XianaEvermor

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Yue slapped the spear with her hand, allowing it to roll up her forearm just as Dean was telling her to be careful with it. She swatted one end, spinning it over her arm and into her other hand, allowing a couple rotations before she gave it a hard push. It spun once quickly and popped up lazily, coming to a sudden halt balanced steadily on her palm. She raised an eyebrow at Dean.

"He thinks this isn't balanced?" She asked with a note of incredulity. "I guess it'd be a little unwieldy in tight spaces... thought it would be heavier to be honest," she muttered, throwing the spear pommel forward with a flick of her hand. The weapon spun in place once, landing back in her palm. "Rocket... powered?"

Yue frowned, letting the length of spear roll and slide down her fingers until it nearly touched the floor looking for buttons or switches... though she was swiftly distracted by trying to find a point on the weapon where it would not balance.

"So... he, what... puts premium in this thing? What's the mileage?" she asked with a note of sarcasm as she balanced one of the barbed edges of the spear on a finger. She was only half listening to him as she watched threads of [Silver] rush up her arm towards the spear. The spear's static [Blue] haze seemed to solidify into a translucent crystalline array of polygons wherever her skin made contact. Turning up the time dilation let her feel its mass and density shift, creating a perfect balance point wherever she held it.

"Hmm...," Yue grunted as her gaze focused on the very edge of the weapon's aura where the [Blue] seemed to fray and separate subtly into other wavelengths. She propped the weapon up against her shoulder as she inspected it, grasping it with her fingers experimentally and smearing the edges apart to get a better look at the irridescent [Green] and [Red] aura wavelengths. "Okay... surprised that worked," she muttered... mostly to herself.

"Has Alex ever been... not... [Blue]?" There was a note of confusion and hesitation in her voice like she couldn't find the right phrasing for the question she wanted to ask. Mainly she was interested to know if anyone else had used or maintained the spear. TankTastic had a... thing for Blue... his aura cosmetics, particle, and Aether effects in Final Odyssey had all be customized to be blue... his eyes were blue, hell even his avatar's skin was blue, though that particular change had been made leaning in to the theme of their guild after it had been founded...

Might not be important... finding the button or switch that turned the ROCKET on, however, was.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

The cool light of the dual moons overhead touched my cheeks. The soft blades of the Veldt’s grassy field tickled the back of my ears, causing them to flick occasionally while I unconsciously wove the velvet purple fur of my tail between my fingers. I could be doing something productive with my playtime, like gathering crafting materials, or raiding a dungeon packed with fiends and monsters. Instead I basked in the moonlight on the tallest hill in the Veldt region, watching the drifts and currents of aspected Aether. My friend, the blue-skinned Oni, TankTastic, or just TT fidgeted beside me, mind lost in his 'nothing-box' as ever-shifting constructs of shimmering [Blue] orbited his head cartoonishly while we waited for Tekkie to finish... something.

"Hey," I broke the silence, and couldn't suppress a smirk as his constructs popped, showering us in blue Aether sparks. "Entertain me. I'm borrred," I commanded imperiously. A low chuckle hissed through my teeth as he squinted annoyance. "Tell me where you're from," I interrupted, before he could retort.

"Oh... I'm studying Electrical Engineering at the Aerie," he replied after some hesitation. Most likely realizing that I would continue to pester him until he gave an answer.

"No shit?! I live in the tower too!"

We should meet in person...

Yue stood in the doorway of Dean's house for a long minute staring into the space between. The oversized cherry pit pressed stickily against her palm. If she had voiced that thought to him would he still have died? It was much easier for her to be social as her online persona: TetsuKasha, and she'd pinned the idea at the time.

No. He wasn't dead. Alex wasn't at the University during the attack. She struggled to reconcile the fact that "TT" and Alex were the same person as she stepped inside.

Didn't keep him from vanishing... and it didn't save Tekkie.

TankTastic and TekkieRave both stopped logging on to Final Odyssey following Usurper's attack on the university. Tank... Alex told her they were friends, and she'd always just assumed he'd met the energetic cyber-medicine enthusiast in one of his engineering classes. So when they vanished from Final Odyssey two years ago...

Yue's vision shifted. She could feel the firm tingle of her lenses flexing as a table came into focus, drawing her attention to the object that was laid across it. She sensed some vague dissatisfaction from Dean's direction, but more pressing was the aura of static [Blue] that rippled across the weapon's surface, intermingled with accents of caramel and [Green] wisps trailing from the edge of the jade piece.

She leaned forward, reaching for it instinctively until her fingertips pressed against the spear's shaft. The living room resonated as the spear struck an electric bass note, with a subtle background alto playing in harmony. Burgundy eyes flicked up towards Dean as she was pulled back to the present.

"... What's this?"

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

---

[Paracausal Research Facility: Muriel]

---

A fraction of a moment stretched on at that temperature that turns earth and steel into soup, locking eyes with this "Anara" as it... as He spoke. Even as this second plodded along at a snails pace, his [Voice] hit with authority. What was this speck of inert matter, rapidly losing molecular cohesion in the face of her [Radiance]? Who was this that defied her so, in his last scrap of existence?

What was once a moment that was happening agonizingly slow, all at once became much too quick to perceive as though the scene were playing catch up after a spike of network lag. His words etched into the flesh of her Astralform, and thus into her. ID reeled with sudden vertigo as her vision exploded into painful white, stabbing deep into the back of her skull. She felt something sticky and wet in her eyes... probably blood. A cold slimy sensation slicked across her skin, and her whole body ached and felt sick.

As ID tumbled blind through the Astral void, the window that she had projected through slammed shut, severing her connection between her Astral and physical bodies. The violent storm of impossible heat and wind roaring through the facility's main entrance halted, filling the air wit the metallic crinkles, cracks, and bangs of rapidly cooling metal and the insistent nearby rumble of thunder. Snow piled urgently onto the landing platform.

ID's vitals flat-lined in MG's visor.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

---

[May 14th, 2043 - Templar Tower - Aerie University]

---

Yue tried to breathe. The impact absorbing gel layer of her suit hadn't been enough. Nor the armor, which had practically shattered. Her lungs burned. She couldn't feel her left side. Static erupted over the still functioning half of her visor as the flash compensator attempted to tune out the knife of light stabbing aggressively through the dust, nearly blinding the eye her smashed helmet no longer protected.

Thump.

She was aware of noise through the tinnitus. A voice. Discordant screaming drove her to move through the grinding of bone and the sharp prick of numbness in her ribs. The paper-doll damage readout flashed orange and red urgently as she pushed herself up. Scrolling characters she couldn't make out through the spiderweb cracks rolled across the screen. Most likely a list of everything that was broken.

Thump!

The air was thick with the smell of wet copper and dust. Her hands were slick with blood. Eyes raked the surroundings frantically. A kid? Student. Evacuation missed someone? For a short eternity she just stared, trying to pull herself into the present. Arms, legs... a not insignificant portion of their torso, all crushed beneath the rubble and lacerated with glass and steel. Bleeding. Couldn't move them, the weight of the rubble might be the only thing preventing them from bleeding out.

THUMP!!

The light behind her blotted out. Ice water poured down her spine. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move, she was the only thing between the monster and this civilian who was screaming for her to do something, anything because... he didn't want to die anymore. The monster spoke. Voice like shifting gravel in an earthquake.

Are you really gonna let me kill all these people?
All you have to do
is step down out of your ivory tower...
Show the world you're just as rotten inside
as everybody else.
What's it gonna be, P̶͑ͅr̴̩̃ị̷̯̞͗͛n̵̢̓c̸̺̣̓̂è̷̳̜͓s̶͕̔s̶͖̈́?

Yue forced herself to take a breath. It slashed the back of her throat. Her lungs ached. Those familiar thorns squeezed her heart. Bolts of [Crimson] raked over her arms and every fiber of muscle in her shoulders coiled.

Right. Present Day.

It was just somebody's memorial. Hardcase? Someone she didn't know. Dean was staring at her, hopefully not expecting a response. Yue shook out her hands vigorously until her fingertips tingled, forcing herself to exhale slowly. Raudd was there offering her some kind of fruit, which she accepted and numbly bit into. She was expecting an apple or something, and nearly spit it out.

"The hell?" She muttered, staring and distracted for just a moment from the lingering dissonance of reliving a traumatic memory. Burgundy eyes flicked between the enormous cherry, to Raudd, to Dean, who was probably expecting an explanation she didn't want to give. She turned on her heels and pushed ahead of the group.

Right, because that's not gonna raise any questions...

Yue busied herself with walking and eating the cherry rather than say anything, and focused on the tart sweetness to keep from sinking back into her memory of that day.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

---

[Castle on the Clouds]

---

"Sure~!" Dawn leaned casually on the table, with her chin in one hand slurping her concoction, noisily crunching ice, and picking at the inside of her nose with her pinky in a distinctly un-ladylike manner. She raised an eyebrow with interest at him as he twisted his limbs to and fro to reach at his back and do... something. The flexibility of those emitters certainly was a thing.

"If ya don't hurry up I'm gonna need a refill," she quipped into the pause between his ramblings, rattling the ice in her cup for emphasis and then taking a moment to top it off with the rest of her flask. Her eyes shimmered with iridescence as she regarded him for a moment and seemed to think about his follow up question. "All light, I suppose. Disguise? Shoore. But... why make a disguise when we can just stand in the part of light people can't see?"

"If we do your... zippity-zoop thingy, you're gonna land all pukey and useless right? Unless you change a bunch of stuff or go running back to your lab? Listen, I'm not a rocket-doctor or anything, but I know a few things about *urp-* light... might be helpful."

"You know about wave-particle duality right?" she asked, with a bored tone, reaching out from under the umbrella for a moment an grasping nothing with two fingers. The ray of morning sunlight bent unnaturally and illuminated the whole table underneath their umbrella. She spread her fingers and the ray split into the visible spectrum as though it had been refracted through a prism. She turned her hand and it split again through the non-visible spectrum. She slurped at her drink. "You know, that thing that makes it be both a particle and a wave at the same time? Doesn't take into account the secret third state of light. It's everything you can see, a lot of things you can't, and a portion of what you can feel. Moreso in your case I think," she explained cryptically.

"Can I make a guess?" She grinned. The table went dark as the bent ray snapped back to its natural position, leaving a glowing mote in her fingers which she pressed to the middle of the table. It rose and floated lazily like it had its own gravity. To him, the table was painted in non-visible information, geometric shapes, arrays of concentric circles and text in Greek, all pulsing with energy like electricity as it held the miniature sun in place. "So *slurp* to do your zippity-zoop thing right... you do a bunch of maths, calculate a bunch of varibibbles, feed it into your techno-fangled computer-majig and then," she ran her fingers across the table, fluttering a whistle. The array expanded, spilling onto the ground and encompassing them.

"That sure does sound like lots of work when you could just... hitch a ride to where it's already going," she grunted, leaning back in her chair and fishing around in her purse for her Slatephone. She was absorbed in it for a minute or two as she quickly searched up some information on a map application. She waved it lazily over the payment terminal at the side of the table and it chirped as she got up. Dawn twirled with a lazy flourish, careful to keep her drink level as she interlaced her fingers with his and hoisted him out of his seat with a smirk.

"I haven't done this in a while," Dawn whispered into his ear playfully as she pulled him into her personal space. "So relax and don't think too hard, you'll mess me up," Dawn instructed, and then fell backwards towards the transparisteel with him in tow.

The globe of light on their table rose up and flared, spitting a ray like a pulsar ejection, that swept them up right as they were about to hit the glass. For a moment they were falling forever, swaddled in golden light, pushed gently by some impossible force. Inertia, friction, solidity ceased to apply as they were shot through the glass. The urban crush of the plate surface rushed up to meet them, and they were gently alighted on a rooftop near the edge of Justice Square in a ray of radiance.

Physics resumed.

A blast of wind nearly bowled her over and she squeaked and laughed, using him to hold herself up until she found her feet, and then lowered herself on to the edge of an air conditioning unit. She sputtered hair out of her mouth and dug in her purse clumsily for sunglasses.

"I missed a little. Refracted out of that cloud, but at least we didn't land in that news chopper! Small victories," she swirled her cup noisily. "You schtill want that tattoo? I bet I can make it permantent."

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

---

[Depths of Ink]

---

Dark. How long had she been holding her breath? A minute? An hour? In the black as the cold pressure mounted and the discordant whispers grew louder. Too much. Had she gone too far? Her limbs refused to listen to her commands to move, or do anything. ID was locked in a deadly battle of the [Mind] that she wasn't winning. She wasn't experienced enough with the [Mind] aspect to fight back on even ground. Clearly she was on this thing's territory but... it wasn't there...

A mental assault powerful enough to subdue her... through an [Astral Proxy] via remote viewing?

That was some next level shit she wasn't sure she could compete with... she needed something she could [See]. If she could re-contextualize the battle, though... flip it. If she could just [See] where it was... [See] it... It can [See] her, influence, [Touch] her... would this even be a fight if it were in the room?

It's okay to stop. You've been fighting for so long. It's time to rest now... just go to sleep.

Honestly, probably not. Her nickname within the organization was "Miss Ashlands." Mother had spared no expense importing tutors and instructors, particularly when it came to martial casting and combat. Her defense arrays were nearly impenetrable, she was an expert in counter-casting and had near absolute-control over the mana inside her Domain.

It's time to put the sword down and rest...

She was over complicating the problem... or rather, the problem was over-complicated for the answer she wanted.

Smaller questions.

What's actually happening right now? Used, betrayed, left to die.

Under psychic attack. She might not actually be sinking into an endless depth of ink, on the verge of drowning, but if she tried to breathe it may as well have the same result: it'd allow the caster's influence deeper into her body and her assailant could arrest her vital functions and effectively drown her. The only thing preventing that right now was the Domain barrier she had wrapped closely to her skin.

What exactly was she dealing with? [...]

Muriel was a Paracausal research facility. ID understood that to mean that they delved into Astral and soul science... spirit stuff. Spirits... Spirits, even incredibly powerful ones that manifest physically into our world were fundamentally Astral beings, to be combated with Astral weapons and means.

Are you so disillusioned that you can no longer recognize the truth? That you were tricked? Bamboozled? You are surrounded by narcissists and charlatans.

Non-ritual magic, for the most part, had to be practiced on a target that could be [Seen]. How did it [See] her?

Remote viewing.

OK, duh. More specific.

Specifically? [Astral Proxy]. It's a specific type of Projection that uses an Astralform like a router extension or a signal repeater to send data back and forth to the caster.

ID flinched, forcing her racing mind to go silent lest the creature hear one of her stray thoughts. It was there... after a fashion. It was a small finger hold in this avalanche. Might be enough to flip this fight on its head... if she could just break through.

Restraint... always restraint. Take care to watch your emotions, might hurt someone you care about. Limit your output. Don't be a danger to yourself, or others. This world is fragile. You are a an open flame in a world made of polystyrene. Right now, she was focused on staying alive, and that hesitation to exceed certain thresholds was going to get her killed.

Apologize later.

ID dug deep, pushing past barriers on limiters on restrictions and reaching for that burning globe of [Light-Creation-Shines From Heaven] she constantly felt distantly muted through the miles of rock and steel. She felt the INK claw at her flesh, trying to pull her under farther, deeper into the crushing depths. Her fingers grazed the [Sun]. For a moment it seemed frustratingly out of reach... It leaned into her hand, and she closed her fist around it.

And cue the Boss music.

ID's eyes snapped open, and she wriggled against the talons of ink that immediately clawed at them. She was clutching something in her hand, struggling to muster the power to move as she pulled currents of mana from around the room and layered [Fortification] in a lattice throughout her flesh. She ripped free, pulling Ildsjel from its enchanted scabbard. Less a sword, more a braided leather hilt with just enough space for a firm one handed grip, a sun relief on the pommel, and a snarling dragon's head clutching a large, lucent crystal in its jaws.

A [Flare] of heat violently lacerated the chamber, burning away the ink and turning every surface incandescent as form and cohesion rapidly began to lose meaning. She whipped the weapon across the room like a dagger. The transpari-steel barrier peeled away, rapidly melting like snow in a glass furnace as the weapon embedded into the creature's ghastly four-pointed eye. Gouts of flame and smoke erupted from her mask as her breath returned in fits and she staggered to maintain her balance, weaving a quick [Shadowsnap] to pin the creature's proxy in place. For just a moment she breathed, drinking in the rays of incandescence from Ildsjel's [Sun] crystal.

Rivers of molten rock and metal began to poor from the ceiling and walls as ID pressed the attack, violently seizing the thread of mana tracing back to A-9's real self. A place opened up in her vision. It clutched the crater wall, pressing itself up part-way into the plate super-structure through a gap left by neglected maintenance somewhere. Finally... a target. She might only have one shot. Make it count.

A-9's salted marble surface cracked and splintered as it thrashed against her [Shadowsnap], and the crushing pressure of her Domain reflected its screams back in on itself. ID's Astral self coiled around her arm as she rushed forward, skipping across pools of vigorously boiling steel to slam her palm into Ildsjel's hilt.

For a moment, the facility was engulfed in a flash. A massive *CRACK* reverberated through the cliffside as super-heated plasma struck the glaciers of ice MG had left behind to shield herself. Metal and rock groaned, and insane heat blasted out of the facility's main entrance, striking the Absolute Zero of the elevator landing and condensing into voluminous stormy clouds that filled the Abyss. The enormous winged serpent of ID's Astralform raced along the road back to A-9's true body, devouring the distance in the blink of an eye. Incalculable heat erupted from its maw, both Astral and Material, as they collided. For a long minute, molten rock and steel rained from the plate ceiling.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

ID doubled down, staring boldly past the grizzly accident into the massive eye she couldn't see but knew was there. She felt the bones of Drake's hand and wrist crunch sickeningly in her palm, and his screams were discordant against the whispers of ink clinging coldly to her legs. She'd warned MG, now she just needed to buy a few moments for her to get out of the instant-death zone, or protect herself with her cryogenics.

Moments... how long had it been? Time was getting slippery. It was moving both too quickly and agonizingly slow, and Drake's flesh sizzled in her hand at the effort of standing her ground. Lines and lines of script in some terrible parody of 'language' streamed from the ghastly black sclera of the moon. Droplets of prismatic oil splashed into the rising ink as the sky bled black.

What we didn't see... we didn't see it, we didn't-

A spark, a flame. Electrical fires were bad. A noise, a thought, a scream of [Terror-Dread-Axiety-I'm stuck-Let me out-LETMEOUTLETMEOUT] shuddering through the Manasphere. Fingers sinking into newly born Astral flesh, clawing, tearing-

[I'M GONNA DIE-CAN'T SEE-OPEN MY EYES]

Black uniforms converge on the car, a ripple through the Manasphere, a voice, a call, a question, a [PROMISE], a [PACT]. They're prepared for an awakening, but not like this. When she was there she'd seen it as a fountain of [Silver] light. Her [Sight] had been too narrow, she didn't have the right perspective the right... The night sky erupted in [Silver] fire. No. ID's eyes flicked up involuntarily, and she made eye contact with it. Familiar and alien, she was petrified under the weight of its amber eyes burning through the Manasphere like pale moons that were far too close.

A beast that encompassed the sky, the [Moon], the chill pressure crushed every muscle and bone in her body, and she couldn't breathe against the weight... what others felt making eye contact with her, only magnitudes greater. It spread its dread wings, wreathed in [Silver] light that made everything it touched [Sing]. A trickle of blood seeped out of the corners of ID's eyes as it folded and compressed and condensed until the vehicle's driver was wreathed in blinding [Silver], thrashing in berserk fear.

She ripped through the side of the car, and the sheer blind force bent her arm at unnatural angles. She was out. All terrifying speed and blind [horror-panic-SURVIVAL]. The soldier with the tranquilizer rifle unloads. She SCREAMED.

[Dragon Roars]

The sheer [Force] clawed and ripped painfully at the half of ID that existed in the Manasphere until she thought she might black out. The only thing holding her upright was the cloying ink burbling against her abdomen. Four members of the fire team rag doll to the ground. Hard to say if they're still alive. One keeps pumping her sister full of tranq rounds while in a fighting retreat. For a short eternity she's a bundle of unstoppable fury and [FORCE] until one of them ignites a [Null] talisman and the whole street goes dark. The [Silver] light petered out and she staggered a few steps before collapsing.

ID pulled a ragged breath, and closed her eyes and mouth as the ink pulled her under. Was this the [Truth]? She'd been there. Lived it. She had perfect recall, and had re-lived that memory many times wondering if she could have done something... anything, if she had just stood her ground. Drake had ripped her away from the surface before she had a chance to act.

If she had just stood her ground.

Never hesitate again. Never run again. Never back down again.

ID felt the ink claw at her eyelids, trying to worm its way into her nostrils and ears, and pry her mouth apart to coax her to drown. All the while she sank further into the black, drifting amongst the discordant choir of whispers all around her. The cold intellect of an alien mind pressed in all around her, forcing thoughts of doubt... betrayal. The [Mind] aspect was a tricky thing... but the best defense was knowing what was real.

... This wasn't real...

Just give up and breathe...

Not a chance, monster. I can hold my breath for hours. You better hide in the dark. Everything the [Sun] touches is mine.
.
.

.

.

.

Strong. It was strong.

This might have been a mistake.

Mother was keeping something this powerful?

No... not anymore.

It was free.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

[Castle on the Clouds]

---

"Well...," Ion trailed off, his normal bravado faltering for just a second. "Maybe one day when she lets go of the reigns a bit, yeah? And give yourself some credit. In my eyes, you are the most eligible bachelor and I'll make sure my fans know who's King around here," he winked and grinned, shooting Felix the finger guns unironically.

"Gotta scoot, Nightlight! Stay out of trouble," Ion ordered, as he lifted off the puke-smeared glass. Electricity crackled through his uniform as he shot off, buffeting their table's umbrella.

"Can I get a mimosa, a double shot of Jameson and a cup of ice to go please and thank you!" Dawn called out, flagging a waiter down.

Dawn stared at Felix with her arms folded and carried that resting bitch expression of a sibling who recognized that face of "oh yeah sis, I'm totally listening and comprehending, and am totally NOT about to go and do the opposite of what you just said just to be petty and annoying." You know... that expression that Artemis was usually leveling at HER whenever she was about to go off and do some dumb shit.

What the hell is my life and how did it come to this?!

"What's your plan, Nightlight? Put a decoy under the sheets and sneak out the window?" She asked, emptying the mimosa, whiskey, her leftover coffee, and the potent smelling contents of a flask from her purse into the cup of ice. Dawn covered the concoction and shook it vigorously while maintaining eye contact with Felix.

"Don't suppose we could just have a nice breakfast and spend the rest of the day playing hooky pretending our responsibilities don't exist and not, you know, go running towards all the death and chaos? No? Right. Of course not," Dawn sighed, stabbing the lid with a straw. She slurped down a large gulp and crunched loudly on an ice cube.

"Alright, fine. Let's go get into trouble!"

---

[Ares Estate - Justice Square]

---

Pandemonium. Noun. A wild uproar or unrestrained disorder; tumult or chaos.

It was pandemonium.

Ares Special Task Force, Docwagon Platinum Response... gaping tears in reality rimmed with purple energy out of which ambulances and emergency response vehicles screamed, police fire and Templar, all armed and brandishing, all screaming for everyone else to stand down. In the middle of it all, a wildly out of place woman in a black designer dress trying to calm down a confused and terrified foreign dignitary that looked like he was suddenly ripped away from a gala or fancy charity event and holding open far too many portals from which a myriad of personnel streamed back and forth.

Curtains of electricity sprang up, crackling menacingly between the groups and pushing the corporate response teams away from the Templar. Ion descended to the plate surface dramatically, the four "eyes" of his stylized visor sparking brilliant blue.

"You're late!" the Director yelled over the cacophony of shouts and sirens.

"Sorry, Lady-Boss, had to stop and check on my King. I don't move as quick as your other first responders, yeah?"

"Yes, sorry, oop~!" she conceded with a sigh as she stumbled on her designer heels to get out of the way of a paramedic rushing past with a gurney. Ion leapt over four people to catch her.

"You simply must be more careful, my Queen!" he said, holding her hand gingerly and brushing a lock of disturbed platinum out of one of her mismatched eyes. He couldn't hide the smirk in his voice. She gave him the look that deserved. With a gut-wrenching falling sensation like he was being pushed through an infinitely small space, and the crack of displaced air, he was standing on the other side of his electric curtain with more Ares rifles than he was comfortable with pointed at him.

"I'm okay, get back to work Ion," the director's voice whispered in his helmet's comm speaker with a note of amusement. Ion smirked beneath his mask, though he couldn't help the spike of unease he'd felt at seeing the uncharacteristic dark circles under the director's eyes that were only just barely covered by a hasty application of makeup.

Everyone was working overtime.

"Alright, everyone calm your tits and get out of each others way," he shouted, his voice magnified through his suit's external vox. "We're all on the same fucking side here, so how about you take those cock-holsters off the trigger and start cooperating, we all have jobs to do!" He ordered with his fists on his hips, and much more bravado than he felt.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

"Oh. Hey," Yue muttered, glancing up at Raudd for a moment before giving the ground a guilty expression. "Sorry for running off I just...," felt caged. Overwhelmed. Trapped. Angry. "Needed to clear my head."

She wiggled all her fingers and toes and checked her arms. "Everything still moves... gonna have a few neat looking bruises though," she commented.

God. Did everyone see her fall?

"This?" She chimed, rolling the medallion over her knuckles like she'd seen Dean do with the jade piece. "The shape and... texture of it kinda seems to respond to my thoughts," she mused, and a ripple flickered through the barrier like a muscle twitch. For a moment a braided pattern rippled over her arms like scales. "I need something to secure it though, too easy to drop without some kind of chain or strap," she mused.

"Why... does it not do that for Zolya?" She asked, distracted by some pinprick of light off in the distance like the ignition of a star but... underground. She almost missed the mention of the second Templar, which seemed to snap her back into the present. Yue raised an eyebrow.

"Second Templar?" She asked, with a note of surprise. How did anyone even figure out she was down there? "Guess I better sit still for a bit," she muttered grumpily, suddenly feeling like a lost kid at the mall.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

---

[The Abyss - Paracausal Research Facility: Muriel - Interior]

---

Clearing the facility room by room was a slow, arduous task. Particularly when one half of the task force was sensory numb, blind, and deaf. They’d fallen back on gestures and sign language, and ID occasionally spelled out what she was trying to communicate in MG’s thermographics when her meaning simply did not translate.

Many of the rooms were filled with drifts of the glass-like crystalline powder they’d encountered at the entrance in small flurries. ID had taken a sample to be kept isolated in an enchanted and sealed container, but after encountering some Awakened moss in the hydroponics lab that was slowly crystallizing and disintegrating into the stuff, they’d agreed that “Sterilization” was the order of the day.

ID reinforced her Domain, spurred by the knowledge of the potential fate that awaited her should she have a lapse in concentration. She pushed it to the edges of the hallway and enveloped MG to help insulate her from any mental feedback, even though the floor complained about the large disparity in temperature. Most of the heat was directed in front of ID as she made slow progress down each corridor, lining the walls and every crack and crevice with searing blue flames without care to survivors or equipment.

The delicate balancing act of being hot enough to break down the magically charged silicate so her domain could forcibly re-aspect the crystallized haze, and also not melt the steel reinforced walls and bulkheads took all of her concentration. Such that when four figures ran into the intersection she was approaching, there wasn’t time to redirect the heat. They had substance for only a second or so before they were erased. She guessed they were most likely multi-sensory illusions, since it’d take an hour or more to fully cremate a real human body, even at the foundry level temperatures she was holding ahead of them.

"Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself, right?" She grinned beneath her mask. "Right?" ID repeated, glancing back at MG, who just gave a thumbs up in response. "Right. Right… Deaf partner," she sighed. What a waste of good Shakespearian humor.

Clearing all the spurs of the circular facility had taken quite some time, but they finally reached the threshold of the final chamber: the heart of the facility and storage area for some project numbered A-90T430S15. ID took a breath while MG keyed in the override behind her. She readied herself as the massive steel blast door shuddered and groaned: the heat had warped it just a little, and it probably wouldn't close properly after this.

ID braced, expecting a deluge of crystallized haze like they had nearly been buried under a few rooms back. However, besides the roar of heat blasting through the portal as it opened and disturbed a light dusting of the stuff, the room seemed relatively clean. ID eased off the temperature and consolidated her Domain to keep from fully erasing any magical traces that could be left behind. She signed for MG to hold the door just in case.

An enormous cylinder of white salt marble consumed the center of the facility. The top and bottom of the object looked as though it were beginning to splinter and branch into hundreds of roots before it disappeared into whatever Menagerie-made contraption was holding it in place. ID's luminous amber eyes raked the chamber; she tagged it as the heart of the [Warp] that had, until now, consumed the facility. As far as she could tell, the thing was inert, perhaps neutralized by the stress of the emanation it had caused... and if she'd taken that at face value, she'd be a fool.

She slowly circled the chamber's perimeter, running the flint skin of her fingertips along the transpari-steel barrier that once held myriad glyphs, wards, and charms. Enchantments that were crafted to keep this thing and its emissions segregated from the facility, since blasted by the psychic scream and eroded by the mind-aspected Mana Warp it had left in its wake.

"And what secrets do you think you can hide from me?" She whispered into the room as she peeled away the layers and layers of filters that blocked out most of the disruptive magical noise of the city's Ley Line from her [Dreamsight]. The pillar hummed with energy that pressed against her skin through the barrier; disconcerting, given that she felt it through the protection of her Domain. Swirls and eddies of disturbed mana thrashed around the chamber with storm-like intensity as she picked through them, isolating each yarn connected to the construct until she found the one that stretched out of the facility. ID sampled the haze of a cleverly masked spacial disruption as she stopped and turned her gaze directly onto the pillar for a long moment.

"Found you," she announced coldly, reaching up to pluck the thread.

A massive eye opened up on the pillar's marble surface. ID met the spaceless void of its four-pointed pupil unwavering. The room shuddered. In the [Immaterial], the gravity of ID's domain drew in the [Mind] aspected Storm and forced it to convert. The head of a massive winged serpent wreathed in incandescent fire bent low to meet the creature's gaze, and ID's eyes seared through the Astral like a pair of brilliant stars. There was a lurch of force. The transpari-steel barrier cracked between them.

Topside. Dark. It's raining. ID is holding someone's hand. Copper Drake is next to her. He's holding an umbrella for them but she still somehow managed to get wet.

He's trying his best.

They're waiting on a corner at a street light. Why? Right: her sister's graduation. They were there to pick her up. ID dare not move from the spot she was standing, and instead stared coldly ahead into the street at something Drake wasn't privy too.

"Aren't you excited? You're going to meet her in person," he asked, just like she remembered. Something in the tone of his voice felt forced. She stood stoic as headlights approached in the distance. You're wrong. It's coming down the wrong street.

Are we wrong? Or is our memory flawed?

The sky shuddered. She felt the moon open its eye above her, gold, grey, green and pink staring down at her. The sky bled ink, and it slowly spread over the sidewalk towards her feet as they approached in a shitty white cross-over that belonged to someone's mom. It's supposed to be a black limo.

Is it?

The whine of an E-Cell turbine being taxed. An armored truck rushed into the intersection. This is mirrored.

We're being used.

She felt Drake flinch as the truck collided violently with the civilian car. The truck's reinforced bumper tore the crossover's front end off and it flipped three times before slamming into a light pole. Men with rifles pour out. Black uniforms. One of them is checking his magazine as they stack against the cover of the van: tranquilizer rounds.

No.

The ink was pooling against her designer flats, clawing its way slowly up her toes. One in the rear readying an isolation pod, another pulled a [NULL] talisman out of a tactical pouch. That's not right. The air tore as the ink lapped at her bare ankles. Right. Copper Drake hesitated just a moment too long. She felt a tug on her arm as he moved to go, and she crushed his hand in her iron grip as she remained steadfast.

The image froze, and for just an instant the scene she remembered so vividly flickered into focus. Drake was on her right, not her left. The crash was mirrored. Black Limo. Armored Soldiers. Insignia: Stylized cross, red on white. She dared not look into whatever gaping void Drake was trying to pull her into. The street was flooding; ink crawled up her knees. ID's face furrowed into a scowl.

"Is that the best you can do?" The sheer brashness of her words cracked the reality she stood in, as she spelled out her intention in the air between her and whatever fucked creature of the void was watching with letters of searing heat. MG would know what to do.

R U N