Chestro couldn’t get out.
Wherever…whatever he was stuck in, he couldn’t get back.
He floated outside of reality itself like a ghost, sensing the humming vibrations that were Solaris moving back and forth across the entire city, leaving no stone unturned in his search for the remaining Anchors.
It took several subjective hours before Chestro even figured out how to move. Ti, speed and distance were…epheral concepts. Moving was a result of intent more than anything else, and there was no sensation of movent. No inertia, no mass.
Reality seed to slip by in uneven patterns as Chestro stayed still, completely insulated from the forces he would expect to be associated with motion, the world warping around him as though viewed through a piece of rough seaglass.
Thinking of moving a limb flung Chestro wildly aside, the world spinning around him. finally the world itself settled inside a humorless d-bay. Chestro recognized it as Neuron’s abandoned lair, lightless and cold.
Suddenly Chestro rembered that this specific dbay had been where he was rehabilitated after tearing a major ligant in his hip. A place that had a major place in his mind associated with simply walking under one’s own power.
Is travel mnemonic rather than physical?
The world flashed around him and suddenly Chestro was buried between the pages of a dictionary, a dog-eared ancient manuscript that he’d used to learn new vocabulary in downti between exercise and tests.
Subjectively, Chestro must have been the size of a microscopic insect, because the words of the dictionary lood above him like a skyscraper:
mne·mon·ic
/nəˈmänik/
noun
noun: mnemonic; plural noun: mnemonics
a device such as a pattern of letters, ideas, or associations that assists in rembering sothing, for example Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain for the colors of the spectrum (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet).
Chestro took a deep, steadying breath.
What am I even breathing?
An instant later, he was flung through the air filter of his lair.
Chestro tried to steady himself, to hold himself in one place, but every ti he tried to calm himself, he would flicker to a new place, as his mind made connections and had thoughts without his consent.
The environnt flashed violently around Chestro as he spun from thought to thought, place to place, reeling with the intensity of the shifts.
Finally, after what felt like hours, he found a way to slow it down.
Exercise.
There was no ground to stand on, no air to breath or resistance to work against, but the mont he thought about working out, the world around him stabilized sowhat, gently vibrating between his favorite places to exercise.
Maybe…
Chestro began running in place, the familiar movent sowhat awkward now that he was untethered from mass and gravity.
Eventually though he got the hang of it, his mind going blank as he fell into rote. Try as he might though, he couldn’t achieve the sa state that had got him into this predicant. He was stabilized, though.
I need so kind of assistance. Possibly magical in nature. Soone knowledgeable, powerful and…sowhat willing to help.
Dave?
Chestro had successful dealings with him in the past.
At the thought of the unicorn, the world flickered around him and resolved into the unicorn’s lair, where the leather-clad unicorn was in an intense discussion with Marigold Zauberer.
Naturally, they couldn’t see or hear him.
“And I’m saying, don’t drag into your little coup attempt. I’m off Solaris’s radar. I don’t exist to that man, and I’m more than happy to remain that way.” Dave whispered, as if afraid Solaris would hear him.
“You don’t have a choice, Dave. The man has finally succumbed to his own paranoia and Tide-sickness. He’s on the warpath, battling imaginary foes, and he won’t stop until everyone is dead.”
“You said that last ti you tried to take over Franklin city.”
“last ti, he didn’t kill my daughter!” Marigold said, her voice turning shrill. “He’s-“
Marigold paused, cocking her head as if listening to sothing, then she turned and stared directly through Chestro.
“We have a guest.”
The black-horned rocker straightened in his seat and followed the crone’s gaze to Chestro.
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“So we do. A spirit, of so kind.”
“Feels too alive.” Marigold muttered, her palms apart, fingers curled inwards.
“Can you hear ? I require assistance becoming corporeal again.”
Between the old woman’s palms, a whorl of magic ford before ballooning outward, forming into a flat, ovoid shape.
Through the ovoid shape, the world beca crystal clear again.
“Ah, the attractive youth.” Marigold murmured, her hand on her hip. “You’re still alive. Well done.”
“What do you an I’m still alive?” Chestro asked. Why would she assu he was dead? Judging by their conversation… “Has Solaris…”
“Killed or driven into hiding the vast majority of his Anchors? Yes.” Marigold said with a shrug. “The fact that you survived places you among lofty company, such as myself…and Darryl.”
“This happens every twenty years or so anyway.” Dave said with a shrug. Which is why I never volunteer for the job. That and my horn.”
“You know those were different.” Marigold said, turning to the black unicorn. “Those were isolated incidents where Anchors tried to seize control. This was a stable, functioning governnt. None of the Anchors got greedy this ti.”
“I need assistance becoming corporeal again,” Chestro interrupted, dragging the ancient woman’s gaze back to him.
The old woman’s gaze took on a mischievous glint.
“What are you willing to pay for – oh, piss off, you.” Marigold’s haughty attitude collapsed as Chestro stepped through the oval window, stumbling for a mont as gravity reasserted itself on his body.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Chestro said with a nod, glancing around and orienting on the concrete stairs that seed to lead upwards.
“Don’t thank yet,” Marigold muttered, stalking back to a chair and pulling out a fanciful pipe which glowed with magical runes as she took a deep draw.
“The mont you step outside this basent, your head will turn to ash and you’ll find yourself wandering Elysium. Not a bad deal for you, I suppose.”
Chestro stopped mid-stride, turning away from the staircase and back to the pair.
“How did you survive? How is this basent safe?” As far as Chestro knew, no amount of concrete would render a building safe from Solaris if he really wanted to get to you.
Marigold let go of her pipe and wiggled her withered fingers.
“Magic.”
“Mm-hmm,” Dave said, nodding before lighting a cigar and joining the old woman in polluting their limited air.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t smoke. It’s damaging to the lungs.” Chestro said. of course, he could filter out the smoke from his personal bubble, but it was tedious.
“You know,” Marigold said, pointing at him with her pipe. “I think I understand why my grandson doesn’t like you. You are a killjoy.”
“I don’t care.” Chestro muttered as he scanned the room for sothing that might be of use to him. If he could communicate with the rest of his brothers and sisters…get the word out, then maybe they could organize so kind of defense…
“It occurs to …How did you survive young man? How did you accidentally fall into the Fate dinsion?”
“I was exercising, felt sothing approach and reflexively dodged, using my powers. Fell into that odd reality.”
“You felt Solaris approaching?” Marigold asked, her posture tensing. The change in behavior drew Chestro’s attention back to her. He’d said sothing that gained her interest, and he was less than enthusiastic about that.
“I never said it was him I felt.” Chestro said.
“Right, I’m sure it was so other thing that chose that exact mont to try and kill you.” Marigold said, setting her pipe aside and walking up to him, seizing his head between her hands and peering into his eyes with the clinical efficiency of a doctor assessing a concussion.
“Are you telling you spread your senses out across Fate without any kind of training and used the forewarning to dodge a man literally moving at the speed of light?”
“I never said any of that.”
“And then you entered Fate, and, again, without any training, learned rudintary navigation, enough to seek us out for assistance?” She asked, checking his pulse.
“Again, did not say that.” Chestro said.
“Young man, would you like to beco my apprentice?” Marigold asked.
“Looking for soone to give your grandson a challenge again?” Chestro asked. “I’m sorry, but I’m not interested in-“
“Bah,” Marigold scowled, her hand slashing through Chestro’s refusal. “My grandson can fend for himself. He’s made that abundantly clear. The focus of this conversation is you.”
“Imagine you’re a Krath Crystal hobbiest.” Marigold said, letting go of him and pacing to the little table she’d been using to converse with Dave.
“No idea what that ans.” Chestro said.
“You spend your entire life growing the nicest Karth crystals you possibly can, going out into the wild and finding new, exotic crystals, polishing them into works of art.”
Chestro raised a brow.
“You get towards the end of your life, and you look back on your work and thing to yourself. ‘I’m satisfied with my life, I’ve made so of the finest Karth crystals the world has ever seen’. So you retire, put all your skills into polishing one final Karth crystal – the ungrateful little shit – and you think you’re happy. You’ve done all there is to do, seen all there is to see.”
“Then one day, there’s an earthquake. And while sheltering from the earthquake, you notice that one of the nearby boulders that you’ve taken for granted all this ti has split open, and contains a Karth crystal as big as a man with such perfect clarity and brilliance that in the right hands…it could surpass anything that ever ca before it.” Marigold’s eyes glittered with passion.
“Pass,” Chestro said, turning toward the staircase. He’d take his chances with getting his head vaporized.
Maybe if I go completely invisible, I can feel my way to Warp’s ho.
“I’ll teach you how to get in and out of Fate at will. How to sense Solaris coming. How the highest rank of Mages battle in the arena of Fate. How to be strong enough to beat Solaris. He’s talented, like you. Solaris is so highly Attuned that he naturally connects to Fate without training. It enhances his senses and fuels his paranoia.” Marigold said.
“Lets him see people that should be invisible, as long as those things leave a wake behind them as they pass through Fate. But it’s spotty, erratic, and untrained. Without training, what Solaris has is simply very good gut instinct. If you fight him without my training in how a proper mage fights, he will beat you through experience. He’s got a hundred years of it.”
Chestro paused, halfway to the staircase.
“And what do you want in return?” he asked over his shoulder.
Marigold shrugged. “I want to create a monster.”
Chestro turned to Face Marigold completely.
“My original na was twelve forty-two. I was plucked from a batch of no less than five million embryos based on a strict criteria which weeded out anything less than physical perfection. My batch was the first one, two thousand individuals who were raised with the strictest possible regin by a madman who through so twisted sense of paternal pride, wished to create a legacy that would outlast him. Hundreds of our batch died in training. Either from exhaustion, sparring, punishnt, even the occasional suicide. I survived.
“But I didn’t just survive. I thrived. I climbed roughshod over the bodies of my brothers and sisters to beco the most powerful, most loyal soldier that Neuron had ever produced. I am Neuron’s Magnum Opus.”
“So believe when I tell you,” Chestro said, stepping closer to the old woman. “When I hear an egomaniacal narcissist like my father, assert that I am an unworked gemstone and all it would take is their strong hand to make whole, I find it reductive, and insulting.”
“Gods, I want to teach you even more now.” Marigold mused.
“I’ll help!” Dave said. “I’ll keep the witch from sinking her claws into you, kid.”
“Tsk.” Marigold clicked her tongue.
Chestro glanced at Dave, who watched their exchange with eagerness.
“Let’s talk terms.” He said, pulling a chair up to their table.
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