III - Learning to Walk Again

The Pendulum Swings - Chapter Three

Chapter 3: Learning to Walk Again


       

    The sun was high set in a blanket of blue, clouds seemingly as afraid to approach the massive sphere of boiling gasses as the sun itself was fearful of the horizons around it, seemingly rising higher away from them as if to taunt them with its very existence. The light from the clear sky filtered through thick canopies of towering oak trees, standing stoically, unmovable, looming massively above the fern covered ground, giving little space to roam, an ancient forest steadfast in the face of desert creeping up on its side. Without warning, white hot flashes of light burst into the center of a grove, tearing the great trees around asunder, scorching them to ash before forcing their remains into the wind and toppling their neighbors as the light repeatedly assaulted the ground, leaving only a blackened crater for several minutes as the light continued, boring deeper and deeper into the beaten and radiated earth, spreading outward as they multiplied, changing from white to blue and black, spinning as the ethereal tendrils solidified and spun together as one, a sphere of rolling azure and black resting in the crater, tornadic winds shearing leaves and branches from yet more trees, the sphere angrily churning as it grew. Finally, all movement and sound stopped, the only remaining disturbance that of embers in the scarred trunks of the surrounding oaks, and flames that danced enticingly alongside them. In the center of the crater stood a figure draped in silver, his eyes flaring to life as he opened them, growing brighter as his smile followed, cruel and deadly in its own right, the scarlet beads of light surveying the devastation in all directions.

    "And finally..." He raised his arms, palm up into the air, looking toward the sky as a fractured excuse for a voice formed his words. "...I am here, my new world. Welcome your new master!" He stood still for several moments, taking purely simulated breaths with his cracked, jagged voice, the plants around withering from the very sound of it. He lowered his arms, and began to step out of the crater, his feet making sizeably deep troughs in the charred soil as he went, suddenly stopping at the edge, his silver skin receding in places as he froze, his eyes fading as if his very life was being drained, slowly being replaced with a piercing blue much like the light that had brought him to this place. He raised a hand to his face, staring as the silver along his fingers retreated as well, looking at his reflection in the purple crystal that made up his body, showing a different, more defined set of features than the smooth featureless face he had made of the silver blood. "Perhaps.... I underestimated the energy costs of this little... excursion. No matter. I may get some extra enjoyment from this, arresting Meta's body from him again... Perhaps he will cower in fear as he did before... He gave me such a delicious expression last time. After all, I have all the time in the world, hmmmm?" With a chuckle, the red in the man's eyes faded to a dim blue glow, all the joints in his massively heavy body going limp and letting him fall to the ground, creating yet another crater in the floor of the forest, an indentation of his shape.

***

    "So, what is he, oh mighty guardian of the forest?"

    "Please.... don't call me that... The only reason I'm here is because this brute is way above my pay grade, and since you're here to watch me, that makes him your problem. If you don't mind, I need to get back to my own business."

    "Yes, please do. The monarch has been smiling upon your efforts."

    "Oh SURE she has. I'm damn sure there isn't any other position her face can be in at this point."

    The sound of a door slamming shut, quickly following footsteps rang through Meta's head, his vision still impaired, as well as any other senses that were normally in hs grasp, leaving him alone in a darkness that swallowed even his thoughts. He found he could not move, nor bring up any schematics about his current state as would be normal... Could this be some aftereffect of the anomaly he was pulled into? He remembered... a wall of light, moving back and forth, his systems shutting down one by one as they were overloaded by radiation, somehow potent enough to penetrate his armor.

    "You seem fine, on the outside.... But your life force in unusually low, even for an injured Sprite. Can you even hear me?"

    Meta attempted to respond, but could not find the strength to do anything for several moments. Finally, a meager flicker of the display that normally occupied his vision flashed to life, subroutines scrolling past extremely languidly, booting from the very beginning as if he had been shut down completely, and there was little ability for his mind to process the functions it needed to operate. He sighed in his mind, waiting for the amber sheen to show anything but simple lines of code, listening to the owner of the voice from before retreat with a sigh, the sound of chopping vegetables following several minutes later... or was it hours? He could no longer tell in the void he was encapsulated within. A display of his body began to light up on the bottom left after some time, starting from the bottom as it slowly went through diagnostics, checking each system and limb in order until the diagram that was his body lit up green in his vision... but he was still blind for some reason. His sensors were all misaligned, and they refused to automatically correct themselves, so it seemed. Meta sighed once more inside his mind, and went to work correcting the mistakes, an outline of a room springing to life in his vision, simple lines of blue and red light signifying distances in his vision, followed by a bright yellow light in the adjacent room as the picture expanded, finding all the walls of the immediate area, and continuing as he moved to his sight, slowly bringing into focus the complex lenses and filters that made up his eyes until they finally displayed something, ANYTHING useful. As they adjusted under his influence, a tall dresser made of roughly hewn wood against a log wall resolved, followed by a tall single door wardrobe in the corner to its side as his vision adjusted to the light, both barely smooth enough to avoid splinters, showing great amounts of use, each dent increasing their estimated age, showing even on the dark colored wood, matching the logs that made up the walls all around him.

    "Who is there?" Meta tried to call out to the one he sensed earlier, but only was able to think the words, his body still not moving on its own. Going through each joint in his mind, he freed them, unlocking them each in turn, able to finally flex his limbs and turn himself onto his back, for his host had apparently set him face down on the small cot he saw below. He looked at his arm, seeing not his standard Tantulum forearm, but what looked like human flesh, or maybe the host body of a Sprite. "Emergency hibernation. That is why everything is set to manual start sequences."  He willed the illusion of flesh away, and it parted, first a layer of smoke, then silver below, revealing the purple crystal he knew was below, seeing a small light within, the pilot light to his cannon, fully calibrated already. Meta watched the diagram in his vision, the yellow light approaching, probably having heard him move already. He quickly reemerged his arm in the illusion of skin from before and laid back on the cot, hearing it creak and groan loudly in protest under his weight, no longer augmented by his internal workings, his full weight on the wooden frame, some parts of him still not entirely working. Luckily, he managed to be in some kind of order as the door to his room opened slowly, letting firelight spill into the darkened room, his eyes not adjusting immediately, only showing a blob of grey in the doorway as a feminine voice spoke out to him, her face thoroughly hidden by murk as he was forced to adjust his vision manually.

    "So you are alive then."

     Meta attempted once again to speak, to no avail, his jaw moving on its own, simply something created to make him seem more human to onlookers. He raced through lines of code and functions he had not corrected yet in an attempt to save himself from the travesty he currently found himself in.

     "Are you mute, or merely surprised? Whatever happened where Maxwell retrieved you was... spectacular. Perhaps you're just happy to be alive?"

    He stared, eyes glowing yet empty as he searched inside himself, righting everything off he found, the lessened capabilities of his own body constantly providing a stream of frustration that was then suppressed as thoroughly as the alarms he silenced inside his mind. Finally, he reached the parameters for his voice synthesizer, hastily setting the output to anything that was audible.

    "I apologi..." Meta immediately halted, his voice several octaves above its normal tone. He corrected his mistakes immediately, watching the Sprite in front of him place a hand in front of her face as her eyes lit up with mirth, holding back laughter with all of her might. Once finished, he proceeded once more. "I apologize for my silence, my voice was one of many things in urgent need of correcting."

    "There is nothing to apologize for, carrying you in here was well worth hearing that, friend." The Sprite said, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes before they could fall. She composed herself considerably before speaking again. "Now, I must wonder, why are you here, and where are you from? I know bandits have nearly free roam over this forest, something Maxwell is fighting bitterly against, and I suppose that would suffice for the 'why', but I have never seen a Sprite choose such a massive host. Your weight alone is far past what I would believe possible as well, even for your size. Were you sent by the Monarch to collect information from me? One of her personal guards, perhaps?"

    Meta's vision flashed amber for a moment as the words "AntiSync directive #59 Section 4, Paragraph 5". Garibaldi class projects' origin is only to be revealed to those with sufficient security clearance. In the milliseconds that followed, his vision clouded by several messages about regulations and rules, followed by simple message: "Reporting current encounter to supervising parties". This brought another error to his perception, a catastrophic one. "Subject has exited AntiSync satellite observation range. It is now assumed Garibaldi Class Subject in question has committed an act of desertion and will now no longer be permitted any security clearance previously granted, and will be terminated on sight." Time slowed for Meta as he realized the meaning of this, reality standing still as he read. He was forced to stow these facts when he heard his host's voice ring out once more, catching his attention and resetting his vision on her face, raising from the floor where it had drifted, insects hiding from the light of his gaze.

    "Fall asleep again?"

    "I apologize. There are several items weighing on my mind currently. I must answer negatively, however, I am not affiliated with the Sprite Confederacy or its constituents, but a third party outside its influence."

    The blank look he received from the Sprite standing in the doorway made Meta reel and change the dialect of the Sprite's language he was currently utilizing.

    "I am neither a friend or foe of the Sprites currently, but an associated third party."

    "That makes considerably more sense than whatever you spat out a few moments ago. Never heard those words before, even in the capital, but I think I got the gist of it. So long as you don't try anything, we are on good terms. However, I find you on the wrong side of my conscience, and I end you, understand?"

    Meta nodded affirmatively, his sensors going to work assessing the combat potential of his host, coming up oddly inconclusive, most likely a passive Ability of sorts being the root of her threat.

    "Alright, now that that is out of the way..." The Sprite walked toward Meta and held her arm out, hand open, face lit by the moonlight streaming from the window to her side. "...my name is Celia, of the Sprite Confederation. Pleased to make your acquaintance." She smiled, closing her golden hued eyes and smiling toothily. Meta slowly took her hand, ensuring once again that everything was in place to hide the crystalline metal beneath the facade of skin he currently sported, coiling his enormously larger hand around hers, his fingers easily meeting his palm around Celia's. He refused to smile, however, unable to see the significance of the action.

    "My name is Meta."