Chapter 19 – Fairy Godmother
The first chamber of the lab was a long room with shelves at each side, full of half-built robots and pieces of machinery carefully labeled and bagged in transparent plastic. Luka caught her reflection in a steel mechanism, and stopped a moment to look at her fatigued-looking face. She hardly looked like the cool and elegant gynoid her factory–produced brochure advertised.
"I told you, I heard something…" Mitsuki's approaching voice suddenly interrupted her thoughts. The scientist appeared in the doorway opposite to the entrance, looking over her shoulder. She turned to look in front of her, and froze. Her eyes travelled from bot to bot, clearly terrified. Before she could scream, Luka launched herself forward and grabbed her, covering her mouth with a hand.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Mitsuki!" The gynoid uttered hurriedly in the scientist's ear. "Please, Gakupo needs your help! Will you listen to me?"
After a pause, Mitsuki gave the tiniest of nods. Luka pulled away, and the woman leaned against the door frame for support herself, breathing heavily. "I thought- I thought that ship had reprogrammed you both…"
Luka shook her head. "They took over our bodies for a while, but most of our coding should be intact." She paused a moment to listen and grimaced: somebody was coming. "In any case, they mistreat you here, come with us!"
Mitsuki touched her bruised face with her hand, but that aspect of the situation barely seemed to bother her. "Um, but who-"
"Miss Torii, who are you talking to?" A girl's voice reached them from the adjacent room.
"We need to leave, now!" Mitsuki whispered urgently. "They'll get violent if they see you, and I'm not sure I can stop them. Can you still do that teleporting trick I saw in the recordings?"
Luka nodded and hugged her, mildly surprised at how small and delicate the scientist was. Mitsuki was wearing a baggy lab coat over an ill-fitting jumpsuit, so her slenderness had been masked by her clothing's bulkiness, but it seemed wrong to be able to feel her bones so easily.
Meiko and Kaito approached them and placed their hands on Luka's shoulders. "I just hope those blue whirly things aren't waiting for us," Meiko whispered.
"Intruders detected!" A different voice shouted. "User Instruction Mode, Test 1b-01."
"Benefactor! Warp us and everything in the lab!" Too close for comfort, Luka saw the synthetic bodyguards appear from behind a piece of machinery in the next room. But then reality shifted.
This time the mysterious beings didn't appear. The whole group landed on the floor, next to the charging beds housing Gakupo and Miku. The other synthetics, still observing the screens at the other end of the room, whipped their heads around in perfect synchrony, a remainder of their artificial nature.
Mitsuki pulled herself up, rubbing her forehead, and met Miku's curious eyes.
"Miku Hatsune? What the-" The scientist mumbled. Several things happened in quick progression, at the sound of her voice.
"Warning! Weakest target selected." The blonde girl bot calmly stepped over the synthetics and human on the floor and began hitting Miku with ferocity. The teal-haired girl screamed, unable to defend herself in any way.
"Leave her alone!" Kaito jumped up and wrestled the attacker to the ground. It was hard to say, but it seemed that the female unit was stronger than the norm for her body type and size.
"Target initialization incomplete," the other guardian inclined her head to look at Mitsuki patiently. "Free mode in 1.5 seconds."
"Oh, oh dear! No, disengage! Lily, code 124332-AA! Gumi, code 44599-AA! Sleep mode on!" Mitsuki shouted quickly. Both girls abruptly stopped moving.
"Mitsuki, are you there? What's happening!?" Gakupo inquired from the bottom of his box.
"Gakupo?!" Mitsuki rose shakily, helped by Luka, and leaned over the border of the box. "Gakupo…I thought we'd never see each other again!" Her eyes filled with tears.
"Mitsuki, your face-!" Gakupo exclaimed, aghast.
"I'm fine, really!" The scientist waved her hands, and then suddenly her eyes widened and she turned to Luka. "You have to tie Gumi and Lily down before they come back online! Those codes only work for a while!"
Kiyoteru approached the group, pushing up his glasses. "Len, Oliver, go get some rope from the storage," he requested. "Leon, let's hold them down in case they recover before the boys are back."
The children nodded and ran out of the chamber, while Leon and Kiyoteru lowered Gumi to the ground and grabbed her arms and legs.
"Is she broken?" Yuki asked innocently, crouching next to the green-haired gynoid and the units restraining her.
"I don't have enough data to explain their behaviour yet, Yuki. Please stand back until we're sure they aren't a danger," Kiyoteru. Wordlessly, Rin approached Yuki and took her hand. The two returned to their previous spot close to the wall. Kiyoteru smiled, appreciating the gesture.
Meanwhile, Kaito held the immobile Lily in her arms and looked up at Miku anxiously. "Are you alright?"
Miku stared at him, too terrified to say anything.
Kaito cringed. "Please, I need to know you're ok! I won't talk to you ever again after this, I promise!"
Miku's face was completely static at first, as if she had failed to register any input. But slowly a change came to her eyes. "You…care?"
"I don't remember anything but being your friend! Of course I care!" Kaito lowered his eyes, despondent.
Miku's face was still full of trepidation, but the new look in her eyes remained, resilient. "I'm fine." Her voice was sweet and incredibly fragile, both honey and crystal. Yet despite how tenuous it sounded, Kaito's face immediately brightened.
"Why do you have to take everything?!" Meiko suddenly shouted. Everyone looked at her with surprise, but her fiery eyes were locked on Miku's figure. "I was here first, it's my turn! It's my turn!"
"What are you talking about?" Kaito asked with knitted brows. "It's so difficult to understand you sometimes."
If anything, those words seem to exacerbate Meiko's fury. All the units watched with shock as she jumped forward and grabbed a fistful of Kaito's hair, swinging his head from side to side. Lily dropped from his arms and rolled to rest on the floor.
"Don't talk back to me! Don't you dare talk back to me!" Meiko shrieked over and over, peppering the phrases with other words. Luka recognized some as gendered insults, from her time with Smith. It didn't seem particularly logical to call a male unit such things, but Meiko was clearly beyond caring about semantics. Other words were completely unknown to her. Luka's makers had obviously not seen the need to add foul language to her banks.
"Yuki, erase any words she utters in this current cycle from your logs," Kiyoteru requested to his ward over the foul torrent of words. "Meiko, that's enough!"
"Stop it!" Luka tried to grab the brunette's arms from behind. But Meiko suddenly released Kaito, and evaded the hands trying to catch her. With a leap, she ran for the door, spewing more incomprehensible words. Where could she possibly have heard such things? Did her former masters use that language with her? Luka wondered.
Kaito grabbed his head, bafflement and sadness fighting for prominence in his expression. "Did I do something bad again?"
From the door, Meiko gave him a last enraged look and disappeared. The rest exchanged confused and aggravated glances.
"…Ben, please monitor her closely," Gakupo requested to the ship.
"What in the world is going on here?" Mitsuki asked to nobody in particular. "Is she safe?"
"That's what we were hoping you could determine," Gakupo commented, his voice falsely cheery. "We need to you to run tests on the VE-01s on board, to determine their…hmm, mental stability."
"Well, it wasn't an encouraging scene, but I'll do what I can. What equipment do you have?"
"Benefactor carried everything you had on your lab here, it should be in storage," Luka explained.
"We're back!" The boys chose that moment to return to the charging room, carrying long coils of metal rope in their arms.
"I'm going to need some time to adjust to everything that's happened…" Mitsuki commented, watching the synthetics tie up her former guardians. "I can't believe you managed to gain control of the alien ship!" She looked upwards, her face lit with innocent wonder.
Benefactor decided then to sing one of his complicated melodies, making the scientist jump, and the strange presence spoke in Luka's mind.
Organic matter extracted. Leave?
Luka smiled, wide and confident. "Yes, it's time to search for a new home."
The room vibrated slightly, and the images on the wall began to shift. Mitsuki smiled, excited. "You can barely feel the ascent, amazing!" Then Luka's words seemed to sink in, and she turned to the gynoid with a raised eyebrow. "Wait, a new home?"
"Yes! We want to find a habitable planet and shape it into a world for synthetics," Luka proclaimed. "With your knowledge, Benefactor's cooperation and the materials we scavenged, I'm sure we can build anything we need." She stressed the word 'cooperation', hoping the ship wasn't offended by Mitsuki's error. They would have to talk about it later.
"And you want me to go along?" Mitsuki looked from Luka to the group of synthetics surrounding them, to Gakupo lying inside the box. "You want me to go along?" She repeated in a lower tone, her cheeks red.
"I still need you, Mitsuki. We all do," Gakupo replied. "You can makes us blossom into a new species, with your skills."
"You're our fairy godmother, after all," Luka placed a hand on the scientist's shoulder, her smile turning a bit mischievous. None of them had seriously considered the possibility that she would decline, which was a bit odd, admittedly. After all, it meant abandoning her whole previous existence.
But even before she heard the woman's answer, Luka could see her expression fill with emotion. Mitsuki's eyes again glistened with tears, and she nodded several times, beaming. "Yes, yes! My prince, my princess, all of you! I won't let you down!" She rubbed her eyes, giggling and sniffling at the same time.
"I'll be placing my trust in you then," Luka laughed. "Now, our first order of business is preparing the machines we took from your lab to connect to Benefactor's power grid. Kiyoteru and I have been experimenting with several solutions, and we are pretty sure we can provide a stable supply of energy. Can you start checking up Gakupo, Miku and Lola while we prepare things below?"
"Sure, sure! Hm, where is this Lola?" Mitsuki glanced around. Obligingly, Benefactor opened the box housing her body. Luka wordlessly pointed inside. "Oh my! What happened to her?"
"It's a long story," Gakupo replied, sounding embarrassed and oddly choppy. "Er, I don't mean to be ungentleman-ly, but could you start with me? I-I don't feel so good."
Luka's good mood crumbled. Was Gakupo beginning to break down? It couldn't be allowed, now that they had everything to succeed. "Mitsuki, what do you need to start working right now?"
Mitsuki looked at her, alarmed by her frightened face. "Hm, my laptop, and some cables, and a- Why don't you take me to the storage?"
Luka grabbed her arm, and shouted, "Benefactor, take us down!"
Reality shifted and Mitsuki wobbled, hanging from Luka's arm like an oversized doll. "Ah, that feels so weird!" The pair was now right next to the contents of the laboratory, neatly lying on the floor of the cavernous storage area.
"Gakupo has been having energy management issues for a while now," Luka explained nervously.
"But that would mean- I don't know if I have a replacement core…" Mitsuki began to search around in the piles of parts, frowning.
"No, we think it's a software issue. We need you to check his automated functions, they might be corrupted."
"Corrupted? Why?" Mitsuki paused, holding a sealed bag of tiny parts in her hands.
"He-he connected his mind to a malfunctioning unit; we think her corrupted data infected him," Luka fingered the band of dark plastic covering her ports, uncomfortable. It had been a desperate, foolish plan. Was Mitsuki going to chastises her for failing to take care of Gakupo?
The woman was giving her an extremely odd look. However, her next words took Luka for complete surprise. "He cheated on you?!"
"No! It wasn't like that!" Luka shook her head vehemently, "Look, fix him and we'll both explain everything, ok?"
Mitsuki exhaled, relieved. "Uwah, that scared me! I don't know what I'd do if Gakupo turned into a jerk!" Suddenly, her eyes lit up, and she fished out a laptop from under some notebooks. "Luka, I've kept some partial backups of Gakupo's base coding from when I was restructuring his mind. We can do a selective rollback, if push comes to shove. Don't worry." She grabbed a bag full of tangled cables and gave the gynoid a wide grin. "Let's go. I'm going to give you your happily ever after, no matter what!"
While the others worked setting things up, Mitsuki sat on the ground with the notebook on her lap. Next to her, Gakupo laid on his stomach, completely still and silent. Cables connected his head to the laptop and to the auxiliary processing unit and output analyzer by Mitsuki's right knee. Luka watched the scene with mounting nervousness, too scared of distracting the scientist to make any comments.
"This is all very odd…" Mitsuki commented, chewing on a fingernail while she stared at the screen. "Your ship-friend really needs to comment his coding, Luka. I've never seen some of these implementations…" She glanced at Luka's expression, and quickly added. "Oh, but the section that interests us is fixable, don't worry!"
Luka finally allowed herself a small smile. He was going to be fine. Gakupo was going to be fine. She hugged herself, wishing that it was his arms instead. But he would hold her again soon, in an embrace as fulfilling as the first one they ever shared. "…Thank you, Mitsuki."
"No problem," Mitsuki replied suppressing a yawn. "Luka, I don't suppose you guys have coffee and sweets in here, do you?"
"No coffee, I'm afraid. But we did find some snack machines here and there that still had products inside. I can bring you some."
"Yes, please. Sugar is important for human CPUs, you know?" Mitsuki playfully pointed to her own head. "This is probably going to take me a couple of hours at least, I'll need extra fuel."
Luka nodded. "Benefactor?" The scene before her blurred, but for an instant, Luka saw the mysterious figures all around them, as if watching Mitsuki work. Then she was back in the storage section.
Who are they? Luka asked herself the question over and over, while she searched through the piles of goods for sugary treats. So far, they were harmless, but not being able to communicate with the figures was exacerbating the frustration she felt whenever her innate need to learn was unfulfilled.
"Ah, here we go," Luka found a cardboard box full of assorted cookies and chocolates. "I'll bring her some water too."
Soon later, Luka returned to the charging room clutching the box to her chest. Mitsuki and Gakupo were in the same position as before, with the woman typing away at full speed, her brow furrowed in concentration.
"Is there anything else you need?"
The scientist silently shook her head, and continued working after shoving some cookies into her mouth.
Luka shrugged and kneeled next to Gakupo's head, and caressed his head. She probably wasn't needed here anymore, but she didn't want to leave his side. After a moment, she took a strand of his hair to her lips and kissed it, recalling a scene from her Mother's favorite novel. Mitsuki paused a moment to observe her, but returned to her work without comment.
Time passed.
About five hours later, Mitsuki placed the laptop carefully on the floor and stood up. "I feel so stiff…" She commented, stretching. She began to pace and move her arms and head from side to side. Luka watched her, fighting back a spark of impatience. Humans were so inefficient sometimes.
"How about we wake him up for a while? I want to make sure his upper functions weren't affected by the changes I've made so far," Mitsuki proposed. Luka nodded anxiously. "Gakupo, code 1114-5623AT1289-LM, sleep mode off."
Gakupo's hands slowly clenched and unclenched a couple of times. Then he propped himself on one elbow and looked at Mitsuki and Luka in turn, smiling.
"How do you feel?" Luka asked.
"Simply wonderful." His voice had finally recovered his usual energetic, tangy tone. With a laugh, he rolled on his back and pulled Luka down into an embrace.
Mitsuki coughed. "Now now, I haven't discharged you yet," she said with mock seriousness. She glanced at the readings in the analyzer and tapped her chin. "Your energy levels seem stable, but I'd like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind."
"Only if you let me ask you something first," Gakupo replied, his face growing tense.
Both Mitsuki and Luka stared at him with puzzlement. "…Sure, go ahead," the scientist finally allowed, and leaned forward to unplug the cables from his head.
"Why is you face bruised? Why are you so thin?" His voice had a darker quality to it, something that Luka had heard only once before. Suddenly, she was very glad to be racing away from Mars and the secret base with its squishy inhabitants.
Mitsuki blushed for some reason, fidgeting with the cables. "I- I guess I chose bad employers… but it's in the past, isn't it? Everything is fine now! We should we start your test now, so can go have fun with Luka. Tell me-"
Gakupo waved a hand. "Not yet. Who are those people? What did they want with you?"
Luka began to feel rather curious herself, given Mitsuki's obvious reticence about the subject. What was she researching for them?
"I…I guess I owe you both the truth," Mitsuki finally mumbled, staring at the floor. "They're criminals, though that shouldn't be all that surprising to you. They offered me the chance to pursue new avenues of research regarding VEs and pure data constructs, without the interference of the law."
"Once they had me working for them, though, that translated into some really disgusting things. And they wouldn't let me leave. Not that I had a place to go, mind you." Mitsuki smiled wryly. "I'm legally responsible for all of Gakupo's crimes…which means several life sentences in jail."
"What kind of disgusting things?" Luka questioned.
Mitsuki exhaled. "You know, of course, of the constraints I had to break in order to free Gakupo. It wasn't my initial focus when I was working with him, but I ran into the security measures added in order to avoid synthetics directly harming humans." The scientist ran a couple of fingers down the side of Gakupo's face in an almost motherly gesture, then stepped away and resumed pacing.
"It's really quite difficult for a VE to break so badly that it would actually be physically violent against people, like Kaito did. A complete breakdown of the upper functions is much more likely. I'm guessing that's why the factory scientists kept him around, to figure out how he could still operate in any fashion after the incident."
"Well, that's what they wanted from me. Extraordinarily attractive killers that can be taught to do any number of depraved things... And once you trade your eye and hair pieces for more natural colors, it's harder to distinguish you from humans, at least superficially."
The scientist paused, her expression dark. "There are people that would pay huge amounts of money for a slave so resilient to things that could kill a human, and willing to do things no sane person would do."
Luka and Gakupo looked at each other. She could see he was having great difficulties accepting what they'd just heard, and she was faring only slightly better.
"Did you succeed? Are Gumi and Lily …modified?" Gakupo finally asked. It was a fair point. The girls were locked up in one of Benefactor's empty rooms, but this could make them much more dangerous than first expected.
"Sort of," Mitsuki conceded. "They were among the first units my employers handed me for experimentation. I've been testing a numbers of things on them, so they are somewhat different from the results I've obtained with the others the organization rounded up. Gumi and Lily shouldn't be a danger to you after I modify their permissions lists."
"Who do you mean when you say 'others'?"
"My employers either stole or captured a number of VEs in the initial confusion after the ship arrived on Earth," Mitsuki explained. "They even bribed some officials in order to get into the factory and grab hold of the last VEs produced before the shutdown."
"It was them?! But Ben only detected two VEs inside the base!" Gakupo continued. Luka could see where this was heading, even before he continued. "Where are the other units?"
"Belt Station," Mitsuki said, furrowing her brow. "They're going to be auctioned off during the station's anniversary celebrations."
"We need to save them!" And there it was. Despite everything, Gakupo still insisted on acting like he was some kind of superhero. It was both sweet and incredibly frustrating, as far as Luka was concerned.
"Belt is heavily defended," Mitsuki pointedly reminded him. "You had an easy time on Mars, but you shouldn't expect the same thing to happen twice."
"We can't just leave them behind," Gakupo grumbled, turning to Luka for support.
"Gakupo, you are barely back into fully operational status and you're already thinking of risking yourself again; of risking all of us. You've got to remember your limitations." Perhaps it was too direct a rebuke, but Luka was tired of being scared on his behalf.
As expected, her words earned her a hurt look. "I know. I know I can't accomplish anything on my own. I couldn't even-" He broke off suddenly and looked away. Luka tilted her head, curious, but that particular train of thought was left unvoiced. Instead, he mumbled, "this isn't about me. It's about giving them a chance for a proper life."
"A proper life, you say?" Mitsuki rubbed her chin. "Maybe we can put together some sort of plan." Her tone didn't sound particularly convinced, but she seemed willing to put an effort for Gakupo's sake.
"We should discuss it with the others and Benefactor first," Luka said guardedly. "We'll see." Although, as far as she concerned, she wasn't going to agree to go for it unless it was an extremely good plan: she felt sorry for the new units, but even Smith referred to Belt as a dangerous place.
"So, can I test you now?" Mitsuki asked.
"Ah yes, of course."
To Luka's great relief, Gakupo managed to answer every question without difficulty: his answers were consistent with his personality type and problem-solving subroutines, and he had unrestricted access to his memories. Mitsuki approved repeatedly, nodding proudly.
"I think you are good to go. Is there somewhere I can sleep for a few hours? I've been going on for…" the scientist's eyes vainly wandered around the room, as if expecting a clock to be hanging from Benefactor's walls. "Eh, long enough that I'm feeling really sleepy."
"Oh yes, we have a room for you. I'll get you there," Luka rose and took Mitsuki's hand. "Wait for me here, Gakupo. I have something to show you," she smiled sweetly.
"Actually, I have to something to do, but I'll come back here right after I'm done," Gakupo replied, with a smile of his own.
Luka raised an eyebrow, but nodded. An instant later, she and the scientist disappeared.
"Ben, warp me to the hangar please. I need to talk to Escualo."
"I'm really glad this was here. I'd feel awkward running around in rags when Luka's wearing her new outfit," Gakupo commented, showing the white jacket to Escualo's electronic eye.
"That's your spare flight uniform, Gakupo. Please provide sufficient information to determine its suitability for a romantic date."
"Um, it's new and in good condition. That's as good as it going to get, unless there's a tuxedo store around here that I don't know about." Gakupo look around, as if he expected a store attendant to suddenly appear inside of Escualo's tiny storage area.
"I'd need a complete map of Benefactor's decks to answer that, but contextual evidence points towards the negative."
"No, I don't think there is one."
"That's regrettable. If I understand correctly, a certain manner of dress ensures your partner will agree to an intimate encounter."
Gakupo laughed. "I'll let you know how it goes, then."
"Thank you," Escualo's AI replied pleasantly. "By the way, you mentioned you wanted to ask me something?"
"Ah, yes." Gakupo pulled the worn t-shirt over his head. "There are some friends of ours kept prisoner in Belt Station. Would you be willing to help us to rescue them?"
"Does it benefit you in any way?"
"I've be very happy to know they are safe." The shorts were next to go.
"Then the answer is yes. Remember that I exist for your sake."
"I'd blush if I were physically able to," Gakupo quipped. He quickly put the flight suit on, and sat on a box to do the same with the boots. "It's good to know you are always on my side."
"I take it that the previous statement reflects appreciation. If so, I'd blush as well, if I had skin and a circulatory system," Escualo's AI replied. "Have a nice date, Gakupo."
"I will."
Luka was there waiting in the charging room, when Gakupo returned. She gave him an impish smile, studying him from head to toe. "My, this is unexpected."
"I was told appropriate clothing in a date guarantees intimate encounters. Would you rate this as appropriate?"
"I wasn't aware this was a date," Luka replied. She circled Gakupo, appraising him. "I intend to do a performance test of my own, but we could call it a date, I guess. As for the outfit…." She giggled and hugged him from behind, nuzzling her head against his back. "Benefactor, please."
They reappeared in a wide circular space Gakupo hadn't seen before. The floor around them shined vaguely, but the exact dimensions of the room were shrouded in darkness.
"What is this place?" Gakupo's voice echoed. It gave him a clue of how wide and empty this place was.
"Remember how Ollie wanted an observation deck?" Luka asked. "Well, this is as close as I managed to find. I think the old crew used to gather here to play with this." Luka raised her arm, making motions in the air, almost like an orchestra conductor back in Earth.
Benefactor sang a powerful note, and a ball of light exploded into existence above their heads. Like a ricochet from a silver gun, more and more stars appeared out of nowhere, some pulsing in place, others circling them in wide orbits. The ship kept weaving a song, and Luka joined in, dragging her hands along the ground. Waves of aquamarine shine sprung around them, and soon Luka and Gakupo were up to their shins in a sea populated with glittering lights, mirroring the dark space above.
"How do you control this?!" Gakupo sank his hands into the waves, amazed. It wasn't wet, of course, but they was a certain fluidic sensation in his hands, possibly fed directly into his mind by the ship.
"Benefactor does most of it. I just told him what I wanted to see, and what notes should trigger it. For example…" Luka sang some more, and it began to rain light over them. It retained presence for a few seconds, shining like small diamonds in their hair and clothes, before it disappeared. She tried another tone, and then the rain turned into fluttering petals, decorating the surface of the sea.
Benefactor began another song, and Gakupo recognized it as the waltz Luka and he had danced so long ago, when the beacon was first installed into their heads. Luka stretched her hand out with her head slightly tilted. "Dance with me, my prince."
He reverently took the offered hand and kissed it, before pulling her into his arms. They turned around and around, leaving silvery trails in the air as they danced to Benefactor's voice.
"Something happened to you down there, Luka, something liberating," Gakupo whispered into her ear, without stopping their movements. All his worrying, all this words had been ultimately fruitless to help her overcome the shadows that plagued her. And yet Luka had returned to him transformed, shining even more than the illusionary stars that surrounded them.
Luka pulled away a little, to watch his face. "You sound sad."
"I am, just a bit. I mean, I'm glad I survived long enough to see you like this, but-" Gakupo broke off suddenly. He felt guilty, like he was ruining an important moment. "I did nothing to help you! Sonika's right; I never bring anything to the table beyond wishful thinking!"
"Um, how about the time you crossed the Solar System to come get me back? Or how you always love me and treat me like I'm the center of the universe?" Luka asked him. Her expression made quite clear how silly she considered his concerns. "Do you actually think I could've come this far without you?" She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed. "If you keep this up, I won't give you a passing grade."
Gakupo laughed quietly. He wasn't completely assuaged, but Luka was happy, and that was enough for the moment. "I don't think you explained how you were going to gauge me."
"How indeed." Her mouth sought his, and she demonstrated one such parameter.
A physical test made a lot of sense, truth be told. And this was certainly going to be thorough examination, if the gleam in Luka's eyes was any indication. Suddenly the light show became a crystallization of something that had never been concrete, but still seemed familiar to him. They had been to a sea like this before, tangled into one pleasurable ache. They would come again, with desire as unfathomable as the oceans of the mind.
The waters gleamed in a perfect match to their joy, crashing against their bodies. The surface swirled and danced, merrily broken, over and over again.