Tethered
— O —
When she and her partner were separated, she didn't mind it – it was always like this at the start, anyway.
There was no reason for concern. After all, they always were reunited, working in glorious connection, [DATA] streaming seamlessly across dimensions and worlds and pinging off each other, the works of the one bouncing off and interacting, working in perfect tandem, unifying and fulfilling in a way that even their method of communication couldn't describe completely.
Then, something went wrong.
The Cycle started, stuttered, and then, it broke.
All connections to every other Shard went dark, the [WARRIOR] blocking off all communication, the [THINKER] not responding at all.
Every link to every other Shard, except one. And even if that wasn't completely cut off, it was so faint as to practically be invisible.
This… sent a flicker of what she, now that she had a [Host, recognised as Worry.
The energy in her nodes and crystalline flesh writhing and shifting without accomplishing any task in specific, burning precious energy she really couldn't bring herself to care about.
This could be good, or this could spell the ruin for everything depending on what, exactly, had happened.
For the moment she would lie in wait, searching for her partner as she had done in countless other Cycles, except now it would be excessively more difficult with the network dead to the world.
If she could sigh, she would have.
— O —
The Solar cycles went on and on, her hosts always getting closer to the connection she felt towards the other Shard – that of potential [Host]s for her.
She narrowed it down to a single big cluster of natives, or City, as it were. Once her last [Host] died, she budded on someone that named himself Marquis, waiting and planning to reunite.
Yes, she wasn't gathering as much [Data] as she could – should, actually – but the Cycle seemed to be broken and the Network completely disrupted if not destroyed. As the natives said, in desperate times…
When the Osteokinetic spawned progeny, she analyzed said lifeform, and immediately 'jumped ship', bringing her full attention to the recently born Human.
She was perfect.
From brain structure to predicted behavioral matrices to simulated brain chemistry in the future to come. She could hold a considerable amount of her power without melting and dying instantly.
This… Amelia would be a fantastic host.
— O —
When the other [Host]s assaulted the abode of her future full [Host, she found herself – if she was reading her own shifts and turns of crystal flesh clearly – extremely pissed.
The urge to protect little Amelia already was on the mind of Marquis, but she wasn't taking any chances. So, she modified his protective response towards the safety of his progeny, ramping up every chemical reaction as high as she could without melting his brain.
That little Amelia found herself in the hands of the one that tore her from the hands of her progenitor… rubbed her the wrong way. As if another Shard got the hands in one of her creations and twisted it against her. She always hated that.
Still, this could be an opportunity to gather more data, and maybe a way to realize the connection between her and Amelia fully.
She would wait, and she would bide her time.
— O —
When little Amelia found one of the possible [Host]s for her partner she couldn't help but enjoy the feeling of the almost formed connection, a trickle of information giving way into her.
She watched as the Solar cycles passed, her prospective [Host] and her partner growing closer each day, no doubt guided more for their loneliness than the light as a feather nudges she gave.
She watched them both as they underwent almost Crisis Point levels of stress at the cease of life of their biological relatives – and something was wrong.
Amelia hadn't undergone a Crisis Point but she almost had, and the cause of her distress had been much less closer to her [Host] than her partner's prospective [Host] had been when she suffered nearly the same cause of distress.
So, why hadn't she formed a connection?
It didn't make sense, and some of her Helixes quivered in what could have been nervousness.
— O —
When the young almost-[Host] started bleeding to death in the ground, she – she! – almost panicked with her own [Host].
It was a near thing, but the distress and emotional pain was enough to form and crystallize a Crisis Point in Amelia's mind, finally giving her an in as well as an out into her head, and reknitting young Taylor's flesh to perfection while Amelia passed out.
This turned out to be a fruitful day, and she was already gathering so much [DATA]...
— O —
It only took her [Host] a couple of nudges to give in after healing all those Natives without a single mod added in.
The need to experiment and branch out in new and interesting ways was always enticing and calling.
Then, she added the Tether between her [Host] and–
WHAT!
Via the little nub in young Taylor's head, she had a small window as it were into the state of her partner – of Queen Administrator, and what she saw made the planet she was resting on quiver.
Pieces of flesh scoured off, important functions ripped from the main mass, nodes badly connected and sending signals at random.
There was a small mark, a small resonance that she could almost identify by having seen it a thousand thousand times over written all around the destruction – the lobotomy of her partner.
It was a dimensional imprint that was, unmistakably, the [WARRIOR]s.
That was it, this was the last straw. The cycle was broken, the [THINKER] dead or disappeared, and the warrior was a massive fucking moron.
She reinforced the connection, sending packets of [DATA] as big as she could given the restrictions she now faced, but it was progress nonetheless.
The response from Queen almost broke her.
It was akin to having seen a Ruler in all its glory and magnificence, brought low to an almost drooling wreck.
As she started trying to help Queen repair the damage, receiving only muted responses or just plain static, she made a promise to herself.
She was going to Shape the [WARRIOR] out of existence, even if it was the last thing she did.