I am Demistar.

I’m the highest authority in the airforce, but I mostly like to work alone, I’ve left primary management to my assistant Staravoir. Speaking of…

“Hey Stary!” I say, causing Stary to look at me, and back away. “What do you want?! And call me; ‘Stara’ damnit.” She says, less than pleased to hear my new favorite nickname. I’ve been holding onto this one for 33 years!

Stary is a bit cold, not that she’s without emotions like somebody else I know, but that she represses everything due to her ever so deep and dark past. “Aw... come on Stara, I know you’re in such pain, let me take care-” -and like that, she interrupts me quickly- “I’m fine you fool. Will you please stop trying to make that stupid story out of me?” Okay maybe she doesn’t have a deep and dark past. She was raised in Solstice, it’s a satellite village to Neotopia, she’s considered the pride and joy of Solstice City. It’s rare, but she’ll occasionally tell me about her life before her position.

“Fine…” I say, with a sad expression, trying to make her feel bad. “I guess I’ll just sit over here, and be sad…” Stara looks at me, with a flat expression, then walks away. “Good.” Damnit! I rush to her, and pick her up- “Unhand me damnit! Don’t make me file another complaint!” She shouts at me, trying to hit my head- “But I love you Stara!” I scream back at her, while clinging to her back- “You love everyone, you pervert! I’m not interested, damnit!” She snaps my arm off of its joint to break away, and toss it at me. She escapes while I move the arm back into position.

I exit from the window and reform myself in midair, extending my wings. I landed on Neo-Genesis-Haven, it was named after Genesis-Haven, and Neotopia by the Genesis-Family. Demitallis said it was their best way of showing gratitude.

I’m cloaking myself by changing my color, like a chameleon. I could make a skill for this, and it would probably work better than using my mechanical body’s built in abilities, but it would probably also cost way more mana.

I’m mostly just looking around, I also just wanted to say hi, Demitallis said they’d be leaving for the Kingdom of Rebirth.

I should give Helvetica another visit some time..

I can see everyone walking around, some of them are just staring at each other, while I can hear others talking, it lets you know who’s using telepathy and who isn’t. It’s weird to think about the fact that everyone knows each other here.

Enough looking around though, I should start greeting people.

Like a bullet, I dart up the side of the castle, I could fly, but sometimes it’s fun to practice my acrobatics. Ending with a frontflip, I spot Demitallis and deactivate my cloaking.

“Hi Demitallis!” I shout, staring into her massive basin, she’s absolutely massive, yet she barely even fills out a tenth of the thing. Now let’s see, I’ve been working on a program to connect to Demitallis via her telepathy link.

Demistar - “Hey!”

Demitallis - “What the- Does anyone hear that?”

Demistar - “Oh, is it not working?”

Flare - “I think somebody’s connected to the network, but it’s all staticky- like some sort of machine..”

Damn, I guess I haven’t tested the program enough yet. Still though, being able to connect and understand them is a success to begin with.

Demitallis - “Wait, is that you Demistar?”

“Yeah, it seems I still have some editing to do to the program.” I say, as I sit on the edge of Demitallis’s basin.

Demitallis - “Demistar, did you develop some sort of skill to connect to the network? My telepathy skill works as a mana network that can read and translate thought patterns, it also ignores certain thought patterns so you don’t get too much noise over the network. I can even send information and memories around with it. I’ll try and send you an untranslated message, so you can compare the two.”

I wait and listen for the message, it’s a garbled mess of noises and information. “Alright, I get it. I’ll try and analyze your’s for a moment, and edit mine around it real quick-” I quickly say-

. . .

Demistar - “Is it working now?”

Demitallis - “Oh shit, that’s weird.”

Demistar - “Your little thought translation skill is surprisingly advanced. It’s not very diverse though, so I had to rework my program to mimic a brain’s thought patterns, allowing your skill to translate the encrypted information.”

Demitallis - “It’s almost like there’s two of- Y-Yeah, I thought it was pretty clever too. Sorry I couldn’t come up with anything better though, it already took me long enough to develop something as complicated as that. I’ve been working on Encryption Magic though, so I should be able to cut out the middleman in it.”

Flare - “Where do you even get these ideas, Demi? Aren’t you still like, barely 6 weeks old?”

Demitallis - “Oh, um- I guess I was just born with it? I’m not really sure.”

Flare - “Uh huh… hey Demistar, what’s up?”

Demistar - “Oh, right, I simply just wanted to say hi, and talk with Demitallis for a bit. Not many people share ‘Demi’ with me, so I wanted to talk about it.”

Demitallis - “What DOES Demi mean anyways? And Tallis too-”

Flarenzerva arrives at the top of the tower, and flies over to me. I wave at her nonchalantly as I turn to look at her. “Your room is massive Demi! What do you need all the space for anyways?” She asks, as she stares into Demitallis’s endless abyss.

Demitallis - “Well, I needed a ton of room to expand, for when I’ll become a great lake elder, but then the nest took up a ton of room, so it was expanded outwards to accommodate.”

Flare nods slowly. “Right, Demi, let’s see.. Demi as a word means half, or inferior. In the context of naming, however, it speaks to potential, emphasizing the incomplete state of those of whom had been given the name. Tallis on the other hand speaks to great size, and power. I guess you were named Demitallis because of your nature as a Puddle Kid, you probably started out unable to eat properly, until you reached this power so quickly. Star on the other hand, it doesn’t have a Named-Meaning like Demi or Tallis, it’s kind of like the Gold in Arigold I guess, without the glorification.” I gave a minorly detailed description on how those names work..

This reminds me of when I was first born, barely a few micrometers larger than a white blood cell..

“Wait, you know how to develop a Complex Skill to read somebody’s mind, but you don’t even know what your name means?” Flare asks in disbelief, that IS pretty peculiar now that I think about it.

Demitallis - “IDM, or; ‘Involuntary Developmental Meltdown’ I’ve used it to make about half of my skills. Believe it or not, I CAN actually speak to you via soundwaves, I’ve got a skill I call Vocal Ripple. If I want to use it to any effectiveness though, I would have to activate IDM, which drains my mana and energy like nothing else.”

So that’s how she got away; HDR.. It’s something I could never use, but I would never need to, my brain can process far faster than a living creature’s. It makes sense that she would develop a way to deactivate it somehow, Arigold is one of the only people I’ve met that can actually keep it under constant use.

“It’s amazing you actually managed to survive your HDR, I’ve only met a few people who have actually been able to handle it. How did you manage?”

Demitallis - “Ah, I got really lucky with that one, actually. Here, let me remember~ Alright! There I was, at the crossroads, only a little larger than the head of my dear brother Lexis, a powerless puddle kid on a mission. It was finally time to act, I had no choice but to escape. But with no options in sight, and my everlasting fear of Arigold, my mind had finally given up, and I awakened IDM. However, I was unable to use it, so my body had developed a third consciousness built to use it, and so they did. And with the power IDM gave us, we developed Vocal Ripple. We figured out the warp gate in an instant. Now all that was left was to go through, but like cerberus, the devil was guarding the gates, and I was forced to activate an experimental sub-function of the gateway, which forcibly pulled me through, completely outside of his realm of expectation. Not just that, but I also managed to lock everyone out of its use, so I was free to escape. I had teleported myself into one of many kitchens, and consumed all the food inside. Now refilled with enough to save me, I escaped through the sink’s pipelines, and exited into the river. And THAT is how I escaped.”

“So THAT’S how you did it, I was wondering how you managed to get away from him.” Flare says, lying on the ground next to me, staring into the endless abyss that is Demitallis. “How did you survive using it though? Wouldn’t it have killed you before you could get to that food locker?” I ask, digging for something Demitallis might have left out.

Demitallis - “Oh, it was actually thanks to Flare over here, she shared a ton of her mana with me, which was just enough to feed it long enough to save my life.”

“Now it all makes sense, your chances of escaping that situation was astronomically low. Your luck is amazing Demitallis. On another note, how DID you figure out how to use the gate?” Now this is the most perplexing part right here.

Demitallis - “Right, see, the warp gate was still under experimentation, and I noticed there was an absence of controls on it, so I realized you had to converse with it to change its settings. So for a while, I sat there and figured out the warp gate, and ran all possibilities through my second consciousness’s simulation ability. Ultimately we found that it was extremely likely that there must have been experimental technology they were working with on the gates, and that they would seek a way to actually get you through it, since that’s IS the primary function.”

“Hyper-Developmental-Reflex, what a fascinating function, thanks to magic, its possibilities seem nigh endless.” I finally say, thinking about it, it almost reminds me of-

“Demitallis, have any of you heard of the Butterfly Event?”

Demitallis - “No, what is that?”

Flare - “I believe I’ve heard of something about it-”

Flare stares into space, as she tries to remember.

Flare - “Right, it’s that butterfly murder event, thing. What about it?”

I move onto a serious expression. “No-no, you’ve got it wrong. Listen, there’s this rare species of butterfly called the Chromatic Phantom Lacewing. They’re hard to spot, and they’re considered the rarest creature in the world, and the most dangerous.” Flare begins to look nervous as she contemplates a creature that could hold such a title when Arigold exists.

Demitallis - “Wait, but how about Arigold? Isn’t he the world’s strongest living thing? How can ANYTHING compare to him?”

We look back at Demitallis, as she speaks through telepathy. “That’s a bit of a misconception, physically, he’s not actually that strong, he’s just got an almost endless amount of enhancement skills. His best qualities are his stamina and skills, actually. You see, what makes him overwhelmingly powerful is his HDR, he keeps its overclocking ability constantly active, because he knows how to produce enough mana to fuel it.” I quickly correct them so I can continue.

Flare - “I get it now, it’s kind of weird. It’s like he’s walking on a tightrope every second of his life.”

“Yeah, that works. Anyways, as I was, this butterfly is very delicate, about as delicate as your soulbloom actually.” -Flare quickly takes a glance at the encased flower, then once again back at me- “Anyways, there have been reported instances of people killing these butterflies, they disappear and so does the person along with them. Usually, death isn’t enough to get rid of someone, but this is something beyond it, that even we don’t understand. Now for the Butterfly Event, this is the event in which one of these butterflies kills someone, without the victim themself having taken prior action. Nobody is quite sure WHY these butterflies seek out and kill these people, but there is theories. I should also mention that there is no way to counter their ability, no matter what you do, if you cause the death of a Chromatic Phantom Lacewing, you’ll die. Now, for the theories. On extremely rare occasions, a living creature will undergo some sort of mental breakdown. Witnesses I’ve interviewed have primarily stated how scary it was, and that they: 'felt like the world could collapse beneath their feet.' It's believed that these people are killed because they've become too destructive, still not sure why the butterflies attack them though. Anyways, avoid the butterflies, and the fallen.” I finish, finally.. But it’s important nonetheless, aside from Arigold, these two things are their biggest threats, so it’s important I tell them now, before something goes wrong.

“What’s the fallen?” Flare asks me suddenly, as she floats closer. “Oh, that’s what they call those people who've gone through a breakdown like that. Honestly, your brain is your most powerful tool, it’s what controls your mana, people going through that breakdown.. I can see why there would need to be SOME SORT of kill mechanism…” I say, as Flare sits down again, a few feet away from me.

Demitallis: - “Hey, has the world ever been met by some sort of, cataclysmic event?”

Oh, that brings me back. “Aside from the puddle kids, absolutely nothing. Even astronomical events that seem like they should have ended our world, they just didn't, asteroids would suddenly change course mid path, gamma ray bursts that should have wiped out all life would stop short, never to be seen again. As you know, it’s a rule of the universe that matter and energy can be created, but never destroyed. We don’t know what happened, no detectable action had taken place to alter such things, but it did. The scariest, yet most fascinating part however, was that whatever is protecting our home, it can destroy matter itself, it’s something beyond even magic.” Demitallis continues to sit there, without providing any form of expression. Flare’s face on the other hand, is a mix of fascination, and worry. “I’ve never thought of that, I always assumed magic could do anything, as long as you were willing to learn. But it makes sense..” Flare stares at the floor, placing her hand on her chin. I continue, catching her attention again. “Yep, whatever this thing is, it’s beyond anything-” Uh oh. “Looks like I have to go guys, there’s something that urgently needs my attention.” I begin to stand up, causing Flare to rush over- “Wait, why so suddenly, what’s going on?” She asks me, as I begin to stretch. “Black Lockey and Nex-" -Right, they don't know who those two are- " Right, Arigold has stationed Squad Two of his stupid Arigold Army in Neotopia, since he doesn’t trust us anymore. Lockey's decided to start being difficult, and now he’s causing a commotion. I feel for him, I really do, but he can’t keep acting like this.” I finish stretching, and form my wings, stretching them too because I like to.

Demitallis - “Does that even DO anything for you?”

I look over at Demitallis and Flare, then smile. “Not anymore!” I shout! And with that, I’m gone with the wind!

End of Chapter 1√D: “Mysteries continue, who is this hidden savior?”

Thanks for reading.

"Yeah, thanks, now let me get back to work-"