My dear lovers, and Adler, begin to stir. Time enough has passed that we’ve all been properly cleansed using the magic stone that Ria found for us. We passed through a few doors and into new rooms all to leave behind the mess of a room where we committed our slaughter.

I made sure to leave a ‘wet paint’ message on the door just in case someone comes by and doesn’t notice the trail of blood we left while dragging the girls out of the room.

For the first few hours there wasn’t even a twitch from any of them, and I was growing worried, but now it seems like they’ve drifted into a more proper sleep. Twitching fingers, tossed limbs, and at times quiet snores disturb their peaceful slumber and calm my anxieties.

Liquid metal still drips from everywhere, if somewhat more slowly now. The cleansing stone is useful to wash away what leaks out, but it can’t clean out our insides, and that’s where the metal is coming from.

Ria says something with her sparkling beautiful voice. Either that or she’s sung a short tune, with out a support device and translator I can’t tell the difference. It seems the silver metal that leaks from us is from both that and the collar together, a frustrating loss, but a necessary one.

Vii is the first to wake up, shuddering awake with a short cry and pulling her wings tight to her body as she kicks violently at the ground, pushing her back up against the wall. Her breathing is rough and ragged, and she doesn’t say much of anything. Her eyes are wide with shock and lingering pain as tremors run through her small, curled up body.

I quietly approach her, and thankfully she notices, the moment I’m within her reach she tackles me into a close embrace. The hair hisses through her clenched jaws as her warm wings surround me, eventually devolving into a frustrated groan. There’s no need for a translator for the meaning to be clear.

“It’s okay. It’s all over.” I say, holding her close while knowing that she can’t understand my words, “I’m sorry for bringing you with me for this. It was too much, I know.”

After a moment she replies, though her words are clipped and fast, and it’s my turn to listen without understanding. Even through the alien language, I can feel the stress and frustration housed in her words. Released in some small way, by sharing them with me.

She continues in a fast high-pitched tone, letting everything out. A few of the sharp words, expressed more passionately than the other, I can guess to be swear words. Those words I repeat back to her in agreement, which inspires a short and desperate laugh. The sort of laughter that bubbles through much deeper and more difficult emotions.

Her voice softens to almost a whisper as she hesitantly looks up into my own eyes.

“Yes, I love you too.” I say, with a smile somewhat confident in understanding that much. I slowly try to sound out her words, which she helps me with before pecking at my lips. The act is enough to calm her further, as she whispers something more, something that I don’t understand.

There’s something enchanting about hearing her true voice and language without the mind-fuckery of the translator modifying my perceptions to dub over everyone in English. I try to hold onto this moment, as I know that I’ll need a replacement to Chip soon enough.

Vii restlessly lets me go and pulls herself up to her taloned feet. She stretches, before bouncing over to the other three with a few light words. Ria standing to the side looks between us awkwardly, clearly able to understand what we cannot.

My focus turns to Adler, who’s moving far less when compared to the other two. She could be trouble when she wakes, especially since now we can’t even hope to talk things out between us. I had some plans together, but this whole collar removal thing was a vague idea that I was forced into due to circumstances.

In truth, I don’t even know when it was that we were given these collars. I should’ve already considered the possibility that we were wearing them from the start but as always there was too much else going on. If Adler had never given us an order, we’d never have even known that we had these things in us, which does not feel good at all.

We could’ve lived our whole lives wearing these things and so long as Adler never hit the switch, we’d never even know it.

If I were to bet on it, I’d guess that the collars were put on us way back before we even met Adler. When we were caught alongside Red on that wild planet. It wouldn’t make sense for them to restrain us without putting a collar on us when we were out, especially considering that we were already mixed up with the rebels at that point.

This mess up is already evidence that I don’t have the necessary foresight to survive this world at the moment. Which means I have to learn quickly.

Unfortunately, it is Adler that’s next to awaken. A few blinks, the sliver liquid gathers itself into orbs in the corner of her eyes. I push the cleansing orb into her hands and run some mana through it, and the silver liquid flows down from her eyes like teardrops.

From this close I can use my grappling techniques and mana drain to subdue her if she’s still violent. Her magic is much too powerful if we give her the chance to cast it, but for now I can’t see any hint of magics being cast.

She turns her eyes away and whispers softly in her fluid language. Words that no one else can understand, at least without a translator.

“Are you okay?” I ask her, leaning in to brush her hair out of the way as she lifts herself up from the floor, rubbing at her head. After gathering herself for a moment, she turns to look at me again, reaching out a hesitant hand she touches at my lip and the injury from her bite still weeping.

There’s a subtle hole puncturing through the flesh below my lip that I would rather like to get healed, but we couldn’t find anything or anyone that could help with that in the few hours since our battle. Thankfully it’s not that bad so long as I don’t press on the wound. No matter how much I can deal with the pain, it’s terribly uncomfortable having my flesh not be what it should be.

She whispers another soft word, an apology, I think. She pulls her hand away; her fingers stained a little with my blood. Looking down at it she flinches, before curling up tight and hiding her face behind her knees.

I touch her shoulder, but she trembles and shuffles away from me, her back forced against the wall.

“I wonder how much the collar has affected you?” I ask, “Who are you now that it’s gone…?”

She shouts something at me without lifting her head, her words passionate and… sad. Her breathless rant continues until she’s out of breath, and she finally lifts her head and meets my eyes with her own, reddened and tear stained that they are.

“What?” I ask, but she doesn’t say anything in reply. Breathing in and out slowly, before looking down at her slightly bloody hand. She lifts it up towards me, pointing at it.

“Blood on your hands?”

She nods slowly, before pointing viciously at me, sniffling before rubbing at her eyes.

“Blood on my hands, as well…?” I ask, thinking about the bloodied mess of a room only a short walk away.

She glares at me with that weepy look on her face.

“There is.” I affirm, not looking away, “Perhaps this was rash. I could have probably found some way to force them to submit. I could have tricked them in some way and forced them to be collared, or a dozen other things. But I don’t have the time, strength, or resources to mess about. I chose violence because it was simple, quick, and easy, and it guaranteed to get the job done.

“I’ll probably do it again.” I tell her. I’m not sure what she gets from my words, but she just pushes herself further back before crawling up and hiding her face.

Ria and Vii start talking quickly over by the other two, who must be waking up. It seems as though Adler isn’t taking things too badly; she’s not trying to force us into submission at least. I’ll have to talk with her after we’ve got replacements for our translators.

I see that Nel is now waking up, while Eshya is still slumbering, but when has Eshya ever woken up on time?

Nel shudders a little before fully waking. When she looks around and sees us leaning over her, she smiles and relaxes. Her voice is sharp, and language filled with clicks and snaps. Not at all what I’d have expected, but it isn’t unpleasant on the ear.

She sits up, taking deep slow breaths as she looks between us happily. She asks something as she looks at Eshya’s sleeping form but seems to understand from the relaxed air that she’s only sleeping.

She pinches Eshya’s thigh with a clicking laughter before turning to us and sitting straight. Unlike Vii or Adler, she’s actually incredibly cheerful, speaking exuberantly as she pats herself down looking for her knives and pistols. I hand her the ones that I managed to find, and she takes them from my hands before putting them away.

Her shining green eyes flicker between Vii, Ria, and I before she turns towards Adler. She asks something that I don’t understand, and Ria tries to respond but stops midway through as Nel laughs without understanding a word of it.

It would seem as though our lovely gem girl is the only one who understands a word of what anyone says, but no one can understand her.

When I have my head turned, Nel pinches at my cheek and pulls me close. She hesitates at the last moment, seeing my bleeding lip. With a sharp laugh and comment over towards Adler she leans in towards my ear and starts whispering.

The harsh clicking sounds become soft and intimate as she whispers, and though I don’t understand a word of it, I think I can understand her lewd intentions. I whisper back something of the same kind.

When she notices my expression and words, she pushes me away at the shoulder and laughs at me while shaking her head. She smirks and pinches at my soft side while saying something in an agreeable tone.

It’s strangely nice to speak like this. We’re talking, and making misunderstandings, but I think that we’ve spent enough time together to understand one another through more than words alone.

Vii rushes in, after sitting to the side. Her own words are spewed quickly and even without knowing them I’m sure that she’s slurring them together. She waves her feathered wings over the two of us as she speaks excitedly and a little harshly.

I have no idea what it is that she’s saying, but it has the tone of the sort of monologue that isn’t meant to be replied to. I shuffle closer to her and mess her hair, which inspires an indignant squawking.

We struggle through a strange conversation where we all speak our own form of unintelligible gibberish. It almost feels like a party game, and through it we’ve taken to more physical means of expression. Nel has taken to pinches and pokes, while Vii using her feathers to a similar purpose but with far more ticklish effect.

It’s almost strange how quickly the atmosphere has become light and cheerful. We’ve just finished slaughtering a whole council of intelligent people, but it doesn’t feel like it matters.

When Eshya slowly shifts about, only to roll over and start quietly snoring, we’re all ready to leap on her to get her awake. We surround her and start pinching and poking at her until she grunts and pulls herself up, rubbing at her eyes.

She looks between us and lets out an amused snort before speaking in her own language. Her words are comparatively soft and filled with flowing vowels. I just know that she’s saying something either rude or lewd at the moment, though it’s not easy to tell which until I see Ria’s crystal cheeks start glowing.

I lean in to pinch her cheek, but she sees me coming and pulls me down to her before pressing her lips to mine. Nel shouts something sharply before hitting Eshya, who quickly breaks away after pushing a wet glob of silver metal into my mouth.

Spitting it out, I gently hit her head while she laughs at me. We mess about for a little while longer before Adler cries out at us.

She’s standing over us, crying as she screams at us in frustration. Likely something about morals and values and such. The only one of us still focusing on the slaughter that we’ve left behind.

We glance between one another, Vii seems to be the only one even slightly bothered, but we all quietly let her go on and let out her frustrations. I can already tell that it will be quite the talk when we get our voices back. That said, it doesn’t take too much longer for her to run out of energy and find a corner to hole up in once more.

Her outburst does make for a good opportunity to get ourselves moving again. I’d rather not live down here forever, which means that we need to eventually get to class. Which further means we need new support devices for the use of their translators.

I’m also going to have to hound down that gamer elf behind the engineering of the devices to get him to customise one for me. I doubt that Ria is capable of working with them.

For now though, the ordinary Chip will have to do.

Ria chimes in, with a voice that sounds rather like a chime. In her hands are a set of silver metal balls, each is glowing with a certain measure of power that indicates that they’re functional. They certainly weren’t pieced together from what dripped out of us, so I have to assume that she found them somewhere.

Considering everything else around us it would be an easy enough conclusion to come to. That is, if it weren’t for her taking a moment to brush the blood off of one, using an already bloodied cloth.

I suppose Orsa and her people have no need for them anymore, and I’ve always been told it’s good to recycle.

Ria holds one out to me, but I hesitate to take it. It’s not in any way different from the few collars that I’ve seen, at least not on the surface. They use the same metallic liquid as a base material, but the enchantments on them, acting like the software I suppose, is different.

It wouldn’t be ridiculous to think that even normal support devices come with collars, and no one knows until a welfare officer comes along to activate it. Though, the rebels were using something like them. Even Fluffy Butt had one or an equivalent, so there have to be some out there without collars.

Gritting my teeth, I reach my hand into the bulb of silvery metal which, with little prompting, sinks into my flesh and runs cold through my insides up into my mind before it stretches out into every part of me. I focus on it but even then, I lose sight of it as it thins out into tiny threads.

I can still find the occasional strand that I can grasp onto, and remove it as I did before, but that doesn’t make the experience any more comfortable.

It’s a little frustrating also to find that all of my Skills are still gone. It’s not like my knowledge or experiences have disappeared and I can recreate them all easily enough, but they’ve proven extraordinarily helpful so far, and it’s a pain to regain what I’ve lost.

Before even turning to the others, I message the elf with the support message function, hoping that he’ll read it to find out that it’s me sending it. All of my connections have been wiped clean, so I’ll have to redevelop them too.

The only Skill that I particularly miss, and I can’t recreate purely with my own ability is the multi-mind thingamajig. I suspect the support device actually played a helpful role in getting that particular Skill to function properly. I can still split my focus as well as any normal person can, but I’ve lost that extra edge that came with the Skill.

I’ll have to work to reattain that one quicky.

“Your pistol.” Ria says, the first words that I can make sense of, “May I look over it. I’d like to see the effects of overloading it.”

“Sure,” I reply, handing her the unloaded pistol by the grip. She nods in response, quickly looking over it with glowing eyes.

“Are you alright?” I ask as the others equip themselves with their own tools.

“I’m alright,” She responds, “Though I’d like to get back as soon as we can.”

“Understandable.” I reply, “Though we’ve still got things to sort out.”

Adler hasn’t reached for any of the support devices, so I carefully pick one up and walk it to her.

“What if there’s something wrong with these ones too?” Vii asks, shivering as she rubs at her head. “What if these are all secretly collars, too?”

“Then I’ll melt them.” I reply, “Though, I think I’d better get a knockout potion for the next time.”

“That would be for the best.” Nel says, blinking a few times as her own device kicks in. I already miss hearing their actual words. There’s something raw and powerful in hearing their actual sounds rather than this modified version.

I send another quick message to the gamer elf, complaining about this. He’ll have to respond eventually or develop a block function.

“Adler.” I say her name and offer the silver glob.

She glares quietly up at me but resigns with a sigh, taking the silver device into her hand. She doesn’t look away as she quietly flinches at the new sensations invading her body and mind.

“You can be better than this.” She says, sharply as soon as it’s done.

“We can all be better,” I say. For me that evolution comes from having more power, such that I can afford to risk being more lenient with those weaker than me.

“I’ll help you against the welfare officers.” She says, “They are wrong about so much, but so are you. I’ll help you, but I can’t accept slaughters like this.”

“You want to change my mind?” I ask.

“I want to change your heart.” She says, holding back tears crying but still filled with a powerful determination.

“Well… if we’re discussing about intimacies…” I say jokingly, turning to the others, “I think it’s best to get some other opinions.”

“I say we give her a chance.” Eshya says with a smirk, “She’s pretty enough, and fluffy too.”

“Fluffy?” Nel asks, not yet familiar with Fluffy Butt, or my obsession. “I’m not averse to the idea of including Adler, so long as we can all move at our own speed.”

Vii nods knowingly as if expecting this was due to happen eventually.

“That’s not what I’m talking about!” Adler cries out, blushing brightly as she kicks herself away from us.

“At our own paces.” I say with a nod. It feels strangely proper to have this informal unanimous vote about Adler and her fluffy cat’s tail.

“I… I only meant to support you not, I mean it’s not that your unattractive, but-” It seems we’ve successfully turned the conversation as she continues to try and explain herself, her cheeks getting brighter and brighter. I’m not going to force anything with her, but it seems to me that she might actually be open to the idea.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 788 units

~Mana distribution:

Catagory Current Max. Skin 0% 24% Muscle 0% 12% Mind 42% 42% Cardiovascular 0% 11% Misc. 0% 10% Efficiency 42% 79%

~Skills:

-