Kori and Rosa slipped back into Hypertech, eager to get together the stuff they might need to complete their latest expedition. Having previously left the place there as a fresh new corporate office, they were quite surprised to find just how much remodelling had occurred in their absence.

“Rosa, don’t touch the walls.” “Okay.. but why?” “Those signs are warnings about hazardous contact, the entire wall appears to be heavily ionized. An ionic discharge would scramble you at a molecular level, you would lose your own hand on contact.. if not worse.” Kori pointed out the signs for Rosa as they steered clear of the main wall and instead approached the main gate. Such a gate was also reinforced, but fortunately opened for them on arrival. Once safely beyond the death wall, they discovered an array of turrets set up all over the place too, the same ones from before. It was pretty clear, this was a bit less a corporate office and more a company of war. It was equally obvious why, having used ionization on walls with a density that should have made such a thing fruitless. When up against beings of absolute zero, physical defenses would mean little.

“Rosa, Kori, you’re both back. Perfect.” “Sophie.. uh.. that’s quite the look for you.” “I know, right? I sort of got assigned to inventory management.. which includes more than might have been expected. Drew seemed to think that taking care of store inventory, I would have the organization skills fitting for everything. Things.. sort of moved quickly from there, though. I mean, seriously, Drew makes things go fast. I’ve never worked for such an intense boss before, but he doesn’t even make it feel hard. Even have been getting along very well with Trystine, the two of us having to coordinate.. so many things. The wall, for one, amping up defenses has been the most important project to date.” “You did remember to take care of Holi though, right?” “Oh, very certainly! She got those note things you left me.. and then some. Holi!” Sophie clearly had quickly adapted to her new logistics role, Kori was certainly impressed how much the tech illiterate was capable of fitting in with all the technology and weaponry while carrying little more than a holo clipboard in a HT uniform. However, much more stunning was Holi in her brand new synthetic tights, the faint pulses of light making it harder to tell if Holi was even still just a holo or not. Her tights held a motif of cyberscape plating, a faint light grid that pulsed around her in a blue tone as she moved.

“This.. ah.. what.. did you.. do to.. Holi?!” “Oh, don’t look at me like that. Her old settings are still available too, if you feel better with her looking more casual. However, after she woke up, she sort of wanted to be a lot more proactive at keeping you two safe. It was a marvelous idea too, focusing on safety. A lot of staff in dangerous positions are now expected to wear synth gear at all times while at work.. and Drew let me know that neither of you are exceptions. I get to be an exception, because I’m not good at this stuff, but even Trystine is wearing synth gear.” “Come on, there isn’t even a point. The things we’re against care nothing about physical protection.” “Maybe, but it’s still a factor. Certainly you can dodge around a lot easier if you have fewer worries that doing so could get you hurt. Getting hit can even throw you, which good protection could deal with. I mean, that was all my idea, but Trystine took it the distance. She took my design and adjusted it using some kind of silicon alloy, stuff that conducts ions super easy. We even coated the wall in the stuff, almost as a practice measure. With such, not only would we have fewer worries about injuries in ionic discharges, but she said there was plenty of room to improve on.. and all without affecting my original aesthetic design. That was by far the best part!” Kori sighed, clearly believing Sophie may have gotten more than a little carried away by her new responsibilities. The textile expert had even put a lot of focus on matters of attire, which actually might have been far too easy to expect. Everything was ridiculous.. and predictably so.

“Oh, and Trystine said that I was to let you know we integrated Holi to the defense grid.” “You did.. what?!” “Well, we were doing upgrades for her anyway, it generally made sense. Being like the master control for everything, that’s why I gave her the new look. I call it her combat model. Cool, right?” “I.. should have never asked you to look after her maintenance. Remind me to never do that again, please.” “Oh, that reminds me. You asked me to never look after stuff like this before when I was helping Fiona with that one dragon model.” “Oh hell, right, you were the original… How could I have forgotten…?” “Speechless at my creativity? You always seem to blow a fit when I make something look fierce.” Kori couldn’t even finish ideas in her head, Sophie having broken her with such news. Kori really had forgotten that the first prototype model Fiona had worked with for that dragon was of her sister’s design.. one which was so graphically intense that it was like a race to see which would fail first, the nanites producing the wild patterns or the eyes of the people trying to watch it.

“Wait, what’s a dragon?” “Rosa, believe me, you don’t want to know. Something about being a millenia or two out of date of the mythos it's supposed to represent.. something like that.” Rosa simply stayed quiet, perplexed but noticing visibly how little patience Kori had left. “Oh, right, aren’t you two supposed to be travelling to the land of dragons? I would love up-to-date notes on what the things really look like.” “Dragons.. do.. not.. exist! Stop thinking of the place like it was some stupid fantasy from stupid earth fairytales, nothing about it is anything that easy. Bloody earth was always ignorant to the cultures just next door, and those fallacies only got worse with time. I’ve been to that side, I’ve seen an orbital cannon blast the ground with a beam of sheer energy as a gigantic bipedal megaton launched salvos of missiles into its enemies. Let me know if that sounds so ‘fantasy’ to you. Nothing about the place is ‘magical’, it’s just ‘different’, even in its principles of science.” Sophie herself took her turn to go quiet, seeing Kori seriously was not in the mood. Both sisters turned to each other, wondering what might be the best course of action at this point.

“Well, this might explain a few things, even if it might be considered to be a bit unbelievable. More than another world, like a fiction rendered real.” “Drew, I…” “Yes, I expect you might have had things rather rough of late. I expect this explains why Rosa had so unexpectedly vanished while working, with nothing but a cold blast in her wake. You two have very obviously been in an avalanche of things going on, and I’m now certain we know much less than half of what might be involved. What I am familiar with is balancing a lot of obligations. Kori, you look right now like a woman who had a plan.. and suddenly found yourself overwhelmed. Go take a moment to relax, go over what has happened at your leisure.. and consider how our efforts could be at your support. I’ll make sure Trystine leaves you some synth gear to put on, explicitly tailored to your own cybernetics thanks to Holi’s records.” “Thanks.. I guess.” Drew stepped out of the way so that Kori could pass beyond to a place of recluse. Kori had no idea what to think about everything.. but certainly getting the chance to think at all would be the best place to start.

“Thank you, Drew.” “No problem, I know when my staff are overwhelmed, I keep an eye out for that. You however have been quite the oddity in that measure, Rosa. Something about you has struck me as being always overwhelmed.. but always keeping up. By the sounds of things, I’m guessing that you yourself might not be so used to this world then. You’re then absolutely remarkable, having caught on to everything so naturally. For me, learning the business world of machinery was overwhelming.. to have to learn an entire second way of worlds would be beyond me.” “Well, Kori has been quite the help there, especially as she herself learns of things much less familiar to her. We’ve both been working on this together.” Rosa then took some time to be a bit more open with circumstances to Drew. Hypertech as a whole actually had no record on where the two of them had kept going off too, but they could detect their strange departures and arrivals in a small singularity burst. Being brought up to speed with everything, Drew could tell why this might have been more than the regular person should be made aware of, he was being given a bit of privilege here. It was knowledge he would have to be sure to carefully apply going forward.

Rosa had met up with Kori after that, having grown worried at how Kori was even doing. Kori however was already getting into her new tights, having taken care to adjust her regular clothes over the thin silicon plating. Her version of the tights did not include sleeves at all, her cybernetics serving that purpose on one side and her marked arm being ill fitted for it on the other. The tights came with a full facial mask, something she could place or remove at will, something which made her feel more like a ninja when worn. Unlike Holi though, her armor was much more nondescript, sitting quite nicely under normal clothes.. and didn’t glow with strange lights. She did find all the silicon tracing though, if this stuff was ionized.. she would light up like a christmas tree. Kori passed Rosa a second package of such a suit on her way out, offering Rosa some privacy while she considered the proceedings. All of this was protection, to keep them safe.. because they weren’t safe. As Axln, she had to worry about the security and wellbeing of the academy, a thing she had fortunately left to Luna’s care. On this side, they didn’t have some orbital superweapon looking after everything.. so maybe it was really good that the people of Hypertech were simply looking after themselves instead. There weren't any superweapons on this side, so they had to take what they could get.

Rosa stepped out to find Kori, this time also wearing her own silicon alloyed synth suit. It was generally designed to match what Kori wore, but actually had a sleeve for Rosa’s natural arm. The sleeve proceeded down the entire length of Rosa’s arm, covering her hand as a glove. Much like Kori, the whole thing also extended down to her feet, but had a strange cut out for Rosa’s knees, the tights only passing down the back of the knees before coming around again like strange socks. Kori had already tested the design, she could smash into a wall with considerable force and still felt almost nothing. She knew the material, even if she had little practice with it.. it could weather impacts of considerable momentum beyond outright crushing force. Beyond potentially enduring a railgun velocity bullet, the design was even better at dealing with energy weapons. Rosa thus had two layers of protection, when her DRE was also considered in the process, even if this new one was even more superior in suppressing energy discharges specifically.

Kori took account of the time, measuring how much these changes had cost. They had both arrived here at around 16:00, which was about 10:00a in Ruixse’s midday. Since then, the time had advanced to 17:06, leaving them with only three hours before noon. Sophie meanwhile had promised she could bring them to the market by 17:30, a 45 minute drive. However, by 17:28, she found herself with Rosa just outside the market, the both of them adjusting to stable ground beneath their feet once again. Kori took an opportunity to mentally never again dare Sophie to deliver upon something Sophie claimed could be done. The time was still halfway between the start of business hours and lunch, so they would have to work quickly. Even more complicated, they needed to work carefully too. Aerospace surveillance was everywhere, letting Velvet know they were here could cost them an advantage. Kori knew she was stressed, the situation earlier established just how far her stress went, but Velvet could be more intimidating than even the chaos she fought in the other world.. even if she might be far less dangerous. To an information expert, this level of an information battle was quite excessive. The two of them at least wore holos that cloaked over their appearances, not even leaving a sign they were worth notice. Kori even fell to the level of adopting a human holo, something which would draw even fewer eyes her way. As Axln, she had grown a bit adjusted to human traits anyway, so keeping up images wouldn’t be that intensive.

The first goal would be to locate where the firearm distribution was occuring in the market. Scanning across the general populace proved generally fruitless, as a good number of humans travelling in any direction had something handy. In that same light, there wasn’t a single conduit at the market, probably in fear of their very lives. Conduits would be suffering the most from all of this, especially with the fear only a layer to the tragedy. All too certainly, these weapons were being turned on conduits.. to put conduits in their place. It was quite honestly revolting, yet another turn of events Kori blamed Velvet for. Wandering such intimidating crowds, Kori suddenly found a holo appearing before her as she noticed Rosa listening to a silent voice. So, Holi at least had found their destination and in turn provided a map with directions. The map however proved to be reasonably difficult to use in such a crowd, so Kori simply let Rosa lead the way while she took account of their surroundings. The entire market was in a multi-level building with enough space and atmosphere to make you think they were still outdoors, the holos in use extending upon those impressions. This effectively left them to deal with the whole place being a very big and wide open room without certainty they were even on the right floor. Rosa even led them to a holo lift up eight levels, the place suddenly having visibly more security.

Kori pressed upon her composure, doing her best to look natural in such an atmosphere. Rosa meanwhile was a lot more intent on following directions and not getting lost, the result making her look simply absentmindedly curious. Kori at least could tell, they were certainly in the right place, an assortment of firearms adorning the displays around them. However, while looking around, she had discovered that there was a very strict criteria and assessment in devising exactly which firearm would be provided to any specific individual, the signs generally guiding them towards the assessment clerks off at a corner of the allocated space. How exactly then did Sophie get her hands on a mass collection of the stuff, bypassing the entire assessment process, walked past security while no one cared, and left the place with a full trunk. Even though she herself appeared human, she could feel the critical eyes of every security officer present upon her if she turned slightly towards one of the displays instead of towards the assessment area. Still trying to look normal, the two of them stepped before one of the assessment clerks, the idea being to at least get information in a more natural way. One of the clerks turned their attention to the two girls, only for someone else to step in instead.

“Don’t worry, these two are here for me. Hello, Kori, Rosa, having a pleasant day?” “Hello Velvet. As usual, being the pioneer of information, expecting us so easily.” “Oh, you look the part rather well, don’t worry about that. It just happens that most people don’t walk around here with OSIDFs on full tilt like this, that’s all. Not that I blame you for it, of course, security would have stopped you long ago otherwise.” “Going to call up security instead then?” “Why would I do that? You came here for a quiet chat, did you not? Certainly, I’m far too occupied right now to make a big mess of things, either. Instead, I would much rather have everything dealt with before lunch. I must say though, it was still in question if you would bother showing up here or if you would take your questions to .. another. I’m honestly quite thankful that you did indeed choose me for this one, it will make other things much easier. So.. maybe instead of taking up the space of my clerks.. We should turn to more suitable atmospheres. I know you would like something with a touch of privacy but not distantly enough to affect your sense of security. I might recommend one of the assessment booths, as the goals generally fit the same in concept.” Velvet led the way towards one of such booths, Kori still looking around attentively for traps. Certainly.. this couldn’t be so easy?

“Why exactly this whole change of pace, anyway? The first time we met, you were throwing everything you had to stop us. Now…” “Now, a lot has changed. There is no point trying to stop something that has already happened, right? You get away with pandora’s box, open it.. and all that is left is to face off against oblivion. Hopefully, you’ve already seen one for yourself, a DMA. Dark Matter Anomaly, though you would have your own name for the stuff. You’ve fought one, we’ve already taken out twelve. Oh, and if you’re thinking highly about yourself, this is still just the scouting party. Face off against forces like this long enough, it will wear you thin. The going estimate is that the longest we could endure is maybe 15 sidus, nothing more.” “We’ll find a way to stop those things, we’ve already found they are tied to more than just this world.. They…” “Yes, yes, my word, it’s like you think your stories are so new. Parallel worlds, temporal chaos, blah blah blah.” “So you do know. You might then know that we’ve been there then too, both places. We gathered information to lead us towards a solution that saves both worlds.” “You gathered nothing, you hardly even have a plan, don’t you? Worst of all, your major information source is of the very chaotic energy we’ve all got left to fight, and yet you somehow believe you can just trust it at its word. Oh, yes, keep throwing temporal singularities all over the place, I’m certain that would help. It just had to tell you a few nice things you wanted to hear, then you’re all best friends.” Kori went pale at Velvet’s reprimandation, not even certain how to react. Was that actually how everything had gone? Was Velvet right about.. everything? Just how much did Velvet actually even know?

“I’m quite sorry about interrupting, but seriously, did I miss something? By the divine, we haven’t even told anyone in either world about meeting the temporal lady. You know far more than should even be possible.. and that girl with the same bracelet.. she knew far too much too. If you think our sources are so questionable, how could we even trust your own? How.. could you possibly know so much?” “Mary.. or however you say her name.. we both happen to share the same sources, ones who are actually living people too. Such is certainly more reliable than your own sources, right?” “Maybe, but you haven’t told us who they are yet. Do I even know any of them?” “I certainly expect you know.. one or two.” “Who then?!” “Damn it, I’m not supposed to tell you! Why do you never take the hint, m-.. shit.” Rosa herself was starting to look flustered talking to Velvet too, but it was surprising just how flustered Velvet got in response. Kori was starting to figure out that, for some reason, Velvet was far more flustered facing Rosa than Kori herself. It was an unexplained weakness, but certainly one they would need to take advantage of. All three of them however were thrown off guard when a holo appeared before Velvet, drawing her attention away with its visible urgency and dread.

“Okay, yeah, more important stuff. You two might agree, honestly. It seems we’ve got reports of a far more impressive DMA sighting than the normal batch. Considering the thing is floating around between society and that craig you’ve taken to call home, you might want to actually show up and get a piece of the action. Nick, get over here, I need a rushed flight out of here.” “I.. I’m not about to…” “Yes, yes, of course, walking with me into a shuttle would be pretty stupid, even if the pilot is someone you know. Technically though, you have other arrangements waiting for you, possibly even faster ones. Leave this place by the main gates, you’ll see a park to your right. It’s practically an artificial forest, it even has a snow theme going on right now, couldn’t be a better place to make an exit from. After that, I hear you’ve got a friend who can practically teleport you to places, way faster than flying. I’ll be at an outpost along the barrier in the direction of your campsite, just make your way there in whatever manner fits your choosing. Please be prompt though, DMAs are terrifying, and if the thing gets too close, I expect someone is going to have an itchy trigger finger. Remember, these things are here because of you two, all of this is your own fault.” Velvet waved to Kori as she made her way to a holo lift to the roof, potentially where her ride waited. Kori was still furious, but couldn’t dispute a feeling of growing responsibility in the matter. Sure, it still left questions such as how Velvet knew of Luna’s rifts, but such wasn’t even surprising anymore.

The two girls followed their provided directions to the park, quickly finding a rather suitable location to swap over to the other side. It was only after the shift had begun that Kori had started to question how sensible it might have been to pick a very distinct location for their shift process.