Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Syrenet, Chapter #25: Lucas's Nebular Network. I am so sorry for the long, long wait that this has become, but my heart wasn't into writing for a little bit and school was starting to once again become a huge chore and bother and troublesome issue that I needed to stick to, but I'm back! This Thanksgiving break that I am on is a much needed one to catch my breath and actually churn at the very least one or two chapters out for my WIPS before suffering the same routine; luckily Winter Break is a month from last Saturday, so I then have fourteen days to write even more. Review replies!
CrashGuy01- Glad to see you reviewing again, missed ya buddy! Ooh, yeah... Corrin is not doing the greatest right now, if I am to be frank... but she's under a lot of pressure and just wants things to go as smoothly as possible. Snake is starting to become one of my favorite characters for every piece I write as he's just this mellow head that we know is going to fix things and get everything to where it needs to be. And you hit the nail on the head, where Roy and Midna are concerned. Midna is torn between both guys, as it is damn clear Mac is head over heels for her, but Roy is probably suffering relapses of how he feels.
Guest- I'm so sorry about the wait, as I figured you were the one most hyped for it! Your words are so very kind to me, my goodness you have no idea how much that means to hear you say so. If I knew the answer to how I write thousands of words a day I would immediately tell you, and there are also writers out there who write way more than I do in lesser time than I do and don't take as many breaks as I do in a given week. I am also flattered to hear you say that this is your favorite fanfiction, though I am so sure that it'll be unseated by something else in near future. I think you're really going to love this chapter.
Metroid-Killer- Thank you. Interesting thought process. With how you're viewing Shulk and Fiora, I don't think he ever got that closure that he needed with her - it really does matter - and mayhaps this is the only way out, you never know. When it comes to why everyone hates Syrenet, the majority opinion isn't hate, but a select group that just downright dislikes it. Think about it this way. The government provides something free of charge that has the largest and highest amount of perks that anyone has ever heard of and there's no catch? From someone as sly as Corrin? I'd question it too. Glad to know you liked Snake and Corrin's conversation the most, I loved it too.
Enjoy Chapter #25: Lucas's Nebular Network.
The empty foyer is quiet, only the gentle chirping of birds outside the windows acting as the only noise coming into the compound. Pockets of pealing sunshine spill through shards of glass that pool around the tiled floor, shadows pouring on the edges of the light bank. A larger shadow stands between the wide windows, a singular body looking up and smiling at the beauty of nature. Vice president Robin Wyndel lets the warmth envelop her, a warm hug with memories of home and mother's chocolate chip cookies that cause her heart to pain slightly.
Robin is usually not known to be a morning person, and she'd whole heartedly agree with that sentiment. However, something beckons her to open her eyes at six in the morning and creep out of her room, careful to not wake anyone should she wish to be spared from the wrathful being that is Corrin Etch. She laughs to herself quietly when thinking how she's scared of another human being purely for waking them up. Corrin needs her to be successful. She couldn't work without her right hand woman and expect things to turn out the same way. Corrin lacks stability and a complete understanding of organization, which luckily, Robin contains in her brain in spades. She didn't get valedictorian of her high school without being somewhat capable at organizing a messy schedule, let alone an entire country.
She stands in the middle of the foyer, bathed in the sunlight, and closes her eyes. Even though the vice president is only breaking the seal of the envelope concerning her age in the early forties, in her bones it is as if eons have passed between her childhood and womanhood. She remembers her mother, graceful and lithe, the epitome of a prima ballerina, standing by the counter with those chocolate chip cookies and a birthday card. Her father is gruffer, a harder blur as she hasn't seen him since a young age - around twelve or so - and he's there to with a smile, a beard, and a present. Robin doesn't remember her very first home, the home her parents had built, but it's been told to her over the years. A spiraling staircase, a gilded chandelier swinging above a diamond pool of reflective glass floors, butlers and maids, a pool, and each room dedicated to one specific color... a reminder of her golden age.
Then her father vanishes without a trace. Some suspect foul play. Her mother fears he's cheating. They switch homes - Robin and her mother - as the old one is a liability and there needs to be no connection between the mother daughter duo and the man that suddenly disappeared from their life. They move to a more quaint home somewhere in Oregon, with a rickety wooden porch, brass instruments littering the yard, and one old fragmented memory from the home of long ago.
Passed down through the generations of her mother's family is a victrola with an attached phonograph to play worn out old records like the days floating through a summer breeze. It stays in an open aired room with clear windows and no curtains. Robin recalls her mother smashing them in one day where glass litters among the yard like kaleidoscopes hiding beneath the moonlit grass, and so the 'open' room becomes truly a vast expanse of blue sky. Her mother never had a desire to teach Robin ballet, or the time the silverette laments to herself. Sometimes, after she's been told to go to bed, Robin would peer around the corner and watch her mother dancing away by herself under the moonlit night. A gentle breeze blows through the room and the euphonic chirping of crickets can be heard elsewhere out in the pastures. Her mother closes her eyes, extends her arms out as if she's tackling a waltz, and then steps away. A frenzied dance, with frantic spins that become erratic, and her mother's movements get faster and faster as the victrola winds up and plays the old records.
She hears the Nutcracker theme play, and her mother falls to the ground laughing, clutching her skirts and giving airy, bubbly cries of joy. Robin, one time however, frowns when her mother collapses and cries in her skirts instead. She misses her husband, and Robin misses her father. It's been so long since she's seen either one of them and all she can do with that is try and not forget. She's afraid about forgetting. What happens when she forgets? What happens when you can no longer see what they look like? Do the memories rebuild themselves into new ones, or are they lost to the void of consciousness forever?
Robin breaks away from looking up at the ceiling, imaging a chandelier to come down and crash down upon her. She backs up somewhat, her skin tightening, her breath hitching, and she looks around the foyer. It is still empty, and all that remains is her wilting form, and her body shaking. She closes her eyes and tells herself to think of home. Think of home. Think of home. There's no place like home. The victrola. Mother. Father. The victrola. Ballet. Ballerinas. Mother laughing. The victrola. The victrola.
It catches up to her that she's actually mouthing the word 'victrola' until she's righted herself up and is saying it over and over again. "Victrola. Victrola. Victrola..." Robin says, and her heart rate starts to slow down. Far away, as if it isn't even real, she hears music. A Beethoven composition. Maybe the fifth? Or the third... she cannot tell. The foyer transforms into a ballroom, with high rise walls and ornate paintings lining the wall. Mona Lisa. The Last Supper. School of Athens. Starry Night. Beauty around every corner, and Robin's eyes drink it all in. The whine of the music heightens, louder and louder it escalates until it is blaring with harsh, cacophonic sounds over the walls and spilling out onto the floor.
The ballroom is empty, there's no one else around, but Robin sees him. She doesn't know his name, but she holds his hand anyways. The music rises with a flourish, this time returning to the pleasantries of before, and she smiles. Whomever this savoir of hers is, she's glad to meet him. The two glide over the floor, and he is such a gentleman. A mask that hides his mysterious eyes - amber ones that glow behind an opaque skin tone - and hands that are warm, very warm, but Robin does not think about that now. His hair is surprisingly orange for a ginger, and he spins her out. She twirls, like a ballerina, like her mother, and into the air she flies. She's true to her namesake, she soars and lands gently elsewhere in the ballroom.
The rush of noise dies down in her ears as the blood flows and makes subwoofer sounds in her head. Her head is bowed low, arms back behind her as if she is to propel herself forward like a jet. Her right foot is in front of her left, and she's down onto one knee. A slow clap brings herself out of the ruse, and she looks around wildly. Her eyes search and scan the vicinity until they snag on her intruder.
Snake Karlo, the cheeky son of a gun, stands in the doorway from the opposite side of the complex, smirking all the while and clapping his hands. Each clap echoes loudly against the white walls. There is a luminous glow in his eyes, a ferocity that cannot be named.
Robin gets to her feet, ears burning, and her face probably as red as a tomato.
"How much of that did you see?" she asks timidly, returning back to her normal self.
"All of it," Snake answers earnestly. "You're quite good on your feet."
The vice president wants a hole in the Earth to open up and swallow her whole. What did she do to deserve such a cruel fate? She knows, deep down, that he'll never let her live this down. It'll be Christmas in seven years and he'll tell the story of how vice president Robin Wyndel made an ass of herself in the foyer of the Chicago Syrenet headquarters all because he can.
She needs a drink.
"Thank you," she nods, brushing a strand of loose hair back behind her ear.
"Who taught you how to dance?"
"No one. My mother danced however, and I'd watch her a lot when I was supposed to be asleep."
"She must've been an amazing person to watch if you picked all of that up," Snake straightens himself from the wall, walking past her towards the kitchen. "You hungry?"
"Starving."
Robin follows him across the foyer. She pauses in the opposite doorway, looking back at the windows with the sunlight pouring in. She frowns momentarily. In her vision, she saw an orange haired man. Not exactly ginger, but darker... like a sunset. Her skin runs cold. Where had she seen the man before? She doesn't know anyone by that skin tone nor by his appearance with a tall, striking form, and bulking muscles. She shrugs, shaking the thought from her head. It doesn't matter.
Snake is by the refrigerator, peering inside it, scouring for something. "Eggs... eggs... eggs..." he trails off nonchalantly, looking around the white cube lazily. His other hand is resting against the door of the fridge, and in his frustration he slaps it. "Dammit, we don't have any eggs. So no eggs, no French toast... but we do have milk..." he clucks his tongue. "Robin!" he calls. "How about some cereal?"
"Sure," she agrees. Robin takes the same spot that Corrin had just the night before, clutching that vodka bottle and crying away her sorrows. Robin notes how the seat is still strangely warm as if a phantom had occupied it in an earlier hour. Snake pulls out one of the milk cartons and places it on the counter. "I'll only use fat free milk," Robin pipes up, seeing that he had grabbed the 2%.
Snake looks at the carton. "What's wrong with 2%?"
"I don't like it."
"A little bit of fat wouldn't hurt."
"Just give me the milk. I am not firing you over a dispute concerning breakfast liquids," Robin rolls her eyes. He obliges with a chuckle, replacing the 2% with the fat free, grabbing a porcelain bowl from one of the cabinets. She watches him quietly, taking in every hushed breath and move of his muscles. It takes her a second to realize that Snake is shirtless, and so on full display is his tanned body, like cinnamon, with the broad shoulders and the abs... and Robin is afraid that if she looks any longer she'll drool.
It's as if she's back in high school. She remembers her first crush, this gaudy, tall, lanky nerd of a kid with braces and glasses, who always mispronounced the word mispronounced, and spat everywhere on his 'r's'. Her first kiss, and her first lap around the bases. He couldn't speak all too well, but Robin took his tongue to town, that's for sure. She wonders what Snake can do with his tongue...
Her thoughts cause her to freeze up, and luckily Snake has his back turned. That gorgeous, muscled tone... She presses a hand up to her mouth, hoping to all the hells and heavens that she did not just say that out loud. It is the high school days over again. When Snake turns around, Robin's face is as white as a ghost's. He gives a knowing smile, as the FBI director, like he told her all those days ago at Cloud and Corrin's dinner party, can read faces.
"Like what you see?"
"Yes..." Robin trails off. She shakes her head, snapping out of a trance. "No! I certainly do not."
"Here," Snake says, plopping the milk carton, the bowl, and a box of Rice Krispies on the counter. "Enjoy your gourmet fat free milk."
"I want Chex Mix instead..." the vice president runs a hand down her thigh, letting her fingers splay over her knee.
Snake clucks his tongue, looking at her knowingly. He understands this game well in full, and the vice president will have to really step up his game if this is supposed to go anywhere. Robin watches him walk back over to the pantry to lean down and grab another box of cereal. The curves of his butt are outlined nicely in the gym shorts he's wearing, and the vice president goes giddy again. She almost can't believe he actually agreed.
After having a damn delicious bowl of Chex Mix cereal and a few glasses of orange juice, she's disappointed to walk back into the kitchen to see Snake fully dressed in a suit and tie. The compound is still asleep, it being only about seven or so, and Robin knows the place needs their sleep if today is to go well. He's wiping down the counter, gun holstered in the back of his pants, and Robin's still drying her hair from her shower, dressed in a light bathrobe. It isn't see through, as the woman is not that low and tacky, morals are with her everywhere she goes.
She resumes her position, grabbing a banana from the fruit basket, unpeeling it. Robin takes a bite, watching Snake clean the counter. It is as if he can do everything domestic and still look gorgeous doing it. Cross that out. Robin Wyndel is to go on record and say that she did not claim to find the FBI director attractive in the very least. He's hideous, foul, repulsive, and the worst kind of man to want. But for Robin, he's perfect.
"You ready for today?" Snake asks her, throwing the wet napkin away, placing the cleaner back on its original shelf.
"As well as I can be," she answers. "It's Corrin doing most of the talking. You guys have the harder job."
"Eight government workers watching over the two most important people in the entire world in a region where we may be universally hated... it's just stuff I do on a normal day."
In line with Snake's detailing, Robin swallows a gulp of air. Today is the day that the Syrenet facility takes its mission statement to the wonderful denizens of Chicago. For two and a half hours, the president and vice president are to stand out in the heat with a Syrenet escort on a veranda only a few hundred yards away... if even that. Snake is to be positioned next to both of them with several guns and grenades on hand, while the rest of the gang - Roy, Shulk, Marth, Ike, Mac, Midna, and Pit - are on the veranda acting as the eyes in the sky. With the rebel attack that the group had on their first day arrival, Corrin's anxiety levels are at an all time high, and her paranoia runs rampant. Unfortunately, the other Syrenet squads are dispersed around the globe on other pertinent missions, and thus the resources that are spread thin is what they've got to deal with.
Corrin authorizes that the four Syrenet officials can use their suits in case things truly get dicey, and Pit can even use the drones he and Robin had been working on as scouts. She wants no whispers of assassination attempts, no hidden explosives, and certainly nothing that'll give them any bad PR... as she is not fond of the expression that all press is good press.
Robin drums her fingers against the counter. "What's your worst case scenario?"
"Your hired muscle is unable to protect you and we all die," Snake says. "That's what I'm worried about. I wasn't there in Oklahoma City, and we know how that went. Ike and Marth suffered through more than any of us. I was there for Boston and I still wasn't fast enough for Roy. I'm here now. Nothing's going to go wrong."
"You can't always save the day." She gives him a wry smile, lips pressed together, no teeth. Just a vague connection of emotion.
"I can always try."
"You put too much pressure on yourself," Robin says. "You're fine."
"Corrin admitted it to me last night, y'know," Snake interrupts suddenly, as he had been leaning on the counter with his elbows, head downturned, and he looks up at the vice president. She sees the beginning of tears in his eyes, and she's known him to never be a man who's gotten overtly emotional in any sort of respect.
"Admitted what?"
"That she doesn't miss Cloud. She said and began laughing like a maniac," Snake shakes his head, eyes shut as if he's keeping out a bad dream. "I've never seen her act this way. I think this mission is making her lose her mind."
"I think we're all losing our minds."
Snake looks away, into a pocket of shadow by the table in the corner of the kitchen. "She's said and done some different things, but this was... this was different. Completely different."
Robin chews on the inside of her cheek, feeling the tearing away of skin, but it does not bother her. "I never really liked him."
"Cloud?"
She shakes her head in assent. "Something about him rubbed me the wrong way. It's hard to say why, but it just... did."
"Fake?"
"I don't know. More than likely. He's a politician. I don't trust politicians."
"But you're a politician."
"Exactly."
Snake nods, but there's a frown plastered on his face. His stubble is starting to appear again, but it is growing in patches that are hard to connect the dots with. That means that the man is stressed, as Robin has known the director for quite some time, and he only has irregular beard growing patterns whenever something is weighing heavily on his mind. She reaches across and grabs his hand unconsciously, and he takes it back warmly.
Home. Her mother. Her father. The victrola. The victrola. The victrola. Worn out records. Her mother. A birthday present. Ballerina slippers. Hearts decorating a white frosted cake. Her father. The victrola. Snake's stubble. Corrin's mad ravings with emerald green eyes. Silverette hair laying in a heap on the floor. A lamp with flies dancing around the bulb. Snake's stubble. Old worn out records. Ballerina slippers. A gem pressed into a forehead. A birthday present. The victrola. The victrola. Robin shall fly, she is a bird and she is no longer going to be hold down by someone else's rules. She is the vice president of the United States, and if she wishes to warrant power, she will warrant some power dammit!
She can hear a familiar tune playing in the back of her head. A gorgeous melody, with rifts and violin scratches against the string, beauty epitomized by a harp and eyes full of emotion. A hand encloses around her, but she realizes that it is Corrin's hand, and she's imaging being locked in a viperish dance with her cohort, her partner in crime, her most trustworthy companion, and her sister from another mother. Corrin's eyes entertain a fanciful gaze, almost child-like and amateurish. They waltz across the tiled floor, and she's shifting between the ginger haired man from earlier, Snake, and back to the viper herself. A beautiful viper with scales that shimmer under the chandelier lights, the piano rifts, and Snake's hushed whispers.
"Corrin losing Cloud was the best thing that's ever happened to her," Robin says, and she realizes it is because her best friend now has confidence... whereas before it seemed that all her husband did is knock her down.
The dance pitches higher and higher until the waltz breaks into a tango. Corrin's grip tightens around her wrist, causing Robin to cry out in pain. Fire shoots through her joints, and she's thrown around across the floor until Corrin pushes the vice president away. Robin collapses onto the tile, and hears a laugh spill from the enemy silverette, a cowl of laughter that boils within her throat that clamors louder and louder and louder until it causes the curtains and the wallpaper to fall off. Corrin laughs and laughs and laughs, spinning wildly in a dazed manner as she stumbles in a drunk stupor around the ballroom. She crashes into one of the violin players, who shatters like glass. Glass clings to Corrin's tasteful black dress, and she cackles, on and on she cackles. Blood begins to pour down Corrin's arms onto the white gloves she's wearing, milky white curdled and tainted by a scorched and bitter crimson that tastes like vinegar and honey. Corrin twirls haphazardly, and her body crashes into the victrola in the middle. Robin watches in dismay as the victrola tips onto the floor, and vanishes, like a shadow into the deep Earth, gone forever. Anger boils deep in the vice president's gut.
"STOP IT!" Robin screams. "You're ruining everything!"
The words play no affect on the president without a leash. Corrin's laugh rises higher until it is a witch's cackle that sends tremors from underneath the floorboards and the tile. Robin curls up into a ball, screaming into the floor until her voice goes hoarse, a rawness burning in her throat with bile pushing up underneath the wave of simmering anger. Corrin's laugh dissipates into a roar, and it is no longer humane, but beastly and threatening, and all Robin can see even behind her clenched eyes is the same ginger who danced with her. An olive skin tone. A gem pressed into his forehead. Stubby fingers. An aura of darkness around him. In his arms lays a woman, her head back, glassy eyes open staring at nothing.
Robin catches a glimpse of her face. "F- Fiora...?" she says weakly, and the pain surmounts.
Corrin's laugh is heard down a corridor, the gemmed man locks eyes with the vice president, and Fiora's body shatters like glass.
The world around her explodes in a fiery blast, and Robin's mind goes dark.
"Are you sure?"
That is Lucas's first thing out of his mouth as he looks his commander in the eye.
Shulk is pacing the room, hair disheveled, his eyes supporting dark bags under them as it is evident he did not have much sleep, if any at all. He runs a hand through his hair, his lower lip trembling. "I know I said that I didn't want to see her, but I had a nightmare and I didn't know what to do about it and I just need to see Fiora one last time or I might just fall apart. Oh god Lucas help me, help me Lucas. Please..." Shulk has collapsed to his knees by this point.
Lucas looks on in horror, his disk perched on a dresser. Shulk wakes up from another nightmare, twisting away under his covers so he wakes his best friend up at an ungodly hour. "Shulk, calm down!" he yells, taking Lucas aback. He's never raised his voice at anyone or anything, and he didn't think he had it in him. "I can't do it if you're gonna collapse into hysterics."
The commander looks at his AI Unit with a tilted head, eyes glassy and reflective with tears spilling from them. How could his wife's ghost harm him anymore than it already has? What sort of devilry is being played on him at this hour so late in the game? Hasn't he suffered through enough. He's unsure. He doesn't know what's happened to him ever since Fiora departed for that stupid Detroit mission. He wants it all to just vanish from his mind, burn it away in a trash heap and never look at it again. It'll make his life much easier in the morning.
If there is a morning.
"I- I can try..." he struggles to say.
Lucas's facial expression relaxes somewhat, though his brow is still perched up in concern. "Okay... I did some calculating and some double-checking on the procedure," it is as if the programmed eleven year-old pistons himself in the future to become some forty year-old man who's seen every corner of the world and has lived to tell it all. "When Pit got the original prototype for the AI Units, this feature wasn't in there at all. I don't understand physics and time space continuums as much as I should, but I can create a placeholder... a hologram-like image for you inside my memory of this disk, and then transport you physically into the disk..."
Shulk frowns, his tears drying. "In English, if you don't mind, Lucas. I'm not a programmed supercomputer."
The boy blushes. "Umm... I can make a hologram based on you, and teleport you into the disk. Easier?"
"Somewhat," Shulk grumbles. "You don't have to act smart around me, I know you're intelligent."
Lucas looks at the commander with compassion, his tiny robotic heart breaking from just witnessing the pity of it all. "I'm going to ask you again. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"I have to..." Shulk whispers.
"Good enough answer. Give me a moment," Lucas says. His eyes glaze over as tons of screens and menus pop-up in his peripheral. He opens a file called Hologram Creator and waits for the blip to play out in his ears. A moveable camera option appears, as if he had a phone to take a photo. Getting Shulk into full frame, as luckily his commander unfurled himself from the precious ball he had been in. Doing a few other calculations, his completed work appears in front of him on a side menu. He breaks into a grin. "Success!"
"I'm never going to understand programming."
"No one expects you to."
"Glad to know you're in my corner."
"Every time..." Lucas smiles to himself cheekily. He unearths the rules and ordinance guidebook of the AI Unit handbook, with the convoluted belief such a digital document exists. "It says that after I 'vanish', whatever that may mean, all you have to do is touch the outer rim of the disk three times. You'll be broken into cybernetic bits, please don't ask how, it actually is a nasty process, and voila, you'll be with me!" he exclaims jubilantly. Shulk doesn't respond right away, though he is struggling to get to his feet. "Shulk?" Lucas asks again.
"I'm fine, I'm fine."
"Did you hear what I said?"
"Loud and clear."
"We don't have to do this, you know."
"But do we have a choice?" Shulk purses his lips. "For me to get better? For me to move past her? Seeing her gravestone isn't enough, Lucas, and it never has been. It never will be. I need to see her, to feel her, to listen to her voice..."
"She won't be real. It'll just be a fragmented memory. It will feel real at the very least."
Shulk locks his jaw. "I need to do this, Lucas."
The AI Unit nods, consigned and bereft. It looks like he will not be winning this argument. Shulk watches an emotional change on the AI Unit's face, but is unable to pinpoint exactly what his best friend went through. Lucas looks at Shulk, and this time there are tears in his eyes. "Encountering the past is dangerous, Shulk. I care for you. A lot. I- I just don't want to see you get hurt."
Lucas locks in the programmed hologram and closes his eyes to dissipate.
Silence.
All there is left to do is wait.
Lucas's words linger in Shulk's head as the AI Unit begins to disappear from the disk, his lemonade hair being the last glimpse of color on the digital pad before the comforting cyberspace child vanished from view. The commander of Alpha Squad hesitates over the disk, biting down on his lip hard enough to draw blood, the lucid taste of copper filling his mouth.
He's unsure, he's beyond the rational zone of thought. Shulk doesn't know what to expect and the fact that there's a complete air of mystery around the whole deal is leaving him feeling like bugs are crawling all up and down his skin. A venomous millipede on his shoulder, a black and brown tarantula climbing over his ankle... Shulk shakes off the uneasiness, but it still decides to linger, hanging on like the remnants of toilet paper that are wet and sticky and grotesque.
Shulk's hands inch near the disk, fingers splayed out like palm fronds. He touches the outer rim of the pedestal, the metal cold underneath his touch; his senses dull and the blonde realizes he has never actually touched an AI disk before. He's pressed the center console thousands of times that he has the azure glow from the center which summons the AI Units forever entombed in his mind. There are nights where the blonde is constantly plagued by bright, obscene blue flashes and he thinks it's the blitzkrieg, he believes it to be WWIII, he believes it to be anything other than what it actually is.
He doesn't mean to be scared of Lucas turning himself on, a capability that not too many AI Units were ever given, but Shulk finds this companionship reluctant... almost as if Lucas hates him as much as he likes him. What if it's all an act?
The commander of Alpha Squad shakes his head. This is ridiculous. Shulk's going to be standing here, pondering the meaning of life before he actually gets to do something and everyone around him is aged a good thirty plus years. The thought of President Corrin being old and decrepit and having true white, pasty, curdled up milk like skin makes him nearly burst out into laughter.
His fingers press down on the outer edge of the disk. Once. Then twice. He presses it a third time, and a strange... no, it isn't strange, Shulk corrects himself. His entire body suffuses itself with a warmness that is almost familiar, similar to the smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies when his mother made them, or the rugged smell of grass and a refreshing diet cola. He appreciates the smells, the tastes, and it is all happening by Shulk Roberts placing his hand on the edge of Lucas's disk.
A tingling sensation travels down his spine, snipped and effective before he's shuddering all over. His eyes twitch inextricably, where the lid feels to have molded into his cheek bones, but he's in a state of bliss to heed it no mind.
White spots begin to cover his vision, but his eyes are closed which causes a few synaptic messages of panic to fire off before he's taken away by this feeling, this wholesome and hearty feeling of home and completeness.
He squeezes his eyes shut, the white shrouding over him like a snow drift or comforting blanket.
And then...
Nothing.
...
...
...
Shulk snaps awake, a cold sweat running down his forehead. He shakes his head, feeling cold all of a sudden, chills erupting all and down his arms. Was it all a dream?
"No... it can't be a dream," he dissuades himself against even the notion. "It felt too real."
He struggles to his feet, bones rusting away and grinding until Shulk is at full height, examining his vicinity. To then see absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. Is this some kind of joke? Is he stuck in a purgatory? Is this heaven?
All around him is a pearly white mist, on and on it seems to go, a never ending plain of fog that makes it nigh impossible to see anything. Shulk's heart climbs and rests in his throat, the blonde feeling panicked. Something is wrong. Lucas has tricked him! That blonde fiend!
"Lucas?" he calls out. "Lucas? Anyone?"
Then, he sees it. Or, he sees... something, rather, that'd make a better description. Shulk squints, unable to truly decipher what is walking towards him, but there's enough to distinguish some black body mass shuffling towards him in a slow walk. There's a glided bend of the hips, as if the person is swaying, and it looks feminine like. It can't be Lucas. This person seems too tall in the shroud to be Lucas, that AI Unit's real projected height is not even four and a half feet yet.
The figure gets closer, and Shulk's skin tightens. His eyes widen imperceptibly, and he's gaping his mouth open, stepping in tune with the mysterious person in the fog. He catches a sight of blonde hair flowing, a radiant stock of corn or a lucky pot of gold sprinkling down rich coins... and he's now face-to-face with the stranger in the mist, and Shulk is out of words to speak.
No.
It can't be.
It's impossible. There's no way.
He pinches himself to make sure he isn't dreaming. He's not. He's not, this is actually happening and there in the flesh she is.
"F- Fiora..." he chokes, eyes brimming with tears.
There she is, Fiora Roberts. His deceased wife stands at his height, dressed in an elegant navy blue gown that hugs her form perfectly. Shulk's lower lip begins to quiver, and he's pretty sure he's in a mixture between sobbing and laughing wildly. He runs at her first, calling her name to the wind as the white mist flees from his joy. Fiora breaks into a smile as well, running at him and then the two collide in a clash of blonde hair, pale flesh, and broken hearts. Shulk reaches her first, throwing his arms around her in a hug. Fiora hugs back, and a gentle warmness floods his body, and Shulk is smiling and he's laughing and he's dancing, twirling his wife around, picking her up in his arms, and he's on a euphoric trip like no other. His laugh rebounds against the walls of the world that he's in, and he's staring into a pocket full of sunshine, her eyes aglow, her heart on fire, and he's never been so happy in his entire life.
He sits her down after a few moments, her laugh filling his ears. The two stand in front of each other, heads so close to touching that sparks ignite and their hawkish diamond stares are lowered to a more calm level. Fiora breaks into a smile, and Shulk's grinning back with her. He's crying, he's pretty damn sure of that with the wetness coating his cheeks.
"I- is... is this real?" he lets out after a few breathlessly exhilarating moments.
She nods. "It's real, darling..." Fiora whispers in his ear, getting close to him. He can touch her. He can touch her. He can touch her. He can touch her. He can touch her. This is his happiest day of his life, and he's not even sure anymore where exactly he even is, but that's irrelevant at this moment and time.
"Where are we?" Shulk croaks.
"A haven..." she answers, and the memories are flooding back to him.
Their first date, at a local drive in movie theater that still existed, and they saw a chilling classic from Alfred Hitchcock and Shulk still remembers the taste of her lingering apple chap stick on his lips, like tangible globules of glue where the feeling will never leave. A private beach in Normandy, the pebbled shores and glistening rocks that glow like charcoal shards of graphite and the ripe brown of the sand and soil and the overbearing yet comfortable heat of the sun. Her face smiling against his as he kisses her.
Holding the letter in his hands that she's going to actually have a baby, that being a surrogate has worked and everything's alright and will forever remain to be alright... he cannot hold back the tears. Corrin's genuine and pleased smile as the two sign their names on the Syrenet contracts, dark and foreboding midnight ink signing away their lives onto manila parched papers forever stowed away in some folder on a shelf in some office in some building in some city in some country. None of that matters now, none of it has ever mattered.
"What are you doing here?" Shulk knits his eyebrows together. He's waiting for the jest. He's waiting for the joke. The blonde is expecting party balloons to drop from some invisible ceiling, and nothing is happening except the two of them and their loving conversation that couldn't be any more perfect than it already was. Shulk puts a hand up as if he's touching a mirror that separates him from some dazzling sea creature.
Fiora follows suit, and their hands are touching. Shulk is electrified, azure eyes sharp and focused and mesmerized, he doesn't know where to look or even how to feel. "I love you..."
"You're real..." he whispers. "I can touch you. You're wholesome."
"I know... I am..." Fiora blinks, and she's holding back tears as well.
He hugs her again, tightly, and there's an outpouring of emotion. "I've missed you so much. You don't even know..." Shulk whispers in her ear.
When the two break again, there are clearly tears in Fiora's eyes. Shulk wants to take a personal, recorded note of this date and the fact that there seems to be a lot of crying going around his companions. He doesn't remember the exact level of happiness he had felt when Fiora announced that she had been truly, truly pregnant. Shulk opens the great book of God once again, the Bible resting against his alarm clock, and he pours into the Word, crying so hard that the pages clump together from the moistness of his tears. When everything is ripped away from him again, he throws the Bible in the garbage and ignites it. God can't be so cruel.
Fiora searches Shulk's face for an expanse of emotion, anything to hint at truth. "I'm so proud of you, darling. You've- you've grown so much."
"I missed you. You have no idea how much I missed you." He takes her hand in his, and he notes how cold they are. Cold as ice, with frost and cramped joints, and the sound of snapping bones. But one look back at his wife's eyes and he's sucked into a whirlpool of harmony and days running out into the fields of Kansas with a child leaping in their arms. She's grown too, likewise as he has, but she's gotten taller, her form has filled out even more, and those diamond eyes shine brighter than anything in the starry night sky. She's a beautiful woman.
"Syrenet is flourishing under you," Fiora smiles, but Shulk frowns. That didn't seem real to him. A smile with jagged glass for teeth, hollow and beady halcyon eyes that are painstaking and stabbing, and he tries to avoid the subject.
"How's Delilah?" he asks.
Fiora's frown is the only answer that he needs. "Delilah?"
"Our... our daughter," Shulk's voice chokes on air, and he's gripping her cold hands again, wanting them to wrap around his neck so he can forever join his wife in an everlasting tide of joy and hugs and lovemaking beneath the stars. "Delilah, our daughter. The baby girl you were carrying. Honey, don't- don't you remember her?"
Fiora's gaze is broken, distanced, and it is as if a signal is being jarred in and out from a satellite. Her jaw is parted halfway open, her eyes lost in the recourse of thought. "The baby... I lost the baby."
He looks down at his shoes, and is surprised to see that he doesn't have any. Nothing but his bare feet and he's suddenly quite cold by the mist. "It's okay. She's somewhere. You and I can find her together."
"I lost the baby in Detroit..." Fiora continues to say, completely ignoring her husband's gentle and strengthening words. The blonde woman looks wildly around the misty field of nothingness, just an endless white plain with clouds that roll low on the ground. "Where... where is he... where..." Fiora begins to breath heavily, and she's panicking, panicking with a force of a thousand winds behind every belabored breath.
"Where's what? Where's who?" Shulk grabs at his wife's body, his wife's body who is strangely warm after being so, so cold. "Fiora, honey, what's wrong?"
She suddenly grabs at his arms, causing Shulk to yelp. "Promise me, Shulk! Promise me!"
"Promise you what?"
"Don't go back there. Don't go to Detroit!"
"I- I don't know if we are or not!"
"Don't let Corrin convince you to go there. We can't go back! I'm in danger!"
"How? You're-" Shulk cannot believe he is about to say this aloud. "You're dead! No one can hurt you anymore!"
"He's always watching," Fiora clenches her teeth, and her fingernails dig into Shulk's arm. The pain is insurmountable. "He's always listening. He knows we're talking. I can't stay here anymore. I'm compromised, Shulk! Don't you see? I'm compromised!"
"What are you going on about?" he looks at her as if she has lost her damn mind. It in itself may not be that far off.
"The master tells him who to go after. She's always keeping tabs on him... that fiend," she spits the word 'fiend' out like a snake, each syllable drenched and coated in a venomous liquid. "He knows because she tells him about us. It's how I got found out. That bitch!"
"Fiora, you're not making any sense."
"Promise me you won't go back to Detroit! PROMISE ME!"
"I WILL!" Shulk screams, and to shut her up, he slams his mouth on hers. His voice echoes forever, an endless echo of words and it continues on and on like a running wheel in his heart. When the two break apart once more, Fiora's eyes have softened, and they're shining like precious jewels once more. He knows that it is cliché and all, but they are orbs full of soul, beauty, remorse, depth, and conviction. He holds her by her sides. "I will not go back to Detroit, Fiora. I promise."
"If you do, you're as dead as me..." she whispers.
"It's just us in this world. No one else matters."
"I love you..."
"I love you too."
The fog surrounds them, and Shulk leans in to kiss her. She closes her eyes and politely waits. He connects his mouth to her, slowly and it is painful almost, the feeling of being gone away from her for so long. He can taste everything in this one shared intimate moment, he can hear everyone on Earth speaking to him, and he's an immortal being of human knowledge and a version of Pandora's Box in the flesh. Shulk continues the kiss, and when he opens his eyes... she's gone.
"Fiora?" he calls out again, almost wanting to scream.
A rolling tide of whiteness begins to pull back, and standing a few feet away is Lucas. His AI Unit has tears in his eyes, his shoes with their shoelaces unlaced, and he steps over. The fog begins to recede, Shulk looking around, twirling around and wondering what is going on when he notices Lucas. A stare of unmistakable rage consumes Shulk. He steps forward to give the youthful boy a piece of his mind when he stops. Something glints in Lucas's eyes, an emotion that is unreadable, and it is everything the blonde commander is not.
Love. Caring. Compassion. Wonder. Excitement. Sorrow. Loss. Exhilaration. Tiredness. Loneliness. Pleasure. Sentience. Consciousness. Anger. Rage. Fury. Decadence. Honesty. Truth. Zealous. Creative. Home.
The fog has completely disappeared.
Lucas steps forward, eyes glistening with tears, as if he's witnessed something magical, which he very well has. "I- I have never seen anything like it."
Shulk swallows, Fiora's feeling is gone from his body. She was right there! She was with him! "Where'd she go? Where'd Fiora go?"
"That wasn't Fiora, Shulk."
"No... what?" the commander of Alpha Squad tilts his head over, not following. "I- I don't understand. Lucas, she was right there! Touching me! Kissing me! I lifted her in my arms! How can you tell me that she wasn't real?"
"You were interacting with a memory, Shulk. I pieced her together for you," Lucas admits, walking forward. "I said that it wouldn't be real."
"But it felt it!"
"That's because it was and at the same time was not real."
Shulk wipes a hand over his mouth, the two stuck inside this endless white plain of nothingness, and yet there is comfort. Lasting comfort, like a hearth deep in his gut. "What was she talking about? A master? Some guy who's after her? If that was supposed to be memories of her, I do not recall her ever saying that."
Lucas shakes his head back and forth, a frown on his face. "I didn't program that. Shulk, I don't know what that was."
"Are you saying someone artificially created those memories from outside of your programming database?"
Lucas shrugs. "I was afraid to interrupt it. I don't know what would've happened had I done it."
Shulk looks around aimlessly, and he wants to cry again. "She was right there. Right there, Lucas. I held her. I kissed her. She laughed. Laughed! And I heard her. Like that, she's gone."
Part of him is beyond upset that all he managed to snag is a few moments, precious moments shrouded in darkness and a blackness that didn't exist from before. He's unsure what any of this means, ranging from all of his nightmares to the moments of doubt that he had with a vision of a man with a jewel in his head... and all Shulk wants is rest. All he wants is peace.
Another part of him is happy. He got his wish, to see his wife, to speak to her, and to feel her.
He looks around, and the ground starts to spin. A feeling of numbness fills his mouth, and he can no longer feel his tongue or his teeth or anything at all. He begins to shake, getting Lucas's attention.
"Shulk?" Lucas asks. Shulk's eyes roll into the back of his head, and he collapses. "Shulk!"
The last the blonde commander remembers is his AI Unit racing over to him, a lock of Fiora's sunbeam hair, and Corrin's frowning face glaring down at him before the world goes white.
A fade into nothingness.
Least he's glad he got to see Lucas's Nebular Network before he died.
And there we are ladies and gents! That was Chapter #25: Lucas's Nebular Network! I really, really hope that was worth the wait, which I once again severely apologize for. (Broken record, broken record) The amount of time I have been waiting to get this chapter out finally has amounted, and since there was a good month+ hiatus on this chapter, I made sure to pack it in as tightly as I could, but clearly there's a lot to discuss.
Out of all the characters in Syrenet, it seems that Robin has the easiest one - besides Ness, Lucas, and well... Pit, I suppose, but we haven't learned a lot about him - and the reason for that is because since Robin takes the motherly role to heart, she's the most homely of them all and has the most 'humble' background I can think of in terms of there not being a whole lot of tragedy surrounding her, even though a parental death or disappearance is heavy too. Writing her and Snake like little high school teenagers is proving to be a new pastime of mine, but I blame that on my Teach Me How to Cry days from two years ago (good god that story was two years ago) What do you think the meaning of Robin's several visions were, because clearly she is either going through, or actually witnessing something quite serious.
Between the Robin/Snake, and the Shulk/Lucas/Fiora scene, I do not know which I like more. I am really torn about Shulk because his character actually, physically makes me depressed to write at times because he is so heavy and for this story to be as good as I want it to be, I have to get into his mind. I cried writing he and Fiora's first part of the conversation, before shit hit the fan once more. There are actual, genuine nice moments in this story, but not yet... for a bit at least. Who do you think Fiora is afraid of, for this man that she mentions, and for the woman? It is clear that Shulk, Fiora, and Robin now have all envisioned or seen some man with a gem on his head... so... his role, you think? Their storyline and the mystery surrounding her death is my favorite part of the entire story, to be honest.
I cannot wait for the next chapter, Chapter #26: Blindsided in the Back, as it is time for the arc of Chicago to reach a boiling point. Any plot predictions? Because, if you think about the title, our favorite blonde rebel who is in town, and the specialty of what the Syrenet crew is about to do, there's clearly something brewing. Thank you all so much for reading! Please make sure to review, as I'd love to hear what you had to say. Have an amazing day! I love you all so much! Bye!
~ Paradigm