you and ask questions later, or at least while helping to hold the door shut.

Nevertheless, this is going to hold for a lot less time than you expected. You know this because after two loud thumps on the door that make the server shudder, the next thing you see is a molecular edge ionized saber blade cut through the door around your barricade!

[b]Jade[/b]

“Aye, I’ll get your cargo, goddess. But I get a trophy picture as a keepsake before you get her back.”

The transmission comes through a small part of you still in the hangar, while the rest of you is focused on controlling the systems. This wouldn’t be hard, normally. You were in the heart of the control center, completely connected. In fact, until Mirror fired her ultimate attack, you were in the process of setting everything up for more automated control to extract yourself.

It’s just that…now…there’s…um…ghosts? You’ve read a lot of mythology in Hybrasil, and from Terenian databases and what Zaldarian records are available. Furthermore, you are a goddess with the perfect recall capabilities of the most sophisticated technological systems ever created by any Hybrasilian. You would not describe yourself as limited in your galactic knowledge.

Nevertheless, what you’re working with here is that you’ve lost direct contact with every camera drone in a two mile radius vicinity of Mirror’s ultimate blast, but they are not shut down. They’re operating in the network, independently, while closing themselves off to you. So, uh, they’re haunted, you guess? They’re not currently broadcasting picture to your network though, which raises a question as to where they are broadcasting, exactly. 

***

[b]Matty[/b]

You’re locked out. The Nine Tails is systems down, the regular match feed is cut, and you’re not getting anything through Jade’s network. Mayze happily poses for the cameras of the rest of the world. 

You sit back in your chair, and squeeze your legs and your eyes tight together and then just let out a long, long sigh and relax out into your chair. You’re not sure whether to be worried or satisfied, but you have done your part. 

In a moment, you’ll get back on to seeing about the rest of the space and maybe extraction for the station team. But in a moment, you saw Jade had already called for Angela, so you need a second, then you’ll signal Ksharta and Kiriala to come support. Kiriala is already close by and was quietly disabling various aspects of the technical security of the building while Dolly and Isabelle handled the social work.

***

[b]Mirror and Solarel[/b]

Within the heart of all things there is the infinite. Within every object lurks the whole rainbow and far, far beyond. Exotic energy that defies the nature of reality as you understand it. 

The Nine Tails is consumed by its own attack and fades within corruscating energy. And the Aeteline disappears from view. Everything around you shimmers and the light narrows. You feel as though you’re viewing the whole world through a fencepost, a tiny, narrow slit through which to view things as they truly are. And yet above it, you fly, above it, there is still the sky, still the distant stars. And you are falling together, falling towards each other.

As the energy fades, the world below you is, and is not. If you only glance, nothing has changed. Trees and rivers and streams flow. But hold that glance, and everything has changed. Water flows backwards and forwards. Trees bow and rise, the wind cannot choose its direction. Slices of silent nanobots dot this landscape, giving shape to the lie of it. Segments that have ceased to function. But they are not still, the dead spots shift and move without any source of movement, without a clear line from place to place. Time, the axis on which the universe wheels, has broken here, and you are seeing creation and destruction swap with one another as easily as balls rolling about a field. 

From beneath you, from all around you, the camera drones still move, rising and turning to gaze upon your fall. From them, there is a low moaning, a humming song, rising and falling as though a chorus, long asleep, struggles to come into harmony as it wakes from its eternal dream. 

And yet, still, gravity remains, and you are always, always falling towards each other.