Chapter 6: 5 – Father by Choice

"The Osai Order used to say, 'with power comes great responsibility,' and 'we take on this weight so you all may thrive.' Aether shit like that. All while they ate and drank themselves stupid on Island planets, screwing each other's brains out. Look, I do all of that, but I won't pretend like being a God is difficult. Especially when the Ascension runs itself."

- The Unabridged Interview of Veldraken Juinper, ARCborn

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Logun stared down the Aether beast, its long follicles rolling across its body like storm clouds, larger than any he had ever seen an Enforcer take down on Telark before, but not larger than any he had faced in the arena.

It had wounded his daughter.

Despite the lack of feeling in his limbs, his body wracking with hypothermic cold, he moved one foot after the other underneath him. Sturdying himself on his better leg, he flexed his frost locked fingertips the best he could into fists.

“Keep your e-eyes on me. I-I-I’m the one y-you want.”

Why didn’t he bring any of his equipment? He even forgot his knife in his utility belt. He had gotten so carried away, was so worried he had said all of the wrong things, that he’d driven Mori to a frozen grave. He was surprised she made it this far even with her cold resistant body, and to a chamber filled with treasure ore no less.

If only he still had his nanite refiners, still had his abilities from the old days. He could get Mori out, kill the beast, make it so the village could access this ore and survive the rest of the winter. He grit his teeth, lips cracking underneath his insulating mask.

Getting her out was all that mattered.

“Mori! R-run when I tell you to, you hear me?”

The beast sunk low and reared back on its legs, black teeth salivating.

Mori didn’t respond, she stood still, head bowed over her chest, her long white hair covering her face.

Logun’s eyelids cracked as his eyes widened. Did she pass out from blood loss? Standing up. No. No. “Mori? Mori!”

He took a step in her direction. The beast growled.

He seethed. How was she going to get her out and distract the beast?

The air in the chamber grew heavier, and Logun’s skin, ruptured with frostbite, prickled. He knew this sensation well, even stripped of his nanite refiners.

The Anima pressure of someone rims stronger than himself.

The Aether beast, however, either couldn’t feel it or ignored it, despite being one of the larger Initiate beasts Logun had seen on Telark. It encroached on Logun, cornering its prey.

Logun brought up his half closed fists.

Frostfire blossomed from Mori’s feet and whirled around her like a cyclone. He had only seen the likes of it once when her mother had fought off Enforcers—frost so blistering cold, it would burn.

Logun’s knees buckled from the pressure, his bad leg almost causing him to topple over. He furrowed his brows. With what little he learned of Osai before taking Mori in his care, this wasn’t possible. Osai didn’t advance the same as Favored with nanite refiners, but there were limits, they still needed time and training to grow.

And if he could feel her power, then the Enforcers within the system definitely could, too. They wouldn’t brave Telarks brutal biome for mere unfavored miners, but they would brave it for this, and they’d bring reinforcements.

Fuck.

But first, he needed to focus on getting her out of this.

The Aether beast pounced.

Mori was there before Logun could move an inch, leg fully extended above her head, the Aether beast off its clawed feet and reeled back mid-air, jaw shattered into thousands of frozen shards, neck bent at the wrong angle.

The air quaked. Logun slid back.

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He hadn’t had a chance to blink when Mori vanished again and reappeared in the air with the beast, hand rippling with frostfire.

She punched it.

The Void beast cratered into the far wall, headless and neck a frozen stump, debris dislodging around it and bouncing off the stone. Its body followed with a smack.

Dead.

Mori touched down on bare feet, and Logun’s racing heart caught up with him, pounding in his frost-pricked ears. “M-M-Mori?”

From her hand to her elbow, light-blue Anima bled from ruptured veins like aetherial wisps. Shit. He knew it, there was no way Mori’s Vessel—not even Initiate hardened—would be able to contain projection at that level, so why was it happening at all?

She turned, stared at him with eyes dark as any Aether beast, pitch black with white specks. Logan back-stepped, pressing up against the ledge of the entrance. “W-w-hat in the Aether?”

Mori—no, whoever, whatever this was, bared their teeth in a grin. “You must be the foster father for this fledgling Vessel I’ve heard oh so much about. Well, technically I heard about you in a thought. A very brief one now that I think of it, but when you’ve been non-existent for as long as I have, everything feels like forever. Exhilarating!”

Logan narrowed his brows, doing his best to fight off the returning shivers. “What have you done with my daughter?”

“Oh, relax. She’s fine. For the time being.” It brought up its leaking forearm, clicked its tongue. “This is a problem, though.”

Anger stirred in Logan’s chest, his head beginning to feel faint, dizzy. “G-get out of her! N-now!”

It ignored him, and walked off towards the Aether beast's corpse. Logan struggled to keep up, cursing the limp in his bad leg, the loss of sensation in his body. What could he even do? This thing was within the Lock realm at the least, and it was within Mori’s body.

It squatted down and pressed its Anima leaking hand to the Aether beasts now dormant hair, and absorbed.

Now, that was impossible. Right? Logan had never seen such a thing. There was absorbing treasures, but absorbing an Aether beast?

The beast turned into a starry-night canvas and shrunk into Mori’s palm. The entity within her burped, then sighed, examining its still leaking forearm. “Yeah, this is going to be a problem.”

“W-what are you?”

It craned its head over its shoulder and grimaced. “Rude. I have a name.” It brought an index finger to its chin. “I think.”

Logan dared another step closer, exhaustion and the damage of braving the subzero blizzard taking its toll on him. “Please. Give me my daughter back.”

It prodded its chin, as if in deep thought. “Where are we?”

Logan blinked, squinting. “T-Telark. Outer—Out—Oute...” His tongue disobeyed him, his words becoming difficult to form, thoughts crystalizing like water.

It scratched Mori’s head. “I don’t know why I asked. Not an inkling where that is. Here’s the deal. I’ll give her back if you can appoint this girl a Master, and someone who can reseal her Vessel. I’m assuming some Frostfire middle lordling resides over your camp, er, wherever you live?”

Logan opened his mouth, closed it. What era did this being think they were in? He assumed it meant an Osai Master—someone who could train her to cultivate her powers. There were none left. No matter, Logun had been lying his whole life. He wouldn’t have been able to keep Mori safe this long if he didn’t have a knack for it. He did his best to warm his throat muscles before speaking.

“I… I–I can. Though it will cost me.” There was no need to specify. Only to imply.

It nodded. “This will have to be sufficient.” It locked onto Logun’s gaze with wide, dark eyes. “You are likely to die of frostbite soon, by the way. You should probably—” It gritted its teeth and grunted, bending over on itself. “Gah. Give this girl a breadth of an inch, and she thrusts her whole foot through. W-willpower is strong with this one. I-I’ll give her that.”

Mori hunched over herself again, silent for a moment, and then sprung to full height like an Ice Ferret surveying the tundra. Looking around in confusion. Her lips crinkled when she took him in, eyes glossing over with tears. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed.

Logun couldn’t feel the warmth.

“I’m so sorry, Dad. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run off.” She stretched him to arms length, surveying his face. Logun couldn’t see himself, but he had a good idea how bad it was. “We need to get you in front of a heater. No—we need to get Joma. I’ll check if the storm has settled.”

Logun let her settle him up against stalagmite and rub his unfeeling arms, everything growing hazy, distant. He watched Mori run off towards the entrance and began scurrying up. He smiled beneath his mask, happy to see she was okay, but he couldn’t help but notice the pink, healed skin where the Aether beast raked her ribs, couldn’t foresee how they would hide from the Enforcers—who were no doubt on their way planetside. More than all of those concerns, he wondered, over and over again as he faded in and out;

What in the Aether did you put inside your own daughter, Lorena?

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