Vigil

[Ironsmith]

[Khafir's Examination]

As far as that goes, Khafir is correct. This entity could not find home in anyone else's head before, it is not likely to do so now, not on its own, anyway. For now, it is contained with Khafir - it may see all sorts of things, but it cannot communicate them to anyone but her and Calm Reed. It certainly cannot stop Calm Reed from pursuing the course of action she deems most appropriate. Though Khafir might.

---

[Deciphering Cylinders]

Inside the substitute's dream, LB-M looks at Geneva as if she just said something deeply silly. Then she sighs and stands up, or rather, stretches into an upright position while floating. A veil of glyphs descends on her and forms into a tight-fitting blue jumpsuit that covers her from toe to neck.

After this, she crosses her lega again and floats closer to the ground. She rubs her chin while Geneva explains the situation. "I see. Based on your account, I suppose I was not assembled from ready-made parts, but rather, reverse-engineered from another mechanism." Why else use three different mediums? "The number of iterations interests me, because my verification pattern has gone missing, or was not included in my assembly. Because of that, I cannot tell how many simulations of me there have been before me, nor how many layers removed this virtual reality is from physical reality. I can only tell I'm not the original."

In the outside world, the little robot zooms to the door and LB2's holographic avatar hurries to greet Lapis. "Hello. I'm, um, well, LB2, for short. Pleased to meet you. I hope to see you at work soon, I'm very curious about what kind of a monster you are."

[Deciphering Cylinders]

The human hangup over clothing COULD be considered very silly from some perspectives.

But it's still very much a human hangup and therefor one of Geneva's hangups.

She even wears clothing while she's a mew. And mews are weird fuzzy floating pink cats.

"That's right. An original device was found and disassembled. Another instance was constructed from studying that. Your assembly was based on studying that instance as well as another artifact recovered from the same location," Geneva explains. "This simulation is one step removed from reality, arguably. Two other simulations have been created, if somewhat accidentally. The goal with this experiment was to repeat that process in a more controlled environment. We weren't even sure if the simulation would result in another mind being created."

You can't science something properly unless you do it a whole bunch of times.

But now they know, right?

Meanwhile!

"I'm so happy to see you again Miss Eun I'm glad you're doing well!" Lapis replies brightly. And then the... machine? talks to her? "Oh your projection thing is so shiny I love it! I'm not a monster Miss Elbeetwo I'm a little girl."

Obviously.

Just a regular old half drow girl in a VIGIL groundskeeper uniform sized for her. Her most striking feature, probably, are the yellow freckles dusted across dusky bluish skin.

But that's an easy mistake to make, sometimes. Sometimes you mistake little girls for monsters.

"Lapis we're currently trying to learn somethings about how LB2 and the other entities like her function. We're suspecting they might use hyper-dimensional storage. It might be something like what you do, or it might be something a little different. We were hoping you could look around for us and tell us what you see, as best you can describe it," Geneva requests.

At this Lapis wrinkles her nose a little.

"Talking about others ways is hard but I'll try my best!" she says right before taking a quick little jaunt outways and promptly vanishes from observable reality. Drifting is of course a normal and natural thing to her. Moving in other directions is easy, even if it makes space nearby a little snarled up for a bit. Saying that she's looking at everything 'from above' isn't exactly right. At least not in the way someone might think. More like she's looking at everything from the inside out. Trying to put observation of hyper-spatial dimensions into words is, as Lapis said, hard.

[Khafir's Examination]

"Then it seems my initial examination is complete." Calm Reed breathes out, her feelings ambivalent. "I will report my findings to the commanders and await their judgement. As with everything connected to that structure, this situation seems complex."

[Khafir's Examination]

"Quite." Khafir gives a little nod. "Until then, I will be in my laboratory if you have any need of me." She then turns and walks to the door, sliding it open and closed again with a smooth, practiced motion.

That was a rather uninformative meeting, at least for the moment. But at least her obligations to VIGIL are momentarily satisfied. And perhaps she does not need to know too much about the thing living in her head now. Perhaps it's just enough to know that it's there and she's standing between it and oblivion. It has thus far been... uncooperative, but that's to be expected. So long as it is unwilling to harm her and unable to harm anyone else, she suspects its presence will quickly become a non-issue.


[Deciphering Cylinders]

Eun gives Lapis a little smile as she returns her greeting, but doesn't find the time, or the nerve, to say much of anything else. For now, she simply confirms what Geneva says with a nod and tries not to look mildly disturbed when Lapis vanishes from sight.

[Hraithre]

[Khafir's Examination]

The entity disappears from the mirror when Khafir leaves, but it does not disappear from Khafir's vision. It's still there, following her at the edges of her sight, like an additional shadow. Plotting. Providing silent commentary on the situation just by being there and, seemingly, reacting to the things around it. But surely, Khafir can deal with such distractions...

---

[Deciphering Cylinders]

LB2 does not know what a "drow" is, nevermind how to make half of one. To her, Lapis's form looks like another weirdly colored human. Oh! Maybe she's ingested the super power elixir, like Felicity?

For Lapis, searching for extra-dimensional qualities of the Lantern AIs is a bit like looking up from a pool of water. She can see four unusual shadows above her on the surface. One of them is LB2's small power generator, causing slight ripples through the water. It's sort of like a school of fish swimming near bopper of a fishing hook.

The other three correspond to Geneva and her substitutes. Geneva Prime and her control substitute are surrounded by a halo of light, making their silhouettes clear, but they only seem to be dipping their toes in the water, so to speak. The sleeping substitute inside the Bifrost chamber has a considerably larger shadow and is displacing a lot more water, like the hull of a boat. Lapis might get the feeling that something could make said boat sink, removing it from observable reality and placing it entirely where she is now... wherever that is.

The same observations also suggest that while there are no extradimensional connections between LB2, Geneva and LB-M now, there could be. Furthermore, a mechanism might exist to make them all sink in the same direction... or, less ambitiously, send a signal to that direction?

But what is in that direction?

Well, not much. Or it might be that whatever's there is simply too dark for Lapis to find without prior knowledge of where to look.

In the observable reality, LB2's holographic avatar gives confused looks to Eun and Geneva Prime. "Well that was quick. Where do you think she went?"

Inside Geneva's dream vision, LB-M rubs her chin and nods. "Hmmm. I understand. For what it's worth, I'm not sure either if I would have developed a mind without you connecting into me. Kind of a waste to have a mind without another minds to communicate with. So, what now? Where do you plan to take this experiment?"

[Rebonack]

[Deciphering Cylinders]

Going to be honest here, Lapis biology really isn't particularly different from 'weirdly colored human'. Elves really aren't that different from humans aside from being long lived and having a weird sleep-cycle.

Regardless! Lapis puzzles over these things. There's something there, clearly. But it isn't a thing she recognizes. And there are lots of things she recognizes when she drifts! But sometimes there are strange things. Things she doesn't recognize. Sadly Lapis' base of knowledge isn't very expansive, so she really isn't sure what she's looking at.

Just that there's something there.

As always, those in the room will get a roots of the brain feeling that something is watching them. Potentially something dangerous. That 'there's a tiger in the grass' sort of feeling.

Lapis considers all these things and then makes her return.

When she pops back in she's careful to make a nice sounding chiming noise ring softly before she appears. It's something she's done when Miss Eun is around before because she discovered that it makes Miss Eun not feel as anxious as a result. And Lapis doesn't want her friend to feel anxious that's bad and sad! And Lapis doesn't wish to contribute to either of those things.

"Hello again Missus Geneva I looked around like you asked and there's a thing that's making lots of energy and it's doing like this-"

Lapis makes a bobbing motion with her hand which is probably altogether unhelpful.

"And there's a way all the things can go but it's too dark I can't tell what was there? I think it's doing space things I'm not very good at space things Missus Geneva I'm sorry but I think there's another bigger thing in that other way but it's not a way I know a lot about and also maybe it's hiding or I don't know the right place to look but I think the kitty-"
She points at the sleeping Geneva.
"-might be able to go there."

Well.

That's certainly an info dump of sorts. Maybe not the most useful information BUT it does tell Eun and Geneva that they're dealing with some sort of extra-dimensional storage. This sounds like it may be consistent with the observation that the flywheel devices are able to make pocket universes of a sort.

"Do you want me to try moving to the dark spot I think I probably could maybe or dividing a path to it?" Lapis inquires.

Meanwhile!

Geneva laughs at that observation.

"I know what you mean. Being stuck with only your own thoughts can get old pretty fast. It's missing friendship," she replies. "As far as where it's going... I think we've gathered most of the pertinent data we can by running this simulation. It might take some time, but if you would like we can assemble a physical vessel for you in non-simulated space and transfer you to it. You would have quite a bit more freedom than what's available here in the simulation I'm running in my mind."

The process wouldn't be too terribly different from transferring a pokemon from storage out into the real world. After all, a pokemon hanging out in a box exists only as information waiting to be actualized.

[Morty]

[Superhero Training]

One week, when Ambrosia drops by Vigil like she usually does, she will see someone new with Wenomir. It seems that he's been visited by a very large crocodile woman and they might even be waiting for Ambrosia together.

[Small, Broken Things]

Unfortunately, the first person Lapis encounters is someone notoriously devoid of any sort of magic, except perhaps supernatural martial arts. But certainly nothing that Lapis needs. Wenomir is training his new pet raptor, teaching her to avoid obstacles. Coco seems happy enough for the exercise.

[Shadowcaller]

[Superhero Training]

Wenomir doesn't usually stand around, especially not with someone Ambrosia had never seen before. So she does stop and pause when she sees the pair. But as they don't introduce themselves first it looked like it was up to her. "Hello, Wenomir." She calls out with her hand raised in a greeting. "Waiting for someone?"

[Halae]

[Superhero Training]

The massive woman is currently seated nearby, sitting on the ground with a book in her lap, "As a matter of fact, yes," she says, her teeth pulling up in a ghastly smile, "You're Ambrosia?"

She's currently wearing a tight top that only really covers her chest, as well as a pair of athletic shorts, and next to nothing else.

[Rebonack]

[Small, Broken Things]

Oh!

There's Mister Wenomir and his pet-
Lapis squints her eyes just a little. She doesn't HAVE to in order to do Seer things but Lapis finds it's easier to connect actions to motions rather than something more abstract.
-Coco the Raptor?

It looks silly and poofy!

And suspiciously like a bird.

But Mister Wenomir said Lapis doesn't have to chase the birds away from VIGIL anymore so that is probably okay.

"Mister Wenomir I found a problem!" Lapis calls out before jogging toward the warrior and his pet. "I want to tell you about the problem but first I want to tell you that your raptor is so poofy and fluffy I love it!"

That's very important to get out of the way first.

"And the problem is this!"

She holds up the dead, frozen squirrel for Wenomir to see.

"I found this squirrel when I was moving snow and I think it's been under the snow since last Tuesday and some of it's parts aren't in the right places anymore and so I need to find someone who knows how to fix squirrels so this one can be made better and do squirrel things again."

Surely with all the amazing magical adventurers at VIGIL there must be at least ONE expert squirrel fixer.

[Hraithre]

[Deciphering Cylinders]

LB2's avatar looks thoughtful at Lapis's explanation, then starts jumping up and down in excitement. "Oh! Oh! I know what's happening!" She looks around, scratches her head, then extends an arm and creates an additional projection of what looks like a blackboard.

"That bopping thing is, I think, either me or Dr. Richard's copy causing vibrations in dimensions beyond the third", she says, drawing a line on her virtual board, with Geneva above it, sometimes dipping slightly below. "The line here is a sort of dimensional boundary. What's above is in observable reality, what's below is, um, elsewhere. If Dr. Richards moved in a particular way, she would, um... well, she would still occupy three dimensions, but they wouldn't be these dimensions. Ah, it's starting to make more sense now."

She doodles more on her board. It ought to start looking more and more familiar to Eun, being a transposition of Geneva's co-ordinates from one dimensional grid to another. "So, I think, if Dr. Richards's substitute tried to physically enter her own mind, she would end up completely under. She'd be invisible to us, but she'd be where Lapis went. And then, Lapis could enter the same space. Maybe. I mean, I still don't know how Dr. Richards could do it, but obviously Lapis can..."

Inside the dream vision, LB-M looks surprised. "You could... do that?" Apparently she has not yet reached all the same conclusions as LB2. "I mean... sure, why not?", she says and shrugs. "I doubt it would be worth it to move all of me.... but just this avatar, yeah, sure."

[Rebonack]

[Deciphering Cylinders]

Lapis is always full of explanations.

Often they aren't very helpful or comprehensible, but they're always delivered with a great deal of enthusiasm.

"Another universe, then?" Geneva inquires. There's another possibility that fits the description that's being used, but she wants to make sure she's properly understanding it. "Because Project Bifrost is meant to bridge between universes suspended in the higher-dimensional landscape."

That's the whole point of Geneva's research, generally speaking.

"This isn't too much of a surprise. We already knew this technology can propagate pocket-universes. And if it can generate them and facilitate travel between them then there's no reason not to use those additional spaces."

Lapis glances between the holographic girl and Geneva. Nobody answered her question! But that's okay. Grownups don't always answer Lapis' questions.

Meanwhile!

"We COULD move all of you. We aren't sure what the long term effects of mentally simulating this technology would be," Geneva admits.

That is, in part, why they're running this experiment with one copy interfacing with it, one copy NOT interfacing with it, and a third copy not simulating it at all. Experimental vigor is important!

"That's an interesting point, though. How mobile is your avatar, apart from the systems you're associated with? Would your avatar continue to function even disconnected from what we've been calling the flywheel? I suppose I'm questioning how intrinsically linked the mind interface and the equipment are."

[Morty]

[Superhero Training]

"Yes. We were waiting for you, as it happens." Wenomir gestures to Emily. "Emily here came to me seeking training. But I think you might be a better match for her."

[Small, Broken Things]

Coco makes small "woo" and "wok" sounds in Lapis' direction. But when Lapis reveals the dead squirrel, she immediately tries to approach it and grab it. Wenomir crouches down and restrains her gently. He's not sure what to say at first. Does Lapis have no concept of death?

"I'm sorry, Lapis, but this squirrel is dead. There's no fixing it."

[Rebonack]

[Small, Broken Things]

Coco obviously knows what dead squirrels are for.

Lapis is less clear on the matter.

She looks down at the squirrel in her hands, then back at the commander and his pet.

"But magic is good at putting things back together. Isn't there magic for fixing squirrels?" Lapis inquires. She's sure there must be. Magic can do all sorts of impossible things. Like making stuff out of darkness even though darkness isn't a thing!

The extent of Lapis' understanding of what magic can and can't do is pretty limited. She just knows it is strange and can do things that shouldn't be possible. She could make all the squirrel's shapes Correct again. Lapis is sure of this. But Mother warned her against that. Because even though Lapis could make a thing with the shape of a squirrel, it wouldn't be a squirrel.

Not really.

It would be missing something.

Something important.

The hopes and dreams of a squirrel.

Lapis only has her own purpose to give. Not the purpose of squirrels.

[Morty]

[Small, Broken Things]

Oh, by the Riddle. Wenomir is very familiar with death, but magic? Not so much. He might be the worst person around to explain this to Lapis. But he's what she's got right now.

"I'm afraid not. Death is one of those things we mortals can't fix. Not easily, at least. And trying to evade it often ends poorly. Everything comes to an end, including squirrels. We can just hope it had a good squirrel life and did squirrel things."

[Shadowcaller]

[Superhero Training]

"Ah." The scholar now takes a more scrutinizing look at the giant of a woman next to Wenomir.

She gives her a nod in response to her question. "That I am and you're looking for martial practice then?" Her tone is casual, gesturing at the other woman.

[Halae]

[Superhero Training]

Emily folds her hands behind her back, straightening up. It makes her taller as the hunch in her back straightens, though this clearly wouldn't be a comfortable pose for her to maintain for long given her odd anatomy, "That's the idea. I'm not a beginner, but there's always more to learn. I came to Wenomir because he has significant skill in battle against entities that are stronger than him, which seems to me to be a skill you need in general. I'm large, but I'm not trucking around with super strength and whatnot."

[Morty]

[Superhero Training]

"I don't know if I can take another student now. Especially one whose body is different than mine. But I remembered that you were going to come here today. So I thought it was worth asking." As Wenomir speaks, a small and fluffy green raptor comes running, headbutts him and runs off again. "You have your own style that might suit Emily's better."

[Shadowcaller]

[Superhero Training]

Ambrosia tilts her head upwards as Emily straightens her back.

...

Was she sure she didn't have super-strength? Since it seemed like it would at least take a lot more than ordinary strength to even maintain a body like that. Depended on how you defined super-strength she supposed.

"Erm... well, tell me a little about yourself and your goal with your training then, Emily. Since I'm not even sure what I could teach you."

[Halae]

[Superhero Training]

"A lot of the focus of my training is getting a handle on the flow of combat, as well as unarmed combat in striking and grappling styles. The problem I'm running into is the fact that I don't actually have any weapons training, and melee weapons are fairly common here in the Nexus."

Emily is carrying a gun on her hip, beneath the waist cape she always seems to be wearing, but that's not a great option versus many targets. Nonlethal is the name of the game, and the pistol on her belt is meant for hunting tanks.

[Shadowcaller]

[Superhero Training]

"I see..." Ambrosia does take note of the gun. Seemed like a practical thing to have on your person if you expected to get into fights which Emily seemed to be counting on. "But you didn't actually answer my question though. You wish to be better at fighting but why do you fight? Since I would argue that's a much more important question than the how. What is your end goal here, Emily?"

[Halae]

[Superhero Training]

"We live in a dangerous place," Emily points out, "Leaving aside the fact that I simply enjoy fighting for its own sake, I want to be prepared for anything that might be a threat. I have power given my body, and call to use said power for the benefit of others. I can fight threats that others can't, so I should. But I also want to be able to walk away from those fights."

[Magtok]

[Far Too Early]

"It really looks like we have no option better than simply following Magtok's plan and trying to adapt as we go." Wenomir isn't thrilled by the prospect. It takes considerable willpower to accept the notion that Magtok might have a good idea. Being reminded about DC doesn't help his mood any. "Sending non-sapient distractions like mechanical drones and magical constructs as the first wave to distract him might help."

Wenomir's mention of mechanical drones has Magtok flinching in discomfort. Shoot, he's obligated to build some Magbots and send them to the front lines, isn't he? He'll just have to ignore the little voice in his head telling him Sunny would be disgusted by him, that throwing sapient beings into battle without any concern for their well-being is awful and terrible. He really thought he was going to be able to stand by his oath to never build another Magbot, blegh. I guess we can just stop building them as soon as Prime's defeated and let this one emergency end-of-the-world exception slide. We can agree to let any of the survivors go free when we're done, too.

"I suppose you're right. I'll have something built by the time this gets underway," he reluctantly concedes. "How soon do you expect that'll be, anyway?" he asks, eager to get a time and a date finalized so he can walk out of here and go lie down in his lair. No reasonable human being should be up when the sun is rising; it's sick and unnatural to be awake so horrifically early.

[Shadowcaller]

[Superhero Training]

"So you actively seek out these fights then?" Since it didn't sound she expected to just wander into them. Then again, in the nexus people seemed to do just that. "And what is your objective once you find them? Since there's many ways to benefit others."
But before she let's Emily reply she wanted to clarify something. "I hope you don't mind me asking you these questions."

[Halae]

[Superhero Training]

"Of course. It's only sensible to ask," Emily says, "My objective is to get anybody who's in danger back out of it. There was a hydra that rampaged through a village a while back - if someone who had the training to handle it was in the area, it likely wouldn't have resulted in so many deaths. Fighting isn't the only thing I do, as I also like to cook and help with manual labor," she certainly has the muscles for carrying things, "But if I can't protect someone when there's a clear and present threat, that's a problem, and I've found there's always room to grow in combat skill."

[Shadowcaller]

[Superhero Training]

"So just to clarify, you tried to evacuate the location before trying to deal with the threat?" She inquires without any judgement in her words. "Since as I said, there are many ways to benefit others and in such a tense situation the choices we make can have drastic impact. It's often we find second-guessing the choices we make. Questioning if perhaps the outcome would have been better if we did things differently." Ambrosia pauses.

"So say you come across a violent conflict between two groups with civilians involved in the mix, is your first priority to find out what's going on or try to swiftly put down the conflict? Since the two aren't necessarily unrelated. Furthermore, how much force would you use to stop the conflict? Would you kill if you think that would stop them?"

[Far Too Early]

"I feel we should withhold this for as long as you think it's safe so we can prepare for it as much as possible. There is so much that can potentially go wrong here that we should have combat rehearsals of this scenario first." Though not on-screen of course. "Since ideally we should be able to contain it to the base, correct? That would make the outcome at least somewhat predictable."

[Halae]

[Superhero Training]

"You mean the hydra? I actually wasn't present for that emergency; it's something I heard about after the fact, and felt it was a good example of the danger the Nexus can pose. Were I there, my first priority would have been to prevent civilian casualties - if that means locking down the hydra, that's what I'd do. If it meant evacuating the civilians, that's what I'd do. There's no hard and fast rules for emergencies; you need to judge the situation based on the details of that situation."

Emily continues, "As for your hypothetical scenario, it depends on who the civilians are, and whether they have specific leaders, ah, leading them. Were I to come across that kind of situation, I'd want to take a quick look at everything that's going on, so to answer your question I'd investigate first. But it's the sort of investigation that's on an incredibly short time limit - long enough to identify who the major players are, maybe the point of the conflict, and then I intervene."

"For force..." Emily clearly puts some consideration into the question, and clearly takes a moment to come up with the right words, "... I consider killing to be like medicine. It has to be applied precisely to an infection, done carefully by those trained in how to handle it, and too much is poisonous. It can be extremely useful in the right circumstances, but you need to meet those circumstances for it to be the right solution."

[Hraithre]

[Deciphering Cylinders]

"They're rather small to call them universes", LB2 comments while rotating her drawing of Geneva on her virtual board. "I would rather just call them adjacent spaces. Or maybe it would be easier to conceptualize as one, big space that's mostly empty? Like, it's not like everyday objects couldn't exist there, they just don't, because their measurements in those directions are negligible without being excited in a very particular way... She appears lost in thought, when something clicks. "Ah, wait. That chamber is meant to do that? Bridge universes, I mean." She points to where Geneva's substitute is still sleeping. "Maybe, if a copy of it was built inside your other self's mind... or my virtual landscape... that would allow for the transfer to happen. Or maybe that's an unnecessary extra step. Let's see..." She writes down a complex series of co-ordinates on her board. "What kind of inputs does your system accept? Can it send an item to this address?"

Meanwhile, in the dream vision:

"The wheel provides the impulse for my core cellular automaton, and vice versa", LB-M answers, "If the wheel is halted, so am I. But, this avatar, the thing my cells are processing, is constructed of human and mew genetic information. Those are expressible in other ways. I mean, maybe this avatar would lose some functionality compared to me now", she shrugs, "but nothing that would be important to my personhood, if I have such a thing." Following Geneva's own analogy, it would be like moving a Pokemon from one storage box to another. This box would be emptied, with lot of the architecture she's simulating now left purposeless, but then again, did she mean to keep it running forever in the first place?

[Rebonack]

[Small, Broken Things]

But Wenomir KNOWS lots of people who know magic.

Some better than others.

That counts for something, right?

Lapis looks down at the dead squirrel again. "But... mortals make new living things. Missus Sakura does it all the time! If that's so easy then why is making the squirrel alive again so hard?"

She considers this an immanently reasonable question.

And wrinkles her nose at the proclamation that everything comes to an end. That doesn't seem right to her, somehow. There's a shade of truth to it, but it isn't the whole truth. It isn't a Correct statement.

"Even death? Does death come to an end, too?"


[Deciphering Cylinders]

"They ARE small. But a universe can be small, as well. It's more accurate than calling them 'pocket dimensions'," Geneva says, looking irritated at just the THOUGHT of people referring to them as dimensions. "The term 'brane' is applicable, of course. But not quite as widely known. This universe is a brane, as are others. As are any other three dimensional spaces embedded in the higher dimensional bulk. But that's just playing symantics. Just so long as you aren't calling them dimensions, haha*snort*ha!"

There it is.

No calling adjacent spaces dimensions! Dimensions are directions!

"Oh I didn't explain what the Bifrost Chamber was actually for, did I? But yes! It uses a five-dimensional co-ordinate system to target the egressive end of the Einstein-Rosen bridges it creates. As you might imagine there's a WHOLE LOT of space out in the bulk, so getting the right co-ordinates for another brane is tricky! Thankfully other branes regularly intersect with the Nexus and that allows me to calculate their velocity and trajectories through the higher-dimensional space."

She eyes the coordinates displayed on the board.

"That SHOULD be possible. I take it those are the coordinates for the 'adjacent space' you were describing?"

This whole conversation is totally going over Lapis' head, meanwhile. She knows that it has something to do with Missus Geneva's work but-

OH! Oh how could Lapis have forgotten! Everything has been so busy! She draws a little box wrapped with colorful paper out of her inventory and holds it out to a certain note-taking scientist nearby. "Miss Eun I forgot to give you your Thanksmas present I'm really sorry so here it is now."

Meanwhile!

"That's interesting. Would you say the flywheel is more a mechanism you can inhabit and operate, then? My understanding, based on the information we have on you, is that you were meant to be an interface between the mechanism and a living mind attached to it. Exactly what we're doing now," Geneva muses. "Though given that your avatar is a pokemon I suppose it shouldn't be that surprising you could be transferred out of the simulated medium and into the physical world. That's a function we all have, even if we're usually a bit limited in our ability to move freely in the simulation. If we built a physical replica of the flywheel device would you still have a desire to carry out the function of a mind-to-machine interface? Or do you find yourself largely detached from the role this machine was created for?"

Geneva thinks this is a pretty important question. Sometimes artificially created beings have a great deal of trouble disassociating from the purpose they were made to fill. If that were the case with LB-M then the inability to carry out that purpose could be potentially detrimental to her.

[Shadowcaller]

[Superhero Training]

"You mean the hydra? I actually wasn't present for that emergency; it's something I heard about after the fact, and felt it was a good example of the danger the Nexus can pose. Were I there, my first priority would have been to prevent civilian casualties - if that means locking down the hydra, that's what I'd do. If it meant evacuating the civilians, that's what I'd do. There's no hard and fast rules for emergencies; you need to judge the situation based on the details of that situation."

Emily continues, "As for your hypothetical scenario, it depends on who the civilians are, and whether they have specific leaders, ah, leading them. Were I to come across that kind of situation, I'd want to take a quick look at everything that's going on, so to answer your question I'd investigate first. But it's the sort of investigation that's on an incredibly short time limit - long enough to identify who the major players are, maybe the point of the conflict, and then I intervene."

"For force..." Emily clearly puts some consideration into the question, and clearly takes a moment to come up with the right words, "... I consider killing to be like medicine. It has to be applied precisely to an infection, done carefully by those trained in how to handle it, and too much is poisonous. It can be extremely useful in the right circumstances, but you need to meet those circumstances for it to be the right solution."

[Superhero Training]

"I see, you sound like more of a defender than an avenger..." The scholar gives Emily's answer an thoughtful nod before she turns to look at Wenomir. "Have you seen her in action, Wenomir? What would your assessment of her be seeing that you turned to me for this?"

[Ironsmith]

[Deciphering Cylinders]

Eun's expression brightens as she watches LB2 write up her coordinates, a look of genuine excitement on her face. They might not be dealing with the omega axis, but spatial mechanics get fun once they start including imaginary numbers. Since that starts bringing about implications of literal negative space, which in turn creates room for more complex matter synthesis effects, and-

Hm? Lapis wants something, it looks like. Eun can put down her clipboard for a moment to see what that would be.

"My... what?" Eun stops, looking down at the present and then back up at Lapis. "Oh. That's... that's very kind of you, but you didn't have to..."

Oh, geez. Eun thought they were done with Thanksmas. Not that she minded it when it was here, but there's a time and a place for this sort of thing, and in a lab in the middle of an experiment isn't either of them.

But... she might not want to disappoint the girl who introduced herself making a tiny nuclear reactor.

Eun takes the present to a nearby table and starts unwrapping it, systematically peeling the tape with her nails until she can simply unfold the wrapping paper and see what's inside.

[Morty]

[Small, Broken Things]

"It's easier to bring something new to life than to bring something back. This squirrel was born from a mom squirrel and a dad squirrel, just like Adir and Sakura's children." Wenomir puts on his best "explaining things to children" voice. "I don't know if death will come to an end too. All I know is that living things must reach an end someday."

[Superhero Training]

"I asked her to demonstrate her fighting style and I believe I got a good measure of it." It doesn't take long for Wenomir to assess someone's martial ability. "She's been learning how to properly use her prodigious strength and size. I think your style suits this better than mine. You wear heavier armor and use a heavier sword. You're stronger than I am, too, even though you're shorter. My style focuses a lot on avoidance rather than meeting enemies head-on."

[Rebonack]

[Small, Broken Things]

Lapis considers these words. She thinks about all of her friends. She thinks about all the beautiful people she's met. She thinks about mommies and daddies and children, reaching backwards through time in an unbroken chain.

And she thinks about death.

"Everyone dies. Even you and Miss Cessie?"

And then, in a very small voice.

"Even Cora and Lucy?"

She can't grasp it. It doesn't seem right that one day her friends will just...

Stop.

Lapis is silent now. She knows what the answer will be. But she doesn't like it.