Chapter 103: Book 3 chapter 5

Eryl was the first of the three to wake, to say she was unhappy would have been… a gross understatement.

"How does one shut down an entire world system?" Eryl glared at the Overseer terminal floating beside Himari.

“I understand you are upset, Mother Eryl, but I would like to point out that Babylon shut itself down. I simply turned off the terminals so the alarm would stop.” Overseer answered confidently… from behind Himari.

“And the system was sounding an alarm because?” Her monotone voice sounded much more ominous than if she would simply yell.

Himari coughed, “Hecatolite.” She answered meekly knowing Eryl would not simply accept that as an answer.

Eryl did not need to say anything as she waited, her unmoving gaze causing even Overseer to shrink as it stammered out a reply. “Well, protocol dictated that if a chimera is found on a world to contact the primordial court then enact a self-destruct in an attempt to kill the creature. If that fails, contact the nearest world and then attempt to isolate the planet by any means as well as segregate the system in such a way that it cannot be used to locate other worlds before locking the system to render it…”

Eryl held up a hand to stop the rambling terminal, “I understand how it happened, what I don’t understand is the why? Or that you clearly knew that it would happen and took it upon yourself to deactivate a protocol in the system in advance.”

“In Overseer’s defense, it only deactivated the self-destruct…” Himari stopped as Eryl turned her eyes to her.

“And you knew this would happen and did not tell me over the last month, because?”

“Overseer was afraid if we spoke about the chimera, it would trigger the defense in the system and it would… blow up.” 

Eryl rubbed her temples, letting out a sigh before she asked another question. “And what exactly is a chimera?”

Overseer flashed a bright red before replying, “a Chimera is an extinct race of sub-ascension humanoid creatures that are able to adapt the physical characteristics of creatures they consume. Note that chimeras have been extinct for nearly 13 billion years.”

“And X47 is one of these chimeras? Why are there so many protocols around a singular race of creatures that were sub-ascension?” Eryl asked looking up the beach at the two sleeping girls, Himari had been unable to move them and Eryl didn’t see a point in dragging them down the beach simply to leave them in the sand here. 

Himari nervously raised her hand, not wanting to interrupt the two as they spoke. “What is a sub-ascension race?”

“It is a race that, though intelligent, has not reached a point in their evolution to support the formation of a divine. Only certain races can become a divine soul, not out of any fault of their own, but a certain level of intelligence as well as a sufficient population is required for ascension. At their peak, the chimeras only managed to have a couple million members of their race alive at once and were only as intelligent as a common… canine from your old world.” Overseer paused thinking of an animal that Himari would not only be familiar with but was also neither “wild” or intelligent. 

“So, they were a race of low intellect creatures that went extinct, that doesn’t answer my question, Overseer. Why is the system programmed to explode if it finds a chimera if they are not only extinct but incapable of forming into a divine soul?” Eryl rubbed her temple harder though her voice did not change as she added, “and is Hecatolite one of these chimeras or did the system latch onto one of the fragments inside her soul?” 

“Correction, Hecatolite is not one of the chimeras, she is the last chimera. She is a subrace… would she be a subrace if she is the last one…” Overseer paused, flashing a spectrum of colors before resuming. “Hecatolite was a subrace of chimera that formed at the end of their existence, she is unable to adapt the physical properties of what she eats, instead, she absorbs fragments of their soul giving her access to a portion of their skills. Before the implementation of the system in their world she would have no way of knowing about this growth but still experienced its effects…” 

There was a long pause before Eryl leaned forward, “And?”

“The protocols in the system were formed well after the race had gone extinct. The only logical conclusion is that they were put in place not for the chimeras as a whole but one specific chimera, for Hecatolite herself.”

“And you are sure they are extinct?” Eryl asked shifting her gaze to Himari who nodded.

“Hecatolite made sure of that before she left her world.” She sighed looking down at the sand, “She wiped the whole planet out before she found out how to get off the world.”

“An oversight on the primordials’ part as they did not expect ingesting a terminal would give someone the knowledge to use the network in such a manner.” Overseer flashed again.

“The network?” Eryl had heard of the network before, it was a design concept she had studied while in training. One of the original designs for the system, a central web linking all the worlds together through tunnels in space. This would have made it to where souls could have traveled to different worlds much more freely and for significantly less energy than they do now but creating permanent linking black holes everywhere would have apparently taken to long and been to labor intensive for Darkness, so she abandoned the idea after forming a black hole in every cluster; apparently the act of linking them together would have been rather arduous. Now, instead of being able to send souls to any world without the mother systems approval, worlds can only exchange souls within their immediate cluster, sol3terra just happens to be the nearest harvester world to this one. 

“Yes, the network had been fully operational at a time however, I believe after Hecatolite used it to travel from system to system, they deemed it too dangerous and destroyed it.” Overseer answered only for Eryl to shake her head.

Eryl clicked her tongue, “Hecatolite is powerful, yes, but you expect me to believe a soul that couldn’t even find its way out of an egg made the primordial court destroy an advanced system like the network?” 

“Whether you believe it or not, Mother Eryl, the truth remains. If I reinstate Babylon right now, the system will simply lock up again and be unusable. I am able to substitute as the world system for a time, but I advise finding a work around for this problem soon.” Overseer floated between them and displayed what looked like a system schematic, though it was lost on Himari. “This is my proposed patch that will circumvent the system protocol for a time.”

There was a long pause as Eryl looked at the screen, nearly 5 whole minutes went by before she finally spoke. “I can’t allow you to tamper with the system for no reason, Overseer. I will admit that some of my protocols have been right on the edge of tampering, but I have never once changed anything in the system that was put in place by Mother. So I ask you why should I allow this to be installed in my system, what exactly is X47?” Her eyes narrowed as her ears folded down, “What are you not telling me?”

Overseer shrank, the screen losing nearly a foot in size, backing away as it dimmed to a near completely black screen. “I… don’t… know what you mean, Mother…”

“Show me Hecatolite Lapidary’s soul page. Not the one I created, show me her original soul page.” 

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“I… I can’t do that Mother…”

Eryl grabbed the terminal before it could retreat any further, the blue tribal lines on her arm flaring to life as she forced a small amount of mana into the side of the terminal. Unlike Hecatolite, Eryl knew exactly where to grab the terminal to keep it from “running away”, just a tiny little spot on the right corner where all the enchantment rings intermingled, a spot that; with a lot of difficulty, Overseer had kept safe up until this exact moment. “You can and you will if you wish to install something into my system. I may not be the admin, Overseer, but I will still protect this world to the fullest extent of my capabilities,” her gaze did not waver, her voice as monotone as ever but something about her words struck Overseer. It knew even without access to the system, without her administrator capabilities…

“You can’t tell Hecatolite this.” It answered as she released the screen.

“And why not?”

“I am unable to ascertain what exactly causes her to remember certain things and I do not wish to risk her “remembering” this.” The screen flashed as a single line of text scrolled across it, “Me, the endless abyss,” the words cut off after the first title; though cut off seemed to be the wrong word. The screen after the word abyss ended in a jagged line almost as if the image had been… bitten.

“Is this some kind of joke to you Overseer?” Eryl asked as she crossed her arms.

“I assure you Mother Eryl, this is no laughing matter. The database on Hecatolite had been removed from the universal system and my original data banks were damaged when she… ate me. As for her original soul page, it does not exist. It had been created when she was discovered traveling from world to world however, it has since been lost when the overseer system was… destroyed. Searching the universal system yields no results outside of the protocols created to contain her…” Overseer paused, a mistake that Eryl noticed immediately.

“What else did you find digging through my system?”

“A string of messages between Darkness and Life shortly after the formation of the universal system.” Overseer shifted as a message was displayed, 

“Sister, I understand that Light and Death do not wish to acknowledge Thought anymore than you or I, but I feel it to be foolish to rely only on your precious system to keep it contained on that world. You do recall how useful your little toys were in stopping it last time, right? I think maybe we should, oh I don’t know, set a guard in place, maybe?” 

“If you wish Darkness, you are welcome to go and watch over it yourself, but unless you forgot; it isn’t exactly going to die any time soon and I don’t particularly want to spend the rest of eternity watching over it. The system is much more protected now and should be more than sufficient to watch over it, not only that, but we sent it to a “dead” world.” 

“The messages continue however they quickly divulge into… different matters. I believe that, though they do not mention the chimera, they are speaking of Hecatolite as she was “contained” within the harvester world sol3terra.”

“Wait, they called her…” Himari asked only to freeze when Eryl tapped on the terminal before her, causing it to turn dark and fall into the sand.

“I will state it one last time, Himari, there are only four primordials, whatever this chimera is, it's clearly a threat to the entire universe and…” she paused looking to the two sleeping girls on the beach. Her mind grinding to a halt as she recalled Hecatolite tearing her soul apart to save Amethyst, the stories that Himari and Amethyst shared in the last month of Hecatolite going out of her way to protect those around her… the smile Hecatolite wore when she saved her, or the fear in her voice when asking if she could save her sister on what was supposed to be her deathbed...

Himari sighed heavily as she watched Eryl freeze in place, almost able to see the cogs in her mind turning as she stood motionless on the beach. “It's… it’s not that black and white, is it?” Himari muttered, standing as she did. “I won’t lie Eryl, I am terrified of Hecatolite, what she is, what she’s capable of but even I cannot deny that… Well, she’s trying to be better. Not only that but I doubt we could make her leave if she didn’t want to.”

“I could undo the spell that brought you all here,” Eryl said coldly as she tapped on the terminal again, “Remember that. Himari, do not misunderstand my actions; even if I banish you both along with the system keys I will eventually regain access to my system. Even without Hecatolite’s meddling, this world will outlive Valor, this war will be no more than a fleeting moment in history… I simply do not see a need to currently do so, but if I even suspect her to be a danger to this world… I will do what I must to protect it.” Her words sent a shiver down Himari’s spine as the terminal sprang to life, “Go ahead and add your patch to Babylon, however, this will be the last thing you change in my system, understand? If I find you so much as adjust the color of the text without asking me first, I will not turn you back on, do you understand me?”

The terminal did not move from its spot in the sand at her feet as it replied, “Yes, Mother Eryl.” Overseer again seemed to shrink before the terminal vanished, a moment later Himari could feel a massive draw on her mana as Babylon was reconnected.

With a thunderclap, a terminal appeared before her, “Overseer shut me down again, didn’t they?” Babylon asked as it appeared, the annoyance in its voice clear as it started complaining to Himari and Eryl that it couldn’t find a way to shut Overseer down and how unfair… it means unethical… unprofessional? “Wrong, Overseer is just wrong!” Its mature womanly voice cracked, seeming to regress in age to a much younger higher pitched voice that nearly matched Eryl’s as it pouted about Overseer to them only to stop when they heard a groan.

“What… what happened?” Amethyst tried to sit up only to find herself pinned under… “Hecatolite!” she yelled, squeezing the girl who released a sound reminiscent of a squeaky toy that had suddenly been stomped on.

Hecatolite let out a very surprised yelp as all the air was forced out of her, “Can’t… breath…” she rasped, though she did not have to question who was squeezing her as that was Amethyst’s signature greeting in the soul space the few times the two had been separated. 

“I was so worried about you!” Amethyst cried as Hecatolite managed to pull away from her sister's grasp. “Overseer said you were drowning, and I couldn’t break the egg and then I could hear you screaming and…”

Amethyst paused as Hecatolite finally stood, a large grin on her face as she did, “Pff stupid fake void, it would take a lot more than that to stop me.” She said proudly as Amethyst made her way to her feet. “Wait!” Hecatolite suddenly yelled, grabbing onto Amethyst's arm and holding it up muttering to herself. “Let’s see here, five fingers, two arms, two legs,” Hecatolite began circling her as she went though a checklist, “two eyes, one nose, one tail, two breasts…” Amethyst let out a surprised yelp as Hecatolite grabbed the hem of her pants and pulled them down, “no dangly bits either… wait… a tail?” ignoring her sisters protest Hecatolite circled around her again and grabbed onto the nub-like tail, “hey dumb saint! Humans don’t… have… are you fucking taller than me!” Her voice was punctuated by a whiplike crack that sent sand spraying into the air behind her as she looked up at Amethyst who was indeed a few inches taller than her. “Bull shit! Eryl! Your dumb doctor messed up the spell! I knew we shouldn’t have trusted that woman, I bet she wasn’t even a doctor, who would trust a doctor named after fish eggs huh? Not me, that's who! Why are you smiling! This is not a smiling thing you know! Hey don’t just pick me up!” Hecatolite struggled against Amethyst who pulled her into a tight bear hug, lifting her from the ground as she did.

“I missed you.” She said quietly as Hecatolite hung limp in her arms.

Hecatolite grumbled as she felt her feet dangling inches above the ground. Looking over her sister’s shoulder she could see Eryl and Himari standing whispering to each other; though Himari froze when Hecatolite locked eyes with her.

            What are they whispering about huh? I bet that fake doctor is talking about how she messed up the spell, I mean, how hard is it to make two normal human bodies, huh? Himari gave a nervous smile, waving awkwardly to Hecatolite who had not looked away. What is she grinning about! Did she mess up my body too? She must have, damn it I knew it, what kind of doctor is she anyway, huh? Couldn’t even fix her own leg! Amethyst swung Hecatolite around happily chatting about the last month not realising her sister had stopped listening. Wait, something just brushed my thigh… did… Did she mess up my gender? Shit, how am I going to explain that to Saffron; “Oh, you know how I was going to make a body well surprise I’m a man now” … would… would Saffron be into that? Now that I think about it, I never asked if Saffron liked what I had before… Am I a bad wife? I should know what my wife likes, shouldn’t I? Shit, I’m going to have to be better. I know, when I get back I’ll take her out on a nice date and just casually bring it up? How do I casually bring it up, “oh by the way, what’s your stance on dick?” probably should avoid places that serve meat sticks for that conversation, I know, a nice cake! I mean, I don’t like pineapples but… do they have pineapples? Wait, the only cake shop I know is run by Amethyst’s ex, would it be awkward to still go there? I really should get out more. I mean, it’s a whole city; there's no way they are the only bakery, not to mention I don’t think they sold any pineapple cakes, lots of carrot cakes… they do make the best donuts too…I feel like I may have gotten distracted. Hecatolite thought realising Amethyst had stopped talking and was now holding her out and inspecting her.

“Hecatolite? Are you ok?” Amethyst asked with a concerned look on her face.

 Definitely got distracted, quick say something… “I need to find pineapples?” perfect.