Entering the small room, Miku was surprised to see that it transformed into a humungous arena. There were many similar rooms lining the hallways of her training center, and she vaguely wondered if they were all that big before she saw her opponent, a scraggly-looking humanoid with translucent-green skin. Thirteen year old Miku watched it with curiosity, not approaching it nor walking away. It slowly began to come up to her, and she began to read an extremely bad aura from it. Suddenly very nervous, she considered her skills. She knew how to heal herself, yes, and she knew how to make things levitate... Frantically, she asked herself what she could possibly use either of those abilities for. The creature noticed her concern and smiled a menacing, sharp, tooth-filled grin before charging at her. Releasing a terrified squeak, she waved her hand at it, tossing it into the air without much thought so that it hit a nearby platform. That only served to enrage it. Running, the small teenager tried to get herself more time to think of a battle strategy, constantly healing her stamina so that she wouldn't have to slow down. Such use of her powers was already making her tired, and she could feel her judge watching her condescendingly.
The scraggly creature pounced randomly and sent her flying to the ground, badly damaging her ribs. With a tiny exclamation of pain, she hit a platform hard, a tiny bit of blood coming from the corner of her mouth. Terrified, she tried to heal herself before it was already in front of her, about to kill her, and it disintegrated. A familiar man walked up to her trembling form.
"Heal yourself." he stated. Miku looked up and nodded, instantly wishing that she had kept her eyes on the ground. Master was certainly disappointed. She healed herself almost instantly, gritting her teeth as she felt herself slowly piece back together. Miku looked back up at him, waiting for an instruction and perhaps a bit of concern, but received nothing besides disappointment.
"She could be deficient, yes." he spoke into his ear, turning his back to the sitting woman. "She was the first, after all, it would make sense. Alright, I'll see how much she can handle before we send her off. I thought I worked quite hard on muscle resistance. We'll have to make certain to work more on the mind..." With a flash, he was gone and back from his spectating position on the ledge, the rest of the conversation lost. Miku sat on the ground, feeling his disappointment from a mile away. She was such a waste. She would never receive a partner. Master was about to use her as test meat for the next soldiers to be released, her failure had caused her to mean absolutely nothing to him.
She heard a thud, looking up to regard a much larger monster. Whatever terror she should have felt was lost in her self-loathing, and she waited like a good girl for the creature to kill her so that she could at least die properly for Master. It wasted no time lumbering over to her, picking her up and tossing her against the far wall of the arena. She could feel some of her bones snap and made a muffled noise of pain, shoving her hand into her mouth so as not to annoy Master further. The beast came at her and slammed its fist into her back, paralyzing her entirely. She waited for it to deal the final blow and rid the universe of such a sorry excuse for a soldier.
Suddenly, her mind was racing. Adrenaline and millions of ideas shot through her head as she realized that she could prove herself to Master, that she had to prove herself to Master. Just before the monster was about to pound her, she used a platform to make it fall onto its back and hold it there. Clenching her jaw to hold in a scream of agony, she healed herself in an entirely new way. In retrospect, she truly was a 'blood-sucking little parasite.' She forced her energy into the monster itself, channeling all of her power into its flesh and blood before draining it entirely. She translated its wellbeing into hers and slowly stole its life, repairing every part of her body until her skin had a nice glow. Nothing even hurt anymore. Smiling, she disconnected from the monster, levitated it, and smashed it against a wall, using her newly stolen strength to shatter it to pieces as she watched it disintegrate into pixels. Master had to be surprised. She looked down to regard the humungous tear in her clothing where the first monster had broken her ribs, eyeing it with distaste. Remembering her doll and how she could control it, she regenerated some of the fibers of her shirt while weaving it back together, making a patch that was not half-bad.
Master appeared in front of her again, and she looked up at him, hoping to see some trace of a suggestion that she had done well. When she was met with nothing, her heart sank, making her slightly discouraged. After a moment's thought, her determination returned. She would learn how to use her defensive abilities to create the best, most confusing, most surprising attacks that anyone had ever seen. Master would appreciate her one day. That was the day that she learned to set a mental clock for herself, because after Master left, she had unwittingly trained into the following morning.
Luka was beginning to understand why Miku had been so competitive. She hadn't had any contact with anybody before Master, and the only emotion he ever showed her was distaste or his usual nonchalance. She wondered briefly if Miku had meant to share that memory with her, before almost jumping out of her skin at the fact that she had just seen Miku's memories. She considered the fact that Miku had the ability to leech health from others, and realized that she had never seen the other woman do it before. Miku responded that she had to be in critical condition for the action to actually make sense, and that she had worried about accidentally affecting Luka due to the fact that she leeched from a target that was full of her energy, and they shared energy.
Neither of them had really needed healing except for when Luka had been under a sleep spell, which was when Miku had been able to use her healing to pierce through the offending magic and wake her up. She also occasionally fed herself stamina in order to remain running through the air, but she usually didn't need it unless she was very weak and tired, meaning that she hadn't been doing it during their shared training sessions. They looked up to where another one of the commanders was talking.
"I agree with the other commander when she says that it's important to explore what your powers can do outside of their basic abilities. Since you're the advanced fleet, you probably have already done this to some extent, but I mean really think abstract." he began. "Unless Cheryl has anything to finish off, I think we should be just about good." he turned to his partner, the woman who had yet to speak.
"All I need to say is leave as soon as you can, and everything looks shady. You will always have your rooms to return to, which you will probably stay in for one night whenever you're called here, which means you can upload your objects into a private database and leave them here to access elsewhere. If you're trained right, you should be fine, and there's no point avoiding the shady places because they're seriously everywhere. It's chaos out there, people." she said. "Get going."
Luka and Miku headed upstairs, getting a card from Luka's belt that told them where their room was. Miku blushed into her hand and Luka tried to act nonchalant as they entered the room and noticed that it was also full of color.
"That's... Slightly indecent." Luka observed, trying to sound casual while avoiding all eye contact with her partner as a light blush dusted itself across her cheeks. Miku was coughing, and nodded, trying to keep her mouth closed. She hastily went to a wall and plugged her belt in, loading her possessions into it in a virtual format so that she could access them anywhere else. She tried to ignore how colorful everything was, but it was extremely embarrassing, even if the colors were muted. On second thought, the fact that the colors were muted actually made things worse, because it was suggestive of what they both knew was actually there. Once Miku had all of her possessions, she sat awkwardly in a chair across from Luka, not certain if she wanted to leave or stay considering that it was their last chance at being there for a while.
"Leaving now...feels spontaneous..." she tried, attempting not to look at the walls as she felt her face heat up. The room would be perfectly fine to anyone who was used to color. It had automatically updated itself to suit the colors of the inhabitants' possessions, meaning that the walls were a faint Pink with darker pink stripes. Where they met the floor, there was a muted teal trimming before they met the carpet, which was the same. Many of the objects in the room were pink mixed with teal, and both partners were trying excessively hard to avoid contact and regulate their breathing. Luka laughed nervously.
"Yes, I think we should make sure there's nothing else we need." she responded, wishing that she could change the color of the walls to seriously anything besides pink suggestively mixing with teal. Absentmindedly, Miku considered that if all partner rooms were like theirs, Rin and Len would be the only ones that didn't understand, because their theme colors matched, and so there was no mixing to be observed. Embarrassedly, they began to make absolutely certain that they were ready to leave. Once they were sure, they left the room and exited the building, hearing their belts beep once before becoming silent as all of their lights went off so as not to give them away. Those particular articles were beneath a layer of clothing anyway, but there was never a 'too careful' when it came to chaos. Awkwardness made both of their fear go away, and so Miku actually understood why they had patterned the rooms in such fashions. Only after they stepped outside were they in awe of the world around them. There was no fear before they exited, meaning that they would instantly throw themselves into the world without causing problems. Miku glanced around, wide eyed.
"That's a lot of color..." she muttered. Luka nodded. Unsafe looking dark grey clouds were layered thickly over whatever sky there was, and they had a yellowish tint to them. There was a path before them that was clearly made out, but outside of the humungous fortification, vines and plants had grown into everything, colored in faded, dark greens and thorns. Miku felt slightly excited and slightly unnerved, but she and Luka began to walk pointedly out of the final gates and into the new world, energy pooling beneath their fingertips. They carefully maneuvered the plants and vines, mentally tracking their own locations so that they could return to the building if they were ever called back. While they were moving, they shared quiet thoughts with one another. Miku was actually very excited. The world around them looked terrifying, but at the same time, there was just so much of it. Both herself and Luka had been confined within their training center, which was very large for a building, but nothing in comparison to the land that seemed to span on for all of eternity, even if it was blocked by a bunch of plants. Miku had an idea, and used her healing abilities to cause the plants around them to break and then regenerate in different directions. She was about to make a path, but remembered that they were supposed to be impossible to track, and let the plants be.
Luka was silent as they picked their way through the dense jungle of plants, eventually coming to an area where the foliage thinned out and went away entirely, leaving a muddy, hay-like surface beneath their feet. The pink-haired woman looked over to regard Miku questioningly, and the latter looked around for something. Everything was dead quiet, with dark, dull colors filling up the entirety of their vision, spanning on for what seemed like an infinity. Eventually, Miku met Luka's gaze and mentally voiced her concerns. She noted that the area looked quite clearly like a trap, and that they would be easy to spot and kill if they simply walked out. Luka nodded and paused for a moment, searching for ideas. She saw that there were a few similar looking figures nearby that represented what she had seen in the life simulator back at the training establishment. Miku followed her gaze and nodded, picking the forest as their best bet. It would offer them decent cover without making it difficult for them to see.
They both observed the forest while being exceptionally careful not to lose focus on everything that was around them. Neither of them had to look at one another, because they felt each other's presence mentally, and the shared energy evidently also allowed them to feel a delicate pull that grew in intensity whenever they were close, somewhat like a magnet. The pull alerted them of when they were close, allowing them to keep a comfortable distance from one another without accidentally bumping together and disrupting focus. After a very long time that Miku's mind told her was an hour, they noticed a thinning in some branches. Luka pulled her card silently from her belt and scanned the small clearing, which came up as a fallen city that was currently inhabited by allies. She put her card back and glanced at Miku, who shrugged her shoulders. They both entered the outskirts of the un-abandoned city. Plants grew through all of the buildings, which were in extreme disrepair.
The silence seemed to fill every space, but it was soon broken by the sound of someone approaching. A woman waved at them and trotted to stand a short distance away. Miku and Luka were aware of being scanned before the woman fully approached and stood before them.
"Hey." her voice was very quiet. Everyone probably spoke in a whisper thanks to the silence. "We rarely get soldiers around this place, I'm quite relieved to see you for however long you may be here. This is Camp Seventeen. Are you taking missions?" Luka glanced at Miku. She knew that they were both down for it, but wanted to make certain before answering.
"Yes, we can take a mission." she responded. The woman looked overjoyed.
"It's been so long, so much has happened." she muttered, "Come to the department where I'll get you officially situated.
A/N: XD ok for starters no I do not actually find colors suggestive. I'm not sure if there are people who do, but that segment was intended to both be humorous and explore the fact that these beings, although human-like, understand things very different from average humans. I wanted to leave it in because I still found it funny and it was another piece of character development to boot. (In case you haven't figured it out, I looove character development). As usual, please say whatever you wanna say in reviews, I always learn from your input. Until next time!
