Thread:FleetCaptainT/@comment-27324808-20180218063129

63

 “Name?”

 “Intrepid Fusion Eclipse.”

 “Date of birth?”

 He provided it.

 “Sign please.”

 He set down his duffel bag and did so.  The front end receptionist smiled.  “Have a good day, Mr. Eclipse,” she said, and he picked up the bag and left through the glass doors.

 It was a week after the battle when Intrepid was set free from the residential care ward in Nexus Tower.  Proximity to the Imagination Nexus, according to experts, would accelerate his healing, which it did.  The field medics on Elistra had quick-fixed his spinal cord, which was one of the reasons he was still alive.  There were other reasons, he suspected, that he hadn’t yet been able to confirm from a hospital bed.  But now he was out and about, so ideally he only needed to find some acquaintances to get that answered.

 He didn’t need to go far, he ran into seven in the lounge across the hall, watching the transport ships dock and undock at the landing pads.  Most were seated facing the windows, but Shira was leaning boredly on a pillar, earbuds on, but when she saw him enter she perked up.

 Instead of saying anything, she began to clap.

 The others turned around.  Luke and Mara Mercury tore off their couches and nearly sent Intrepid back into the recovery ward with their suffocatingly tight embrace.  Luke let go quickly enough.  “You’re baaaaaack,” Mara sobbed, clutching him around the ribs tighter.

 “I appreciate the reception,” Intrepid said, trying to push her off.  Then he glanced at the others.

 Edgar was taking long strides toward him.  “Good to see you back,” the young man said, hand stretched forward.  Intrepid reached around Mara to grip it and they shook.  He saw Cyclone and Kate off to the side, standing together, and at them Intrepid nodded.  They smiled back.  Then he saw the other girl standing next to Shira, and time seemed to stop.

 Mara let go of him and he took a halting step towards them.  Then another.  When she was within an arm's length he raised a hand, tentatively, and felt the fabric of her coat, held up by the firmness of her shoulders.  She reached up with her own hand and cupped the back of his.

 “I didn’t think I’d see you again,” Intrepid said at last.

 “No, me neither.” Evelyne said.

 He held her gaze for a long while, only looking away to look around.  Shira and Evelyne were the only others of his kin present, which could only suggest... some things had changed, and some things hadn’t.

 He continued looking around.  In both directions the Nexus Tower hallways were empty to the next cross junctions, where no one he recognized were visible for the fleetest of moments.  He would have expected one more person to be around.  “Where’s Red?” he said at last.

 No one spoke.  Cyclone and Kate glanced at each other.  Edgar opened his mouth, and closed it again, as if he had something to say but wasn’t sure how to phrase it.  “She is,” he started

 “She’s gone,” Shira inserted.  “But... not like, dead, or missing.”

 “I saw her,” Cyclone said, “after you and Kate reappeared.  You were both out cold, but one moment she was standing there with you, the next,” he made a flashing gesture with his hands, “poof.”

 Typical.  “So the battle was... won?” Intrepid said.  “Is the war over?”

 “We have a lot to fill you in on.” Edgar said.

...

 After the Unverse cementer went off and the scar was sealed, evident by the blackness between it turning a nondescript gray, all Maelstrom activity from the other dimension began to self destruct, as Cyclone put it.  The Maelstrom landers had smashed, the Spiderlings died, the mechs deactivated, and Stromlings keeled over and died, smashing and leaving their stolen Nexus Force armor.  The Darkitect had deformed into a pool of sludge that evaporated within seconds, before having a chance to fully pool.  Without a link to their source dimension, none of the purely Maelstrom manifestations could be maintained across the divide.  They had killed a Darkitect, but not before many brave fighters were felled.

 As expected, all transdimensional devices were rendered inoperable by the change in Unverse state.  Assembly and Paradox researches who had begun to study it, with the help of those from the Future Dimension who had crossed over, theorized that the device had altered the entire composition of matter in the space between spaces.  It could not be separated by Maelstrom anymore.  The technology developed to traverse it so far all incorporated some amount of Maelstrom energy.  Unverse travel as they knew it was now impossible, the ability to travel to other dimensions was gone, but so was the threat of transdimensional Maelstrom.

 The Future Dimension’s Grand Masterly Shadow, Elite Distant Tofu, Skilled Honored Ninja, Cailan and Crimson Mercury, and Tiberius were known to be permanent residents now.  Strange Odd Shadow, from the so-called “Janitor Dimension” that was named after him, was accounted for as well.  So unless she’d very quickly skipped out, Red was still around somewhere, too, and Intrepid intended to find her.

 The revival of fifty Elistrans whose creative sparks were somehow maintained in a pocket dimension also had ramifications regarding the others in the Talmid family who were smashed.  They were not among the fifty, and neither were Hazel or Quinn.  Another variable to consider was the existence of another pocket dimension, which Intrepid and Kate had nearly fallen into, before Red rescued them.  The agglomeration of Unverse meant reaching these dimensions for the possibility of recovering more creative sparks was simply impossible.  But it brought about a change in status for all those lost on Elistra two years before.  They were no longer KIA, but MIA.  It was a change that allowed for hope.

...

 Night had fallen and cool winter air turned Intrepid’s breath to frost as he approached the coastal cliffs of Nimbus Station, overlooking the ocean expanse.  The grass was frosted beneath his boots, crunching with each step.  In the sky, the comet Frostburg was visible on its annual pass through the system.  Its otherworldly glow added to the myriad of other worlds, and the pillar of Imagination, casting their spectral reflections off the water, and illuminating the hillside in this undeveloped part of Nimbus Station.

 She was standing at the top of the incline, the edges of her cloak twitching in the slight breeze.  As he got close she turned around and withdrew her hood, so Intrepid could see her face.  She had done good to clean herself up, he was glad to see.  Her layers were cut uniformly shorter and her bangs were swept back.  Gone were the bruises of combat, and only one scar had formed on the right of her face, upon closer inspection.

 They were face to face.

 “Thirty days.” Intrepid broke the silence.  “People have been looking for you.”

 “I’ve counted too.” Red said evenly.  “I’ve come to a decision that required dislocation... it’s the time it took for me to reach it myself.  I couldn’t let anyone sway it.”

 He regarded her, and all that she’d been through, that he knew of, which admittedly didn’t amount to much.

 “You don’t need to be alone,” Intrepid stated with firmity.  “There’s people who care about you.  I care about you.”  He removed a hand from his sweater pocket, held it out in the frigid air, a beacon of warmth.  “Come with me.  Where else can you go?”

 She slid a hand out from her own cloak, started to repeat the gesture, to join hands and never separate them, but she stopped midway.  His hands lingered, waiting for contact.  He stared at her face.  She was looking down.

 “I’m sorry.” she said softly.  “Maybe one day, you’ll understand.”

 A whirlwind of blue clouds, spinning and expanding larger and faster opened behind her and she jumped backward.  There was light at the end of the tunnel, like sunlight.  Another world.  Another dimension.  Intrepid lunged forward, as if to grab her, but once she passed the threshold the vortex collapsed.  He stumbled through the space where she had been, falling into the frost and cursing in disbelief.

 He stayed on the ground, puffs of breath adding condensation to the blades of grass across from his face.  Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet, and unsteadily rose to contemplate what he’d just seen.

 A transdimensional maneuver.  Impossible, but she’d done it.  If she could do it, he could too.

 She could run, but he would find her.

End

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