BM - Chapter 18 - Finding a Way
Group B, consisting of Gura and Calliope, walked off in the opposite direction of the other group. Their side of the Hatchery was technically smaller, but not by much. A lot of the nearby buildings were also destroyed over here.
They explored several buildings, dodging the traps that were inside. Gura was amazed by how fast Calliope could react and move. To her, it looked almost instantaneous. She got a few hits of her own in, though.
Eventually, they stumbled on a building with an odd symbol above the doorway. It looked like it was missing half of it, though.
"This is the symbol of the Phoenixes here," Calliope said after being silent until now, "but it's missing its other half…" She pondered why that might be. Her phone ringing helped her solve the problem.
"Ina's calling?" Gura asked. Calliope nodded and answered.
"We have one here, too. It has a bunch of lines curving around in an arc. Yes, correct. Ours is on the left and when put together it creates the symbol of the Phoenixes. Goodbye." Calliope hung up and looked down at Gura. "They found the other half. Let's go inside." Gura entered behind Calliope and began searching.
Gura let her trident glow a bright blue in order for her to see. Calliope had very good night vision, so she left to go search for anything on her own. However, she made sure to not go too far from Gura. It took a few minutes of searching, but they eventually found a crack in the wall that was suspiciously sword shaped.
"That looks like Kiara's sword…" Gura mumbled to herself. Calliope appeared next to her from a nearby shadow. Gura jumped slightly, having not gotten used to the Reaper's preferred method of moving around.
"You're up," she said simply. Gura looked at the hole and then at Calliope. She put her hands above her head and made an exaggerated shrug.
"Where am I even supposed to start?!" she asked, incredibly confused. The Reaper pinched the bridge of her nose. Gura stood off to the side awkwardly, as Calliope thought about what she was supposed to say next.
The phone ringing broke her out of her thoughts. She quickly answered and almost yelled into it, "We've seen the sword hole. I'm trying to figure this out with Gura, so leave us be… please," she tacked on at the end. She then hung up and continued thinking.
"What have you been working on with Kiara?" she asked Gura. The other girl bit her lip nervously and tried to think of an answer that Calliope would like.
"We've been trying to figure out a fighting style for me," she answered. Calliope nodded and thought for a little while longer.
"Have you worked on control at all?"
"With Primal, yeah." Calliope rubbed her temples, trying her best to stay calm. She was asking the wrong questions and Kiara hadn't bothered to actually help Gura with magic, instead focusing on combat.
"Sounds exactly like her…" she mumbled to herself, "Magic isn't a weapon, Gura, it is a tool. Since all you've seen it used for is combat, I don't blame you for thinking otherwise," she then explained.
"I guess…" Gura said hesitantly. She wasn't exactly sure what Calliope was referring to. The Reaper sighed and vanished from Gura's sight into a shadow.
"This seems like something that could be useful in battle and it is," she said, her voice coming from behind Gura now. She turned around quickly to see Calliope disappear yet again. "But it is also a very fast way of moving." Gura flipped around again and saw Calliope standing where she had been originally. "Water magic can be used for more than just slashing and piercing. You can manipulate it into whatever shape you want or swim through the air with it."
"Are you saying I could fly?" Gura became excited at what Calliope was insinuating.
"Maybe in the future, but it would take a lot of practice." Gura calmed down and thought over what Calliope had just explained to her. Manipulating water into a specific shape…
Gura approached the hole in the wall and placed the three tips of her trident inside. She let water leak out and encased them. Slowly, she grabbed at the water with her magic and moved it around. It wasn't the easiest thing to do, but she could definitely manage. She morphed the water into the shape of the hole until it was completely filled.
"Impressive, but now you have to pass your water magic into there, as well," Calliope praised her. Gura took several deep breaths, trying to get a better grasp on her magic. Kiara had described it to her as a burning sensation in her veins, but Gura could tell that wasn't the case. During fights, sure her blood was boiling and her magic was hot, but right now it was cool and soothing. It felt a lot more like water to her.
She felt her body becoming colder and tried to transfer some of it into her trident. It glowed even brighter in the water. She pushed even more magic into her trident and saw the water start to glow, as well. Deep blue tendrils of magic stretched out into the water and crawled their way into the walls. The invisible veins within them came to life with this deep blue color. Calliope watched them spread all around the room and collect on the ground. The hidden passage opened for them, too.
"I was beginning to worry that we might not get in, but I guess I shouldn't have. You have a lot of talent, Gura," Calliope once again praised her friend. Gura smiled.
"Thanks, Calli." They walked down the newly opened passageway and into the tunnel beneath. Gura continued to provide light with her trident, bathing the dank and musty tunnel in a blue light.
Gura decided to mess with the standing water while down here. She put her trident into a nearby puddle and let it run up the length of the rod until it hit her hand. She let it glide on her shoulders and formed it into a ball in her free hand. She squeezed it lightly and was amazed that it didn't pop. It was like a water balloon without the balloon.
"Magic is a tool, remember that," Calliope repeated her words from earlier. Gura nodded and dropped the water to the ground, letting it splash her on her leg slightly.
"You're a lot nicer now," Gura said bluntly. Calliope continued walking, but turned her head to look down at Gura.
"Amelia is a good friend," she replied simply.
"Yeah, she is." The conversation went dry for a couple minutes, as the duo continued to walk down the tunnel carefully.
"Do you love your friends?" Calliope, surprisingly enough, was the one to start it back up. Gura thought for a moment.
"I mean, yeah. I care about them. They've helped me through a lot." Calliope wasn't satisfied with that answer.
"I asked if you loved them? Are they family to you?" she asked more abrasively this time. Gura thought a little longer.
"We've only known each other for a couple months, but I guess I do. We've been through some tough situations already, so I think I would consider them family." It was odd to Gura that Calliope was getting her to open up like this. "Do you care about Kiara like that?"
"I will once I get these emotions." Gura's smile turned to more of a smirk. Calliope knew the exact words that she would hear next.
"Are you sure it's not something more?" Her and Amelia were incredibly similar. Calliope let a smile slip onto her face for just a moment before it vanished.
"I know about her feelings for me, but I can't reciprocate them. That's the real reason we are here," Calliope revealed to her.
"It's nice to see you care about her that much," Gura said softly. Calliope sighed lightly, glad that she could just talk with these girls like this. It had been a rocky start with them, but now they were becoming an inseparable group.
"Do you care about anyone that way?" However, Calliope was not going to let this opportunity slide. Even in the less than ideal lighting, Gura's face obviously became flushed.
"Wh-what are you saying," she waved a hand at Calliope, hoping to brush the question aside. Calliope let another flash of a smile onto her face.
"Fair enough, that was a weird question," Calliope let it drop, mostly satisfied with Gura's reaction.
"You're mean!" Gura said, giving Calliope a playful slap with her tail. Calliope returned the favor with a slightly harder kick. Both of them laughed as they finally entered the large underground room.
Along the walls of this chamber, they found four more openings for Phoenix swords. Gura stuck her trident into one and repeated what she had done before. The deep blue veins appeared in the walls, but stopped before reaching the middle. They needed to activate all of them at the same time.
"You think you can reach all of them with your water?" Calliope asked. Gura wasn't entirely sure if she could, but she would give it her best shot.
"I'll try." She walked over to the middle of the room and placed the end of her trident on the ground. Water seeped out from the tips and floated through the air towards each of the different openings. However, when the water got around two feet away from Gura, it dripped down to the ground no longer in her control. Gura pushed as much magic into them as possible, extending her range by another few feet, but it still wasn't far enough.
"Why don't you try to run the water along the ground?" Calliope suggested after watching Gura struggle for a bit. The floating water all dropped to the ground and Gura knocked herself in the head for being so dumb.
"Good idea, Calli." Gura flipped her trident around and placed the three tips into a nearby puddle. She let her magic flow into the water and watched it travel through the water along the ground. She nudged it in certain directions to keep it on the right path. All four lines of magic arrived at the correct places, but they were far too low to reach into the openings.
Gura pushed more magic along the paths and forced the water to flow up and into the openings. Slowly, they filled with water and magic. The veins of all four illuminated a deep blue color and it traveled into the center of the room. Gura was standing a foot or so away from the very center.
Once enough magic had filled the veins, the ceiling almost seemed to break, allowing the deep blue magic to flow into the ground. A perfectly round pillar flowed right next to Gura, who stretched out her free hand and touched it. It acted like a liquid and flowed around her hand. It was also very cold, but also very soothing. It was definitely her water magic.
"This is cool, but kinda anticlimactic…" Gura said, slightly disappointed by the lack of anything happening.
"I'm kind of glad nothing crazy is happening. The last few times something like that happened we almost got burnt alive." Gura nodded her head in agreement.
"You think the barrier is open now?" Calliope shook her head.
"I think both halves of this process have to be activated at the same time in order to work," Calliope explained why she disagreed.
"You mean whatever Ame and the rest are doing right now?" Calliope nodded.
"It would only make sense, since we have to activate all four of these at the same time." Both girls waited another minute until a sparkle of light blue shone through the dark blue of the water magic. Calliope approached the pillar and looked closer at it.
Another flicker of light blue, followed by another and another. Soon, there were clear streams of this light blue liquid. A light blue liquid that looked incredibly familiar to Gura.
"That's Pure Flow…" she said with disbelief. What was it doing here? Was it being created or released? The Pure Flow ran dry after a few more moments and Gura stopped providing magic to the pillar in the middle. What was left was a small puddle of Pure Flow on the ground.
"This is the stuff you needed from Atlantis, right?" Calliope asked. Gura walked crouched down and stuck her finger into it. It was absolutely Pure Flow.
"Let's get Ina. She can carry it easily," Gura said, standing up quickly. Calliope nodded. They both began walking back out the way they came.
"I wish I could carry liquid easily, but solids are the only thing I can store in shadows and get back consistently," Calliope said while they hurried out.
"You think the other side had some Pure Flow as well?"
"It would only make sense, so they'll know already." They quickly exited the tunnel and made their way towards the other side of the Hatchery. They looked for any sign of the other girls coming to meet them, but didn't see them. Maybe they were so amazed by the Pure Flow that they hadn't left just yet.
"This is amazing! I thought we were going to have to collect the Pure Flow from the stone soldiers down in Atlantis," Gura said.
"It might still be a good idea, just to compare the two samples." Gura couldn't help but agree.
"Yeah, that's probably a-" Gura was interrupted when a deep rumbling began to shake the ground. "Uh oh…" Gura prayed that this wasn't happening again.
Her fears were realized when a streak of orange light followed by a massive tentacle burst through the ground a couple hundred feet in front of them.
Author's Note: This chapter wasn't the longest, but it still served its purpose. We're almost there, everyone. Next chapter will be a roller coaster.
I also thought the little Lycoris Recoil butt kick was cute to add in there. Calliope and Gura seem to be getting a long just fine.
Pure Flow was being made a both ends. Why and how is it being created here? And what is happening to Ina?
Next Chapter: What We're Here to Do
Any feedback/criticism is appreciated!