Bobblehead Selenia...

...Well, now that you all have that lovely mental image in your heads... Enjoy Part 1 of 2 of the Absorption Gate! Oh, and beware of Flick. I swear she gets a bit weirder every time I give her an even mildly-important role in a chapter... Her quotes alone should give you an idea.

"Oh, I am." –Flick

"Ooh! You should twirl! Twirling's fun!" –Flick

Chapter 10.2 – Divergent
Part 85

Dark's POV

We stepped out of the latest warp, and Sorylle growled.

"The earth hums again..."

I frowned. "Thanks for the warning."

The blunt, irritated tone of voice I'd taken and my words were enough warning for the others, and everyone braced themselves.

Just in time, as the platform started shaking again.

"The ground!"

"Watch out!"

"Aah!"

The platform fell out from under me, and I reached out as I fell, desperate to grab anything I could.

My hands met nothing but empty air before the world went dark.

When I woke up again, it was to a dull ache just about everywhere in my body. I looked around. I'd landed on a walkway, it looked like. A glance up revealed that I couldn't really see the platform from here.

I got a sinking feeling in my gut.

Where was Sorylle? Where was Natalia?

"Dark?"

I looked over my shoulder, spotting what I hadn't seen yet—Flick, bleeding from a head wound that was quite possibly a concussion, but alive. She was trying to stand up, but kept swaying and falling over. I stood and ran over, catching her before she stumbled too close to the edge of the walkway for comfort.

"Hold still, you look like you hit your head," I told her. She groaned, but let me probe the wound. I sighed and started gathering up seventh fonons. "O divine ring of purity and grace... Halo!"

Flick grumbled under her breath and looked up at me. This time, her eyes were a lot more focused. "Thanks... Think you could teach me that sometime? I seem to keep ending up in situations where I need a healer. It'd be easier if I could just do it myself."

I rolled my eyes. "Sure, if you're actually a seventh fonist."

"Oh, I am. Kairi made me one, like Asch made Jade one."

"So that's how she knew how to do it..."

"Yup. Ow... Still sore all over though..."

I sighed. "Yeah. Me too." I stood up. "Come on. It doesn't look like anyone else landed near us. We should go look for them."

"Assuming they survived."

I bit my lip. I really didn't want to think about that but... If I hadn't been conscious when Flick tried to stumble off the walkway, where would she be now?

"Damn, I'm missing Kairi right now."

Kairi.

Telepathy.

Spirit Energies!

"Of course!"

Flick took a large step away from. "Of course, what?"

I sat down, cross-legged, and closed my eyes. "Guard me. I can't do the half-way thing Asch and Kairi can."

Flick looked confused for a while, but by the time I'd found my center and stepped out of my body, she seemed to have either figured it out, or decided not to bother me about it.

The first place I looked was up.

I only spotted one glowing pink mass right off. Then it seemed to dance in an odd way, and I guessed that it was actually two, with one moving and the other still.

Then I started looking around. I found another two off and up toward my left. These were moving together, and were a lot closer than the other two. But I didn't see the last two.

Then again... Depending on how the platform broke, there may have still been a couple stuck up there. And I couldn't see that from here.

Just to be safe, I went ahead and looked down. Nothing. So Flick and I had fallen the farthest... Or the other two had fallen further and not survived.

I let myself snap back to my body, and Flick noticed almost immediately when my eyes snapped open.

"Well?"

"There are four others still alive, at least. Two of them are closer than the other two."

"And the last two?"

"I don't know. But I can't see the platform we fell from down here. Can you see it?"

She shook her head. "No... Any idea who the two groups consist of?"

"Not a clue. I just know they're alive, and the two closer to us have very similar levels of Spirit Energies. The two further up are off—one's got a higher concentration than the other," I said. "I know Asch and Jade have more than the rest of us, but I'm not sure which one that was."

Flick nodded. "Alright. Hey, are you sure the last group isn't below us?"

I grimaced. "I looked. If they fell farther than us, they're either too far down to see, or dead."

She mimicked my expression. "Joy... So, now what? We just keep heading down?"

I nodded. "Yeah. It doesn't look like all of these paths intersect early. They probably won't meet up until right before the passage ring. We're have to make do on our own... I just hope the other groups got lucky with their partners. Natalia, Jade, and Selenia aren't the best melee fighters."

Flick nodded. "We can hope. For now, let's get going."

She started heading down the path, and I followed her. It didn't take us long to run into the first monsters, and rather than drawing my guns, I pulled out the chakrams I'd gotten from the Sword Dancer.

Kairi had told me a little about what she knew of fighting with them, but I'd never really taken the time to experiment before.

And, really, I probably shouldn't have been doing it right then and there, but I was confident enough in Flick's skills to at least try.

I'd messed around with them a few times before, so I started by getting a little closer to the monsters. Usually I only did this when I needed that last push for over-limit, so this was going to be rather new.

The monsters were just tall enough that I didn't have to crouch to hit them, so I started by swinging the chakrams in wide arcs. It hit the monsters, and left one badly poisoned and about to die, but my grip didn't quite feel right, so I adjusted it quickly and tried again. This time was a little better.

"Ooh! You should twirl! Twirling's fun!" Flick suggested.

She then launched into a twirl, a bright red ribbon spinning around her and flickering with flames every time it hit a monster. I rolled my eyes and ran over to help her, since my two were either dead or dying from the poison coating the White Lotus chakrams.

"Yeah, no, not sure I'm graceful enough to pull that off without stabbing myself, thanks," I argued. Flick giggled.

"Okay, so don't actually twirl. But try spinning on your heel. Make a circle. You get the point. Dragon Dance!"

She says, as she does the twirly thing again. Wait...

"That's an arte?"

"Strike arte! I get bored a lot, so I make up strike artes to pass the time. Most of them I forget about a couple days later. The others I actually use, or foist off on other people."

As I cut through the last monster, I sighed. "Is that why you're trying to get me to spin?"

Flick giggled. "Yeah."

I rolled my eyes. "Maybe next time you'll have a little better luck with that."

We continued on down the path, killing monsters as we went. Flick did, during the fourth or fifth battle, get me to spin. Sometime during a battle after that, I could safely add Ring Whirlwind to my arte list without halfway bullshitting it.

However, once I felt comfortable fighting with the chakrams in my hands, I started trying to throw them.

I found out real quick that the White Lotus chakrams will always come back.

Even if you don't want them to.

Flick reamed me out for nearly hitting her one of the times, so I started practicing that only when we were coming up on a group of monsters, before she took off into the middle of them.

It took us a few hours to find a large platform with another warp. I glanced around.

"There's a lot of connecting pathways here. We should settle down to wait. The others will probably end up here too," I said. Flick nodded and sat down, and I gave her outfit an appraising look, and not for the first time. "So... why the bells?"

She looked up at me and smiled. "I always liked bells. But they annoyed Star and Ryndor to no end, so when I commissioned my new outfit, instead of putting beads or something at the ends of the strings, I asked the man to use bells. He thought it was kinda weird, but I love 'em!" She paused and gave me a look. "You... don't, do you?"

I shrugged and sat down. "Neh. I don't really care either way. I just thought it was odd... Hey... I know you're younger than Sync and Ion, but..."

"Sixteen months, as of about a week ago."

My eyes widened. "Really?"

Flick nodded. "Yeah. Rhunön programmed me with information on martial arts, the same style Sync was taught. That's why our fighting styles are so similar. But I'm trying to change that... I wanna be different, someone else, someone new."

"That's part of why you use strike artes you made up, isn't it?"

She nodded again. "Yeah. Phoenix Flare and Dragon Dance are my two favorites, followed by Poison Burst and Black Wings."

I couldn't help it. I snorted.

"No making fun of my Black Wings! I made that one up before I even heard about the Dark Wings! ...And, they're more red than black, anyway..."

I chuckled. "Sorry... I couldn't resist." Once I was done laughing, I leaned back. "So... I've seen Dragon Dance and Phoenix Flare... Could you show me the other two?" She nodded and stood up, easily demonstrating Poison Burst, which looked kind of like a dark Raging Blast, and Black Wings.

For this one, she jumped up and threw her hand out. What looked like a glowing red and black butterfly appeared and slammed into the ground, similar to Natalia's Star Stroke arte.

"Nice..." Actually. "Think you could teach me the second one?"

Flick looked at me in surprise. "You... you wanna learn my Black Wings?"

I nodded. "It looks interesting, and something I might be able to adapt for both of my fighting styles."

The shocked look on her face slowly morphed into a grin. "Okay!"

It took us almost half an hour for me to grasp the theory. Flick wasn't the greatest at explaining things, and I did have to modify it just a bit to work with my weapons. Since I was more familiar with using my guns, I started with those.

Except that the wings of light that I summoned didn't look like butterfly wings, nor were they red. Instead, they were black and indigo, like the wings that formed behind me when I was casting Sacred Beacon.

"Huh... That was weird," Flick noted. I blinked, and did it again, this time with the chakrams, just to make sure. It worked with those too, and it was still indigo.

"Interesting..."

"What's interesting?"

Flick and I turned around to see Selenia skipping over. Natalia trailed after her, and I sighed in relief. "Oh, thank Gods you're alright."

She looked amused. "Alright, I know about when Asch started doing that, but when did you pick it up?"

Selenia just looked baffled. I couldn't blame her. I wasn't sure what Natalia was talking about, myself.

"So, what's interesting?" Selenia asked again. Flick glanced at me, then turned and let off her Black Wings. I waved at Selenia to get her attention, then did mine.

"Um... Are they supposed to be that different?" Natalia asked. Flick shrugged.

"I dunno. I mean, I sorta created it, but Dark did some modifying since he uses weapons and I don't, but I don't know if that's the real cause," she said. I frowned.

"I'm not sure it is. Mine's the same color as my wings for Sacred Beacon... So... Selenia? Want to see if you can learn it?" I asked. "I know you've got really blue wings for Angel Feathers, so if it's supposed to be different from person to person..."

Selenia nodded cheerfully. "Okay! I could use another strike arte! All I've got right now is Comet Strike."

Flick tilted her head to the side. "Really?"

Selenia just kept nodding. "Really."

"Huh... I got a few ideas for you, if you and Dark wanna do that. I can really only figure out artes for myself."

Selenia looked at me hopefully, and I sighed. "You're all hopeless. Yes, I'll help. But first..."

"Ooh, right!"

Much to my surprise, it didn't take long to teach Selenia the strike arte, nor did she take a long time adapting it to her own fighting style. Staff or axe, it would work either way.

And, also to very little surprise on my part, the wings came out butterfly in shape—though with more rounded wings than Flick's rather rough-edged butterfly—and in the same dark, royal blue of her Angel Feathers wings.

Same generic shape, actually, now that I think about it.

"That's strange..." Natalia murmured. I shrugged, and Flick grinned.

"I think it's pretty cool! Though I think I need a new name for it now..."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not in the mood for fighting with that right now. You can come up with something new on your own, or you can wait until after this is all over with and we can have a group discussion on it."

Flick nodded. "I think I'll do that. Kairi, especially, could probably come up with a really good name for it."

Natalia smiled. "Probably."

The four of us ended up sitting around again for a while. At some point, Selenia pulled out sandwiches for us.

"Where are the others?" Natalia asked, finally starting to lose her patience. I shrugged.

"I dunno. I know I saw two other groups, and I'm guessing the two with similar levels of Spirit Energies was you two, since you were the closest to us," I said. "There was a group further up, and one had more than the other... I know Jade and Asch have more Spirit Energies than the rest of us, so I'm not sure..."

"It could also have been Sorylle. She only has a single Spirit Energy," Natalia said. I blinked a few times, then nodded.

"That's possible too. I hadn't even thought of that... Well, it was either Sorylle and Anise, or Anise and either Asch or Jade. Not a big enough difference to be Sorylle and Asch or Jade," I said. "Still... I only saw the two groups. There's either a third even higher up than the second one, or... Well, Flick and I are still sore from that fall."

A solemn thought, and not one it looks like Natalia or Selenia have had yet.

"Let's hope they didn't fall," Natalia said. "Especially Asch."

Because if he was dead, then this?

This was useless.

Fun Fact: Anyone know which Tales game Flick's 'butterfly' strike arte is from? It'll be revealed in a later chapter, I just kinda wanna see how many people know it already.