Haridian and Luna had moved to a bench outside of the store while they waited for their parents. Luna's father had wandered off and was likely at a printing supply store according to the blond haired girl. Haridian was waiting for Mary to finish getting measured and the all three students robes needed to be properly sized.
"-So my foot's totally stuck in there right, I'm freaking out, the Kubrow's having a seizure and I still have half a pie left." Luna was giggling like a maniac as Haridian was telling a story from his days in training.
"What's a Kubrow?" She asked between giggles.
"Hmm, well, it's a Quadruped native to Gaia. They were originally bred as pets, companions, guides, and guards during the Orokin Empire. When that fell many were released into the wild and mated with the feral Kubrows creating a sort of bastard mix of the Ferals and the Orokin bred," Haridian explained.
Luna listened on attentively as Haridian talked. "Nowadays Tenno take eggs from abandoned or destroyed kubrow dens. With a little bit of cloning and a dash of gene-splicing, Kubrows are back to, or closer to, what they were. Loyal companions and ferocious combatants."
Luna frowned a little, "I'm sensing a 'but' in there somewhere."
Haridian sighed, "How observant of you. As I said, the current breeds of Kubrows you see around are not the result of selective breeding and evolution. Kubrows have always been social animal, as such, they need a lot of interactions between them and their owners or they fall into a depression of sorts. On top of that, they're born of cloning and genetic tampering, do you know what that means?"
Luna looked down in thought, she knew what cloning was, at least a little, from when they had learned about duplication. She remembered a muggleborn witch go on and on about it after that particular lesson. But most of it went over her head. Luna looked at Haridian and shook her head, "No, I'm afraid I don't."
"It means we took the DNA, it's sort of like the instructions for how to build a living thing that occurs naturally," Haridian added kindly at the confused tilt of her head, "of one of the 'original' Kubrows and implant it into the feral Kubrow egg. Do you follow me so far?"
Haridian continued when Luna nodded, "After the DNA has been implanted we take a machine with that does something to the strands of DNA from the feral and mixes it with the foreign DNA. From there, the machine sequences the DNA into a semi random sequence to create a pseudo clone of a Kubrow. By that I mean the machine mixes the genetic code enough to make it a different animal but it's still technically the same one from the parent DNA."
"I don't understand, how is that a bad thing?"
"Well the problem with genetic scrambling is, the new set of DNA is unstable and if you don't continuously stabilize the new set of DNA the Kubrow's cells could begin to split into cells of two different breeds of Kubrow, Orokin and Feral, on the same body. The animal's body sees this as a sort of infection and the body begins to slowly kill itself off."
"Oh, I can see how that could be a problem," Luna said sadly.
Haridian turned to look into the window of the store, Mary was still being measured and lily was dragging James around to look at fancy dresses and robes. "Do you mind if I test something?" he asked turning back around to face Luna.
"What kind of test?"
"It won't hurt, I don't think, but I need to confirm something if you don't mind," he said.
"You didn't really answer my question but I suppose so." Luna said with shrug.
"This shouldn't hurt but if you feel any pain, any at all, tell me and I will stop." Luna hesitantly nodded in agreement. "Okay, all I need you to do is turn your head towards me and try to keep your eyes open." Haridian held a hand on both sides of her head, without touching her, and began to channel void energy into his hands.
The uncontained, or undirected, energy of the void has a tendency to move to the largest collection of the energy, most often referred to as repositories. In the body of a tenno there are only a few repositories that have developed, the best known are the eyes which results in a Tenno's eye-glow.
When Tenno first wake up from the second dream, their repositories are usually almost completely empty if their cryo-pods weren't in an area where void energy saturates the environment. To counteract this another Tenno can release unaligned energy near one of the repositories and jumpstart the the body's ability to absorb and contain the energy.
The energy that Haridian was releasing from his hands was not being released or absorbed through a focus lense so instead of being directed and focused it simply floated in the air. It began to form a glowing golden halo around Luna's head where it stayed suspended for a moment before it collapsed into two streams that flowed into the girls eyes. Haridian stopped channeling and allowed the energy in the air to be absorbed.
Once Luna had taken in all the Void energy Haridian released, she pressed the heel of her palms into her eyes. She suppressed a groan as she rubbed her eyes.
"Let me see," Haridian said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"What did you do?" she asked as she pulled her hands away from her face but leaving here eyes closed.
"Woke your true potential."
Luna cracked her eyes and giggled a little. "Y'know, you're not very good at being cryptic. Besides, it's unnecessary. You're right here and could explain it very easily."
"Heh, fair enough. First, open your eyes all the way, take your time-" he added as her eyes opened wide then snapped shut.
Luna felt like she had just woken up and someone had just pointed a bright light at her face. Slowly she opened her eyes. The first thing she noticed when she did was just how vibrant everything was, it was like someone had lifted a veil from her eyes. She couldn't find the words to explain it, everything was just different, brighter.
"So what is it that you've done?"
"To put it simply, the energy i just introduced to you is… let's say a river. Your eyes work as a lake that the river flows into. Your body should be absorbing it naturally but it couldn't because there was a dam blocking off the lake."
"So what you did is flood the river and break down the dam?" She asked.
Haridian nodded, "Essentially." He glanced behind him into the store to see that everything was being paid for. "It seems that our time talking is coming to a close."
"Yes I really should go find my father, he always seems to find something interesting to get up to. Is it okay if I write to you?" she asked.
"I don't mind. I need to talk to my…" Haridian paused trying to find the right words, "I'll need to inform the Lotus about you and-" He cut himself off, choosing not to tell Luna about the Infested just yet. "Nevermind. You should probably find something to cover your eyes."
Luna tilted her head and asked why. "Well, you're not exactly human, never were to be completely honest. But anyway your eyes are glowing… and different colors."
The dreamy look that was usually on her face shifted to a look of confusion. She looked at her reflection in the store's front window. Her eyes were still blue but the iris had separated into two different shades the inner color was an icy blue and the outside was a navy blue and they were glowing. Not the a subtle glow that she had grown accustomed to as she grew up, that could and often was chalked up to a trick of the light. Now they were giving off an orange glow that she idly thought contrasted with the blues of her irises quite nicely.
"I'll need you to message me or send me a letter or whatever when you get a chance. You'll need training and I'm not sure I'm the best person to give it," Haridian admitted.
"Training? What do I need training for?''
"There is a war going on, a war far away from here. I understand if you have no wish to embroil yourself into a war that is not your own but there are others out there who will not be so understanding. You have more power than you know, and there are those out there that would take that power for themselves." Haridian opened his hood and stared into Luna's eyes. "Do you understand.
Luna was taken aback at his drastic switch in attitude. She stared into his green and blue eyes and found herself surprised when the eyes she looked into were not the joking, happy, and young eyes she was expecting. The eyes she was looking into now were filled with loss, pain, and loneliness but what really stuck out to her was how old they looked. They seemed too old to be apart of the face that they were.
"I understand," She whispered, wrapping her arms around him.
Haridian stiffened in surprise at the sudden contact. He fought down the instinctual urge to lash out at the physical contact. He looked down at luna, how long has it been since I last felt something so gentle and caring, so… so… he thought as he slowly wrapped his arms around her, So comforting.
Lily was standing with one hand on the doorknob as she watched the interactions with a smile. James had been keeping an eye on the pair sitting outside and had seen most of the interaction, making note to ask what was going on. Mary wandered over in time to watch Haridian take off his hood and the Lovegood girl to hug him, a devious grin spread across her face.
The hug didn't last long as Haridian, who was unused to physical intimacy, released quickly. He pulled on his hood and looked around, most people in the street had other things to do or just ignore what they perceived as just another blooming schoolyard relationship. "I'll write you soon okay? Maybe we can meet up before school starts." Luna said hopefully.
"Yes, I will see you soon." Luna smiled at Hadrian's reply and wandered off to find her father.
Seeing Luna leave, the rest of the Potters left the store. Haridian looked at James, "How long has it been?" Haridian was eager to see if either of the two wands made would be accepting of him as their user. He was sort of an addict when it came to weapons, to him everyday felt like a struggle as he had to stop himself from blowing all of his meager supply of platinum on rushing the completion of weapons and warframes. This was a little different because from what he understood a wand was something of a weapon, warframe and Swish Orokin Knife all rolled in one.
Alas they still had a thirty minute wait, at least. Mary suggested they go get ice cream, at the mention of ice cream James began to bounce around like a small child. "What's ice cream?"
James froze and slowly spun to look at Haridian, a strange look in his eye. He was in Haridian's face so fast that if Haridian didn't know better he would have said a Nova opened a Wormhole that stopped inches away from him.
"What… IS… ICE CREAM?!"
Haridian vowed never to mention Ice Cream around James Potter in the hopes to avoid ever creating another "Ice Cream Dream" incident. He will, however, admit that the frozen treat was quite delicious.
Haridian sighed and looked down at his now ice cream covered clothes then glared at James. He was in a similar state of dress, that is to say covered in melting dairy product, and giggling to himself while he licked a chocolate ice cream cone.
After everyone was cleaned up with a couple quick Scourgifies the group headed to Ollivander's to see if either of the wands would be accepting of Haridian. The door let out a particularly loud creak when Haridian pushed it open.
"I'll be with you in a moment Mister Potter!" Ollivander's voice drifted from somewhere in the back of the store.
Ah yes, more waiting Haridian thought while stifling a groan. And so our brave, and bored, hero sat and waited.
And waited…
Aaannnd waited…
Aaaaannnnnnddddddd wait-
"I'm done Mister Potter!" Ollivander called out walking to the front of the store. He was cradling two boxes in his hand, both were unassuming grey and brown boxes.
Ollivander placed them both on the counter and removed the tops of the boxes. "Twelve inches, aspen, surprisingly swishy, especially for a wand with a core made of crystals," he explained pointing to the box on the left. "I'm sure you know what to do with it now."
Haridian gingerly picked up the wand, a strange sort of feeling welling up inside of his chest. He gave the wand a grand sweeping gesture and… it released a dark greenish brown gas. James was the first to be hit with the cloud of gas, the second it hit his nose, his eyes began to water and he began to gag.
"Oh, OH MERLIN that is foul!" he said, pinching his nose. "Good sweet merciful creator! It smells like liquified and fermented anus!"
Haridian quickly placed the wand back into its box and as soon as he let go of it the ass cloud it summoned dispersed. "Somehow, I don't think that wand likes me."
Ollivander chuckled and nodded in agreement. He handed the other wand to Haridian while telling him about it. "Thirteen and a half inches, ebony, reasonably pliant with a , I believe you called it, Kuva core. Now, this wand was quite interesting to make as I've never used a liquid core for a wand before."
The moment Haridian took the wand in his hand there was a rush of energy that filled him. WHAAAAAA, a loud ring filled the area and Haridian was covered in a mixture of silver and gold static.
The silence that had pervaded the shop was broken by the quiet chuckling of Ollivander. "Well mister Potter, I do believe that the wand has chosen the wizard!"
Haridian inspected the wand in his hand. The handle curved down, much like a pistol grip, and covered in small diamond shapes, giving it the feel of scales. The wood was black as a starless night sky and had a carving of a braid running down the length of it from the top of the handle to the tip of the wand. It had a simplistic elegance to it, at least that's what the boy holding the wand thought.
"Now, I do believe we had a deal, a wand for a wand as it were."
"Hmmm? Oh yes indeed, that wand is now yours Mister Potter. Use it wisely," the old wand maker warned.
Ollivander's warning drew a memory to the surface of his mind, it was memory of a voice. It was speaking to him, warning him.
This is your Warframe, Tenno. It will be your sword, your shield, your armour, your vessel. Protect it and it will protect you, my child. Use it wisely but remember…
"There is nothing wise about war," he muttered quietly, shaking off the memory that had assailed him. He glanced around and the only ones who seemed to catch his murmurings were the James and the elderly wand maker, who were looking at him in concern.
Ollivander went place a hand on his shoulder but Haridian flinched away from the contact. Ollivander had seen this behavior in many veterans of You-Know-Who's blood crusade and just allowed the boy to pull away from his grasp.
"Very well then, if you find there are any problems with your wand or if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to write me a letter or come visit." With a final farewell, the Potters left.
"Operator, Ordis wonders… what are you thinking about?"
Haridian was sitting at Navigation, rolling his wand around between his palms. "Ordis, I need to contact Lotus, can I do that from the ship?"
"Unfortunately, Operator, this -THhhIS hunK OF J-j-jJunk- ship does not possess the proper communications equipment."
HUmming in thought, He brought up a navigational map of Earth. "What if we commandeer a communications satellite?"
"That could work," The cephalon said hesitantly.
"I'm sensing a but in there."
"You would have to connect the satellite to the ships external comms array, sync the data streams and then convert the streams into the proper wavelength for cross-void communication." Ordis paused for a moment. "It is likely when we have- PPppeEEnEeetRat-ted TH-th-tHeir Re-rectums- accessed their system our position will be compromised. You will likely need to defend the ship and satellite."
Haridian sighed, "Prepare the Archwing?"
"Prepare the Archwing."
"Damn it."