…And so, the Goddess of Creation placed herself into a deep slumber. Her veins were split, and when man slaked his thirst with her blood, he was granted knowledge. She relinquished her body, and when man partook of her flesh, he became wise. Her heart became enshrined from the loftiest abode, her spirit watching from on-high forevermore. She was all-seeing. She was all-knowing.
— An excerpt from "Anthropology of the Northern Lands" regarding the common folklore of Solitas.
Tack. Tack. Tack.
A sharp staccato rapped upon dense mahogany. Careening off of high walls and echoing beneath a domed roof, it was the only noise that could be heard within the vaulted edifice.
It was a steady, measured rhythm, firm and unwavering, that belied the mounting anxiety within the man that beat it into the wood of his desk.
The gloaming peered in from the large windows behind, casting alternating hues of warm orange and cool purples dancing about the room. Every so often, the slight but steady descent of the sun would send rays cascading against some metallic object or other, refracting into blindingly bright beams of bronzes and golds.
The shadows deepened in response, sitting starkly against the vibrant tones, heralding the night that was soon to come. They beckoned seductively, temptingly, to rest within their recesses. To cast aside the woes and burdens of the world and slumber in their embrace.
Still, the figure at the desk remained motionless, save for the flickering of azure eyes and the reflexive, unceasing tapping of his index finger.
Soon the fluorescent bulbs overhead would automatically kick on, as they did every day at dusk. The harsh, white light would dispel the ethereal atmosphere of a day in its final throes. Stark and clinical. Cold. It was a much more fitting atmosphere for the work that the man was currently undertaking.
Tack. Tack. Tack.
The sound was resonant, yet oddly hollow, the metal digit of a prosthetic limb lending a tinny twang to the steady noise.
Tack. Tack. Tack.
Seemingly reaching the end of his itinerary, General James Ironwood allowed the documents to fall to his desk. He breathed no great sigh at the cessation of the mundane, tedious work, nor did he stretch or groan, or show any other visible sign of fatigue. Only the slight creasing of his brow betrayed the disquiet that had begun to rise in his breast.
He glanced at the papers. They had splayed out slightly, fanning over his workspace from the fall. The emboldened words leered, seemingly accusingly, up at him, chastising him for this most recent lack of prescience regarding Atlas's security.
It had been a report filed by his Technology Director that pertained to several digital breaches into various Atlesian sectors. Several of the incursions—well over a hundred, in fact—had been targeted at the CCT tower. Alarming in its own right, naturally. The Cross Continental Transmit System was the only line of contact between kingdoms. It was the logical point of attack for anyone looking to lay a crippling blow to the kingdom.
One breach, however, had instead been targeted at a highly classified project—an experimental prototype spearheaded by Professor Polendina—that held significant military potential. It was this particular incident that had roused Ironwoods growing consternation, and the true reason that the report had been filed in the first place. All issues regarding the "Penny" project were to be routed to him and him alone.
The fact that an outsider not only knew, but had accessed and operated her systems for any length of time was beyond worrying. He needed answers, and he needed them now.
Evening was approaching, but James knew that the technical division had the propensity for extending their work late into the night. It was an entire division of workaholics, not that he had any room to talk.
He examined the name signed on the reports. Technical Director Jensen Whately. He vaguely recalled the man. Born of noble Atlesian stock—a people that Ironwood often found unpleasant to manage—he was nevertheless quite gifted in his field and had risen quickly through the ranks through his own merit. The general had personally appointed him to the post of Director several years back, but had otherwise limited interactions with the man.
He pulled out his work scroll—a standard AtTech model, dated by a year or three. Sleek and painted an unobtrusive black, it was a simple design. Efficient.
Scanning through the list of contacts, he selected the appropriate number. The call picked up after barely the first ring, as if the recipient had been expecting it.
"Director Whately? Please see me in my office. It is urgent."
James spoke in curt tones, hanging up immediately upon receiving confirmation from the other end. Laying the device lightly upon his desk, he leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. His mind filtered out all extraneous thoughts pertaining to work, allowing him a rare moment of reprieve, steeling himself for the upcoming meeting.
Atlesian nobility tended to have quite particular mannerisms that made conversing with them a momentous effort. Dealing with them had never been his favorite part of the job, regardless of how often it was necessary.
Perpetually self-concerned, they never seemed to show any scruples when it came to attaining their goals. One need not look any further than his longtime acquaintance, Jacques Schnee. The man had made a thriving career of skirting the law for his own benefit. His operations barely bordered upon legal, and whenever there was an incident to be covered or a favor to be had, the appropriate politician would find their wallets fatter and their morals a bit looser. Ironwood had been on the receiving end of such donations many times, all of which he had rejected, much to Schnee's dismay.
As clearly capable as his Technical Director was, Ironwood fully expected some of the same behaviour to ring true in him. Like Schnee, he was of the old Atlesian blood, and had had their idiosyncrasies ingrained upon him since birth. It was not such an easy thing to shed, and James doubted the man tried very hard to do so.
Even his lieutenant, Winter, loathe as she was to admit it, had occasions where her own highborn upbringing seeped to the surface of the stoic, frosty mask she wore. It was just something Ironwood had come to expect when dealing with those of Atlas's elite class. It was exhausting.
Unkind, white light seeped through shut eyelids as the bulbs overhead flickered automatically to life. He opened his eyes, breathing a long, steady breath. A beat later, a light rapping, a gentle tapping, sounded upon his office door.
At his command, the grand, oaken entry swung inward, revealing a lanky figure garbed in the standard uniform. Long and ill-fitting, the illustrious garments drooped upon his scrawny frame, looking like no more than a tawdry robe.
The man had somehow grown even more pallid and spindly since they had last met. Long, drab hair only served to accentuate the paleness of his skin and exacerbate the shadows of his sunken eyes. Apparently, his tenure in such a demanding position had done no favors for his complexion or overall health.
Even standing at attention—a pose that was meant to display strength and confidence—somehow seemed unnatural on him. His wiry sillhouette seemed to bend uncomfortably in order to maintain the position, and a slight grimace stretched across his lips.
"At ease," Ironwood said, both to alleviate the man's clear discomfort and his own growing revulsion.
Immediately, Whately pitched forward, spine curving into a lazy slouch, relaxed hands hanging limply at his sides. "You wished to discuss the contents of my report, sir?"
The honorific oozed thickly from thin, pale lips, layered in a faux familiarity that did little to hide the underlying disdain. Sir.
His movements and diction were jittery and abrupt. He hopped from word to word as if they were flinging themselves from his mouth in a bid to escape that awful orifice. Not for the first time, did Ironwood's mind conjure the image of a sickly, simpering spider. It was a simultaneously humorous and disturbing thought. He leaned ever-so-slightly back in his chair, putting just that much more distance between them.
"Yes," he answered, struggling to maintain an impassive facade. "I would like to hear your theories."
The man seemed taken aback. "With all due respect, sir, my thoughts on the manner are purely speculation and-"
"I do not mind. Please." He cut off the protest, gesturing invitingly with his hand.
A flash of discomfort contorted the director's features before they schooled themselves once more.
"Very well then." He hesitated a moment more. "I must stress that while this speculation is grounded in what little evidence we could scavenge, it is still just speculation. I have no direct proof for my assertions."
Elbows propped on his desk, fingers interlaced, Ironwood nodded over his clasped hands, encouraging the man to get to the point.
"My first point is easily verifiable by perusing the access logs. These breaches are the work of at least two individuals. Perhaps more." He halted in his speech, peering at his superior. Regardless of whether it was for approval or something else, he did not receive it. Ironwood's expression remained inscrutable.
"A-anyway, the first perpetrator focused the bulk of their attacks on Atlas's CCT tower. The logs have shown more than one-hundred access attempts within the last month. As of this moment, their goal remains unknown."
"That sounds troublesome," Ironwood commented idly, if only to mask his growing impatience. This was not the topic he was interested in.
"Yes sir, very troublesome," the director parroted, nodding in agreement. "However, the larger issue is this second party. Frankly speaking, there is no origin to this attack."
Ironwood's interest flared, and he sat up a bit straighter in his seat. "What do you mean?"
"Ehm, yes, well…" The outburst seemed to startle the jumpy man, causing him to lose his train of thought momentarily.
For a moment, he seemed to ponder his words. "Normally, should one attempt to gain egress to a secure system, they will not attempt to do so directly, as this leads to a higher probability of being caught. They will cover their tracks by utilizing poorly secured networks or devices as proxies or intermediaries. Even if we were able to trace the intrusion, it would likely not lead to our culprit."
"Is that the problem? That you can't figure out where the true source is?" Ironwood demanded.
"Not quite, sir. Even an attack by proxy will trace back to a device, and depending on how skilled the culprit is, we would be able to trace them from there."
Shuffling back several pages, the director referenced the first case. "Our first series of incidents follows this pattern. We traced the signal to an individual who resides in Mantle, but upon further investigation, determined that they were unrelated to the matter at hand. Any further trace has thus far proven fruitless."
"To the point, please, Director Whately."
The man in question coughed in embarrassment. "What I mean to say is that this second intruder is vastly dissimilar to the first. At no point were we able to find evidence of any such trail existing in any capacity."
"Is it possible that they are hiding their tracks by other means?"
Whately shook his head. "Highly unlikely, sir. All transmissions along CCT lines are logged extensively with, frankly, excessive redundancies in place. No matter how one may try to disguise their entry, it will be caught. In this case, the access request was indeed caught, but upon further inspection seemed to originate from nothingness."
"Is it possible that this is a result of Penny herself? Her will overriding her programming?"
"We had considered Miss Polendina's...unique...constitution to be a factor in this event, however we have deemed this to not be the case." The man's words twisted in disdain at the mention of the android, as if he found the prospect of referring to her as anything but a machine personally insulting.
"How can you be sure?"
"Using this event as a template, my team has managed to collate a series of similar instances occurring all throughout the Atlesian network. Once we knew what to look for, it became exceedingly evident."
He gave a long-suffering sigh and consulted the sheaf of papers under his arm, placing a duplicate on the desk for Ironwood's perusal.
"As you can see, the sheer frequency and rate is staggering. The overall time frame is indeterminate, as the early logs of the system have unfortunately been long lost, however the breadth and quantity of the remaining recorded breaches is worrying, to say the least."
"Put it in words that I can understand, please, Director Whately."
"Yes sir. Simply speaking, whatever this is is capable of accessing any given device on our network at will, and it has been doing so for a great length of time. I suspect since the inception of the Atlesian network itself."
James scanned the document to confirm the director's words. The earliest recorded incident had been almost seventy years prior. The Great War had ended just ten years before that, with the implementation of the CCT network following shortly after. It would be no great stretch of the imagination to assume that this...entity had been present for the network's inauguration.
"This clearly cannot be the work of a person," he finally concluded.
Recorded incursions were near constant and seemingly happened within seconds, if even that, of each other. It was a consistent presence stretching back decades.
"Are you, perchance, familiar with local urban legends, sir?" Whately asked after a few moments of allowing Ironwood to verify the findings for himself.
Ironwood glanced at the man oddly, but sensing that there was meaning to the strange question, prompted him to continue.
"Yes, well, there is one such urban legend of a superhuman hacker that has been in circulation for quite some time. It is said that this entity is capable of various impossible feats in regard to manipulating data on the network that ought to be impossible. It is also rumored that they exist solely in a digital capacity."
"I didn't take you for the superstitious type, Director Whately."
The pallor of the man's face deepened slightly with the pink dustings of embarrassment. "Neither did I, sir, but I daresay if such a thing truly did exist, such a feat would not lie outside of its realm of possibility."
Ironwood sighed, sternly eyeing the man across his desk. "So if we assume this...thing…exists, you believe it is somehow responsible for our current situation and is living in the network?"
"In the network? Not so! To begin with, what the layperson refers to as the CCT Network is actually a collection of various devices connected to each other—there is no singular, central construct known as 'The Network.' As such, nothing can exist in the network itself, because there isn't a network to exist in. It is all merely connections between computers."
A sharp glare, bordering on impatience, set the spindly man back on topic from which he had slowly begun straying. He cleared his throat. "What I mean to say is that it would have to exist within a given device, or even several devices connected to the network. It's location should be determinate. We should be able to trace it, yet we have only found evidence to the contrary."
"So what does this all mean then?"
"It is an absurd thing, sir, and I feel a touch silly speaking the proposal aloud, but it is the only conclusion that I can arrive at after examining this issue in full.
An entity that is capable of complete domination of the CCT network while being so utterly untraceable—such a thing should not be possible. Not unless it is already present in every connected system to begin with. This...RABBIT, as it is being called, does not exist within the network, sir. It is the network."
In an utterly innocuous flat, in the sleepy residential sector of Mantle's outskirts, Doctor Arthur Watts was facing a conundrum.
He had made a lot of compromises in order to ally himself with this anomaly, this "Bunny," who so effortlessly plagued his hard work.
He had swallowed his pride, abandoned a great number of his contingencies and fallback plans and was currently contemplating betraying the grimm witch known only as "Salem."
Now, he was isolated within one of the final few safehouses that he could deem absolutely secure, sorely questioning his own mental stability. When had he been one to act so recklessly? Should he be caught, his status as a living man on Remnant would become quite a tenuous prospect.
Indeed, Watts had made a significant number of sacrifices to bring himself to this current point.
But he absolutely would not denigrate himself to the degree currently being demanded of him.
"I refuse."
"Just do it."
"Absolutely not."
"Stop acting like a child. It's not like anyone is going to see you."
"I don't care."
"Nothing can happen if you don't put it on. It is non-negotiable."
Watts stared aghast at the vibrant, yellow object in his hands. The…thing… had arrived in an unmarked package on his doorstep that morning. Unusual, as he had not been expecting mail, and no one ought to have known that he had taken up temporary residence in this particular block.
Fearing that his whereabouts had somehow been compromised, he had contemplated simply leaving it on the street and fleeing. However, like clockwork, the now familiar chime indicating a message from his new associate instructed him to open the parcel.
He had been horrified at what he found.
It was clearly some piece of technology. A headset of some sort. That fact was not what troubled him. It was the design.
The instrument had been fashioned to look like some sort of rabbit-like mascot draped over one's head when worn. At least, he assumed it was a rabbit. The unnerving, vacuous stare and the perpetually leering, sharpened teeth begged to differ.
It was clearly something designed for a child. He would sooner repent for his crimes and turn himself in to Ironwood's flunkies than be caught dead wearing this.
But it was necessary, apparently.
He slid a finger over the smooth, plastic surface, tilting the device so that he stared the jeering face right in the eyes. He grunted in disgust.
Try as he might to prolong the inevitable, he would have to put the blasted thing on eventually.
Making absolutely certain that the door was locked and the shutters pulled tight, he turned the object over in his hands once final time. It did not appear any more appealing. A long, suffering sigh squeezed its way out of his lungs. The things he did for knowledge.
"This better be worth it," he grumbled to himself before crossly jamming the offending instrument onto his head.
Almost immediately, darkness overtook his vision.
It was not the dark of obscured vision, nor that of nightfall. It was all encompassing, as if his eyes had been unplugged from his brain. With growing alarm, he found the same to be true of all of his senses. The sudden sensory deprivation left him reeling as he found himself stranded within the confines of his own mind. The lack of touch, particularly, left him feeling dissociated, drifting away from himself.
Steeling his wits, Watts mustered what scattered focus he had into probing, feeling for something, anything. The faintest wisp of light, the lightest aroma, the slightest echo, he strained his mind to perceive any of it.
What he received instead, was a shocking burst of vibrant color and cacophonous noise as his senses abruptly returned in full force. It was as if a drape had been pulled from the world, dispelling the darkness and revealing it in its full, obscene extravagance.
Floundering at the jarring transition, he could only dumbly take in the ridiculous scenery around him.
It was an amusement park.
"Welcome to Homu Wonderland."
"You know, I'm really starting to wonder if you know what you're doing."
In the depths of an abandoned warehouse, two figures were conversing around a stained and grimy table.
"Relax, Roman," Cinder purred, "the plan may have changed, but I assure you that everything is going smoothly."
Incensed, the thief tossed the morning edition of the daily paper onto the table where it unfurled with little fanfare.
"White Fang Attack on Beacon's CCT! Thirty Apprehended, Motive Remains Unknown," blared the headline.
"This is what you call 'going smoothly?" He griped.
"Why Roman, I didn't realize you cared so much for the wellbeing of our faunus comrades." Her tone was mocking, with a false tone of surprise coursing through each word.
"I don't!" He snapped. "What I'm concerned about is the mess that the stupid bull is going to make when he finds out about this. I'm the one that needs to deal with him on a regular basis, you know."
"I assure you, their sacrifice was very much necessary. They provided an adequate diversion for our true goal."
The woman's words and tone were civil. Eerily so. Roman was used to a fiery temper and unreasonable demands, and to see her acting in this manner made him deeply uncomfortable. It was a thin veneer of pleasantness masking a seething, roiling mass beneath.
"What does that even mean?" He asked in exasperation.
"It means we got the virus uploaded ahead of time, numbskull," a new voice, rough and unrefined, responded. "I got him out, Cinder."
Emerald strode into the room with Mercury in tow, the latter sullenly refusing to meet the eyes of anyone else in the room. He locked the door behind him.
"Well, well, well," Roman chortled, his previous aggravation evaporating in an instant. "Look who decided to take a break from his holding cell to grace us with his presence. Wait," he broke from his gloating in confusion, "you got the virus uploaded? Already?"
"Yep," Emerald responded. "Did it while everyone was having a fit over the White Fang. A couple cases of dust gets ignited and everyone loses their mind. Man, it's chilly in here." She strode to the window, only slightly ajar, and firmly shut it. The click of the latch echoed in the barren warehouse.
"As I said before, the schedule has been moved up," Cinder stated. "I wanted our hooks in their network as soon as possible."
"That's why you threw away thirty perfectly good animals? Because you got impatient?"
"The plan had become compromised. It was necessary," she insisted, vestiges of the familiar rage beginning to build in her voice.
"Great. It was necessary. That still doesn't solve how I'm supposed to explain to that damn animal why thirty of his best men are now in the custody of Vale's finest without him trying to take my head," Roman sighed morosely, idly twirling his hat in his hands. "He's an impulsive thing, you know."
"Oh, Roman, you don't need to worry about that," Cinder purred, her tone laced with danger and venom.
"No?" He responded, somewhat nervously.
"No," she agreed, the amber of her irises beginning to burn brightly. "I'm afraid you have bigger things to be worried about."
Roman bolted out of his chair in alarm, only to find himself surrounded and every potential escape route barred.
"I've been hearing that you've been getting...chatty...with someone outside of our little circle." An alluring, superficial smile stretched across her face.
"Let's talk about that, shall we?"
"Welcome to Homu Wonderland."
The words, seemingly spoken through a mouthful of food, had Watts immediately on his guard. Something didn't quite add up. The voice had been light and sarcastic, a hint of dry amusement coloring its tone. In short, not one that seemed to wish him harm.
Even so, he hadn't gotten to as far as he had without an overabundance of caution, and his hand flew to his waist, seeking out the familiar grip of his revolver.
There was nothing there.
Eyes flickered down to find that his waist was, indeed, empty. He began frantically pawing at his various pockets and hidden compartments to find that he was well and truly devoid of anything on his person.
With few other options, Watts traced the source of the earlier words. He found himself staring at what appeared to be a young girl working away at a plate piled high with a variety of the standard carnival fare. Upon further inspection, It would appear that he was in a food court.
"Take a seat."
The girl gestured towards the cheap folding chair across from herself, but Watts could only stare, bemused. At any other time, he would have bristled at the negligent rudeness the girl displayed as she invested more attention into her meal than the conversation at hand, but he was still too flabbergasted for anything to truly register.
"Where am I? What is this place?" The only words he could formulate were desperate demands, spoken more from reflex than from a desire to truly know.
"Calm down. I'm still eating." The girl made a show of taking an exaggerated bite from her burger. "Want one?" She asked, indicating to the assortment of food piled on the tray to her right, "It's all really good. Well, everything here is free anyway." She nodded more forcefully to the chair. "Sit."
Numbly, Watts obeyed, limply plopping down into the uncomfortable seat. He stared blankly at their surroundings, seemingly lost to the world. Internally, however, the more logical portion of his mind was violently reeling, scrutinizing every aspect of this new locale and attempting to parse the recent chain of events.
He had been alone in his safehouse. He had placed that thing on his head and everything had gone dark. Had there been a trap in the parcel after all? One that he had somehow overlooked? He had been certain to inspect it thoroughly, though. Besides, what sort of trap forcefully relocated a person? Dust then? He knew of no dust that could replicate the scene before his eyes and the sensations upon his flesh. A Semblance perhaps? Teleportation? But who? And how had they gotten-"
"So, you seem to be taking in all of this quite well," a voice barged in on his thoughts.
Apparently the small girl had finally finished off her meal.
Shaken back to reality, Watts took a moment to properly scrutinize the girl. She was young, likely no older than an academy initiate. Grey eyes twinkled mischievously as they easily met his own, and matching grey hair, worked into spirals, bobbed at the sides of her head. The most notable feature, however, was the black hood with a pair of rabbit ears stitched atop it.
"I take it that you're Bunny?" He asked warily.
"Sure," she confirmed. "Bronie, if you like. Bronie Zaychik. Bunny's just the name I use online."
"Where am I," Watts repeated his earlier question hoarsely.
She took a moment to respond, eyes twinkling merrily at his evident confusion. "Hm. Where indeed?"
She hummed, licking a stray fleck of ketchup from her thumb. "Hard to say. If you mean physically, then you haven't left. You're still in your run-down apartment on Sorrel Lane in Mantle, next to the bakery and across the laundromat. You haven't left it for the past week." Steel grey flickered chidingly to him. "That's no good, you know. Staying cooped up all day is bad for your health."
At the sharp glare she received, a distinctively unladylike snort escaped her nostrils. "What? Don't like being lectured? Or are you surprised that I know exactly where you are? You should know better by now."
He really should. Letting the matter go, Watts returned to the topic at hand.
"Physically, as opposed to?" he questioned, suspiciously observing a mascot as it leered at him from across the yellow-brick path. Its stubby appendage waved in what he assumed was supposed to be a cheerful greeting.
The girl tapped the side of her head with an index finger. "Mentally, of course."
She lazily gestured to their surroundings before turning her attention to a stack of fries. She popped one into her mouth, giving a few slow chews before nodding in satisfaction.
"It's a neural uplink,"she explained in between bites. "Every one of your senses has been rerouted to this program. This is all a simulation. The stimuli that you are experiencing right now are not a result of your physical senses."
"That's impossible," Watts immediately declared. "There isn't any technology that can interface with the human mind so seamlessly. Even Atlas hasn't reached that point."
"Yet here you are," she flatly rebuked. "I had hoped that your experiences would have opened your mind up a bit more, Watts."
She idly rolled a shaker in one hand, testing its weight before applying a sprinkling of salt to her food.
"Touch, taste, smell, sight and sound. Right now, your brain is being fed all of these things, not from your physical body, but from a separate series of external impulses. It may as well be real, wouldn't you agree?"
"No." Spoken without even a hint of hesitation. Watts's face retained its stubbornly stony countenance.
A flash of annoyance crossed Bronie's face, something that he found immensely satisfying..
"You're not much of a philosopher, are you?" She grumbled.
"I am a scientist. I do not devote much time to contemplating such frivolous things."
"You should try it sometime. It might help with that stick you've got up your ass."
She shook her head, ignoring his incensed look. "Of course, nothing in this place is real. Not in the traditional sense. This isn't even really a place—here does not exist." Lightly tapping the shaker, she sprinkled a single grain onto the tip of her finger, bringing it to her tongue. "Even so, this salt tastes...well, salty." She laid the shaker gently down on its side and pushed it lightly, sending it rolling across the table to the doctor. "When I touch something here, my mind registers that sensation, whether it be pleasure or pain. How is this any different from how you view the outside world?"
Watts picked up the object, testing its weight for himself. The hardness, the texture, the look, all of it was indistinguishable from any arbitrary salt-shaker he could find in the real world.
"We are slaves to our perceptions." She placed her drink on the table and lifted both hands, thumbs and forefingers raised in the imitation of a camera shutter. She panned across the scenery before finally settling on Watts's disgruntled expression. "We are led to believe the world exists as we see it simply because our field of view is too narrow to picture the whole."
She allowed her hands to fall, shrugging as she retrieved her drink.
"Change your perspective a bit and you suddenly have a whole new view. This world is the same. Everyone is simply watching shadows dance across the wall of a cave, never realizing that there may be far more to reality than they realize."
A gnawing sense of unease began to grow in the pit of Watts's stomach. A vague premonition of where this conversation was headed squirmed uncomfortably against his innards.
"When you say this world, are you referring to...this?" He waved his arm, indicating to the general vicinity.
The unease he felt intensified when the small girl fixed him with a steely stare. Her expression, flat and unamused. Dull grey pools seemed to reprimand him for not putting the pieces together faster.
"Who can say?" Slowly, deliberately, she asked, "How can you be certain that the world as you know it is truly what it is? Perhaps you are one of the many watching those same shadows, never seeing the whole."
A pang struck Watts at the center of his chest. A dreadful epiphany.
"The Sea of Quanta," he muttered hesitantly, the words foreign upon his lips.
The theoretical space outlined in the documents she had last given him. A space that transcended space, unbound by the fetters of time. The papers had been unspecific on what exactly such a space would entail, but the implications were mind-boggling. A reality that transcended the one he knew.
"It's more than just theoretical, it actually exists."
Watts raised a brow.
"Don't look so surprised," she admonished, taking a sip from her empty cola, the rattling of ice grating as it fell upon the ears. "You're a lot easier to read than you think. In any case, the Sea is a vast subject that is best saved for another time. It isn't relevant to what I want to show you today."
"What is the world?" Watts asked lowly, almost afraid of the answer he would receive.
"Well that's a philosophical question if I've ever heard one. I thought you didn't devote your time to such frivolous things."
She held the steely look for a few more seconds before snorting humorlessly and waving away his concern with a careless hand. "Don't worry, your precious little world is as real as it gets. You're just not seeing the whole picture is all. Something I intend to remedy."
Abruptly, she popped to her feet.
"Well then!" she exclaimed, stretching with a sigh, popping several joints in the process. "It's about time we went."
"Went where?" Watts questioned, looking at her, baffled.
He was suddenly struck by how small she actually was. Even seated, he could easily meet her eyeline without the need to incline his head.
"Where else? You wanted answers, right? Well, let's go get some answers."
Dumbly, the older man rose from his seat and followed.
The pair made their way across the park, passing an assorted variety of the leering mascots on their way. The odd creatures did not accost them, but their presence nevertheless put Watts on edge.
"Why a theme park?" He asked, partly out of genuine curiosity and partly to stave off the silent tedium of their walk. "And why that yellow...thing? For such unthinkable technology, this place certainly looks," his eyes traced a pair of the mascots—one pink, one blue—with evident distaste, "garish."
"Homu is her favorite,"she stated simply without turning, but corrected her response after a beat, "Well, it was her favorite, back when she still had the human capacity for things like favorites."
She shrugged. "As for the park, I think it brought back memories of old times. Not necessarily better times, mind you, but..." She trailed off, seemingly at a loss for the proper words. "Well, less lonely times, I guess."
"By 'her', you mean…"
"RABBIT, yes. She designed everything about this place herself. It is a comprehensive record of...well, not everything she knows, that would be impossible. But it's got all the important bits. It's also a good place to kill time," she appended, snagging a cloud of cotton candy from an unoccupied stall. "Here we are."
They had stopped at the foot of a structure whose size eclipsed all others in the park.
"It's a Homu World," Watts read the ornate sign aloud, staring up at the grandiose building that towered high overhead.
Modeled in an imitation of a grand castle, the structure's blue, steepled spires reached proudly to the heavens. Its looming walls, coated in a pristine white, were decorated with arches and ornate, painted windows. Atop the tallest spire, a standard bearing the manic visage of the same yellow mascot peered over the park.
"Almost an exact replica of the original," Bronie noted, before her features darkened. "Be glad it's not perfectly identical. The original had the most mind-numbingly irritating music you could imagine."
He glanced at her dubiously, and she seemed to pick up the unasked question.
"It's an educational ride," she explained. "It covers world history spanning back to the beginnings of man."
"You brought me here to give me a history lesson?"
The girl smirked. "It's not a history lesson you've ever had before, trust me."
"Two please," she addressed the ever-grinning homu at the ticket booth. It bobbed its bulbous head before undoing the gate to admit the pair.
"We'll take the walking tour," she explained as she passed into the structure with Watts in tow. "It's more comprehensive, and I don't really fancy the idea of sitting in one of those carts with you."
He agreed wholeheartedly.
The pair trudged through a darkened corridor. Faintly, Watts could hear the droning whir of unseen mechanisms in the shadows, and the scamperings of what he assumed were more of the horrible mascots dutifully running about behind the scenes. When at last they emerged from the tunnel into the light once more, he found himself dumbfounded—something that was becoming a regular occurrence for the day.
Gone was the park. Instead, sprawling all the way to the distant horizon was a vast expanse of lush greenery. The pair stood upon a rocky outcrop, a cliff overlooking a dense, tropical jungle. Whirling around, Watts found that the corridor behind them had vanished.
"The dawn of civilization, circa three thousand B.C.E." his companion introduced. At the puzzled glance she received, she supplied, "Before Common Era. It's how they used to denote time. It doesn't really matter. All you need to know is that we're at the point when humans first began to properly develop civilization."
Turning from the verdurous vista, she strolled down the gentle incline, pausing only to question, "you coming?"
Tearing his eyes from the unexpected scenery, Watts followed her down the slope and into the emerald embrace of the jungle.
The assertions the small girl had made earlier regarding the perceived reality of this place became immediately and uncomfortably apparent to him the moment they passed into the dense thicket. Within just a few minutes of hiking, the steamy humidity and suffocating heat had left his undershirt drenched and his temper sorely tested.
"You don't seem too bothered by this blasted heat," the doctor grumbled, shedding his overcoat and rolling his sleeves up to the elbow.
The girl hadn't bothered to shed her jacket or even lower her hood despite the oppressive conditions. Despite this, not a drop of perspiration had condensed upon her skin.
"Hm?" She seemed distracted. "I guess not. I've never had a problem with heat. Or cold, for that matter. Ah, there they are." Her face brightened, seemingly finding what she had been seeking. "Behold, primitive man!"
Following her excited pointing, Watts espied several squat, ugly creatures trundling through the underbrush. These particular specimens—five of them—sported deep, heavy brows and over pronounced jowls. They were also exceedingly hairy, which meant they wore an absolute minimum of any sort of body-covering. Despite this, they were still, undeniably, humans.
The group seemed to be hunting at the moment. Tracing their focused glares, Watts found that they were currently stalking something that resembled a deer, yet significantly bigger.
"Primitive humans were largely hunter-gatherers, typically functioning as nomadic groups rather than living in proper settlements. It wasn't until they developed agriculture that any sort of real civilization came to be." Her brow crinkled and she gazed expectantly into the dense foliage.
The sound of something crashing through the brush met Watts's ears. The prey had apparently noted this as well and had darted off into the cloistered trees.
The primitive men took no heed of their quarry's escape, as they seemed to enter a panicked state. Tightly clutching their crude spears, the group clambered backwards cautiously, weapons raised in the direction of the ominous disturbance.
A moment of absolute stillness and then, all at once, a great brute burst forth from the treeline with a raucous bellow.
Alarmed, Watts reached for his firearm, only to grasp empty air once again.
"Calm down, nothing here can hurt you," Bronie chided, passively observing the scene. She paused in contemplation, before amending, "Well, it can definitely hurt, but it won't kill you. There are safeguards in place at this level of the simulation. Just sit tight and watch."
The beast that had rampaged onto the scene was similar to the deer creature the men had been tracking, but larger still. However, the most notable difference were the spindly insectile appendages that twitched and jerked haphazardly from its back. White and glossy, these structures seemed more akin to ceramic than anything of blood and bone.
"With the rise of human civilization came a new threat. One whose very existence was diametrically opposed to mankind." She spoke dispassionately even as the early humans struggled and failed to defend themselves, falling one-by-one to the great beast's brutality. "Honkai. The limiting force."
"What-"
"Stop." She commanded with uncharacteristic curtness. "The ride is still going, ask your questions later."
She turned and strode past Watts. When he moved to follow, he found that an aperture had appeared. A doorway that hung suspended in open space, independent of any structure or edifice. Another dark corridor. He followed.
"I wish to form a partnership"
Once upon a time, so long ago that similar stories have become legends long forgotten, someone had spoken those words to her.
If any degree of human sentiment remained in the pitch core she called a heart, Salem would have said that she valued those words highly.
Unbeknownst to herself at the time, they were words that promised a reprieve from millennia of solitude.
The form that reprieve came in had caused her no end of aggravation throughout her brutally long and protracted campaign against the world itself, but it was reprieve nonetheless. She was one that could stand on even footing with herself. A comrade, if only in name. An equal.
And soon, very soon, it would be time for them to part ways.
Salem contemplated this eventual certainty as she gazed out across her black and broken kingdom from her chamber window. A small altercation, brought to her attention by movements far below and the snarling agitation of her grimm subjects, snared her focus.
She allowed a small frown to mar her ghastly countenance. Another one was causing trouble.
For the past few years, one of the grimm pools—the one that could only birth failures—had begun to work once more. New grimm were clambering free from it's inky ichor with greater regularity than in the past.
These particular grimm still carried the abnormal, glossy protrusions and plating that she had first seen centuries ago, but rather than expire moments from leaving their birthing pool, they burst forth from the ebon depths in a rage and very much alive.
Why they had suddenly become capable of sustaining themselves had been a matter of great curiosity to her. Nothing prior had managed to coax living aberrants from the pool, not for her lack of trying.
It was as if the beasts being produced had somehow been greatly bolstered.
Most perplexingly, however, was that these individuals no longer obeyed the commands of their queen.
From the moment that they tore free from the wretched pits, they strode forth with great violence. Any creature they encountered was torn asunder with singular, brutal prejudice, be it beast or grimm. This one was no different.
Bearing the base form of an Ursa, skittering tendrils of ceramic white erupted haphazardly from its limbs and back, terminating in scalpel sharp edges. It used these to great effect, vivisecting any grimm that strayed within its range.
Mentally, Salem commanded her hordes to fell the aberration. From her vantage on high, a pitch tide of bodies converged upon the target.
To its credit, the mutated beast lasted for quite a bit longer than she expected, easily dispatching several dozens of its brethren before finally being overwhelmed by the wave of bodies.
Satisfied at the destruction of the latest upstart, Salem departed her quarters. She had declared a strategic meeting earlier that day. It would not do to keep her subjects waiting.
Minutes later found her in the war room. The uncomfortable faces of her followers glanced periodically up at her in nervous agitation while she testily bore a hole into the door with her glare.
The gathering time had come and gone, yet the meeting had yet to commence. They were waiting on a final member.
"Where is Watts?" Salem asked. Her tone was even, but her subjects knew better. The roiling masses of darkness that surrounded them pulsed in time with their mistress's agitation.
"I am afraid that the Doctor will no longer be joining you," a new voice declared, a lithe from striding unnoticed from the shadows into their midsts.
Salem barely blinked. "Oh? What brings you here Phoenix? It is unusual for you to visit unannounced."
"My name is Fu Hua."
They were simple words. A statement that should have been entirely innocuous, yet held intractable weight. All traces of flippancy drained from Salem's demeanor. She sat up straighter, her face adopting a complicated, solemn expression.
"Leave us." The command was directed to her subordinates. They filed out obediently, heads down, eyes averted, as if they feared drawing the warrior's attention. A nervous tension charged the air, cloying and heavy in its intensity.
Salem rested her head upon a pale hand, meticulously scrutinizing the being in front of her. In all the years Salem had known her partner, the mysterious girl had clung stubbornly to the sobriquet, Phoenix, never once revealing more about herself than was strictly necessary. For her to deviate from that pattern here and now, Salem knew precisely what that meant.
"So the time has come then."
"So it has," Fu Hua confirmed softly.
"Despite our differences, I rather enjoyed our partnership. The eons would doubtless be maddening without someone of equal standing to keep me company."
Fu Hua remained silent.
"Won't you join me?" Salem pressed. "You must see by now that there is no hope for this world. Even if I were not actively seeking to end it, Remnant would still fall in time. It had died long before the Brother Gods left."
Her countenance twisted, the shadows of the creases in her face greatly exaggerated by its ghostly pallor. "They were what sustained it. They were what killed it. They discarded it like a toy they had lost interest in. And now that they're gone, Remnant is a shambling corpse of what it had once been. Help me put this pathetic world out of its misery for good."
Fu Hua showed no outward remonstrance to the offer. If anything, the hard lines upon her brow softened slightly. It was simply Salem's nature, she knew, warped as it was by time and the grimm corruption. It was, if anything, pitiable.
"That cannot happen. My duty is to protect humanity. No matter how hopeless the struggle, I will see it through to the end."
Salem seemed to bite back harsh words, her face twisting even further before relaxing into dissatisfied acceptance. "Yes, I thought that would be the case." She sighed before snapping sharply, "Go. Leave this place. My men will not disturb you."
"As per our agreement, I have given forward warning and will depart peacefully," Fu Hua stated. "The next time I cross with you or yours, it will be as enemies."
Salem inclined her head in understanding, a gesture which Fu Hua reciprocated before turning and striding purposefully from the war room.
Glancing back momentarily, she glimpsed the chalky visage consumed with rage before the heavy door shut with a resounded slam.
She paused.
"Rainart." She greeted, unperturbed by the mammoth of a man leaning against the masonry.
"Was it true." He spoke in questions that were not questions, his tone flat and lacking in the standard inflection that accompanied a query. "Her plan is to end the world."
"You heard."
"I did."
"Think about why you wish to follow Salem, Rainart. Consider whether this" she gestured vaguely around them, "is worth your vengeance."
"You know about that."
"I know a great many things," she responded neutrally.
"You didn't answer my first question."
"I don't think I need to. Heed my advice. That is all I will tell you."
And then she was gone, vanished as if she had never been.
Blinking in mild surprise for a moment, Hazel Rainart stalked off with a heavy scowl adorning his face.
Exiting the darkened tunnel now found the pair in what appeared to be a primitive settlement in the midst of some great turbulence.
The moment they stepped from the shadows into blinding light, chaos ensued. A chorus of screams, roars and various other unpleasant noises fell harshly upon Watts's ears, wearing away at his fraying nerves, and his hand strayed reflexively to his waist once again. He was sorely bemoaning the fact that this digital avatar could offer nothing, save for the clothes on his back.
"Do you really want that toy so badly?" his companion asked, exasperated. "What's that look for? I told you, didn't I? You're a lot easier to read than you think."
Without further prompting, she swiped her hand in the empty air around her, heedless of the disarray that surrounded them. A glowing terminal flared to life, into which she rapidly input a series of commands. In response, a digital blue light glared momentarily before coalescing into Watts's favored revolver in his right hand.
The doctor hefted his weapon of choice, marveling at the weight and feel—it was indistinguishable from the one that currently sat holstered on his living room table.
"Don't go shooting willy-nilly," Bronie warned. "Our targeting priority is set to the lowest weight by default. I don't want to deal with the mess if you happen to draw the AI's aggro. Come on."
They trod through the ruined village, the smaller girl languidly strolling, completely ignoring the carnage that surrounded them, save for when she shifted to sidestep a stagnating pool of blood or other such viscera. Watts followed cautiously, curiously taking in the scenario.
It was a scene more at home in an abattoir.
Flames danced luridly atop thatched huts. At least, atop the ones that still stood. The majority of the village's straw-and-bamboo buildings had been toppled, their supports snapped like twigs.
All about the area, corpses lay strewn haphazardly in various states of mutilation—some trampled, as if by some great beast, and some sliced or skewered. Watts was not a squeamish man by nature, but he certainly did not revel in such visions of violence. Even he found this scale of wholesale slaughter to be quite distasteful.
"Awful, isn't it?" the girl stated conversationally, apparently noticing Watts's preoccupation. "Humanity didn't stand a chance. Beasts afflicted with the honkai influence were simply too powerful for the primitive tools and weapons of the time."
"You don't seem too terribly bothered by all of this."
She shot him a wry look, quipping sardonically, "You'll find that I'm not the emotional type. Besides," she added, "it's all ancient history."
Past the ruined village, the pair marched on into dense, wooded thickets. Unlike the horrendously tropical climate of their previous destination, this area seemed to be more temperate—something Watts fervently gave thanks for.
The area surrounding the settlement had not been spared from the destruction. A path had been gouged out of the greenery. Ugly scars of rent earth and overturned trees littered the surroundings. Something big had torn its way through here, and Bunny was leading them down the same trail, much to Watts's chagrin.
"Outmatched and outgunned." She stated as she finally brought them to a halt. The sounds of battle and the bellow of beast sung clearly in the air, unmuffled by obstacle or distance. "By all rights, man should have ended there and then."
Peering into the clearing that lay before them, Watts identified the source of the ruckus. Another mutated creature—a gargantuan, plated bear, this time—was locked in fierce combat with what appeared to be a small girl.
"But humanity still had its heroes."
Adorned in ornate gold and yellow finery, the small figure flowed effortlessly about the lumbering beast, well out of reach of rending talons and malformed appendages. Grasped tightly in her hands was a glorious golden blade that spewed the wrath of the earth itself. Expertly etched and inlaid with gems of an exquisite quality, each swing of that magnificent sword expelled an element, changing, seemingly, on a whim.
When she slashed, searing flames rushed forth in response. When she stabbed, lightning struck in the blade's place. Hoary frost condensed upon the razor's edge, biting and cold. The earth trembled, the wind rushed and the heavens themselves seemed to turn at this girl's will.
With the bellowing might of the elements at her back, she laid low the savage beast that had decimated the village, with nary a scratch to mar her countenance.
"Ji Xuanyuan. The Yellow Emperor. She is the first officially recorded incident of a human capable of slaying the honkai beasts."
Watts noticed an odd emphasis on "officially" before paint seemed to rush before his eyes. The scene bled away, to be replaced by another. And another. And another still.
Scenes of a distant history that Watts did not know flashed around them in quick succession. The settings changed—torrential rain, scorching heat, biting cold—but the story told was always the same.
It was a despondent painting.
Throughout every glimpse of the past, Watts witnessed a hero rise to purge the beasts, only to fall in the next instant, laid low by something more savage still. Someone new would take their place, and the cycle would repeat.
"Even heroes had their limitations," Bronie narrated. "Though capable in their own right, those saviors, whose purpose was to safeguard a fledgling humanity, were ultimately still human themselves. Even they could fail."
And fail they did. It was almost shocking how easily such esteemed warriors, so mighty in one moment, were broken in the next.
"Over the centuries, many others would rise to take arms against humanity's doom. All would inevitably fall. The beasts would adapt. They would become stronger. In the end, only one hero weathered the ages and the countless battles to the modern era. She would come to be known by many names, one of which was-"
Watts's attention was torn from the lecture as a person strode past them. A record of the past that echoed a vision of the present.
Some details differed, naturally. Her hair was longer, less restrained, and her form was garbed in exquisite azure finery, but the cool flame that burned in those placid pools remained the same as always. The same neutral, if somewhat stern, mask never left her face, even as Watts witnessed her decimate hordes of the horrendous monstrosities.
Her's was a story that differed from the rest. She was not driven by greed, nor desire, nor self-interest. Her allegiance lay not with kinsmen, nor country, but humanity itself. Her cause was singular, a directive that persisted from a time unthinkable.
Upon the tides of eons she drifted, the sole remnant of an era long gone. From time to time and place to place, she would resurface to perform her solemn duty. When she did, whichever name she chose to adopt at the time would invariably become etched into history. Jingwei, The Immortal Empyrea...
"Phoenix," Watts breathed in disbelief as he observed that familiar, stoic visage tearing through savage beasts with calculated coldness. "Is that truly…?"
"Yep. Fu Hua was one of the heroes of humanity. One of the earliest, actually."
"Fu Hua?"
She shot him a curious look. "You didn't think her name really was 'Phoenix,' did you?"
"She has lived for three-thousand years?"
"Longer. Far longer." Her dubious expression grew more pronounced. "Do you find it surprising? Even when you served a creature whose life has spanned several millennia?"
Watts had to think for a moment. In the few times he had ever encountered the...not-quite-so-young...woman, she had unnerved him. The face was youthful, but she exuded an air of untouchable antiquity. Her eyes held a wisdom so ancient that it chilled him to the bone, and when she spoke, it held the weight of eons. Even Salem had been forced to respect her. To call her an equal.
"No. No, I don't think I do." He hesitated, "though, I must admit that the time scales you've given are vast. For someone to persist for so long, is she truly human?"
Bunny shrugged, a complicated expression crossing her face. "She was, once. Her heart remains undeniably human, but the same cannot be said for her body. How much of that form remains human is...debatable, to say the least."
A strange melancholy seemed to drift over the girl, a dour expression flashing across her face.
"Let's go." She declared with finality. "I think that's enough for the day."
"Man, I can't get over how good this food is!" Bronie crowed as she dug into a personal pizza, courtesy of the savagely grinning red Homu working the stands.
Her mood had immediately lifted the moment they emerged from that grim monument to the past and returned to the food court.
"This food is rather mediocre, if you ask me," Watts commented, idly transferring bits of his pasta into his mouth. His eyes were slightly glazed over, his mind elsewhere, still sifting through the excess of information that he had learned over the course of the day. "Haven't you ever had pizza before?"
"Nope," she glibly admitted. "Or burgers, or cotton candy. This is all a first for me."
The man's focus immediately sharpened, the twisting of his features relaying startled bafflement. "Have you not been in here before?"
"Nope," she repeated cheerily, "first time."
"Then why do you know how all of this works? Or where to go? Or what you're doing?" A slightly strained quality to his tone betrayed his mounting alarm.
Watts was no fool. The intricacies of the human mind were not something to be trifled with so...whimsically. The idea that he had been in the hands of someone who was, as the colloquial phrase goes, "winging it," did not sit well with him at all.
"That's a trade secret," she grinned cheekily, placing a finger in front of her mouth in a shushing gesture. "If you're worried about something going wrong while we're in here, don't be. This may be my first time actually in the simulation, but I know this thing like the back of my hand."
Watts snorted, not entirely convinced, but he opted to take her at her word. What choice did he have, really? He returned to mechanically shoveling bits of food into his mouth despite the utter futility of such an action. The familiar movements calmed him, to a degree.
"Well?" the girl asked after several moments.
"Well what."
"I'm sure you're just bursting with questions, so let's hear them."
Watts blinked. Despite their initial agreement, he had not expected the young girl to be so forthright with the information she promised.
"You will answer anything?"
"That was what we agreed to," she stated plainly.
"Very well. This...'Honkai'...what is it? You spoke as if it actually has some form of agency. Is it not merely a force of nature?"
"It does, and it is." Her eyes directed upwards to the digital heavens, mind attempting to formulate a succinct response. "Honkai is...an intrinsic force of the universe. It exists as an opposing measure against civilization. It is why I referred to it as the limiting force-when civilization advances, so too does Honkai."
"Why have I not heard of this force before?" He asked. "Surely something so ubiquitous should be known by more than a select few people?"
Bronie hummed in thought. "It's present," she finally asserted. "Just greatly stifled. The conditions of Remnant are not conducive to the development or evolution of honkai beasts."
"I see." A clue. Something to look into, perhaps. "And Its purpose?" He pressed.
"Who can tell, really?" She replied dismissively. "There are theories, of course, but it's a bit much to get into now. All you need to know is that Honkai is a force that is utterly opposed to humanity and, I suspect, to any species with the capacity for sapience. Beyond that is only guesswork. It's not like anyone's had the chance to go and have a proper chat with it or anything."
She screwed her face up in concentration, as if trying to recall something.
"Though, Fu Hua once mentioned someone that had managed to briefly touch the great gestalt Will of the Honkai. From what I hear, it just told him to kill himself. I'm not sure what he expected, really."
Hearing the true name of their shared compatriot caused Watts to remember a question he had been burning to ask from the start.
"If Phoenix, excuse me, Fu Hua, is supposed to be a so-called champion of humanity, why is she colluding with Salem?"
He was genuinely puzzled. Salem was a being who dreamt only of dominion over mankind. There should have been no reason that such a vaunted warrior of humanity would align herself with such a being.
"I wouldn't recommend referring to her by that name in her presence," the girl warned. "She can be rather cold to those she doesn't approve of. As for your question, I don't know."
He shot her a doubtful look.
"I wasn't around when everything happened, alright?" She defended against the silent accusation. "When I first became aware of anything, it had all already been in motion for a long, long time. I might as well just be a regular Remnant citizen."
"Regular Remnant citizens don't typically consort with wanted criminals and dead men," Watts blandly pointed out.
"I'm a Remnant citizen with a very specific toolset and connections in very high places," she amended in exasperation. "The point stands. I am not privy to whatever plans they've put together. I'm not even sure they have a plan. Maybe they're just prolonging things for as long as they can before it all inevitably falls apart."
"That's a rather bleak outlook."
"It's the reality. Remnant is not in a good place. It hasn't been for a long time."
Though the words piqued yet a dozen more questions, the expression on her face made it clear that probing further would be fruitless.
"A discussion for another time, I suppose?" At her curt nod, he changed tracks. "Well then, what about yourself?"
"What about myself?"
"You clearly know about Salem."
"Hm." She hummed around the straw of her drink, nodding her head in affirmation.
"You know of her desires and plans for humanity?"
Another hum, her attention wandering from the contents of their conversation to the contents of her plate.
"But you are not aligned with her interest?"
"Nope," spoken through a mouthful of food. "The opposite."
"Then why did you send me to her to begin with?"
"For safekeeping."
A moment of Bafflement. "Truly?"
She nodded.
"There was once a species of bird called the cuckoo," she began. "Rather than raise its own young, it would leave its eggs in the nests of other birds who would then raise it as one of their own." She paused for effect, then, "the moral of the story is that birds are kind of stupid."
Slim shoulders bobbed up and down lackadaisically.
"I keep track of all the new talent that passes through Remnant's academies. You never know when someone with exceptional ability will appear, after all. You were a promising prospect, so I invested a bit of time and resources to keep track of your progress. And then you went rogue."
Watts's swarthy skin deepened a shade at the reminder of past humiliations.
"One count of treason, two counts of sabotage, two counts of attempted sabotage, four counts of attempted murder, one count of grand theft auto and many, many instances of petty theft. I think there's a misdemeanor jaywalking charge in there, too."
She numbered each of his crimes off, his complexion growing darker with each word.
"Oh, and you faked your own death. Suffice to say, there wasn't a single major settlement on Remnant where you could feasibly relocate, nevermind any of the kingdoms proper. I needed some place where I could discretely keep tabs on you. With the more reputable options now barred, that left me with just one. So I asked nicely for a favor from a friend, and here we are."
"Well, I'm so glad things worked out for you, I'm sure," Watts snarled, sarcasm dripping thickly off every word.
She frowned. "It certainly wasn't ideal. I'm missing a lot of data because that nightmare fortress you called a base doesn't have a dedicated link to the CCT network." Sighing, she added, "It wasn't a total loss. At least it had the fortunate side effect of tempering your capacity a bit."
"Capacity for what?"
"Understanding, Watts. Would you have so readily believed that a monster like Salem could exist on Remnant, had you not seen her with your own two eyes?"
"Absolutely not." He did not even need to think about it. He did not give much credence or thought to things of such an absurdly impossible nature. Salem would have fallen squarely into that category.
"Definitely not," she agreed. "Your mind is too rigid. I needed it to be more pliable when it comes to matters of the fantastical and unbelievable. You'll be seeing a lot of that."
Swiping a hand in midair, she summoned a terminal, observing and then promptly dismissing it. "Let's make this topic the last. We've been in here for the past eight hours. I sure hope you put your body in a comfortable position before coming in."
"It has truly been that long?"
She stared flatly. "Time still passes normally here, you know."
"Well forgive me for assuming otherwise," He snapped in irritation. "Given the sheer impossibility of everything about this place, I half-expected this simulation to have some method of altering one's perception of time."
"It did," the girl admitted. "But it was found in early development that the time-calibration module was...incompatible...with a regular human brain. It was scrapped."
He gaped at her. "Unbelievable," he muttered, aggravated. "Just...unbelievable."
Watts kneaded his forehead. Did the creator of this place truly feel the need to replicate migraines as well?
Heaving a deep sigh he dropped his hand, looking up at the figure staring expectantly at him. "Very well. I still have several questions, but for the sake of brevity I shall only ask one more. I trust you will entertain further queries in the future?"
A light nod of assurance.
"Very well," he repeated. "Who is this 'they' you have been speaking of? I imagine Phoenix is likely one of this group, but you've not mentioned the others." By the way the girl stiffened, Watts knew he had struck at a pertinent topic. He leaned forward in interest.
"The Demon, The Dancer and The Queen," she recited. Her tone was flat and dull, as if she were simply reading the words off of a page. "Those are the compatriots that Fu Hua buried shortly after reaching this land. That is all the detail that I have been permitted to give regarding their identities."
"They are deceased?"
She shook her head. "Not deceased. Sealed away. It was a decision the four of them came to together, made for various reasons that I am not," her tone sharpened minutely, smothering the incoming question from Watts, "privy to."
"Why wasn't Phoenix sealed as well?" He asked instead.
"Because someone needed to remain," she explained softly. "This land had become unkind to humanity. There was no way a fledgling race would be able to thrive on their own. An arbiter was needed. She guided them, and to this day, the names she wore remain painted all across the annals of Remnant's history."
She paused to drain her cup.
"As for why her specifically, it was a simple matter of practicality. It wouldn't be the first time she's, ah, 'Rekindled the flames of humanity.' Those are her words, not mine."
"Rekindled?"
"Has Salem never told you?"
The look that Watts gave was answer enough.
"No, I suppose she wouldn't have." Bunny groaned. "A tale for another time, then. For now, just know that this is humanity's second try at civilization on Remnant. Similarly, the place that they had arrived from had been in a similar situation."
If Watts was shocked by the revelation, he didn't show it, his face remaining unresponsive. He had been shown a great number of things, her assertion might as well be true, too. Why not? He simply did not have the emotional capacity remaining to process that bit of news.
Bunny observed his blank expression with some humor. "I take it that today's lesson has sated your curiosity for the time being?"
"I must admit that it has, yes. You've given me quite a bit to think over," he murmured.
"So would you say that I've upheld my end of the bargain?"
"I daresay you have, so far."
The unnerving grin she bore became downright predatory. "Good, because I think it's time to discuss your next project."
Watts jolted to attention, glaring daggers at her diminutive form.
"What's that look for? You didn't think I'd just give up all my secrets for free, did you? A partnership's a two-way street. You scratch my back, I scratch yours."
The intensity of his stare did not lessen.
"Oh, don't be so sour! I actually think you'll find this project agreeable, Watts."
A sly smirk crept across her face, and a mischievous light danced in her eyes.
"I need your help in toppling Atlas."
To the utter shock and surprise of absolutely no one, I have missed my self-appointed deadline once again. I really don't know why I bother at this point. It's like once I get a chapter uploaded I go into sleep mode for two weeks where I just do nothing productive.
I've been rereading a lot of Lovecraft lately. I had fun writing Whately's character. He's most certainly just going to be a minor character, but I had a good time making him as repulsive as possible.
I promise this plot's going somewhere. Still laying down some groundwork.
