[ Backdated to Dec 18th ]
It was hard for her to admit she didn’t feel at home among the sands of Uranus. Truth be told, Andronicus didn’t deny it; she simply prioritized the place she called home over the place her magical abilities came from in terms of protecting them. Unlike Mars, whose sands were harsh and violent, Uranus boasted warmth and calm. Mars was tainted by the looming presence of the Code, a unidentifiable magical object who insisted it was the correct path.
There wasn't a path. It was Order or Chaos, or nothing. It was black and white, and your fate was determined for you.
That was bullshit and Andronicus was determined to change it.
Not that she had any place to start. She ascended the tower, pausing in the map room briefly. Her trip to her wonder was with purpose this time. There was a tug, an urgency to her movements, as she shifted books and parchment around on the table. It couldn't just be Chaos and Order, that couldn't be the only two forces in the universe. The entire cosmos at its disposal and the Cauldron only created two semi-phenomenal powers? That was statistically impossible.
Half an hour of flipping through pages she couldn't read lead to nothing. No notation of any sort of other potential power source, no mention of the Mirror Court, nothing beyond a dead language and Sol System symbols. Her past life gave her no insights either, eerily absent. More over, the language used to write the books was so old, Andronicus wasn’t sure it existed anymore.
Or, ever had.
“Guess that’s what a thousand years’ll do… stripe every connection to nothing more than fragments. It’s almost… depressing really.” She sighed, closing the book and leaning against the table. If she was anyone else, she probably would have cared more for the past and her wonder. She cared for it, but not to the devotion of the other knights. She cared not for plaques or seats at tables, and defiantely didn’t care about an Academy long since lost. There was too much else at stake.
Andronicus pushed off the table, fingers lingering on the wood as she left the room. She glanced up the stone stairs, towards the floors above her she’d never actually investigated. The map floor was enough for most of her tasks. Besides, most of the floors were damaged and the structural integrity of the building wasn’t exactly verified.
Something tugged her skyward.
It was like a whisper, a nudge at the back of her mind. It told her to put one foot on a stair, then the other, then the other, and climb. The tug grew more firm as she reached the tenth floor, whose door looked as though the sand had crystallized around the lock.
Not that door, it seemed to say, directing her further up the stairs. Sand coated the stairs, falling in ever present waterfalls down the stone slabs. She carefully picked her way around the mounds of sands and followed the urgency that bid her foreward. It was warmer up here, the hot air collecting without a means of escape. The only one that seemed to be was a hole in one of the stained glass windows that whistled with every strong breeze.
Huh, so that was that noise. Good to know.
The door to the eleventh floor stood ajar. Didn’t really surprise her, most doors either stood locked tight or were almost nonexistent. It’s amazing what a five hundred pound slab of stone will do to an oak door when it falls four stories. As well as the four slabs of five hundred pound stone beneath it.
The whispering tug grew insistent and she pushed the door open. A slightly stale smelling room spilled out in front of her, lined with bookshelves and chests. Archives… Well, at least one of her predecessors kept good notes ( she wasn’t sure Alexia was the type to handle all that. Her - their - ser seemed more appropriate for the job ). She brushed her fingers along the spines of the volumes, dragging lines through the dust that covered the whole room.
Several shelves held chests and boxes. Some were open, showing their aging contents. Bowls, faded candles, rolls of blank parchment that crumbled under her fingertips. Two of the semi-open chests looked like they were designated for rituals. Upon closer inspection, she found markings attributing to different Earth seasons, as well as some she’d never seen. Most of the chests and boxes were shut. The lids of the boxes did not budge, sealed by weather or wax, and the chests boasted locks that clearly weathered the last millennia and the war just fine. Nothing particularly stood out to her among the rows. Hundreds of items must have been stored in there, and nothing really stood out and went “oi this is where your tug’s coming from!”
Andronicus rounded a corner and came face to face with the oddest looking statue she’d ever seen. It looked like… a daisy built out of amber. It was given it’s own pedestal and small alcove in the shelves, a floating light tethered to the object. It flickered, giving her snippets of what the rest of the daisy looked like.
It had a face.
Who’s creepy and twisted sense of humor thought of that?
She turned her attention back to the flickering ball of light. The tugging came from it, what she now recognized as the same tug from the Code. So this was the piece of the Code on her wonder then.
“So, direct line to the Code huh? You part of the actual incorporeal floating scroll?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. She disliked the Code, but maybe actually talking to it one on one would help the issue. Maybe.
The very same, Andronicus Squire of Uranus. Same ethereal voice and all. Huh. Still had a bone to pick with it though. A very large bone. Andronicus squared her shoulders, crossing her arms over her chest.
“So… Why the insistence that converting Chaos will bring balance to the cosmos? Order and Chaos need one another to be in balance, it's not just an one or the other deal,” she asked skeptically, eyebrow raised.
Chaos is overwhelming the universe. The balance is upset. It is true that Order and Chaos need each other, but when one surpasses the other, it needs to be kept in check. Just as Knights who cannot listen must too be kept in check. She tapped her nose; okay that should have at least been obvious. She admitted to herself that maybe, just maybe, she’d been a bit too… zealous about the whole thing. Her eyes hardened as it finished, that suspicion flaring again. Knights who couldn’t listen huh? What was it going to do, attempt to surround her in mist? Choke her to death on magical particles?
“Okay… fair point. Though... how can we be 'neutral' if the same energy flowing through us flows through the Senshi? We inherently cannot be neutral in this war this way. And why the drive to get some underground academy back? I say, leave the damn place to the Negaverse; if it keeps them from trying to create a Rift in Destiny City, I'll take it."” They were both Order, seemed a bit to stake the odds in their favor (not that she wouldn’t take all the help she could get, but some of the… limitations of being a knight were less than steller). She still thought that dealing with a lost building underground was less important than the city above it. The light flickered, as if snorting it’s nose. If it had one. Or rolling it’s eyes. If it had those.
Only fools deal in absolutes. Neutrality is a choice. The energy that flows through you and that which flows through senshi differs. Your energy comes from me. My energy flows through everything. But the power the senshi has harnesses is not yours. Eyebrows shot up into her hood and bangs. Their power came from the Code itself? She thought it came from the wonders, or was that why there was a piece of the Code on each wonder? To power it, and keep it thriving through years of no knights to keep it.
Or, it was a very clever plot to keep an eye on the knights, and keep them in check.
The Academy is more powerful than you know. To dismiss it is to ignore its importance. There are things down there which are absolutely vital to the survival of your magic as you know it. If you would hand it over to the Negaverse so willingly, you put into their hand the greatest weapon they could ever have. But, then again.
The light pulsated from the piece in a strange manner. Perhaps it was a manipulation of the energy, or perhaps it was just shadows, but it looked like face on the flower flickered. Twisted into something twisted and horrific.
A smile, devoid of mirth. A smile lined with darkness.
Perhaps that is the best thing you can do.
Andronicus’ fist snapped out and slammed into the wall behind the amber flower. A hair to right and she would have slammed through it. Either by a force field, or her own control, she sparred it’s demonic existence. Wide, anger filled green eyes glared down at the flower, whose face was no more threatening than the sunflowers from Plants vs Zombies now.
Traitor, traitor… little traitor…
It knew, didn’t it, it knew what she’d become in the future. It knew what she was trying to do. Of course it knew, why wouldn’t it. If it was watching and spying on her in the wonder… then it had known for a while. The squire snarled and pulled her hand from the shallow dent in the stone. ******** hell.
She turned, storming back through the archive room. Damnit, damnit damnit, she knew something was off with the damn thing. This confirmed it.
The squire’s face broke into a mirthless smile, an expression that mimicked the amber flower’s face almost exactly. Whether or not the Code had intended to, it had given her the best possible information it could have. If it was true, then she’d just stumbled on the jackpot of all secrets.
Andronicus winked out of existence, a fire of defiance in her soul.
She was going to figure out what exactly powered the Code.
And harness it.
[ WC: 1745 ]
