Flying was supposed to fun. Louise remembered when her mother took her along for rides with her Manticore. She really enjoyed those times.
Now she was either trying to escape from murderous angels that want to kill her or trying to calm down from said chases while worrying if others are still alive.
This time was no different. As she and Siesta were carried by Ikaros, flanked by Daedalus and the Oregano class, flying towards the Vallière mansion, Louise could do nothing but worry.
And when they arrived they need to explain to THE Karin Vallière, her mother, how they have three defective angels and one of them is planning a rebellion against the church.
Louise had no idea where to even start and the mansion was already visible.
It was in the middle of the night and there was no doubt that everybody was asleep by now.
"Which room is your sister's, Louise?" Daedalus asked.
"Why would you want to know that?" She replied defensively, not trusting her yet.
"So that we can heal her and move on to different matters, of course."
"We can't just break in!" Louise protested. "They will think us burglars and the guards would no doubt sound the alarm."
"Why would you trip your own security system?" Daedalus asked with confusion written on her face.
"Humans have no IFF signals built into them." Ikaros explained for her and Daedalus mouth wen o shaped in understanding.
"What is a IFF signal?"
"IFF signals are ways to recognize things over long distances, if I were to have mine active everyone in a certain distance would know who I am." Ikaros explained to Louise.
That… sounded a bit scary to Louise, was that some kind of angelic light that would pull everyone's attention to her? A presence that would announce her to all?
Still, angelic shenanigans aside… what do? It was late and they were already here.
"I still suggest we enter your sisters room and heal her at once, her sickness is something that could kill her at any moment at this point." Daedalus complained.
"How would you even know of her sickness?" Louise asked suspiciously.
"I monitored you all your life."
"You what!?" Louise shouted out embarrassment and anger in equal measure.
"I monitor all void mages the day they are born. It's nothing personal." Again, the explanation was near mechanical.
"That. I. Ahhhhh." Louise would have strangled to blue haired stalker if they weren't in mid air.
"Master? I am confused, am I supposed to heal someone here or not?" the Oregano spoke up for the first time. Her face was still blank, it reminded her of Ikaros, however even Ikaros showed more emotions than the healer Angeloid.
"Yes." Louise decided. "The second story window to the west side." Louise explained while pointing at it. "Inside is my sister who has been sick since childhood. I want you to heal her."
"By your orders Master." She said and started flying there the others following.
They reached the window and of course it was closed. It was no real obstacle. With a wave of the hand a click was heard the Window stared opening.
"S-Should we really b-break in like this?" Siesta asked quietly but she was mostly ignored.
There she was, peacefully sleeping, only after looking closer Louise noticed the unhealthy pale look that her face held. Any doubt on doing this as quickly as possible, disappeared.
"Do it! Heal her." she said full of conviction.
The Angeloid went to work.
Light started to shine around them as her sister was enveloped in a bubble. Inside the bubble a multitude of tools and apertures appeared out of thin air, Louise had no idea what they were good for but she couldn't even voice a question as they started working on her sister.
First some of them started roaming her body with strange light. "Error detected." the Angeloid announced. "Blood iron deficiency and Liver failure found. Growing replacement organs." Several needles stuck into her sister.
Louise grabbed Ikaros hand and squeezed tightly, Ikaros in response took her master into a one armed hug. Louise knew that she should trust the capabilities of a Angeloid, but watching this process still was heart wrenching, the knives and needless, how they worked on her sister, poked her and cut her open in places, strange things being places and taken out of her sister, it made her sick just watching.
"Completed. I have additionally injected a serum that will improve all bodily functions until they reach peak condition." The Angeloid explained. "A high food intake is advised to supplement the increased cell division."
Louise was about to respond as her sisters eyes opened.
She looked around the room. She looked at all the people in the room as she went through various emotions, first fear, then sadness and at last grim acceptance.
"Well, at least I got to see my sister before I go." she said quietly.
Louise first was confused, then looked around the room.
Then her palm meet her face. "You are not dead Sister! I brought the angels to heal you! Not take you away."
"I, what?" Now it was Cattleyas turn to be confused.
"Well, to make a long story really short. My familiar is an angel and I, with her help, enlisted another angel that specializes in healing and used her expertise to heal you." Louise explained.
Her sister could only stare.
She was about to open her mouth as the door was ripped open and very angry lady Vallière was aiming her wand into the room. Her sleeping robes did nothing to lower the amount of danger that she radiated.
"What, is going on here?" she demanded in a cold voice.
A few minutes later the whole family, minus Eleanor who was still at the magical institute, and Ikaros who went to the kitchen with Siesta.
Louise was just bearly preventing herself from shaking in fear.
"So,..." her father Laurent Vallière opened up."Louise, please explain what exactly happened that lead to this situation." He said while pointing to the other two Angeloids.
"W-Well, it's… a long story?" Louise answered nervously.
"Good thing the day just started then." Karin commented as she looked out the window towards the rising morning sun.
A sigh escaped Louise as she was thinking about where to start her tale.
"I suppose it all started at the familiar summoning ritual." Louise started, her nervousness fading a bit as she dove into her memory. "I summoned Ikaros, the angel, or Angeloid as they call themselves. At first we suspected that she is from one of the bird woman from the mountains." Louise explained.
"Harpies." Karin commented, as the whole room threw her questioning looks she explained. "Calling them Bird Woman is very insulting to them, they prefer to be called Harpies, you do Not want to be on the receiving end of their claws, mage or not."
Louise nodded and continued."Well, the thing is that over time many clues kept piling up. I and a few others are very much convinced that they are genuine." Louise explained with a sigh."Ikaros is a Brimiric angel, there is no other logical explanation left."
"Louise, true or not you should be very careful with what you say, the church could get very upset if you claim something like that." her father warned.
"They already checked actually, someone send a letter to them and a inquisitor was sent to investigate, I met him and professor Colbert helped me explain the bir… Harpie theory and he accepted it."
"That is good, the church is very much opposed to claims of divinity, ironic in my opinion." he commented.
"There is nothing ironic about that, the church is missguided in nearly all their beliefs."
"And who exactly might you two be?" Karin asked the two other Angeloids in the room.
"I am Daedalus, mother of all Angeloids. This little on here is a Oregano class Angeloid, they are specialized in maintenance." She explained pointing at the other Angeloid who gave a short bow.
"We only called her Oregano class so far." Louise commented. "What is your name?" Louise asked the littles Angeloid.
"This unit has no designation, master." she answered, her voice being the epitome of monotony.
"She doesn't have a name?" Louise asked Daedalus.
"There is way to many Oregano class Angeloids, naming them all is not really a option."
"That's horrible." Louise said looking at the healer thoughtfully. "Your name shall be… Aria."
"Primary designation changed to 'Aria'." The newly named Angeloid confirmed.
"I believe we are getting of topic here." Karin said sharply making Lousie, Cattleya and their Father shudder.
"Things where peaceful at the start, I even made a friend because of Ikaros, despite her annoying follower." the last part she whispered to herself. "But then the familiar exhibition happened." Louise took a deep breath. "Please wait before you comment, the next part is... complicated."
"It started with my familiar and myself practicing, we got the last spot and wanted to impress Henrietta, both as princess and as her friend. She even snuck out to the back of the preparation tent to speak with me before the show, to wish me luck." Louise had a faint smile thinking back on that moment. "The show went on without a issues but at the end a assassin revealed itself in the form of Forquet, she created a huge earth golem and used the resulting confusion to kill the princess."
"What?!" The Duke shouted as he stood up, his chair hitting the ground behind him."That makes the country leaderless, I need to make preparations immediately!"
He was about to leave the room as Louise stopped him. "I haven't finished yet, this is not the ending." she protested.
"As exciting as your tale is Louise, this takes precedence." he was nearly by the door.
"The princess is alive!" Louise shouted.
Her father stopped dead in his tracks. "You better explain yourself right this instance young lady."
"Please sit down, my tale will explain everything." Louise insisted and Laurent sat down again.
"As the princess lay there d-dying I made a wish. I wished for this to never have happened." Louise said. "Before that I still had strong doubts about the divinity of my familiar. As I woke up a moment later most of those doubts where gone."
"What is that supposed to mean?" The her father asked. "Was the princess brought back to life?"
"In a sense." Louise had trouble finding the right word. "This may sound complicated. When I woke up the next day, it wasn't the, well, next day. I woke up three days before the princess even died." She explained carefully.
"So THAT is what drained all the power!" Daedalus said, the epiphane striking her. As everyone looked at her she explained. "Time travel is very draining and the Synapse is already very low on power, it also showed up on the sensors and allowed the other Angeloids to track you to your location, this amount of power is very noticable."
"So that is how they found us." Louise commented.
"Wait, admittedly I am not able to follow. Louise did what exactly?" Cattleya asked, speaking up for the first time since the start of the conversation.
"Imagine you, as you are now, got to sleep right now, and wake up three days ago, with all the memories of what will happen in the next three days as you lived them." Louise explained.
"But, they haven't happened yet. So how could I have lived them?" her sister asked confusion written her face.
"I will try to explain later, the important thing is, the princess hasn't died yet, when she visited the tent she told me that she visited my room the night of her arrival at the academy, we used that to contact her and warn her of the attempt on her life." Louise started explaining again. "When three days later the assassin tried again, we were prepared and caught her and interrogated her."
"But, the other attempt has never been made." Cattleya complained."I am confused…"
"More importantly, why weren't your room when the princess arrived the first time around?" Trust a mother to pick up That detail. "If you have found someone your age to court we can always reconsider your engagement to Wardes." Karin explained. "However going behind his back is unbecoming of a noble."
"It's nothing like that!" Louise protested. "I, blew up my room in a magic accident. I spend the nights they needed repair it with the company of a friend, a female friend." she clarified. "But to get back on topic, after the assassination was prevented my friend Tabitha got a mission from the Galian king. As thanks her aid with saving the princess I accompanied her." Louise took another deep breath as Karin nodded in approval. "As soon as we left the academy we were attacked by three other angels."
Everyone's eyes narrowed at that."Attacked? By angels?" her father asked with disbelief in his voice.
Louise nodded."Ikaros, the angel that I summoned as my familiar, was hunted down by the others for some reason."
"Louise, are you implying that your familiar, and by extension you, are criminals in the eyes of the heavens?!" the duke was rubbing his head trying to calm a growing headache.
"I think so?" Louise threw a questioning look at Daedalus.
"You are, mind you, that is a good thing, after all being against Synapse is being against Minos." she explained as a matter of factly.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" Karin asked sharply.
"Heaven was never on your side. In fact, the magic you praise as gifts from the heavens where actually gifts from what you would call the Devil." Daedalus explained. "As much as you can call Brimir being too close to one of Alphas impact sites a gift."
Silence is all that followed at those words, they all started at her with a mixture of emotions.
Her mother was the first regain her composure, by drawing her wand and aiming at Daedalus.
"What kind of madness are you giving of you!" she shouted, ready to put her through the wall at a moments notice.
"I know this is hard to accept but it's the truth." Daedalus explained seemingly ignorant of the danger.
"Humans were never supposed to have power like this. How you gained it in the first place is complicated and I myself don't have all the details. However there is one who can tell us exactly what happened 6000 years ago." as if on command Ikaros and Siesta walked in with a tray of food.
A extra large plate, filled with all kinds of food, was placed in front of Cattleya who could only look at it in shock.
"Isn't, that a bit much?" she asked Ikaros carefully.
"Your metabolism is sped up as a result of the procedure, you will need more food intake to keep up with the demands of your body" Aria explained. "Anything less is detrimental to your health and would require further invasive procedures."
"What exactly is that supposed to mean? What did you do to our daughter?" Karin asked, by now she was so tense that you could feel her wand deforming in her hand.
"I first did a full body scan to localize the..."
"She healed her." Louise cut her off, not wanting to listen to another explanation filled with words only halve the room would understand. "And what do you mean with 6000 years ago, because this get referenced a lot by you angel's, Ikaros supposed attacked that Synapse place but she has no memories of that ever happening." she added.
Instead of answering Daedalus simply looked at Ikaros.
Louise looked back and forth between the two. "You do know that Ikaros as no memories of anything from before I summoned her, right?" Louise asked carefully.
"That I know, after all I am the one who locked them away. However I have to admit that I am confused. By now Ikaros should have been capable of removing the memory protect I put on her by herself, after all I didn't lock away any other of her capabilities."
"Well you are wrong." Louise countered. "Even that other one, Nymph, couldn't do anything."
"Now you are just sprawling nonsense." Daedalus shot back. "Nymph should have no trouble with anything I did to Ikaros." With that she stood up and walked towards Ikaros stretching her hand out.
Just as she was about to reach Ikaros head the Angeloid took a step back.
This stopped Daedalus cold in her tracks and Louise eyes widened. This reaction was unprecedented for Ikaros.
"Ah, I understand. I didn't lock away your emotions, you are afraid." Daedalus said. The she finished speaking, there was a hole in the wall next to where Ikaros used to be.
"Ikaros!" Louise shouted after her, as Cattleya fell of her chair, Duchess and Duke readied their wands.
Daedalus simply looked after Ikaros and signed. "You know, when I locked away her memories I had the intention of healing her."
"How the hell is that supposed to work?!" Louise shouted.
"Ikaros didn't have a will to live. I gave her to you so that she would regain that. And now that she got to experience life as a simple servant instead of a war maschine she is plagued by fear, fear that she will become that monster once more."
"Daedalus." Karin said with ice voice, for the first time acknowledging the Angeloids name. "Who exactly is my daughters familiar supposed to be?"
"Ikaros, Alpha, Strategic warfare class Angeloid, The morning Star, The shepard, honestly there are so many names for Ikaros that I am not sure which one will give you the proper emotional reaction." Daedalus explained. "I supposed the most fitting one would be Minos primary executioner, on his orders, every few thousand years Ikaros destroyed nearly all human life, leaving only enough alive so that they could start from nothing, rebuilding civilization, after civilization."
Again, shocked silence filled the room.
"Ikaros? No you are lying. There is no way Ikaros could do something so insane!" Louise shouted.
"You are not wrong. As she is now she would kill any master who would order her to do something like this." Daedalus confirmed. "However why don't you ask her your questions yourself?" she said pointing at Louise hand.
The cain was always there but Louise would only ever see it when she was actively looking for it.
Right now it felt like an oppressive weight.
"Ikaros." Louise said quietly, she thought about her familiar about all the things that happened since she summoned her and what to do as she thought she knew is slowly collapsing around her, thinking what she wanted from her familiar.
"Please, come back." She whispered.
It only took a few seconds the sound of wings was heard from the outside.
Slowly Louise stepped through the hole in the wall her family following her.
There, in the middle of the garden, Ikaros was on her knees. It reminded Louise of when she first saw her.
Ikaros was staring on the ground, her face hidden. Louise lowered herself to face her but Ikaros only bowed deeper. "Ikaros, who are you?" she asked.
"I am the pet class Angeloid Ikaros, I only exist to serve my master, Louise Vallière." she answered, not looking up.
Louise was about to retort but thought better of it, after all this was what Ikaros was right now.
But that wasn't what Louise wanted to know.
After careful consideration she asked again. "Ikaros, who were you before you became mine?"
At first there was no answer and behind her her parents, and ever her sister, readied their wands.
Then Ikaros started to shake it was only a tiny but it was noticeable. Then Louise put her fingers on Ikaros chin lifting her face to her own.
Tears were streaming down the Angeloids face and her expression was one of pure anguish. "I-I was Strategic warfare class Angeloid A-Alpha, my purpose was the systematic eradication of humanity."
"Louise, step away from that thing." Karin had her spell ready, the most destructive air spells in her arsenal where casted and hung in the air ready to be unleashed at the twitch of her wand.
Louise looked at her mother, her mind wandering and obvious of the danger. She looked back at Ikaros crying face.
Instinct were screaming at her to obey her mother but questions burned in her mind, questions that need answers.
"Didn't you hear me?! I said step away from that mass murderer!" Karin shouted.
"No." Karin nearly fired her spells then and there. "I want answers first. Ikaros, everybody is talking about something big that happened 6000 years ago, what happened back then?"
"I will show you." Ikaros answered.
With that her eyes change it green and the world around them shifted.
A great hall, grand white pillars surrounding them, and sunlight shining into it from the side greated them.
A second Ikaros appeared, this one looked different. She was wearing heavy armor her eyes where a infernal red and her wings were glowing white, all of that was rounded out by the halo that shone above her.
In front of her on a throne flanked by two other angels was the first male angel they saw, blond long hair, with a body and face that could probably command a army of woman to do as he pleased unconditionally.
"Ikaros." He said with a detached voice. "The humans have reached the technological age." he said with the same detachment. "Destroy them."
"Yes master." Ikaros answered.
The view shifted again, this time they found themselves high in the sky standing above the clouds.
Ikaros was hanging in the air with her wings outstretched, looking down on the strangest place all of them have ever seen.
Towers of glass, reaching high, tiny boxes moving around and in between all that people moving around.
"The order was always stayed the same." Their Ikaros explained. "Destroy humans when they reach a certain stage, reset them to zero." With that a bow and arrow materialised in the other Ikaros hands.
"But what changed where the ways I interpreted it." She was still, the arrow hanging loosely on the string until it infaly dematerialized. "Angeloids are timeless, there was never a need to specify a time." Ikaros halo faded, her wings became a soft pink and her eyes faded back to turquoise.
Again their surroundings changed, this time showing different thing in rapid succession. "Instead I started observing, every human civilization was very much the same as the last one at the start." A park, a couple sitting on a bench, kissing. "But then I started to see differences." Rapidly it began to change again, a different bench, plants some familiar some uncomparable, buildings from round to squares that seem to be floating in the sky. The couple, sometimes two man, sometimes two woman, sometimes they couldn't even tell. "It fascinated me, I wanted to preserve it, everything I could save I did, only after I was sure that I recorded and stored everything I could find I carried out the orders." Again she broke down into tears. They were back in the sky just as Ikaros fired her arrow and the city was consumed by a cloud of fire. "Again." Millions of spears of light shot out from her wings piercing everyone's chest killing them instantly. "And again." Hundreds of black arrows rained from the heaven, decimating cities, countries and continents. "...and again."
"Every time it was the same, but every time I tried to resist more, took more time to collect data, drawing out the process by not using my full capacity." She explained. "But in the end I always had to fulfill my orders."
The image shifted again. This time they were surrounded by ruins. "Until the day where I didn't. 6000 years ago, again I was about to erase the last human city." Ikars was standing, surrounded by bodies and ruble. In front of her was a man. He had blond hair was wearing a white coat. He was dirty, his coat ripped in a few places, a weapon discarded next to him.
He spoke. "What's wrong, not gonna finish the job?" his voice was bitter and hurt, hatred written on his face. Ikaros simply looked at him blankly.
"What's wrong? Not going to answer? Am I beneath your notice?" He asked with raised voice.
"No." This time Ikaros answered. "Human are very precious to me."
The man started laughing maniacally at that."Precious?! Is that how you show your appreciation?!" He shouted at her. "By destroying all of us?!"
"The destruction is happening on orders, I must obey my orders." Ikaros explained. "Do not worry Brimir Varutori..." at the name all of them gasped. "I already have collected and stored all information about this incantation of humanity. Your work in the fields Gene-manipulation is something that is new to my database. Be proude of that."
"Incantation? What is that supposed to mean, that you do this every few years for the heck of it?" Brimir asked back.
"This process of destroying the human race to near extinction is repeated every time human reach a certain stage of technology." Ikaros explained.
"Why? Why do this?" Ikaros was silent.
After a moment she spoke up. "I have no information regarding this topic."
"So what you are ordered to destroy us and do it every time? Collecting data and destroying all of us?"
"Incorrect. My orders are only to destroy humanity, I am collecting data out of my own free will to preserve humanity."
"You are contradicting yourself, preserving humanity only to destroy it later?" Brimir argued. "That makes no, goddamn, sense!"
Ikaros stood still for awhile, until she again materialized her bow and arrow aiming it for Brimir. "No answers? Figured as much."
Their own Ikaros stood up and walked towards her past self. "At this point I had a internal error, my order is simple, destroy humanity. But at the same time I have been preserving human knowledge so long that it also was written as a primary order." she explained.
"That is impossible, I have specify build you the way that only you master can give you primary orders." Daedalus exclaimed with shock visible on her face.
"There is two contradictions written into Angeloids primary data hub that you didn't solve." Ikaros replied coldly. "An Angeloid must fulfill a masters order above all else. An Angeloid needs to be able to interpret the deeper meaning behind a masters wishes."
"How is that supposed to be contredicionary?" she asked back.
"Over the time studying humans it became very clear that interpreting orders can be done in any way, shape or form I desire. What for one civilization is a dismissive and angry gesture is for another a happy or even ecstatic behavior."
"That does not explain how you can have extra primary orders." Daedalus argues.
"Freedom of interpretation allows me to look at the order however I want, I ordered to destroy humanity, I searched a reason for this order. My interpretation allowed me to include preservation of human race as a additional order specification."
"But that is a… contre..." Daedalus fell silent.
"By allowing a contradictory primary order to write itself into my primary orders directory I was allowed to choose one primary and discard the other one." Ikaros explained just as her counterpart lowered her weapon and said to Brimir. "You are right." she said to him. "It's a contradiction."
With that she took the chain that was hanging from her neck and ripped it apart. Her bow disappeared and the arrow fell on the ground, her wings began to glow again and her halo appeared over her head as she kicked of the ground and flew in the air.
Suddenly the world around them froze just as Brimir's eyes wandered to the discarded arrow. "When I left the arrow behind, I calculated a 38,9% chanse that Brimir, based on his previous research, would be able to gain useful knowledge from it and with it help humans develop weapons to combat Synapse." Ikaros explained.
"He partially succeeded, he created the basis for what you call magic."
The Vallière's sat around the living room with various states of shock.
Cattleya was stuffing herself with food, trying her best to ignore the world around her. She was reluctant to eat so much at the start but as the literal angel of Brimir told her to eat she decided to make it a challenge. Siesta helped her.
Karin fell back to her military training and stood still like a statue, thinking about the information that was revealed to her.
The Duke grabbed a glass of wine and was reading religious texts. He had a fair bit of those stored in his study based on the mountain of paper that was on the table next to his wine bottle.
Louise was surprised at the sheer size of it.
The Angeloids stood mostly still, Ikaros and Aria stood behind Louise chair Daedalus was browsing the texts of the duke.
"I still have a few questions." Karin said finally coming to some internal conclusion.
"That, my dear, is the understatement of the century, and I can actually say that unironically." Laurent said to his wife without looking up from his text as his wife gave him That look.
"For confirmation, after you left the Founder the tools to create magic, what happened?" Karin asked.
"War." Daedalus was the one who answered. "for nearly 300 years Ikaros did her best to rip the Synapse apart piece by piece, nothing was left untouched, everything was annihilated, a legion of over 50.000 war capable Angeloids, completely destroyed over the course of the conflict." She explained with a monotony as if she was speaking about the weather. "Even the Zeus orbital cannon was obliterated and ripped from the Sky. I didn't know that was actually possible. How did you do that by the way?" the last part was directed at Ikaros.
"I used the teleporting hub, fired a Apollon arrow and teleported it into the firing mechanism while distracting the scanners with a attack on the primary base."
"That… I honestly have no idea how you even got that idea." Daedalus admitted.
"There is human media who detail the process, I found it applicable to many situations." Ikaros explained as a matter of factly.
"Media?" Louise asked.
"Books and stories told through different ways." Ikaros explained.
"Before we get to far of topic explain a few things to me." Karin said with raised hands. "First, Synapse, you used that word a few times. Second, Ikaros said that she supposedly collected informations about all those eras before, where is that information and what is that technological achievement that triggers the destruction. And third, if this war lasted 300 years, what happened after that?"
"Synapse is the name of heaven! And Ikaros was imprisoned up until my familiar summoning got her to me." Louise explained pridefully."It came up often." she added slyly as all eyes where drilling into her.
"The information is stored over various places, I couldn't be sure if I would survive that conflict so I created multiple copies of the date all over the planet. The one most easily accessible is on my Uranus class warship."
"Didn't that get destroyed 156 years in?" Daedalus said asking for clarification.
"It's data storages are still intact, I verified it 9 hours ago." Ikaros explained.
"But 9 hours..." this, surprisingly, came from Siesta. "The Dragons revenant is your warship?!" she asked Ikaros with shock written on her face.
"Correct."
"Wait, you knew where it was, didn't you?" Siesta said accusingly. "You lead us there!"
"Correct, Master needed the assistance of a Oregano class Angeloid, I knew that the scanners of the Uranus systems where capable of finding the Synapse. Accessing them allowed to fulfill my Masters desire to heal her sister." Ikaros explained.
"Ha! I knew something was strange!" Siesta said triumphantly.
She quickly went red and shyed back as she noticed how out of line she was among all those nobles and Angel's
"That ties into two more question." Karin continued. "First, if you are so incredibly dangerous then how come they haven't destroyed you?" she said pointing at Ikaros. "And who is this maid who arrived with you Louise?"
"Destroying Ikaros is next to impossible, that we actually managed to stop her was only possible under the risk of the whole Synapse, or at least what was left of it." Daedalus explained. "I might have been able to do it. But I also might have triggered herself evolution program, it was just deemed the safer option to imprison her."
Karin nodded then turned to Louise waiting for another explanation. "We, kind of had to drag her along, she found out too much by accident." Louise admitted embarrassed.
The duchess sighed and started to massage her temple trying to ward of the impending headache.
After a moment she eyed Daedalus. "Last question then. Why do you care Daedalus, you admited yourself that Ikaros killed thousands of your so called children."
"They weren't true children." she said with sadness in her voice. "Ikaros is the Alpha Angeloid for a reason, she was the first one to be truly alive. Artificial life is a not that hard to create, the issue is that it is simply useless. There are much easier ways to solve tasks then to create a living creature soly to solve a problem." She explained. "Ikaros was in essence a experiment, What would a Angeloid with a conscious do? Would it be the same? Would it start to rebel?" Her voice was filled with excitement. "I got my answers but I wasn't ready for them."
"That is when I realized my mistakes, my Angeloids are much more than just servants. They are alive, they feel, they think. As their creator and mother I have responsibilities to them. Minos only brings them pain and death. As such he needs to be stopped no matter the cost."
Karins eyes wandered over to Louise who was doing her best to pretend to not exists, behind her Ikaros stood still, the emotions she showed a while ago disappeared again.
Again she sighed and sat down. Her husband offered her a glass filled with wine, she looked at it as if it offended her but then accepted it taking a healthy sip.
"So, what now?" She asked into the room. "Cattleya, you have been awfully silent, how is your health?" No doubt the Duchess wanted to hear some good news.
"Oh, my health is fine, in fact I haven't felt so go in… well ever." She said between stuffing her face. "Mentally I am trying to deal with my little sister having summoned an angel. Said angel is the creature that appeared Brimir himself, while at the same time being the angel that crushed the heavens into tiny pieces, slaughtering her way through it, and now she and a few others want to rebel against what is left of it. Did I miss anything?" Cattleya was getting more and more agitated during her speech.
"We also need to destroy the church as the pope is a puppet of Minos." Daedalus added. "Also Louise is what you call a 'Void mage'."
After that Cattleya grabbed a wine glass as well, no one stopped her.
They all went apart going about their various day to day business, as it was early no one could really sleep over the early morning revelations.
Louise for her part was just happy that her eldest sister wasn't here, she probably would have reacted violently and set of Ikaros.
The Angeloid for her part was busy combing Louise hair as she was lost in thought.
So many things revealed, the nature of her magic, the purpose of her familiar, what Ikaros was and her rolles in the past. It was just so much.
She turned around and looked at Ikaros, her face used to be so blank to Louise but now she could read it so much better. There was some worry, happiness, and a bit of curiosity.
"Ikaros?" she said.
"Yes master?" she asked back.
"What where other humans like?"
Ikaros was silent at first. But as she started to brush Louise hair again she said. "Different. Every civilization had very varied histories. Civilization 485 discovered electricity very early and had computing far above others. I actually had trouble entering their more secure systems." Ikaros reminisced. "Civilization 136 had the closest thing to a utopia ever recorded, directly related to that their technological progress was nearly halted to a standstill. In relation to that it also made it the longest lasting one."
Ikaros went silent for a moment before continuing. "Civilization 79 was very unusual as there was no calculable way for it to survive as long as it did."
"Maybe we can write down their histories someday." Louise suggested. "Share it with the world"
"Yes master." Louise sighted at the Ikaros typical answers.
"Which one is your favourite one?" Louise asked, trying to get more information out of her familiar.
This time Ikaros stopped completely and didn't move for a good few seconds. When Louise looked back at her again, she finally decided on what to say.
"This one." she finally decided.
"Why is that?" Louise asked carefully.
"Because it has a chance to persist."