Towering spires scratched the sky above where he floated. Buildings rose organically upwards, twisting in an architecture that could never be seen on Earth. It was like the structures were grown naturally rather than constructed, yet something told Gale it was more of what was possible should magic be a reality that coexisted with science.
This place definitely wasn't the Tomb he was currently on, but instead it reminded him of the residential area of Harmony sector, but slightly different. The structures here were all built for the Dainv, having platforms on each floor unlike ones in the sector.
His eyes widened as people began to appear. The tiny ant like dots moved around the city avenues and streets. Some flew along the tops of the skyscrapers, seemingly like it was a normal Tuesday. Shop fronts were set up on what would be the top of buildings.
Each person had a gem embedded in their left hand, from bronze, to gold, to silverish white. Most of those walking or just staying indoors had a dull gray gem. Those gems didn't look implanted so much as they seemed a natural part of their anatomy.
Vehicles also floated around on the ground and in the air on unseen streets and highways, gliding along paths. Their design was similar to what he saw back on Earth yet somehow more organic and sleek in design. Their flowing designs appeared to be more built for aerospace rather than streets.
Gale rotated slowly, taking in the view. Unlike before when he saw Vianne, this was a city that was alive. The growing question was, what were these people? As he slowly turned, his gaze landed on a simple wooden bench he'd normally see in the park. Vianne sat there, watching him with a warm, amused smile as her blue hair flowed down her shoulders.
"You've grown taller since we last met," Vianne patted the space beside her. "That's a good thing. You are a growing boy after all."
Gale walked over. He looked at the bench more closely. It was the same bench he had sat on for countless hours near the orphanage. He'd go to that bench to read books for hours when Ms. Molly's nagging got too much or when he wanted to avoid the daily beatings from the other boys. He sat down beside her, glancing sideways and finding no words to utter.
"The first thing a child should say to their aunt would be 'I miss you,' isn't it?" Vianne prompted, her eyes twinkling with mischief.
Gale gulped. Those were words no one had ever said to him nor had he ever uttered in his life before. "I... miss you?"
"Good," Vianne's smile beamed at him as she reached her hand over to pat his head. "I miss my nephew too. Now let's see, you've done quite a lot in the past couple of months."
For a while, he didn't know what to say. What could he say at this point? That his life was a mess. Having friends, caring for other people's feelings, and also deciding what he wanted were all too messy. It was the opposite of the quiet life he always wanted. The opposite of being coldly alone.
Vianne nudged him softly, still waiting for an answer.
"Umm…" Gale started, not knowing where his mouth was going to go. He had to at least say something. "The haunted asylum."
"Hm?"
"That was the first big thing I did when I got back to Earth. For a ghost hunt. I don't really like ghosts, though. But luckily, the skinwalker wasn't a ghost! I read about them before, but I never really thought I'd see one and would actually get to kill one," Gale said, his words picking up pace. "Then the airport incident happened. There were lots of things that happened there, like Rodriguez's betrayal and Wang getting me into a corner. And then BAM. Rachel comes with the combat butler to save the day. Next thing I know, I was sleeping in a room that Rachel called the blue room."
He paused as a woman with a gold gem embedded on her left arm flew through their space. Vianne just sat there beside him, listening intently and patiently.
"After that, we went up north in Ontario. We found a zombie place and then this hotel called Hotel Frankley, like from the books or movies or whatever. Those were actually fun. I even made a couple of more friends. Kyle and Clyde. They're funny, but not funny. Most of the time, funny." Gale sighed. "It feels like the past few months… a lot of things happened. Too much. I have to handle all of the stuff back in real life while also supposed to be preparing myself to fight against the tide, whatever that is."
Vianne reached out and gently patted his head. Her touch was light, carrying a sort of warmth that somehow still felt a slight cold. It was the comfortable feeling of being cold and cozy at the same time, like in a winter cabin.
"I told you, didn't I? When things get tough, no one will blame you for taking a short rest," she said. "Or even a long one. But it seems you haven't done that, which is a bit saddening."
Gale sighed. "I feel like I don't have a choice. Having friends and caring for them… it's a lot of work. Much harder than being alone."
Vianne smirked and flicked his forehead with her finger. "Remember what happened last time when you tried to taste true solitude?"
Of course he remembered. The wails and sobs still echoed in his head, all alone inside the stone tower. Rachel's face still haunted him. Her outstretched hands as she flew through the exit rift. He cried himself to sleep, not knowing when he would be able to get back on Earth. For what? To be able to see and talk to his friends again.
"I get it," Gale muttered.
Looking down at the city below their seating spot, a question popped up in Gale's mind. The dark knight, Vianne, and even Erin had told him all to accept the connections. But it seemed Cev had other plans.
"Why does Cev want me to hide my true self from others?" he asked.
Vianne laughed for a minute. She reached out her hand and pinched his cheeks. "Now, I'm not too sure what Cev really meant to say. He is an idiot after all. He can't even talk properly. Of course he'd say it like that. That's one thing you and he have in common. Both of you don't know how to express yourselves."
Gale looked down. That was true. But at least he was learning to be more vocal and express his own thoughts recently. The effort is what counts. "Then what does he really mean?"
Vianne let out a soft sigh. "There's a world of difference between hiding who you are and hiding what you can do, Gale."
"What's the difference?" Gale asked. "It feels the same to me."
"A lot."
Vianne stood up. She walked forward a couple of steps before their platform zoomed in on the city and sat in the middle of a bustling street where crowds moved from one side of the street to the next. Their bench was now placed on a sidewalk. People moved about with not a care in the world.
"Being who you are means embracing your personality, your values, your dreams. Don't let anyone stop you from being who you are at your core," Vianne said. "But what you do with your OS—that's what needs protection. Not because it's shameful, but because of those that hunt."
"So I can be myself with my friends, just not show them everything I can do?" Gale asked.
"Not exactly." Vianne's expression turned somber. "You will soon gain abilities that can become a beacon that will alert the watching stars."
"Can I at least get an answer who the watching stars are this time?"
Vianne smirked. "They are also Dainvs, but not. Split only by greed of wanting powers they cannot attain. There is the Dainv, like you. And those who hunt the Dainv, like them. Don't ask me what they call themselves. I didn't live long enough to know what they ended up calling themselves."
"That sounds like a crazy setup just for attaining power," Gale muttered.
"Reality often is crazy." Vianne pointed toward a group of passersby. "Look around this city. This is the homeworld of the Dainv. The main city, even."
Gale followed her gesture. The people that walked by, living their everyday lives, each had a unique shape of their gem like it was a fingerprint. The organic looking structures of the buildings that seemingly flowed into one another. A mix between the fantastical and the pragmatically modern skyscrapers of Earth.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"Look at some of their hands," Vianne said. "Do you see the gems?"
Gale nodded. It was the first thing he noticed since the beginning.
"The gray ones," Vianne said. "Those represent individuals with low density of Origin in their bodies. Unfortunately, gray means they can never attain true control over their Origin. That's the unfortunate truth of some Dainvs. It's the difference between an Awakened and a mundane, except far more extreme."
Gale watched one of the children with a bronze gem on his hands get pushed down by a bigger kid with a gray gem. It looked like bullying was a universal thing.
"What's the point of all that?" Gale turned to Vianne. "Why would anyone get so greedy over something like that?"
"Power, control, wealth. The usual suspects," Vianne said. "That is greed. If you had asked Erin this question, she would have told you the same."
Gale snorted. "Erin doesn't seem to like explaining stuff to me. She just tells me to do things and gets mad when I ask questions."
"That's totally her," Vianne laughed. "But you see, there's a trick to it. You have to rile her up to give you an answer. That could be to belittle her knowledge or praise her smartness."
"I don't believe she's that easy," Gale said. But then again, that's exactly what happened when he compared Asain to Vianne. "Who is Erin to you, anyway?"
"She is my favourite disciple," Vianne said. "The most stubborn one at that."
"Favourite? Really?" Gale asked. "She's so... rigid."
"Which is exactly why she needed guidance the most," Vianne's eyes followed a certain vehicle barreling down through the city. Inside was a blue haired woman with a frown on her face. Her hair was dishevelled as if she had just woken up. "Rigid things break under pressure. I taught her to bend."
Gale recognized that face. It was Erin, the same exact face and youth. She wasn't kidding when she said she lived for a gajillion years. He asked, "But just like mundanes, they also had a place in Dainv society, right?"
"Of course they did," Vianne said. "Many who couldn't control Origin directly found other paths to greatness. Some became engineers, creating technologies that even the natural Dainvs couldn't match. They found other ways to control their Origins, and eventually, it led to them hunting down the naturals."
She paused. Her eyes trembled as she saw the hundreds of gray gemmed individuals pass by. "Their only mistake was believing that they needed to do such a thing. They believed power was everything, that they were oppressed. I'm not truly sure of the reality, but it eventually led to the Collapse Era. That is the current era you're living in."
The Collapse Era. In other words, he was all living in a post-apocalypse of his own kind. That would explain a lot about why the tomb was necessary. A failed project that was supposed to be a panic room against the corruption.
"Did my parents protect me from them? Cev said they honoured their duty," Gale asked.
"Remember, nephew, I don't know everything. However, I put my faith in Cev's judgement. If he believes they honoured their duty, then their final act was not abandonment, but protection." Vianne's expression softened as she placed her hand on Gale's shoulder. "Everything they did was to hide you from the hunters or it could be an impending invader. From what little I gathered, they loved you more than anything in this cosmos."
Gale looked down at his hands, turning them over as if searching for a gem that wasn't there. He could feel his essence pathways converging to a hidden point on the back of his left hand. That would be where the gem of his would be, except it was obviously now hidden to adapt to the hunt.
"If the natural Dainvs were so strong, why couldn't they beat the ones who couldn't even control their Origins properly?"
"The Dainv were never truly a warfaring race," Vianne sighed. "The duty of the Dainv is to ultimately protect the borders of reality against invaders. The tide is but one invader."
She paused, watching as a group of children with mixed gem colours played together. Somehow, there was pain in her expression as she saw the gray gemmed child struggling to keep up.
"To kill other Dainv is to cull the immune system of the universe," she continued. "It is also to kill those who they might have once loved or been friends with."
Her eyes stared straight into Gale's eyes. "If that boy, Oliver, had truly turned against the whole world for a chance at chasing the ghost of a cure, would you have been able to cull him from existence or would you look the other way because he's your friend?"
Gale gulped. There was no way he could go against Ollie. Maybe he'd try to smack some sense into him, probably not violently. But in truth, he would do nothing about it. Having his friend's blood on his hands was something he couldn't even imagine.
Vianne nodded at his non-answer. "Or if the woman of fire, Rachel, were to try to kill you, would you fight back and kill her or would you have run and hide?"
The answer came immediately to Gale. It was to run and hide. Maybe one day, she would stop being mad at him. He didn't even know what he would have done for her to want to kill him. A knot formed in his stomach at the thought. Raising a hand against her? He'd lose all meaning of life if she died by his hands.
"I can't…" Gale admitted.
"And that is why the Dainv fell," Vianne said. "Because we loved too much to destroy our own kind, even when they came to hunt us."
The city before them suddenly changed. Explosions, gunfire, and people running all over the place dominated the scene. In front of the bench they sat on, a child lay on the floor, lifeless. Her gem was that of a silver-bronze hue.
In the blink of an eye, the flowing skyscrapers all over the city had become decimated from the war that took place. Turning his head around, Gale saw men and women in robotic suits throwing dead bodies into a pile in the middle of the intersection. All of the bodies in the pile had a coloured gem.
"So what happens now?" Gale asked. "Am I supposed to hide forever? Just... exist but never really live?"
"No, child," Vianne smiled. "Living in hiding isn't living at all. It's merely existing. Even Leyr-I mean the dark knight told you."
"So then how?"
"The hunters still exist, but they are few. Most have forgotten what they were hunting for in the first place."
"So I don't have to hide?" Gale asked.
"You must be cautious, but not paranoid," Vianne clarified. "Share yourself with those you trust, but guard your power from those you do not. It's a balance, and it will be up to your choice on how to lead that life."
Gale nodded. "My friends. Should they know?"
Vianne tilted her head. "That depends on how much you trust them. Do you believe they would stand with you, even knowing the danger it might bring? Do you believe they would keep your secret, even under pressure?"
They'd all fought together, bled for one another. Rachel even threw herself between him and the dark knight as he was about to die. Ollie was always calm and collected, always knowing what to do. Lily somehow still looks up to him even though all he did was save her group under the Blue Haven. The twins as well. Somehow, they grew on him.
Everything since the beginning of this rift was already about how to get him to step up to lead anyways. Life always moved in mysterious ways. The answer was never straight. Choices would never truly only lead to a positive outcome. It was always a rollercoaster, and there would be ups and downs.
"I think they would," he said. Surprisingly, he was certain of the answer.
"Then perhaps, in time, they should know," Vianne said. "But not all at once, and not all the same way. Test the waters with one before revealing yourself to all."
Vianne stood from the bench, stretching her arms above her head. The cityscape around them began to blur as they zoomed out of the city. When he looked again at the city skyline, everything was broken and burning. The once flowing lines were painted by fire and ash. She suddenly turned to Gale.
"Our time grows short. It's time for your reward."
She took a few steps backwards. Then, she raised her index finger as a smile playfully crossed her lips. She softly blew across the tip of her fingers. A stream of star-like particles floated toward Gale, dancing through the air until they surrounded him in a swirl of light. The particles spun around him at a velocity he couldn't keep up with, flowing into his spine and heart.
[Dainv OS new baseline established.]
[Patch update downloading at user request...]
[Analyze new function unlocked.]
[New function: Analyze can now be used on living beings.]
The notification popped up in Gale's vision. It was the same notifications he received when he first received Analyze.
"Try it," Vianne said, pointing to herself. "Use your new ability on me."
Analyze.
[Vianne (fragment)]
[Race: Ancient Entity]
[Core Class (Partial): Primordial Embodiment]
[Essence: 0 / 9.24T]
[Description: A fragment of Vianne's true self. She is the Ancient of Wisdom and Knowledge. Upon bestowing the Dainv with her gift, the race had fared the stars in under a millennia.]
"Whoa," Gale said. "That's a lot of information dropped at once. This whole conversation… I feel like everything just seems so grand compared to me just being one person."
Vianne smirked, crossing her arms over her chest. "You are not just one small person, Gale. You are the failsafe. The Last Dainv that has limitless potential. You have the prototype Dainv OS that Cev is so proud of. Do not underestimate the weight of your existence."
Gale nodded. What else could he do? He needed to be more confident in his own abilities as well. "I'll try. I've been trying. I'll keep looking up. And I'll probably take a break. Multiple breaks in between, just like you said."
"Good." Vianne nodded. The cityscape below them faded into pitch black darkness, replaced by an endless starscape. "Before you go, I have a favour to ask."
"What is it?"
"Tell Erin to lighten up a bit. She'll get high blood pressure if she keeps up the way she's doing."
Gale snorted. "That's all? Not sure I can even say that to someone like Erin without getting my head bitten off."
Vianne laughed, a full body one. "Tell her Vianne was the one who said it. She might still bite your head off, but at least she'll know who to be mad at."
"Okay." Gale stood, feeling strangely reluctant to leave. "I'm ready to go, I guess. I'll see you again next time?"
"Next time, we'll have a lot more time," Vianne said. "The more fragments you collect, the longer my consciousness can manifest. But now, time is up." She reached out and touched his cheek lightly, rubbing it with her thumb. "See you again, nephew."
The world suddenly turned dark. The bench and the starscape all vanished in an instant. Gale fell through nothingness, a weightless sensation that lasted both forever and no time at all.
Reality suddenly snapped back. He stood in the temple room, all alone again as Vianne's statue looked down on him. The owl's right eye no longer had the glow it had. The comforting smell of old books filled his nose once more as he took a deep breath in.
Gale placed his hand on the cheek that Vianne had touched. Strangely, the cold and cozy feeling was still there.
Pulling out his phone, he turned it on and activated the walkie-app. "Erin, I've got the fragment. Mission complete."
Erin's voice came through immediately. "Excellent. Return to the train. We shall depart for Protection Sector once you arrive."
Gale cleared his throat and then said, "Also, Vianne says you should lighten up a bit."
A silence followed. One second. Three. Then a full minute. Gale tapped his phone, thinking it was broken or something.
Finally, Erin's voice came through again. "That... sounds like her. Your task is complete. Make haste back to the Protection Sector."