“You really had to bring a ladder THAT big with us?” Phact commented again as she watched the Mars Knight try not to run into things on his wonder with the metal frame. Of course she had offered to help but something told her that after all the depend on people while he had his broken leg, Kai might be trying to prove he was ‘as good as new’.
Something told her that was still up for debate.
But when Phact wasn’t wincing every time Kai stepped near a rock, she was taking in the sights of an ancient civilization of mars. She could see different structures, some appearing in better shape than others, but all of them seemed to have that trademark Mars Red on them. Guess Nasa got that part right.
“Lena must have flipped the first time you brought her here.” Phact smirked thinking of the woman they had left typing away on her computer. “I’m surprised she ever comes home.”
At her hip, Phact wore a messenger bag with the book she had taken from the moon library. Care had been placed in bringing it out again but she would be happier once it was returned back to the Moon Kingdom. Too much could go wrong on Earth. “But it looks alot better than my sand covered dead planet.”
---
“Yeah but… it’s still -empty-...” Kai pointed out, stifling a curse as he tried to maneuver the awkward metal frame through the streets, which had not, clearly, been designed with it in mind. “Sorry I’m pretty sure there’s steps but since I don’t know where they are… and I don’t think we want to spend a month or two mapping… this is probably the fast way to do this. Is that it? I think that’s it.”
He rested the end of the ladder on the ground, pointing at the dusty edges of the hole in the ground. “Also last time I fell in it so… you know. Screw that. And I don’t feel like pushing the limits of entirely mundane ankle pins just yet.”
However bad Lena had felt the first time, he was pretty sure she’d have his hide if he broke it again on Mars.
“You ready for this? Because this thing is… well honestly it’s a pinch on the creepy side, especially since I can’t read the word on the base. I mean for all I know it’s not even a word, it could be an anagram. I appreciate your help though, I mean god it’s nice to know I’m not just -crazy-.”
He’d said it before, but he felt he needed to say it again. Even the hint of an answer, no matter what the answer was… was better than he’d been thinking he was going to get.
--
“Define crazy?” Phact smiled as she inched closer to the ladder and the edge of the hole. She was clearly not sure about how stable the ground around the hole was as she tested it with her heel. Seemed solid enough...for now. “Because falling down this hole in the first place seems crazy enough. What in the world…” Phact shivered, looking into it before stepping back and gazing towards the Mars Knight.
“Look, it takes quite a bit more than words in another language to creep me out. I have been going through books on the Moon for some time now. So unless someone in this statue has tentacles, we are good.” Smirking, she stepped back and out of the way. “But still, you get to go first Mr Knight in Shining armor.” Afterall, she didn’t want to play catch the grown man if he fell.
“I’m just curious if there is a connection. And if so...what is it? The very idea that all this energy sharing and energy taking could be connected? If that is the case...what else is there?”
“Besides maybe a monster hiding in these dark halls you call Underground Kairatos. Are there shops like in Atlanta?” She was playfully smirking.
---
“Well I know there’s some up top but I … got the impression that this was where most of Kairatos -was-. I mean rich people had the top, tourists had the top, but down here was like the heart of the city. Part of the problem is all the damn dust, no one’s dusted off these skylights for a thousand years, they’re literally invisible. I mean that's what it was… it was like… thick glass. It used to be solid enough not to be a problem but the place has taken a beating or… hell for all I know maybe it wanted me to find it? I wouldn’t be remotely shocked to find out Wonders could do that.”
He slid the ladder carefully into place with a degree of grumbling and cursing until he was sure it was planted firmly. “And not everyone buys the theory that what Chaos is doing is a … a warped version of what knights do. But for the most part I haven’t seen Metalia as a generous figure. She collects energy and souls, it’s… it’s like throwing lives and energy into a big hole and waiting for it to pat you on the head and tell you that you did good. SHe doesn’t do that. She breaks things. Why would she give -anything- when she can corrupt things that already are? I mean if she ever actually won… all I can picture is that she’d just eat them too afterward. Like a black hole. That's the great reward I think they’re working toward. But… that's not a popular theory. No one wants to think the line is that fuzzy between us I think... “
He moved to climb down the ladder, beckoning her after. “I mean the s**t I got just suggesting that we could share energy, you’d think I was talking about mugging people in the streets for it. C’mon, it’s mostly a straight line.”
--
“So what you are telling me is you told Castor and his goons?” Phact raised a brow, still not completely sure of the ladder as she turned around. Shifting the bag around so it was on her back, she finally started to make her way down. Damn heels. “And if you are talking about if she won, hell I wouldn’t put it past her to be like those aliens from a movie who leech the life out of a planet and then move on. Question is though…”
Her feet found ground again and she relaxed. “Where would there be any life? Unless a synthetic world like Caedus.” Boy that was a name she hadn’t used in awhile...
“Anyway, enough about that. You and I both know that we work with people who have very limited vision. It’s their way, the highway, or death. New ideas and concepts scar them so they don’t want to dive a little deeper and see that maybe...just maybe...things aren’t as scary as they appear. Even if they act like fundamentalist who are told humans evolved from apes.”
Standing down there, Phact adjusted the bag again and looked around. “Lead the way.”
---
“I… implied it to a room full of knights trying to purge chaos from the Code.Which is you know, where we get our power from, and it was a big piece. And we all ended up taking on parts of the corruption that was in it, like… like when they vaccinate you, and man, I spent a week trying to keep from punching people but I didn’t get corrupted, and we cleaned out the code. And then there was the ‘You are literally too stupid to have guessed that the code whispering to you that Metalia isn’t all bad and so forth might be a sign that there was bad s**t going down. Because Apparently that was not somehow obvious. It scares the CRAP out of me that people were going through that and NO one thought “Hey, THAT’s not good. But I am pretty sure I’ve bitched about that enough times… but I can’t smack people into having a few years of experience of actually being corrupt and knowing what the Koolaid tastes like, and you guys sure prove not everyone’s that hung up on their world view.”
He let out an angry huff, trying not to get worked up about it. “I mean it’s just… it’s nice to have some credit past ‘hey it’s the guy who punches things’ Being the “Bull of Mars” is nice until you realize people think all you do is see red all the time. And hey, Lena’s helping me with some night courses, so maybe I can get an actual BA or something for whatever that matters. Or at least not go cross eyed when her co workers open their mouths.”
This way… that was it… “Down this way.”
---
As he spoke, Phact backed away for a moment. Yes she had heard about the nightmare that was the Code purification. In a way, she had a hunch that was the breaking point for him and all those who he had considered ‘friends’ and ‘partners’. At least since then, she had noticed the big man was picky about who he let close. Lena clearly the exception. She all but forced her way into his VERY inner circle.
“I’m glad to hear that. If anyone can get you to try new things, it seems to be her. Just...no more broken bones.” Phact winked at him as she followed down the long hallway. She was regretting having a nearly all white outfit as they walked because she was pretty sure most of it was going to be rust red by the time they went back to Earth.
“But you aren’t alone in the doubts of what people on this side of the war see. It took me a long time myself. For nearly a year I just saw a disorganized mess of idiots who served no one but themselves. Each one seemed to be trying to play ‘leader’ or ‘I’m better than you’. So I’m not surprised it followed into the Knights as well. Where Chaos has a ‘do what I say or I kill you’ force, we have a dead kingdom and a Queen or Princess who most have decided means nothing…”
Shaking her head, the senshi of doves only shrugged. “So I keep my friends and those I trust close. As long as we have each other’s back...I think more good can be done than the stand around and debate club.”
Shifting the bag, she pulled out the book and began to flip the pages just so she had it on hand. “Now the murder on sight club is another story. But maybe we should just put a bow on them and hand them over.”
---
“Yeah if you figure out how to trim the murder bird's wings and keep him grounded to do that I will be happy to provide the goddamn gift bag for that. Or lock them both up in one of the prison wonders. Someplace with lava… “ He noted, philosophically. “Cause that s**t needs to stop. I mean so does the “I was put here to be in charge” attitude too. I mean no way that’s going to backfire at all… I mean it’s great if people want to share skills but somehow as soon as someone figures out something new they think that makes them the galaxies gift to knighthood. Even down to “hey I crammed two starseeds in my chest and nearly killed myself I am clearly the smartest! … Yeah sorry I still haven’t let that go. How you get that smart and still try and handle this whole war by basically cramming bottle rockets up your nose is beyond me. It’s… right through here. Sorry I don’t have enough memories of the place to give you more of a tour. But I think mostly we’d find depressing old empty houses and things, like the empty stables and pastures.”
He gestured ahead, and then lead the way into the open chamber, and the dusty, worn statue. “There we go. That’s it. Not sure why it’s here, instead of up top, but I guess it was a different kind of… I don’t know. “
---
“I think the hard part is getting where he can’t call back up.” Phact shrugged. “I tried confronting him and in walked another woman all ‘he’s better than you so shut up’.” Rolling her eyes, Phact just shrugged. “Sometimes I wish I had those wings that I could go toe to toe with him...I’d beat his a** so hard that…”
She stopped at the mention of a tour and smiled. “Kai, please. I’ve been to my world once. Learned about sand selding into the tops of buildings. I don’t recommend it.” Of course she was leaving out the entire ‘then had a memory where I was told I was the reason the planet died so yay nightmares’ but that didn’t need to be mentioned. “At least here you can see the references to the bulls. I’m still confused how you get doves from sand.”
But then she saw it. And now she saw why Kai had been so surprised when he saw the pages of the book she held in her hands. Flipping quickly to the third image, Phact did several comparison glances before moving forward. “Well I’ll be…” She whispered out with a smile. “There are some differences of course but the likeness couldn’t be more...And yours appears to include another form though. Something with a sword?” She asked motioning towards the figure near what was clearly a royal. That crystal gave it away.
“And nothing else around? Anything like the other two?”
---
“Not that I could see but murals and stuff are a thing around here… for all I know we’re missing half the story because the lighting failed.” He sighed. “Yeah, it’s… I mean it’s not a senshi, but It’s not… I think it’s… both? Either that or we dodged a bullet and the universe stopped handing royal Senshi pointy s**t. Who was the lady? One of his knights?” He crinkled his nose, trying to imagine anyone who could listen to Castor and hear reason and superiority, but then… history had enough examples of people who wanted to hear enough that they were better than the other guy and had the body count to prove it. “I wanna know who to avoid. If he’s still as fun as last time I chatted with him face to face she’ll probably try and straight up murder me. .. or… that's what I got from it last time. If he’s hanging out with Gev… well you’ve got me there. But yeah… uh. This. All of this. What do you think? I mean we’ve got two sources for… well whatever is going on here. I mean we’re still ******** because they all have a royal of some kind as far as we can tell and good luck finding those guys it feels like. Then again based on the way meetings go, maybe I’d ******** off too.”
---
Rolling her eyes at Kai’s words, Phact snapped the book shut and turned around to gaze at the man. “You know Kai, instead of standing there bitching about how shitting they all are, you could make a move to show yourself as more important or at least, more invested.” The look on her face was clearly one of those a woman gives when she is both amused and flustered. She then leaned her head at a slight angle and watched him. “At least someone needs to be. I’m trying on the senshi side but clearly most knights don’t really like to listen to me...or someone my age.”
She left it at that as she watched his face then turned around to gaze back at the statue. “But you are right. We have a problem. Everything shows a royal. If my count is right we have, Castor who, well,...” She left it at that. “Iris who no one seems to know where she is. Polaris who I haven’t seen since her wedding. Ganyemde who I pray has recovered from the invasion attempt and failure. She really didn’t look good….” There was a long sigh and then her head shook. “Then there is your Royal Knight who...is he even alive?” She looked back at the man and shrugged. “I don’t keep up with him.”
Walking back towards the dry fountain bed, Phact removed the messenger bag and put the book back on top of it. “What I’m getting through is two things: one, the key to this is a 4th stage. And two,...” She gazed down at the areas where faces would have been on the statue. “There is something between those around the royal. Look at the photos in the book. It shows three attempts and only those who seem to smile looking at the royal show any hint of a change…”
---
“Sorry my broken ankle made me inconvenient for a while.” He fired back, with a touch of sarcasm, though he understood the point. “No idea about Camelot, haven’t seen him since the event with the code piece, not even a whisper when I’ve been powered up, or at least he’s not close enough to pick up even with his aura. I mean what do you want me to do? I can’t exactly go pop in to Olympus Mons and go ‘hey it would be awfully convenient if we had a couple more royals… I mean I could but that, in my experience, is just going to end in ‘well yes that would be nice wouldn’t it, what are you going to do about it’ because I mean hey why would we not be uselessly cryptic and pretend we can -wave a magic wand- or something and pull a crystal sword from behind someone’s ear like a quarter. That’d be a party trick. But even then, who would it go to? I’m basically a damn grunt. I punch things and I know a bit about how chaos works… which by the sound of what you said about Gev doesn’t sound like it’s a good selling feature these days. And I don’t know that many other knights my rank, or at least not that I don’t want to hit with something… which sort of knocks me out of the voting booth too.”
He stopped, shoving his fingers into his hair with a frustrated growl, and then let his shoulders droop. “I don’t know, Phact. I always figured I was doing what I was good at, proving that people can get out, but I don’t even know if that’s enough anymore, or if I can do more than that, if I haven’t already proved you can get out and not rob people and hate senshi, I don’t know if it’s possible to convince people of that. I know that people who do get out need help, I mean they’ve gotta rebuild their whole damn life… but I don’t have anything to even do about that. I’m a -mechanic-. If I had my own shop I could at least give them cost on keeping a vehicle running but I don’t have that. I’ve got my fists and I’ve got… this.” He gestured at the statue. “A theory. And… I don’t know. I mean… ok so.. Hear me out. Iris said you can’t purify someone who doesn’t want to purify. So did Camelot. I don’t know if they’ve tried but that's what the said. You think it’s like that? I mean chaos takes, but the transcended have to choose to give, and people have to choose to purify.” He paused, then spread his hands broadly. “I don’t know, it’s the best I’ve got. It’s probably dumb.”
---
Putting to fingers to the bridge of her nose, Phact took a long, deep breath...then regretted it as the red dust that had been kicked up made her cough.
“Kai…Kairatos...I’m saying this as a friend and maybe a friend who Lena has been chatting to as well but you need to stop living in the past and realize that the goals you had back then may not be the goals you need to have now. Hell, I know mine have changed….”
Finally, she turned around and looked at him. “The bottom line is we need a Royal to test this theory and we are screwed because all of our royals are either no shows or …” She waved a hand and excused the mess entirely. “The other possibility is Cosmos but does she count as a Royal? Or even human…” Phact blinked several times to herself and shook her head. “Not that it matters. Her powers are far beyond us.”
Turning completely around, she sat back on the fountain edge and gazed at the knight. Several blinks more and she shook her head. “My a** is going to bed red after this...anyway…” The senshi of doves picked up her book and began to flip through them again. “What do we know? That a group of people can come together and do something for a royal. And from what I see...that something can only happen if the group likes said royal…” She motioned to the page
where the image showed a group in chains. “I don’t think feeling bound to them would work nor would using a group that has something in common…” She flipped to the second page. “Unless there is a bond there…”
“However, if you think about it, it makes sense that we could only purify someone willing…” Leaning back as if she was on her fountain on Earth, Phact gazed upward. “The entire idea was Chaos twists Order. Order respects people’s free will...Chaos does not. It says come to us willingly or we will make you. We say ‘peace...if you don’t want to join us, we won’t make you’.”
“Which puts us back at the route of your...our...problem.” Her head came back down and she looked across towards the Mars Knight. “I’m not as wealthy as my ex but there might be something we can do here. At least offer it so people aren’t walking around going ‘well now what’. You got lucky and found a woman who can see past that all and accept hey, technically your identity doesn’t exist….and hopefully has a really good credit score.”
--
“So I do what? Try and find space to start my own shop? I mean I thought about the food truck thing or a restaurant but odds are against that staying open… and then we just back into the ‘what the hell am I doing, I’m not qualified for this’ loop.”
He hated admitting that doubt could eat at him this much. He’d always been proud of his confidence, his ability to act. “But you’re right we do need options for people who get out, and that’s one thing where we… flounder. Babylon had invested in housing but putting people in one spot is… vulnerable. And they still need jobs, connections… and I mean… if we start something, maybe other people will. I mean if any good was going to come out of the ‘anything you can do I can do better’ attitude… it would be that. But then that brings us right back to ‘which option is more likely to succeed and which is the most… open to people to learn as they go.” He paused, looking over the statue again and added. “Hey you think we should go see if whats’is face with the crystals knows anything about these things or… I dunno. I don’t know if Cosmos counts either. She’s kinda like a royal but then she could easily be more. I mean I think it would have outright killed most of our royals to haul our butts to space and it nearly did her, but… I mean what other options do we go to? I mean I wouldn’t trust Snowflake to purify tap water with a Brita filter, but that goes without saying. Which leaves us only a couple options I’ve even heard a whisper from lately. And then we’d still need to find someone who was looking to purify.” Another pause and a sigh. “Damn, guess I’ve got my weekends and nights planned out for a while huh?”
He was worried he was getting in over his head, but Phact was right. He’d been just the loud, angry man for a while, and other people had gotten out… but after that… after that they had angry thieves and… and who even knew what had become of Vespa. He couldn’t ask people to come over and then let them fall through the cracks. He’d landed on his feet but that wasn’t going to work for everyone. Some of them needed a hand up.
---
“What’s his face with the….Oh Caedus?” Phact questioned. She hadn’t given much thought to the stranger from another world unless she wore the crystal he had given her. There was comfort in it still...though for a long time, it just drove up bad memories.
“I mean he might know something. Cosmos is always worth a shot. I know she’s a power unlike any of our own but I don’t know how much she knows of these things.” A hand coming to her face, Phact tried to think. “Worst case, all she says is ‘why did you bug me go away.’” With a light chuckle, the senshi gazed at her friend. Truth was, there was now a larger issue at hand.
“A restaurant might be hard. I hear those things come and go quickly. My cousin’s girlfriend used to manage one before she started running his gym so maybe if you wanted to pick her brain? I mean there are other options out there as well. Depending on which memories they lost though...sometimes finding what they are good at might not come easy if they are like you and remember the negaverse over their human life.” Biting her lip as she thought, Phact finally gave a sigh. “Sadly, it would be a little hard to start a halfway house and not end up with real jail birds…”
---
“Yeah… I mean it seemed like a good idea at the time but then I started looking into it.” He sighed. “I mean… regular ex cons probably need a boost too but what they don’t need is to be someplace the Negaverse might be watching. I guess I’ll… talk to Lena about it? At least it’s transferable skills if I open a machine shop. So I guess that's two things to work on… but a lead is a lead right? And I’m not sure how to contact Cosmos regularly… so you might have one up on me there.”
--
Phact gave a chuckle. “Smart man. Always talk to the woman first before jumping off the edge. At least she can make sure you land softly.” It was more teasing than anything as she watched the man. She was glad he had found Lena. That woman seemed to have smacked him over the head good.
“Let me know when you want to talk to Cosmos or Caedus. I’ll help you out on both if I can.” Finally standing up, Phact started to smack her backside trying to get some of the dust off. This was not going to be fun. “But for now, I think we may need to call this trip a success and head home to figure out the next move. Unless you want to go tunnel exploring?”
---
“Ha not today… I think we need to come back here with some graph paper or something before we go wandering around down here… and some flash lights. Unfortunately this place tends not to give me memories because I want them and more because… I don’t know. Ask the deserted dust bowl what it’s priorities are. I mean if you want a desert concept that requires honey from flowers that don’t even exist anymore I’m your man but…” He spread his hands helplessly. “Wonders. They call ‘em that because it’s a wonder no one goes crazy trying to sort them out.” He joked. “Sounds good. I want to get as much on this as we can before we go subjecting someone to it anyway, or they’re going to be very annoyed, a royal is going to be very tired, and we’re gonna be the idiots hanging around looking like we’re prepping a round of Kumbaya.”
--
Phact just smiled and shook her head. “Kai, if you want to see a desert, remind me to take you to Phact one day. I’ve only been once but that is a desert…” she sighed, her face softening as she shook away the feeling of dread that always came when she considered her home planet.
One day, she would have to figure out what happened…maybe.
Today was not that day.
“Come on. Let’s get home. I’ve got to make sure Mercy hasn’t crushed her boyfriend yet.”
---
Sirene Naiads
