The snow was still falling as the two faced off against each other, slightly awkward in their layers of winter clothing. Still, despite the slight discomfort, the two were both grinning, Hiro's arms raised and Nemesis standing straight.
"Back when we fought Tsubaki, Nymph gave us a genetic boost to let me use my Trance while inside your body...but considering she was a wrench in Project Genesis' goals according to Nymph, that means there are probably people stronger than her that we'll need to face. Therefore...we need to teach you how to use Trance without my help!"
A sudden change from her giddy personality earlier, but it made sense. She could be gravely serious when she had to be after all...even if her facial expression made it seem like everything she said was a joke.
"And to do that, I have to be able to at least hit you...and since you're made of dark matter, that means it's impossible if I can't use the parts of my genome that you've modified."
She nodded, holding her arms out, and the clothing she wore simply fell away, dropping to the ground and phasing through her body as she allowed herself to dissociate, before she lowered her arms, and Hiro sighed at the sight.
"Really? Did you seriously need to get naked? Honestly, it's a good thing we're in the backyard where nobody is watching…"
She laughed, bending forward...a motion that probably was meant to be sexy, but considering she had the body proportions of Wendy Marvell and Hiro wasn't a lolicon, she just ended up looking silly in the cold.
"Clothes are restrictive, and the particles of my body are so sparse that I doubt they'd have stayed on long anyway, considering that even my school uniform weighs more than I do. Besides, it's not like you care, and I definitely don't, so let's just fight already! Come on and try to hit me!"
That was the only goal, hitting her, and yet it became immediately clear how difficult that would be when Hiro leapt forward, bringing his fist in a punch aimed at her face...and immediately passing right through, carrying him forward through her as he planted his foot in front of him to cut his momentum, turning around to face the girl, who hadn't moved at all from her spot as she turned her head, a grin playing on her face.
"Just punching won't do anything, even Devilukean technology can't make someone capable of physically touching me. Only Trance can touch me, and even then, only certain kinds...Eve's can, and so can yours. Don't bother moving your body at all, just focus on your hair." To demonstrate, several strands of her own hair lifted against gravity, turning in the air like snakes. "Nymph made it so your body could handle my Trance...that doesn't mean you require me to do it."
"Yeah, I know that, but it's kind of hard to use it when I know nothing about how it works! And you and Eve never explain how you do it, so-"
"We don't know how to." she interrupted, turning around to face him. "Eve uses nanobots that fill every cell of her body, and I'm not even a material entity. We were also born capable of using it, and to my knowledge, you're the only person who gained the ability later in life. So this training's something I can't help you with...though I can at least help you with that golden eye thing."
He blinked, holding his hand up to his left eye, the one that usually changed color when Nemesis took over. "Oh yeah, that weird vision I got while we fought Tsubaki...Do you see things like that all the time?"
She nodded, shrugging. "To me, it's perfectly normal. Dark matter beings don't see reality the same as you do...I guess you could say I'm able to see higher dimensions like time. It's...really hard to explain to someone who resides in the 4th dimension and can only see three."
"So basically, you're special even for a Trans." he said, and she laughed, nodding.
"Yep! And I was the only one who survived Project Nemesis too, all the others either couldn't handle the transition from nonliving to organic, or were trapped in human forms and died from complications. I'm the only pure dark matter being to come from the Trans programs."
"You weren't the only one?" he asked, and she laughed, shaking her head.
"Of course not! Do you think perfection like me could come from a first attempt? The first test for the project started in 1990, and I was born in 1998. Before me, there were hundreds of attempts, spread across several research planets...Like I said when we were coming home from the planetarium, I was born in the Svalbard base here on Earth, and escaped to space soon after."
"So it's possible there's others?" he asked, and she laughed, shaking her head and crossing her arms.
"No, it's not. I know it sounds cool to have another of me running around, but it's not going to happen. The conditions I was created under were unique even for the project...there was a specific set of circumstances that can't be replicated even with all of Deviluke's technology. I'm definitely the last and only survivor. Anyway, enough about my past...We're not here to learn about me, we're here to prepare you for the future. We work really well together, but there's always the possibility that I can't Trans-Fuse with you for whatever reason, so you need to be able to handle yourself."
He nodded. "And it's only been a year, so we don't know what longterm effects there may be, especially considering you've been modifying my genes...And we don't know the full extent of what Nymph did to me either since she won't say.'
"Right. Now, try to hit me again...Don't worry about making a Trance blade, your ability is sourced from mine, and I'm unable to produce one, so you shouldn't either. Just focus on making tendrils like mine...they're pretty useful even if you can't cut anything with them."
He nodded, closing his eyes to focus, the girl standing still to wait for him to act.
Hiro knew a little about Trance already from simple observation. It was a body modification technique, and from what he knew of biology, it probably entailed turning on and shutting off different parts of the genome in each cell to change their shapes...it sounded incredibly painful, but for some reason, when Nemesis had used it against Tsubaki, it hadn't hurt him at all. Neither did the thermal vision when he connected to her eye, at least when both his eyes were open so he could see normally from the other eye. That meant there was a way to do it without ripping his body apart, and though he trusted that she could heal him, he certainly did not want to feel something like that happening.
So how exactly to do it? Nemesis' version was too difficult to really measure since she wasn't a solid body, but Eve's was based on technology, not on biology, so she didn't even have to worry about her genetic code...yet he did. His body possessed no nanobots, but it still had cells that he had to worry about, while Nemesis did not.
It was hard to think about. How exactly could he do what she could with the different structure of his own body? He couldn't even visualize what it must be like for them to control it, and they could do it without even really thinking very hard, yet here he was, incapable of even picturing how he could possibly try.
There had to be some way. He couldn't rely on either of them to help, so he'd have to figure it out himself.
He really did feel like the "stupid hero" right now.
