Chapter 23 - 19:00

Streaming live is what appears to be a news broadcast, though muted, only providing the visuals of what appears to be footage taken from the ground inside a suburban neighborhood among many other civilians, facing a nest of black roots in the distance before several black SUV pods soar towards it. Those pods deploy barrages of cyan energy fire, razing the roots such that they collapse and dissolve. Those civilians throw their arms up in celebration, that relief and optimism scaled up in the broadcast's banner of text at the bottom of the screen which reads: 'E.G.A OFFICIAL ESTIMATES 40% NEST COVERAGE WITHIN SINGLE MONTH.'

That broadcast plays on a holographic screen with blue borders, being projected above a glossy white table, one of several screens projected not just on that table but other tables in the same white room, the screens displaying various images with many featuring graphs and schematic documents. There are other white constructs beside those tables, some of them resembling printers and others as tall computer towers, a few of which emit a constant blue light to indicate a passive status. The room's size even just focusing past the table that this broadcast plays over is quite large, styled like a laboratory. There's an additional floor in this same room, visible from its balcony hanging above, where other tables are vaguely visible, an arched door at the far end.

The table the broadcast plays on has a square shape, and on the far other end sits a few other screens featuring fluctuating graphs, which are curved to surround the one physically solid object over the table, or rather a collection of components of the chemical-based revolver largely disassembled as the cylinder has been removed same as the handle and barrel. Copper wires are laid out on the table, and from the hollow space of the body where the cylinder would be attached to are a nest of wires attached to a small battery, a pill-shaped device with a partial transparent case to allow a strange green light to shine from within.

A pair of soft, human-shaped golden hands hover over the battery and its compartment, gently caressing it as the familiar voice wonders, "So this is really all done with physical wires…I haven't worked with technology like this since…I'm not sure."

Those hands are like gloves in that at the wrists there is a transition to a fair, human-like skin complexion by the cuff of the black blazer. 

Inspecting the battery with keen, green eyes though with golden rings within the irises, Dana stands –her white tank top beneath the blazer– beside Ekitai who chuckles before placing his arms on his hips, his brown overcoat over the purple-stained black jumpsuit. As Dana cautiously lifts the battery, making sure not to tug at the wires too hard while providing the flexibility to rotate the battery, Ekitai admits, "It's not exactly the most modern piece of equipment, but I've been more used to it this way than the other way, just doesn't feel right having everything be these disjoined nodes, I never got a grasp of it."

Dana hums to herself before flipping the battery again, reminiscing, "I guess I relate to that to an extent, I worked with older electronics when I was younger, my home planet wasn't part of the Core and what we had wasn't much better than the pirates. It took a while to learn the systems here, but at least once I did get it, I realized there was so much more that could be done."

She then brings her free hand to the surface of the table beneath the battery, her palm on the white surface before it begins bleeding a golden liquid that spreads not just under her other hand but also under the remaining handgun components like a puddle. She then steadily raises her hand, and from those puddles arise pairs of strands that spin around each other, supported by beams that are autonomously drawn between those strands like a double helix, and the top beam for most of the stands branches into curved prongs that grip the other components delicately though there's no top beam for the stand rising beneath her other hand as it holds nothing. She draws all of the stands which seep material from the golden puddles, rising at the speed of her hand as she continues, "I mean, the methodology of my artificial cells was somewhat built upon the node-based structure. So many limitations that held me back were just…not a thing. It was wild to me, it was the same time, just a different place."

Ekitai watches the double helix stand holding nothing ultimately reach the bottom of the battery compartment, and at the tip of those two strands is another beam drawn, though the beam grows several smaller branches that curve to gently grip the battery's compartment from the bottom. At that moment, the puddles left on the table have been fully drained, halting the rising of the stands, allowing Dana to then bring that free hand back to her side. 

His yellow eyes still trained to the stands, Ekitai is left in contemplation before he reflects, "Yeah, I mean there's no denying that every Earth had their advancements, sure, I think I still remember when tires were commonly used. But there's also no denying that not all Earths advanced equally, or even caught up to each other. I know there was that debate about keeping some kinda culture, which hey I respect them for that, even if they cost themselves a bit. But I know there was also that part of people just not wanting to share their toys with each other. Hell, before centralized planetary governments, that was an issue between individual continents. But that's…not something I'll get into sober."

Dana smiles softly at that last statement, though her gold-rung eyes remain trained on the battery and its connected compartments, now elevated. Her free hand hovers over the interface before pressing her finger against it, causing a minor electric arc to be cast between the surfaces. Unbothered by the arc, she admires gently: "You really did get to see it all, didn't you? The evolution of engineering, science, the world, the worlds. Unbounded, you witnessed it all. Sometimes I wonder if I focused too much on stability, rather than seeing everything I could."

Next to her, Ekitai frowns and crosses his arms over his chest to ponder, his eyes drifting to the floor. He holds that thought for a few moments before then resorting to a jest, "Well, you already saw that it's not all glamorous, there's not much fun to be had in the Rim."

Lifting her head to next focus on the holographic screen displaying the fluctuating graphs, Dana frowns before asserting, "You know what I mean. And I've already seen a lot of ugly, and I tried to get away from all that, I tried to have a clean life. And I did, it's just, I don't know, maybe I let it run a bit stale."

Ekitai is again left to contemplate a comforting response, his arms still crossed, his eyes next darting to the ceiling. He again ruminates in his own thoughts before responding in a tone more sincere: "Then it's a good thing your friend who we're following can't stop himself from jumping all over the map. There's a lot of things I could say the past year has been, but stale would probably be a bit too far for a joke."

Back down, Dana's gaze returns to the bundle of wires connecting the battery to the handgun's body, and without physical contact, the stand begins to flex which rotates the body towards herself as if an extension of her mind as she brings her hands to the opening where the wires protrude from. Her eyes sharpen in on that bundle of wires as she agrees, "You're not wrong about that. I saw him assessing the bigger nests earlier so any minute he might spring in here. Hopefully we can get this tuned properly before then, which would be a heck of a lot easier if we weren't working with a bunch of wires tangled up like this."

Ekitai chuckles lightly before he lifts both hands innocently and vindicates, "Hey, there's some merits to it. For one, it makes it really hard to sabotage when nobody understands how it works, and that goes into the big thing: nobody knows how to recreate it. I don't mean to curl my arm but there were some pretty big bidding prices for this thing out there."

"I guess you probably didn't account for other people needing to mess with this either, which…it's what it is, I understand, I'll figure this out. It's noble that you never took those bids," Dana remarks as she begins carefully running her hands through the lifted copper wires between the battery and body.

Ekitai places his hands behind his head to stretch, leaning his back before reasoning, "Well, it's a big short term gain, sure, but it's better holding that card for steady, long term gain. Come on, this is introductory business, isn't it?"

A natural laugh comes out of Dana, and as she runs her hands up the wires back to the battery compartment, she shakes her head before admitting, "You're not wrong about that either, it is the same everywhere you go. Honestly, running this company isn't even too different from the criminal underlord days at least in terms of organization. Of course now I'm trying to genuinely improve everybody's lives now, but the point still stands."

Ekitai shrugs his shoulders and understands, "You were just trying to get by, I get it, it was kind of necessary early on for me too. But at least you changed as soon as you were given the chance." 

His head then lowers with a frown, facing the ground before recounting, "I had that chance too, I could've taken it. Kokei took hers and asked me to do the same but…I couldn't grow up. Even though I could've just settled down for a normal life where I could make a living just doing a service and not hurting anyone, I stayed in the life where killing was needed, so in a way I killed people when it wasn't needed at all. And I didn't do it for any noble goals either, it's been centuries so I have no idea what the body count is but I've killed so many people for fun. Honestly, I'm surprised you stayed so nice to me all this time, I mean Kokei's a pure soul and Meditat always had his good intentions to a fault, but I was just a piece of shit that you had to basically babysit for all that time, and I didn't make it any easier for you to tolerate me."

Dana pauses her meddling of the battery to turn her gaze to Ekitai with a frown, prompting him to meet her gaze. She shakes her head and comforts, "Ekitai, I didn't 'tolerate' you, and I hope you know that I could've left at any time, I wanted to be here. I've met so many people willing to hurt others, some of them really were just desperate people trying to get by, but many of them also found a thrill to it, they just wanted to fall into depravity and burn the world down with them. But you're…not like that."

She then turns her gaze back to the circuitry and her fingers begin to extrude smaller tentacles that grab onto the edges of the wire as well as the bed that the battery sits in, penetrating through the metal carefully. Her eyes remain trained on the battery yet her voice doesn't become less sincere as she continues, "Sure, you were questionable at times, and I'll admit back then I saw some of those old clients in you which threw me off, but you're not like that. Someone who truly doesn't care can't just start caring in a year like you did, you wanted to care."

Ekitai takes a step forward and opens his mouth to prepare a rebuttal, though he pauses, receding that step back in meditation. His head lowers with a frown, falling silent as the only sound in the room is the movement of Dana's tentacles spreading through the battery compartment, her eyes sharp yet she doesn't seem closed off either.

Ekitai lets out a soft sigh before raising his gaze back to Dana, and with a soft smile he chooses, "Thanks…for what you've done for me."

Dana doesn't respond immediately, seemingly exclusively focused on the battery, leaving Ekitai to just stand in place awkwardly, his gaze steadily but ultimately veering to the battery she's seemed to place her undivided attention on. 

That battery, surrounded by golden tentacles that slither inside its compartment as other tentacles follow the wires into their ports, begins to shift or more specifically the color of the light emitting from the transparent case begins shifting from its former green into cyan. Upon reaching that defining color, the shifting suspends to keep that color in its place, and tentacles begin crawling back out of the battery compartment as well as the ports, leaving behind small golden patches to cover the hole which then transmutes to the same metal material as the compartment.

As those tentacles retract back into Dana's fingers, she turns her head to face Ekitai who faces her, and with a gentle smile she delicately reciprocates, "Of course."

An impressed smirk widens across Ekitai's face as he takes a few steps closer to the battery, unfolding his arms and staring at its shifted light as he admires, "You figured it out that quickly? Damn, I thought you said you haven't really done this before, that was fast."

Dana smirks to herself in pride and places her hands on her hip before explaining, "It might be a different language, but it's the same sentences. I just had to learn the words."

Behind both her and Ekitai is an arched door that just then vaporizes, allowing the woman in her comfortable white hoodie –her long pink hair draped over her shoulders– to enter. Ekitai lifts his chin and boasts playfully, "Guess that goes to show how intuitive the wires system is, huh?"

Dana's eyebrow raises, she steps back and doubts, "I don't know if I'd go that far, you should still learn the node system. I can try teaching you sometime."

"Can an old dog learn new tricks?" Kokei jests, prompting both Dana and Ekitai to turn to face the entrance.

Dana's face lights up with a smile, exclaiming: "Hi Kokei!" as Ekitai waves his hand and greets, "There you've been."

Strolling inside the laboratory, Kokei waves back with a cheery smile, greeting back: "Hi Dana, hi Eki! I just had lunch with Alina; we went to this one place that opened not too long ago."

She then stops and sighs exhaustedly before whining, "It's so awkward being out in public now though, everyone treats me like a celebrity, it's weird. I mean it was one thing when my Chirper blew up, but it's different when everyone wants pictures with me. Alina thought it was the funniest thing, probably because my cheeks were visibly red the whole time; I need to start wearing new clothes or dye my hair or something at this rate."

She sighs again, shaking her head before continuing, "She's definitely not over it either, she keeps asking me stuff like if I have a superhero name or signature catchphrases, I mean at least now she's completely understanding to all my absences but I don't know how long this will go on for, also I didn't know she was a Meditat fangirl and huh she said some things that I don't even want to…anyways, she's respectful about it at least, and it's not like she treats me differently, though maybe she's more gloaty at the fact that she was my former manager."

She clicks her tongue and resumes approaching the two before shifting topics, " Anyways, my 'super friends,' what are you up to?"

Dana giggles and Ekitai chuckles from the rant, Ekitai shaking his head before calming, "Well if it makes you feel any better, getting my face everywhere as…you know…a guy with my past has been getting me in some very…interesting conversations, on one hand a lot of people probably want me dead but at least now they're all too scared to try. But hey, I'll gladly take pictures with people, I definitely wouldn't abuse fame…though a podcast would suit me quite well…."

Dana raises an eyebrow and finger in protest, but Ekitai swiftly then shakes his head before shifting topics to extend his hand to point at his disassembled handgun before answering, "Anyways, while you were playing famous, I was just getting an upgrade to make this legend even better, hitting whatever those demon monsters are with no restraint!"

Next to him, Dana sighs and mutters under her breath, "It's easier dealing with him who seems somehow saner than everyone in my meetings," before she shakes her head, folds her arms over her chest before bantering with a voice more pronounced, "A better upgrade would be a redesign that uses actual modern electrical technology, but I'll need to first give him a whole college course on that so that'll be interesting."

Ekitai turns to face Dana before tilting his head and wondering, "Didn't Meditat mention once that you dropped out of college? You sure you're the best for that?"

"Eki, at least she went to college," Kokei swiftly retaliates until reaching the table where she's able to inspect the handgun in its current state, parts held up by the double helix stand, connected by floating wires.

Ekitai absorbs that strike and contemplates for a second before raising one finger and accepting, "Okay, point taken." He then faces Dana before continuing, "But in that case, are you really sure you want me as a student?"

Dana smiles and unfolds her arms, waving her hand back to the handgun before mentioning, "At least you keep your sights on one area we can focus on, it's not like Medit where he's trying to learn how to build energy cannons and pods and gravity rings and fully operational facilities all at once. Besides, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in how your arsenal works."

As Kokei lifts her hands towards the cyan battery, Ekitai aggressively points his finger at Dana before boldly accusing, "I knew it, you just want to learn how it works so you can sell it yourself! And you thought you almost had me, didn't you?!"

Kokei takes in a deep sigh, though a slight smirk creeps on her mouth as she once again defends, "Back to this again, are you? I'm pretty sure Meditat already has it all on file or something anyways, didn't he make you that barrel extension thing? He probably already knows how it works."

Ekitai turns to face Kokei, pointing his finger at her too. He then closes that hand into a tight fist and dramatically exclaims, "Dammit that makes sense, well I'm going to confront him about it next time I see him! But on top of that, I'll just revamp my stuff again and make sure it's much better than whatever can be recreated out of that!"

"At least use nodes this time," Dana snarks, fueling Ekitai's dramatized fall as he turns to her next. 

Separating from the conversation for a moment, Kokei raises her head and pans her curious gaze around the laboratory.

All around her are tables and machinery, above which are projections of tables and graphs, though some are of news broadcasts. Her gaze trails up to the upper balcony where she can glimpse at the table by the edge as well as the distant door in the back. Her sight then lowers back to the rest of the room, one so large and grand that it seems better fit for some military organization or at least a faction of greater scale.

Surrounded by this vast laboratory used as a workstation, Kokei softly reflects, "It's all so different and yet…so much is just how it always was."

Both Ekitai and Dana halt their bickering to turn to Kokei, both perplexed by her vague thoughts though curious.

As the cyan light of the battery gently shines on her face, she continues to gaze around the room as she observes, "This really isn't just some house, it's a fortress, concealed from danger, covered in all this equipment for missions and stuff. I mean this is nothing normal people live in, it has way too many things no normal person needs and it's all too big. And yet…," before lowering her eyes back down to the table.

Kokei turns away from the table to face both Dana and Ekitai before recalling, "At the same time, this space that's way bigger than what a normal person lives in, it's all so familiar. It took so long to figure out how to get around Meditat's mansion and even by the end I feel like I mostly just memorized the routes that I needed. At times it felt so big, too big, and like I was living in a space I wasn't supposed to be in. And yet…the guest bedroom became my room, the kitchen became my kitchen, everything just started feeling normal again. At some point I didn't really think too hard about the fact there's probably more than ten other guest bedrooms, it just felt like home."

Turning her head over her shoulder, Kokei stares back at the laboratory while meditating, "And somehow it just hit me that this is a fortress. I sort of forgot the bedroom that wasn't originally mine and probably wasn't a cozy bedroom to begin with isn't my bedroom. I forgot that the kitchen isn't just my kitchen, that the lounge isn't just my living room. And that all happened so much faster than with Meditat's mansion, like this time I didn't need to adapt that this place isn't a place for normal people, but it's just a bit different from the mansion. But things are different, we're actually using all this fancy equipment and planning missions like we're actually a team. We showed ourselves to the whole Superverse live over a battlefield we won. I just…went with it but so much has changed…but it still…feels the same."

She turns back to face Dana and Ekitai before asking, "Does that…make any sense?"

Ekitai chuckles softly, not at any absurdity of the statement, but he instead extends his arms and chimes in, "Well, we went from trying to get two groups of angry people to stop fighting each other to leading a charge against an invasion across every world, things probably got out of hand at some point along the way. And to think you got roped into all of this against your will."

Kokei giggles and scratches the back of her head upon the immediate recollection of Ekitai's spoken truth, realizing for herself: "Ah heh yeah, right. This all happened because you wanted to show off your friends, or something."

Ekitai chuffs and shakes his head to then contend, "You wouldn't have believed me otherwise."

Dana giggles upon that memory, facing Kokei and recalling, "I almost forgot, you were so cute when we first met you! You were all excitable and everything, falling for my dumbest jokes."

"Hey!" Kokei argues, balling her hands into fists that remain beside her hips, "When Ekitai said he had friends, I wasn't expecting celebrities! If I knew, I would've put more effort into those cupcakes!"

Ekitai waves his hand nonchalantly while also waving away, "Oh come on, the whole city is full of businesses, they all have someone at the top, it's nothing special," as a distant whoosh of a door's opening passes like a breeze.

Kokei turns to face Ekitai and points at him to loudly berate, "Okay well you could've at least told me you were bringing Meditat of all people!"

Ekitai throws both of his hands in the way innocently before reminding, "Hey now, I didn't know, only Dana did, blame her."

Next to him, Dana fans her hands towards herself and openly justifies, "I'm not a snitch, you can't blame me."

Next to her, Ekitai drops both hands to his side and surrenders, "Damn, no I can't."

"Bringing me where?" asks a voice of neither of the three, a man but without Ekitai's rasp, for he too is bewildered, raising his head as does Dana and Kokei who turns around, all facing up at the balcony's edge where the man in the glowing blue suit stands, his black cape resting behind his legs, his black hair parted to allow his starry azure eyes to look down on the three.

Standing atop the balcony that looms over the three and their work station, his golden shoulders glistening from the white light of the laboratory, Meditat watches Kokei stumble back and stutter, "Oh hey Meditat sorry I was talking about the other-...or well-...what I mean is-...never mind don't worry about it."

Meditat's eyebrow raises in perplexion to the strange avoidance, though he moves past the anomaly with a sigh before extending his right arm at a slight angle towards the ceiling before releasing a blue energy cable from his palm that he grips with his hand. He then steps forward off the balcony's edge, swinging off that cable which begins extending midway through his swing, gently lowering him down to the lower floor as his boots reach the ground at the trough of his sway which allows him to gracefully relinquish his cable to land right beside the table that the disassembled handgun rests on, which he first glances at.

His eyes immediately dart to the exposed battery and its cyan luminescence, providing him a swift conclusion to which he apologizes with a frown, "Right, I was to aid you in that modification, sorry Ekitai."

Ekitai waves away those concerns both physically and with: "Nah, nothing to worry about, it's all covered now." He then glances at the handgun which is when he frowns upon the realization: "Once…I piece it back together." He turns to Dana before complaining, "You got all the wires scrambled."

Dana turns to Ekitai, and throws both hands in the air before retaliating, "Which wouldn't be an issue if you didn't use wires!"

Meditat glances at Dana, then Ekitai, and then back to the dismantled handgun with a frown before he mutters, "I already had the modification procedure ready…."

Ekitai perks his head up and turns to Meditat before suddenly accusing, "So you do know how it works!"

Meditat faces him and shrugs his shoulders to then bluntly admit, "Well, of course I do, like how I've studied Dana's cells."

Kokei tilts her head in curiosity before asking, "Wait, so have you studied me?"

Meditat turns to face Kokei with a befuddled expression but before he could respond, Kokei suddenly jolts with embarrassment that washes over her reddening face, and she hastily apologizes, "Oh wait sorry, you meant like their tools and stuff, because you make things and whatnot, yeah wait never mind I was being dumb, my bad sorry."

Meditat, still somewhat stunned by the speed of her retreat, opens his mouth to respond yet Ekitai speaks first at him with the dramatic threat: "You better not think about just making a copy of my gun on the fly during a fight like another one of your one and done toys!"

Slung between different speakers, Meditat faces Ekitai again to assure, "That's not the purpose of my research, trust me, using replicas of your tools myself would be subpar in execution to your own uses. I study them just out of interest, though I admit I also do to prepare for situations like building the amplifier. But being transparent, I don't intend to recreate your tools for myself."

Next to Ekitai, whose fingers lowers upon Meditat's extinguishing words, Dana folds her arms over her chest and remarks, "I'm surprised you haven't had to ask him any questions yet, you had floods for me."

Meditat turns to face Dana and tilts his head both ways apprehensively before explaining, "I should mention…I haven't studied the technology all too comprehensively given the other ongoing tasks, so I haven't reached the depth requiring that. Not that I'm sure I'd get such answers."

"Trade secrets," Ekitai shuts down coldly before turning away in a dramatic pout.

Kokei turns to him out of curiosity and queries, "How much did you have to tell Dana for her to do all this?" while pointing to the dismantled weapon sitting on the stands.

"Not enough," Dana answers for him with a sharp pinch of spite, though spoken with enough of a relaxed tone to indicate a level of unserious levity.

Ekitai raises both hands in an innocent shrug and states, "You did get it eventually so clearly it was enough."

Dana now places her full attention on Ekitai to argue, "I spent so long just trying to understand how any of it worked, the actual battery modifications took a couple seconds. You know I have a packed schedule. Oh yeah, speaking of."

She then turns to face Meditat, and a fire brings her voice to a boil which she unleashes: "Also, it's evil that you announced your identity to the whole Superverse and you're leaving me to manage the flood of everyone asking questions of where you were and what it means for the future and everything, you do know that this whole year you keep popping up and vanishing and popping up and vanishing, right?!"

Kokei giggles to find Dana's composure crashing out in a rant similar to her own just minutes ago, though Meditat's expression is initially strangely serenic, his face calm and eyes rested, a sense of what almost seems like a nostalgic tranquility. It's a trance that lags his reaction to sudden shock upon being directly argued at, followed by a blatant expression of guilt as if immediately acknowledging the truth in those fiery words as he winces slightly, before trying to dampen his emotional expressions to balance his voice in asking, "Right, you mentioned wanting some help testing and evaluating your purified energy weaponry, correct? I should admit that I haven't been able to test the use of that purified energy much since I'm unable to construct batteries myself, I was attempting to earlier but to no success, but I may be free later to take a look."

Ekitai, Kokei, and Dana stand side by side, staring at Meditat stunned by the rather daring move, one that manages to bring Dana to a defeated sigh, throwing her arms in the air and relaying, "See what I mean? Evil. And I had to work for this man for decades."

She sighs again and lowers her head before shamefully murmuring, "But actually that would be really nice later, I was trying to make explosive rounds for the nests but I can't get it to detonate with enough strength."

Meditat huffs through his nose as a subtle sigh of relief, managing to entirely evade the blaze in a manner rather shameless. He nods and accepts, "I can look into that, I do wish I could construct those myself since it'd likely be less consuming than pouring excessive energy into my crystals, but I digress."

He then turns to stare at the handgun still standing up on the table by the helixes before noting, "Assuming the charge capacitors have been tuned, this can likely be reassembled and should be good for testing, I can help Dana then."

At once, Dana raises and tilts her head, stupefied in her question: "Capacitors?" just as Ekitai winces and chuffs before slapping his own forehead and recalling, "Ah shit, she didn't do that yet." Kokei stares up at Ekitai, puzzled more at the same time as Dana glares at Ekitai before roaring, "How was I supposed to know if you didn't tell me?!"

Ekitai raises both of his hands defensively and vindicates, "Hey now, I don't think you realize how far it is for me to even let you open this up and mess with it, I'm already doing a lot."

Dana raises a fist in anger and prepares to release another fiery bombardment, though Kokei apprehensively shrugs her shoulders and admits, "He's not entirely wrong, I'm pretty sure I've only seen the insides of it when he'd crash over and stay up late making repairs and doing whatever and falling asleep at the desk."

Ekitai clenches his teeth and raises one finger before gently appending, "It…isn't as pathetic as it sounds, they were pit stops."

Kokei shakes her hand side to side and debates, "Eh, there's been a couple times I've had to dismiss my work friends because you took a 'pit stop' without telling me ahead of time."

Ekitai drops his arm and pleads in a murmur, "Okay you can stop defending me," although that defense was successful as it has stalled Dana long enough before a green holographic screen projects in front of her face, and her fist promptly drops to her side as her expression shifts from rage to concern upon the revelation: "I forgot I had a meeting, I need to take this."

She waves her hand which waves away the screen before she turns around and jogs towards the door Kokei had entered from, though a few steps away she stops again. She turns around back to Kokei, Ekitai, and Meditat who all stare at her, listening when she promises, "It'll be quick, I'll be back after. But Medit, could you do the capacitor tuning, please?"

Meditat lets out a soft sigh and nods, accepting tiredly: "Sure, I can do that."

Dana brightens with a smile, waving her hand and thanking: "You're the best, be right back," as the golden helix stands begin to deform and melt which Meditat glances at. She turns around and jogs off to the door which vaporizes to allow her to dash through, leaving Ekitai and Kokei to turn around to notice the melting stands to their immediate horror.

A blue blaze ignites over Meditat's right hand as he lifts it to aim at the table which directs that blaze forth in a stream onto the surface at the base of the melting golden stands. Upon contact, the fire spreads out over an area encompassing the stands, before that flame hardens into a thin pad that materializes with black grates under which a blue glow awakens, projecting a faint blue field that propels upwards onto the handgun components, suspending them in place just the instant they begin to fall.

Meditat's hand extinguishes as the remnants of the golden liquid that once composed the stand evaporate, replaced by what resembles a fan pad, one with a white metallic rim from which a few holograms project up, displaying diagrams of the gun and its pieces itself, some of them appearing just as they do in reality whereas other depictions isolate certain elements in a wireframe. The two screens in the middle focus the barrel itself, one diagram revealing the interior which features an interior ring sitting right by the end opposite from the barrel's proper end, and attached to that ring is a pill-shaped object resembling a battery: the capacitor highlighted green. A couple diagrams represent this interior unwrapped, providing different views of the same focal region.

After lowering his hand back to his side, Meditat begins walking around the table as Ekitai turns back to the open door to shout with a raised fist, "Hey, at least give a warning!" just as a cloud secrets from the frame and solidifies the door shut.

He chuffs and comments, "That almost stopped my heart," as Meditat steps between him and Kokei, who turns to him before she sincerely assures, "I'm sure that wouldn't kill you anyways."

"I mean probably not, but still," Ekitai pouts before Meditat waves his right hand at the pad, which causes the disassembled batch of components to smoothly spin around until the barrel sits directly in front of him. He then raises both of his hands in front of the barrel as both of his backhands expel a blue flame that each manifest into a hovering black metal bar, and below that bar the flame pours down to construct a set of small handheld tools, allowing him to pick one up per hand, the one in his left hand resembling a screwdriver with a rounded tip and the other resembling an unwired soldering iron. Upon grabbing the screwdriver, the tip projects a small plasmic prong fork which tightens slightly. He brings his arms close to the end of the barrel closest to the cylinders as he asks, "Has your exhaustion passed, Kokei?"

Ekitai and Kokei both turn to Meditat, though Kokei doesn't answer immediately, almost as if caught off guard judging by her surprised eyes. She stutters to her response: "Oh- huh- what, oh yeah yeah it's fine now, I'm fine, thanks," as Meditat slides the screwdriver through the hollow opening of the barrel normally enclosed by the cylinders. 

Through sharp, concentrated starry eyes, Meditat reads the holographic screens projected from the levitation pad, his arms steady as he handles the components with delicacy. He's still able to afford a response of relief, "That's good to hear, you've recovered quickly given how much you've had to do. Most Exhumans, even boosted by enhancers, lack that endurance."

Ekitai's focus remains solely on the repairs to his prized weapon, his gaze bouncing between the physical components and the holographic diagrams which animate the intrusion of the screwdriver into the barrel to allow detailed streaming of the process as the screwdriver hooks onto the compartment housing the capacitor before the plasmic fork tightens. Kokei meanwhile giggles awkwardly and averts her gaze to the distant tables before receiving, "Thanks, I guess I had consistent workouts with how crazy this year's been. To be honest I still feel like maybe I was better with it in the past when I was with Ekitai and all his antics, but I guess like with anything, not doing it for a while makes you lose that edge."

That comment draws Ekitai's attention into the conversation as his gaze bounces from the holograms to Kokei, and a smile lights on his face as he recollects, "Oh yeah, you were something else back then huh, I mean I want to say you're basically back at your peak but oh boy those glory days really were something." He then turns to face Meditat before appending, "I think a lot of people were relieved when she settled down, I'll tell you."

Kokei glares at Ekitai and scolds with a shakily panicked voice, "Wait you're making it sound a lot worse, I wasn't like a feared hunter or something like that, people probably didn't even remember me." She faces the back of Meditat to clarify, "He's overjuicing it, I wasn't like that crazy. But I don't know, I mean after I stopped it took a while for me to get my balance again, I'm not even sure if I really reached my peak even."

Meditat pulls the screwdriver out of the barrel and instead slides the soldering iron through as he places that screwdriver right beneath the left rack. After watching the insertion into the barrel, he raises his gaze back to the holograms to observe his work more clearly while relating, "I understand where you're coming from. Flynn used to wake up around 4:00 in the morning to run laps for hours, it was shocking that he managed to carry such energy for the remainder of the day. It felt like Razi's free time was exclusively in the gym room. They all had their routines, and if there was a day without a heavy mission then we'd commit hours to exercise, because we were aware that even a few days without training could be costly. We couldn't just afford to be good, we had to be the best."

Kokei lowers her gaze and scratches the back of her head before guiltily acknowledging, "Okay I can't say I work…that hard. I mean to be fair I am-," though she stops herself and winces in a momentarily pause, her gaze leaping to the distant tables, the ceiling, and back to the floor before resuming, "I don't know, lucky or something. But 4 A.M is something else, I guess that's what real heroes are like, huh?"

Just then, Meditat freezes in place, halting his modification process. He then turns away from his work to face directly at Kokei with a strangely gentle concerned expression, one imbued in his voice too upon his query: "I apologize if I'm mistaken, but are you insinuating yourself to not be a 'real hero?'"

Taken aback by the sudden confrontation, Kokei takes a minor step back and waves her hands while nervously explaining, "Oh I guess I was just talking, but I mean you know what I mean."

Meditat carefully pulls the soldering iron out of the barrel and places it beneath the metal bar, fixing it in place by levitation, freeing his hands to turn around to face Kokei standing beside Ekitai to whom he shakes his head and refutes, "I don't, not after all we've done together. There's no downplaying the accomplishments we've made, fighting against an immortal force, pushing back enough to make momentum that'll move on its own, we've affected the Superverse in a way no one ever has."

Meditat leans against the table, placing his hands on the edge and dropping his chin, staring softly at the ground and acknowledging, "Everything we did on that Earth, it wouldn't have been possible without you all. I know I wouldn't have been able to do what we did, I wasn't even able to hold the Pawns back for the majority of the mission, and I couldn't have protected the city myself against both raids."

Those gentle azure eyes shimmer, waves of his black hair draping beside his head, Meditat frowns and reflects, "Same with the pirates, I couldn't have pushed through them all on my own. I couldn't have saved those hostages and Dana on my own. I hardly knew you two then, but without your help, I'd have lost her, I'd have lost them. And the Superverse would've lost hope for good. I wasn't there but I know how you both protected my…other self, and I know you helped end a war he struggled with for so long. Without you two…I'm not sure where any of us would be."

A wave of confidence washes the frown off his face, and Meditat raises his head to gaze at both Kokei and Ekitai to declare, "You're both heroes, through and through, and I'm honored to have you with me."

Kokei and Ekitai stare silently at Meditat for a moment to process, Kokei's reaction first being of embarrassment for spurring this lecture yet there's a smile that forces itself on her face whereas Ekitai wears his proudly and remarks, "I'd probably have been disgusted at you calling me that a year ago, but there's too much 'hell yeah' in what you just said to want to deny any of it."

Meditat glances at Ekitai and nods before then turning around, picking the soldering tool back off the bar, and sliding it inside the barrel to resume his work. He returns his gaze to the holographic monitors, working silently for a few moments before the green highlight of the capacitor on the monitors changes color to cyan. Meditat then pulls the soldering tool back out of the barrel and attaches it to the bars back to face Ekitai to announce, "The capacitor's tuned, theoretically your weapon should be charging your shots with maximized Exmatter purity. I'd recommend testing at least to ascertain that it's effective against regular targets, unfortunately we can't accurately test its effectiveness on Pawns but it's best to make sure the weapon can still function regularly."

Ekitai blinks twice before remarking, "Well damn, it's just that easy huh? I was trying to mod it myself, it's just that the instructions are all node-based so translating it is a headache when I have no idea what all the hexagons are for."

Meditat tilts his head in conflict before acknowledging, "You were in the right direction, pretty close especially if you haven't learned node chaining. I, and I assume Dana, just had to tweak it further. I also am relieved that the modifications are strictly electrical, I'm far from understanding the chemistry behind your weaponry."

Ekitai smirks pridefully and boasts, "Well, if I just ran around with any old laser gun, that'd be kinda boring wouldn't it? But who knows, maybe if you catch me on a good day I'd be willing to educate a young man."

Meditat nods and accepts delightfully, "I'll make sure to have a list of questions ahead of time."

That moment of success and its relief calms as Meditat's gaze lines between Ekitai and Kokei to focus on the closed door, and upon focusing on the exit he contemplates, "I should likely retrieve some of my experiments from my room to help Dana, I can't construct Exmatter energy myself but Dana's given me a supply to test with and I might have some devices that may prove useful for her issue."

He then returns his gaze to Ekitai before explaining, "You should be able to reassemble your weapon, and after calibrations it should be functional. If there's nothing you need, I'll grab my equipment and return promptly, feel free to use those tools."

An apprehensive clench appears on Ekitai's face, his uneasy gaze setting on the floating mass of parts held together by nothing but wires straightened out. His wrinkles intensify as his eyebrows clench, but he ultimately sighs and determines, "It's a bit of an annoyance, but I can't make you do everything. Sure, I'll get everything put together, I saw Dana take it apart anyways."

Meditat nods and offers, "Connect me if anything's wrong, I'll be back shortly." He marches between Kokei and Ekitai who step to the side to provide space, watching him approach the door which dissolves upon his presence, allowing him to enter the cloud. That cloud resolidifies before it can fully disperse, leaving Kokei and Ekitai alone in the laboratory.

Only then does Ekitai release a dramatically loud groan before turning around and stepping up to the table, facing his dismantled weapon raised by the levitation pad. His arms stay by his side, wallowing in silence at the mess of wires before him, visibly unhappy with the chore that lies directly before him.

At his side, Kokei crosses her arms over her chest before sneering, "If you used chaining, you wouldn't have all these wires all over the place."

Another groan, at least not nearly as bellowing as the first, emits from Ekitai before he defends, "It's almost never an issue, and this is a once in a while thing anyways, it's not worth all the trouble just for the same results."

"Okay then, suit yourself. But come on, it's not like node chaining is new or anything, it's been around for like a hundred years, you've had plenty of time to learn it," Kokei mentions, watching Ekitai just stare emptily at his task.

Ultimately, Ekitai raises his arms and grabs the barrel and the wires connecting it to the cylinder, beginning the tedious process as he refutes, "A hundred years is still pretty recent, especially after I perfected my formula. I spent so long on the foundation, I got it, now I'm just onto the fun stuff of finding new ways to kill…or I guess hurt people enough that they may as well be dead in the moment. But I don't want to go back and mess with the foundation."

Kokei suddenly giggles, perplexing Ekitai who glances at her and can't help but ask, "What did I say?"

Kokei waves away the concern and controls her laughter enough to explain, "Sorry sorry, it's just that it sounds a lot like something Casey would say. She dreaded testing because there'd always be a chance of some core feature bugging and she wouldn't want to go anywhere there. Heh, she was, she was really an interesting person."

Her tone shifts slightly melancholic as matched by her frown upon the statement: "All of them were…."

Ekitai frowns at that reminder, averting his gaze back to his handgun to begin tugging the barrel towards the cylinder, clutching to the wires and folding it up to consume less space. As he does so, he gently asks: "So, have you found anything with Alina?"

"Oh right, yeah it hasn't just been photos and food, there's a couple companies we've been applying into, I actually had an interview earlier in the morning which went fine, I was a little tired still but they seemed to like me so hopefully something good comes from it," Kokei explains, her tone slightly more optimistic as she gazes at the back of her friend's head.

That friend continues to tug wires together, his eyes forward but his focus behind himself as he praises, "That's nice to hear, maybe you'll both get to the same place, it's good that you two are still hanging out."

Kokei releases a soft sigh and lowers her gaze back to her ground, her voice returning dreary in her response: "That'd be nice if that happens, yeah she's cool. But honestly, despite what she might think now, she's leagues ahead of me and there's a good chance she'll find a better company than where I can go. Fame does some things but real companies aren't going to hire celebrities for regular jobs, and really I'd still prefer to stay at that level, selling out just doesn't feel right. I really need to stick to one of these professions and get actually good at it, I kind of want to just pick up mechanical engineering and start over but that won't help at all. It's fine though, at least yeah we're still chatting and we Connect all the time, too much maybe. I mean…I had the Connects of my work friends from the bakery but we just distanced over time and now it's been years and years since I've heard from them…and eventually the praise will stop and that'll probably happen here too…but that's just the natural way of things."

Ekitai frowns, momentarily pausing his repair efforts to contemplate as his eyes dart to the table.. He does resume seconds later, his eyes back on his task, before softly empathizing: "Yeah…that's just how it's always been for us. I mean I can't even count how many groups I've run with but what I can say is I never see them after the fact, the Sea Hats were the only crew I visited again and…yeah. But most of the time I just never see them again, maybe I'll hear about them some time and ask how they're doing and find out they've been long dead. But yep, that's just life. We experience more than anyone, and we lose more than everyone."

Kokei wraps her arms around herself as if shivering despite the temperature being neutral, and her gaze remains floored. She takes a moment of silence with steady breaths, pink eyes between the pink hairs, frowning in thought. Her eyes then sharpen in intrigue as a brow lifts.

Kokei lifts her head to gaze at Ekitai before she curiously questions, "Hey random question, but what's the earliest…you remember?"

Ekitai turns his head again to face directly back at Kokei, his curiosity also peaks with raised eyebrows before wondering, "This again? Are you worried I'm developing dementia?"

Kokei shakes her head and waves her hand to reason, "No no no, sorry I just forgot."

Ekitai chuckles lightly and assures, "I'm just messing with you, no worries."

He then turns his head straight back to his task, picking up a tool off the bar resembling a glue gun before answering, "But it's the same as I said before. I can't say the exact year…I kind of lost track of all that, but it was before the whole thing with that space meteor and this whole Superverse thing. Back when it was just one Earth among a bunch of rocks and gas balls, back when we had physical screens, back when our vehicles were on the ground. Back when scoring girls wasn't working against my face," before he chuckles again.

Kokei giggles too, though that laughter fades with a frown, her eyes trained on his head before she delicately asks, "So…nothing before that? Like…do you remember being a teenager?"

Ekitai shrugs his shoulders and chuckles between the jest: "You think I'd remember my baby years? Come on, nobody does."

Kokei's head slowly lowers, her shimmering eyes falling to the floor after which she whispers in disappointment, "Right…yeah."

As he traces the end of the glue gun down the crevice between the cylinders component and barrel, Ekitai shrugs his shoulders and quips, "Anyways, nothing interesting even happened for those first couple hundred years, I mean the whole 'will they won't they' for another world war got stale after a certain point. The only highlight of that period was the A.I war but even then things got boring after since nobody wanted to touch the scary robot men."

He then raises his head in worried curiosity before assessing, "Wait, Orial isn't listening, right?"

He waits for a few moments, but those moments are only of an awkward silence. He sighs in relief and straightens his gaze forward, continuing to drag the tool while resuming, "But anyways, I had way more fun after all the Exhumans and other Earths to explore and whatnot, there was so much more to do! I mean of course there were some rough moments at the start, but it smoothed itself out and got better. You know?"

Kokei perks her head up and fixes her frown, raising her tone up to an inconspicuous neutral. She nods her head and reminisces, "I guess I get what you mean…I mean I still think I have fond memories before the meteor, sure everything wasn't anywhere as bombastic as it was now but it was still…so much, I don't think I ever felt underwhelmed. But I mean at the same time, it was nothing compared to the Superverse. I will say, you're lucky everyone didn't see you as an Exhuman, because yeah that start was…really rough. But I guess you're right, it did get better. I mean…well…I guess that's not all true, but it's definitely moving somewhere, and hopefully it keeps moving to a better place."

Ekitai chuckles and wonders outlandishly as he slows his tracing upon reaching the final edge to bind, "I wonder how this will all be in another couple hundred years."

Kokei giggles back and tosses the hair draped over her shoulder behind herself before wondering too, "Me too, I guess only time will tell."

At last, Ekitai finishes the bind, retracting the tool off of the shell and placing it back under the hovering bar, inspecting his progress as the barrel has now been reconnected to the cylinder with no wires hanging out, he wipes his forehead before commenting, "So I won't say I hate these tools, it's actually pretty nice for Meditat to leave them here for me, and I'm sort of figuring it out. But…it's a little finicky, I have my own routine with my own tools and trying to close this up without them is kind of harder than it should. It's just that I left them in my room since I figured I wouldn't need them."

Kokei's eyebrow raises, and she glances back at the door that she had originally entered through before mentioning, "The bedrooms aren't too far from you so the trip wouldn't be too long."

Ekitai lifts his head, and a smirk draws on his face as he agrees, "You're right."

Kokei faces forward and shrugs her arms before suggesting, "It should only take you a couple minutes and I can make sure-," as Ekitai turns around.

"Hey Kookie, my best friend, my ride and die, could you be a true one and get my tools from my room? It's just, you know, I have to make sure that nothing happens to this," Ekitai requests slyly, his unashamed smile wide.

Life fades from the pink of Kokei's eyes as both arms drop to her side and she slouches forward before dreading, "Really? Come on, I can keep an eye on it for you."

Ekitai shrugs his arms and weighs his hands while reasoning, "Well in case something happens, I'd be better at keeping it safe, and besides, you wouldn't make your friend pilot his old, frail, decrepit, withering body for such a menial task now would you?"

"You've been running all over the place, what do you mean," Kokei queries dubiously, though her monotonous tone indicates that she's already foreseen her failure.

"Thanks, you're the best!" Ekitai confirms the battle's conclusion, turning back to the table which he places his hands at the edge of, leaning forward to wait.

Behind him, Kokei scoffs and groans, but ultimately spins around and surrenders as she strolls towards the door, "Fine, but if I have to turn your room upside down to find it, I'm not putting it back together. You wouldn't make your friend scruff their soft, gentle, delicate, feminine body moving everything around in your room now would you?"

Immediately, Ekitai pushes himself off the table to spin around and exclaim, "Wait but you'd be moving stuff anyways so how does that make any sense, what do you mean?"

The door vaporizes open as Kokei waves her hand and departs with the snark: "Thanks, you're the best!" Before Ekitai could retaliate, the cloud solidifies once more, closing the door, leaving Ekitai awkwardly standing in the room, his hand extended desperately. He maintains that pose for a while, even when the door opens once again, allowing Dana to amble back inside to which Ekitai drops his arms and switches to a casual stance, leaning back against the table to hide that fear behind a forced smile and greeting, "Oh hi Dana."

Dana glances back at the door as it closes itself as she wonders curiously, "Where's Kokei off to?"

Ekitai places his hands on the edge of the table by the levitation pad holding his partially assembled weapon while explaining, "She's just getting my tools for me quickly so I can put this back together, I'm not used to Meditat's tools."

Dana stops in place and places her hand under her chin inquisitively before offering, "I mean, I could just do it for you, I took it apart anyways so I know how to reconnect it."

Ekitai's face sharply grows dumbfounded, his jaw left hanging open in utter disbelief. He grits his teeth in guilt and realizes, "Oh…yeah that works too. I uh…well yeah that works. Yeah…yeah that's fine, I'll send her a quick message. I should probably do that right now, yeah."

He straightens his posture and strafes a few steps to the side to leave space for Dana to approach the table as her hands transform gold once more, her fingernails extending or rather protruding slim tentacles, ready to begin the reconstruction process. As she stops before the table and raises her hands to the components needing to be reconnected, Ekitai slides his sleeve back to reveal the physical Connect device planted in his wrist from which a gray-themed holographic screen projects, and he sighs to himself for the awkward timing as Dana's tentacle fingers attach onto the battery and the component that the battery is wired to, gradually pulling them together.

In the center of the greatly wide elevation pad, for its enough that perhaps a pod could be parked on it, only stands Kokei whose hands remain at her sides, waiting patiently and watching the descension as the walls around her seem to rise relative to herself, wrapping around the pad like an elevator shaft, a tunnel she drops through. In this downtime, she tosses her hair over her shoulder and begins running her fingers through it idly, maintaining its silky straight appearance, the colors of her nails matching with her hair.

As she works her way below her shoulder, the walls around her are surpassed entirely, revealing the open cylindrical bedroom lobby, composed of multiple levels of ring bridges leading to various storage rooms and closets, some of which are visible through open doorways whereas other doors are shut. She watches those bridges rise over her or rather she descends below them, that descent slowing down as the pad decelerates until ultimately coming to a stop aligned with the base floor, as before her stands the lounge space populated with groups of white sofas surrounding samely colored tables. 

She speedily walks off of the pad and onto the soft fur carpet which dampens her footsteps, and after she pans her sights to the five doors that wrap around the lounge in the shape of a star: red, sky blue, purple, and green. Oddly enough the other door is already open, and while a flash of intrigue sparks with a brief eyebrow raise, her focus sets to the sky blue door to the task at hand which she begins approaching hurriedly, moving at a speed walk nearing a jog. Yet just as she's nearing the center of the room, a holographic screen tinted pink projects in front of her, sapping her attention as she stops still to read its contents.

After her eyes scan the screen's content, she closes them and takes in a deep breath and breathes it out before murmuring to herself, "God…dammit Eki. I guess at least I don't have to rummage in your room but…come on."

She swipes at the screen which prompts it to close, and for a moment she remains standing still, processing the pointlessness of the errand. She scoffs in annoyance, though she can't help but smile to herself before murmuring, "You're such an idiot. Welp, guess back up the elevator I go." 

After recuperating herself, Kokei turns around back to face the elevation pad still resting on the floor, and she saunters now without any present task to feel any urgency towards, better relaxed even though she had to displace for no reason.

Just on her approach to the pad, a boom roars from the open bedroom door where a cyan light flashes, muffled but heavy enough that Kokei stumbles forward and nearly loses her balance. Upon regaining it fully, she turns towards the source of that boom and sprints straight for the door frantically, shouting: "MEDITAT?!"

Reaching the open doorway, Kokei rushes inside the bedroom to find the chair backed up against the wall, and between it and the table stands Meditat, who has both of his arms extended forward to aim his bare hands slightly above and next to the table, pointing at a foot long cube made of frosty crystal encased within a slightly larger glassy cube in the air.

The cube doesn't have its own levitation however, as it immediately begins to start falling to which Meditat dashes forward to grab it. After straightening his posture, Kokei, who clutches to the frame of the door, frantically asks: "Are you okay?? What just happened?"

Meditat glances to the door to find her standing there, and he releases a disappointed sigh before explaining, "I was trying to tune one of my experiments and seemed to trigger a combustion." He walks to the desk before placing the cube on the surface next to a collection of strange white devices some of which are in various shapes such as large pills, hilts, rods, and one even resembling a pistol. He chuffs to himself before wallowing, "Dana could've made use of that test, it was what she was asking for help with. I was being careless." He then waves his hand to the cube, causing the frosty crystal layer to ignite into a fire that disintegrates, though the outer glass shell remains intact, containing a pile of ash along with scattered remains of white shrapnel and parts. He sighs at the sight, placing his hands on his hips just staring at the results.

Kokei also stares at the cube with a frown, though she blinks and switches her gaze back to Meditat before reiterating in concern, "But are you hurt? That sounded bad."

Meditat turns to her and shakes his head before he assures, "I contained the blast before it could do damage, there's no need to worry. Though I'm not sure if there's much value in this box of scraps."

He turns back to face the cube, sighing again. He then faces Kokei before questioning, "Why are you here?"

Kokei takes a step back instinctively out of confused guilt, though she stops and glimpses at the doorway then to Meditat to then answer, "I was going to get tools for Eki to finish the assembly, but Dana's helping him with that now so I didn't really need to come down here."

Meditat's eyebrow raises before he asks in a befuddled tone, "I left those tools for him, were they faulty?"

Kokei sighs softly and shakes her head, explaining in assurance: "There wasn't anything wrong with them, it's just I guess he has his own way of doing things so he wants his own tools. He's just like that, that's all."

Meditat frowns after that explanation, nodding and acknowledging, "I see…understandable, all engineers and scientists have their own methods with their own desired tools, the ones I left were industry standard but I shouldn't have assumed he'd prefer that. I assume you're returning back to the laboratory?"

Kokei takes a step back to lean against the wall beside the doorway before confirming, "Yeah I was, you coming too?"

Meditat turns back to the desk and stares at the collection of devices next to the scrap box. He huffs in discontent before turning and approaching the chair next to Kokei, who takes a step to the side to allow him space. 

Grabbing the seat, Meditat drags the hovering chair back to the desk and determines, "I should at least try rebuilding the device that combusted, maybe a few copies for proper measure."

He sits down and reaches for a small box at the corner of his desk filled in small pill-shaped batteries, dragging the box slightly closer to himself as his other hand extends forward to project a holographic screen of a list that he begins scrolling through as he plans, "I should be able to find the design blueprint for that one and then I'll be able to recreate the device. Unfortunately my current design doesn't allow me to easily slot the battery in so I'll likely need to manifest components and manually assemble them. It may take a few minutes, I'll catch up with you all afterwards."

Kokei hums with a frown for a moment of contemplation before she then pushes herself off the wall to straighten her posture. She shrugs her shoulders and instead offers, "I could wait a bit for you and we can head up together. I'll…just stay vigilant in case of another explosion."

Meditat turns to Kokei, somewhat baffled by the idea, though after staring at her for a few moments he ultimately accepts, "If you wish to, that shouldn't be a problem. Like I said, it may be a few minutes."

He then faces back at the screen which he continues scrolling through, meanwhile Kokei slowly strolls around the room behind his back, inspecting it with wonder. Her eyes are drawn to the long wall where she finds the display of various contraptions each accompanied with hardwood plaques inscribing dates in golden text, many of the years being of 2851 including a construct resembling a long silver tonfa with a rubber grip, and at the short end is an open barrel as though the construct is a projectile launcher as the grip even houses a subtle trigger. Her mouth parts in awe of the array, unable to hold back from asking, "Are these…tools you made in past fights?"

His eyes still trained on the screen though understanding the subject of discussion, Meditat nods and elaborates: "Fights, other missions, some not even official missions. Some of them are recreations, others I managed to maintain enough to leave here."

"Huh…interesting. Any…particular reason why you chose these? I mean I have to assume you made way more during this time," Kokei follows up curiously, her hands to her side.

"Eh, I wish I had a more precise answer but the truth is I selected them rather randomly…just the ones that felt…'special,' I guess. I don't know how to explain them, the constructs themselves aren't my best work by any means, I chose them for the context I created them for. I'm unsure if that's…understandable," Meditat answers apprehensively, seemingly unsure himself. He then immediately murmurs in realization, "Ah, this might be it," before the hologram of the list is exchanged for a larger screen the size of a television which features drawn blueprints of a large pill, with various smaller diagrams and boxes of text connecting them together.

Kokei nods her head as she follows, "No no, I get it, that's actually really neat. It's really cool that you did that, I'd ask about some of these in specific but I don't want to bother you."

Meditat places both of his hands on the table which ignite in flames which then project forth, intricately shaping into defined instruments as Meditat thanks, "I appreciate it, perhaps later."

Kokei reaches the other side of the room by the bed, glancing at the full body mirror beside it for a moment. She then turns to face Meditat before falling back to sit at the edge of the bed, which slightly lowers before bouncing back up, which Meditat turns to face in a sharp glance.

Kokei's eyes immediately widen and she raises both hands before frantically apologizing, "Oh wait I'm sorry I didn't ask, I can get off this if you want!"

Meditat stares at Kokei though his starry eyes show no aggression, only passive confusion if anything, and he passively assures in a gentle voice: "You're fine, I didn't mean to concern you, I apologize. Feel free to rest, it'd be unfair for you to stand alone here." He then turns back to the flame shape, the fires not yet ceasing as he instead continues to pour into them, refining the shape into two distinct half-capsules.

Those half-capsules ultimately materialize with white outer shells, though the flat faces aren't truly flat but instead house various components, oddly shaped instruments connected together by chains of hexagonal multicolored nodes. He extinguishes the flames from his hands to pick up one half and drag it closer to him for keener inspection, all as Kokei places her hands on the edge of the bed and leans back, curiously gazing around the room in silence as Meditat manifests a small tool in his hand resembling a flathead screwdriver which he uses to pry at part of the open face. A small lid flips open upon which he freezes for a few moments, his forehead scrunching as if deep in thought.

Keeping his eyes on the device, he then asks carefully, "If you'd rather not answer this, I understand and respect it, but I have been curious. When…the purge occurred…how did you manage to survive? Did you just not feel anything?"

Kokei places her gaze straight back on Meditat upon the question, startled by the abrupt emergence of such a subject. Meditat reiterates quickly, "Again, you don't need to answer."

Staring dumbfounded at first by the bold question, Kokei snaps herself to attention and shakes her head before assuring, "You're fine, sorry I guess I haven't really told anyone, Dana and Ekitai never really asked. But uh…I mean to be honest I feel a bit hazy about that day so I can't remember everything in detail, and it was all happening so fast. I just remember getting lightheaded, and I feel like I heard a voice talk to me or something, but I can't remember anything after that. I don't know, sorry I don't really remember."

Meditat picks up one of the batteries from the small box on his desk and comforts, "There's no need to apologize. Was it Ekitai or Dana, or just one of the pirates talking to you? I don't mean to pry, if I push too deep just tell me."

Kokei rocks back and forth, pondering for a moment with a low head. Meditat carefully places the battery inside the small compartment under the lid he flipped, and after doing so he then grabs the lid and closes it over the battery, concealing it. He reaches for the second half-capsule until Kokei answers, "I'm…trying to remember…it wasn't Dana or Eki…I don't think I was even near them. I can't recognize the voice…I mean it might've been a pirate, it sounded kind of deep, I don't know. I wish I remembered better, sorry."

Meditat raises the capsule and steadily rotates it to have the open face pointing downwards, bringing it over the other half as he assures gently, "Don't be, you shouldn't need to remember that nor try to. Sorry for pushing you, it's just been on my mind, I've searched far for any reports of other Exhuman survivors but I've found nothing."

Kokei frowns and lowers her head, acknowledging in a somber voice: "Yeah…seems that way…. All those people…they deserved to live…it wasn't fair. It all just seemed to happen out of nowhere too, one minute we were fighting off that endless horde and actually seeming to win, and then everything just fell so quickly…."

Meditat places the half capsule over the other, though he then freezes again before slightly tilting his head down with a frown. He holds the frown in thought for a few moments before processing, "I see…right, you were all left with that swarm, stranded on that mountain, and I wasn't there to help. I tried to get back, but I couldn't find my way. I was worried about all of you…and I was just moving further and further away."

Frowning with her eyes to the floor, Kokei is the one to then ask softly, "What…happened there? You both just vanished and I didn't even see you until the next day when I woke up. I was so afraid of what he, or it, was doing to you. Did they have some teleportation power and just moved you somewhere else?"

Meditat lets out a soft sigh, his head still low in deep thought from where he answers, "Something like that. I mean, at first it was exactly that, they were teleporting me to different Earths, it felt like there was no limit to how far they could go, they even brought me to Earth 1. And then…he started bringing me to places I didn't recognize, like it wasn't even an Earth."

Kokei perks her head up instantly as she listens to Meditat: "There were other planets, like those that once composed the solar system most Earths originated from, like I was in a different universe. And then he kept bringing me to stranger places, places where the laws of physics themselves weren't consistent, and some with sights that were just inexplicable, at some point I was only in each space for a second but I recall these absurd sights, like an outer space enveloped in pink webs."

Kokei suddenly leans forward with wide eyes and abruptly asks in heightened intrigue, "Wait, what?! Like was it just an empty space or, what do you remember??"

Somewhat puzzled by Kokei's sudden excitement, Meditat raises his head to face her with a frown to then answer, "I…don't remember, like I said, it all occurred so quickly. Every time I tried to get control and adapt, I was thrown somewhere else. They were saying all these things…I believe they called these spaces 'dimensions' but I could be wrong, I don't know."

Her forehead scrunching in raised interest, Kokei follows up by asking: "Wait like, so these spaces had their own physics different from ours, did they have their own universes? Like did each of these 'dimensions' have their own bunch of universes?"

Meditat sighs and answers similarly in a tone growing more dreary, "I don't remember…they spoke about universes and dimensions but I don't remember the context. They were messing with me, confusing me between attacks. I had no idea where I was and how to get back, and on top of that, whatever they were, they were indestructible."

His gaze descending to the floor, Meditat's hands slip off the pills, losing focus on his work as he recalls in a despairing voice: "I tried…so hard…I did everything I could to defeat them…and nothing worked. I stopped holding back. I stopped caring about killing them. I stopped caring about what I was destroying. I put away every single inhibiting thought, pushed myself past my limits, everything to defeat this one…monster. And at the peak of it all, they just passed through everything like it was nothing. Even at my best, more than I've ever let myself be, I was nothing." Meditat's hands slowly are placed on his temples as his breathing grows faster and heavier, recounting those events and the thoughts during them, "That was the battle of my life and they were just toying with me, baiting me, until they could use me. And they used me and…and I couldn't stop them and…I couldn't do anything and…," until his shoulders are suddenly grabbed, startling him as that dread becomes bewilderment as he raises his head to find Kokei standing directly in front of him, her eyes watery as she profusely apologizes, "I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking, I didn't mean to dig all of that up, I'm so sorry I'm such a bitch, I'm so sorry that was so fucked up of me."

At once, it was as though Meditat's train of thought was completely snipped off, leaving him blank with his mouth just awkwardly parted, as if just snapping out of a trance. His hands fall to his side and he lowers his head for a moment just to recalibrate himself after which he assures, "You're okay, I just got carried away-."

"No I'm not," Kokei declares shakily, prompting Meditat to raise his gaze to her again, watching her sniffle and clench her teeth in a mixture of grief and anger: guilt. She shakes her head, pushing her words through: "I'm not okay, there's no excuse for me, I don't know what came over me but it was inexcusable. I'm sorry, I went way too far."

His shoulders still being gripped by her hands, Meditat glimpses at both before facing back up at Kokei and justifying, "I started the conversation in that subject matter, which was already a sensitive topic. We were just conversing naturally, really it's not on you, it just happened," as her hands slide off his shoulders.

Kokei straightens her posture as her hands slip to her side, and she stares down at the floor in shame, that shame carried in her voice as she reflects, "No…I wasn't thinking about you. I…haven't been thinking about how it's been for you. All this time you've been pushing through so much pain to lead us, you've been burdening so much pressure on top of all you're already burdening. You've done so much for us…for everyone…while suffering in silence. And while you're doing everything to be as selfless as possible, the very people you're helping find a way to hurt you. That kid in the forest and the way he was treating you despite you going out of your way to help him find his family-."

"Kokei, he was just a kid, we can't hold that behavior over him," Meditat interjects defensively.

"Well I'm not a kid, and I was just like that," Kokei declares out loud as she faces Meditat directly.

Meditat immediately falls silent in complete shock, his mouth left open but without any words to exit.

Standing before him, Kokei's body trembles, her fingers shaking. She clenches her teeth and stares at the floor before pulling her gaze back to Meditat before continuing passionately, "I acted just like that kid, actually no, I was worse, I was so much worse. I acted so much worse to you, the other you, the you who was struggling to keep doing what he knew was the right thing, who was trying to fight against unstoppable threats with everything he could do, who was protecting us when we were supposed to be protecting him. And I just kept…trashing him…insulting him…hurting him. And I was just either too stupid or too cruel to know when to stop, and I just kept pushing him away when he was already dealing with so much. When things were getting worse and he needed support more than ever, I just hurt him more than ever. And I just kept bullying the man who…sacrificed his life for us…," as tears begin leaving her eyes and down her cheeks which she tries wiping away.

Continuously rubbing her eyes as the tears wouldn't stop streaming, Kokei remembers through agonized sobs: "And in the end…I couldn't even…make it up to him. I couldn't…apologize properly for everything I did…I couldn't…do right for him to make up any of it…. And…I'll never be able to."

Both of her wrists are suddenly grabbed and pulled away from her face, exposing her sobbing pink eyes, confused by the unexpected action.

She's more confused to find Meditat standing right in front of her, having lifted himself from his seat. He stares directly at her with a gentle gaze in silence for a few moments, moments stunning her silent too. He then speaks to first admit, "I…know you know this but I'm ultimately not him, I didn't know his final thoughts and…you can't talk to him through me. I can't say otherwise," to which Kokei tilts her head away to break her gaze in rising guilt, her face continuing to water.

"But…with the records I do have, from the logs he left behind to the accounts Orial uploaded, there's a few things I know. For one, he did it to protect you three, because he cherished you three, and he loved you three," Meditat explains, causing Kokei's eyes to widen a bit in shock.

In a demeanor entirely calm, Meditat just keeps his eyes on Kokei as he expands, "There was no guilty obligation, he made his choice, he wanted to. And…I understand why…I haven't had the same time with you two but I understand why he'd make that decision. It wasn't about heroic commitments, it was something personal, and I understand how he came to feel that way."

He then gently releases his grip on Kokei's hands, letting them fall to the side, before he saunters past her and to his bed. Bewildered, Kokei silently turns around to watch Meditat sit at the edge of his bed, not in the center but offset to the left before patting the edge to the right as an invite.

Keeping his gaze on her, Meditat calmly declares: "I'm sorry I brought up that subject to begin with…it's just that…you have no idea how delighted I was to find you safe. I know it doesn't even begin to make up for all the loss, but there was…comfort in knowing that there was another one of us…that I wasn't the only one left," as Kokei ambles to the bed, spins around, and delicately sits down on the edge beside him, no longer tearing.

Side by side, Meditat and Kokei sit at the edge of the bed, leaning forwards as Meditat holds the edges of the bed whereas Kokei holds her hands together on her lap. They both just face blankly ahead, yet they interact as Meditat continues, "I guess even now I still can't believe it, it's an inexplicable blessing in an otherwise absolute tragedy. And I tried to reason it just now…but I realize now that finding logic would do no good. What matters isn't how it happened, but that it did. I…couldn't lose you…we've only had a few missions together and there's…still so many interactions we haven't had. And…I don't know…I admit part of my relief in your survival is the blunt fact that without you I'd be left as the sole Exhuman remaining, but it's more than that."

Facing the far wall, Meditat's eyes sharpen and widen like pulses, processing his own feelings into speech that he can express, "I don't fully understand it myself…but in other ways I feel a certain frequency with you that I haven't shared with others, there's something about you that I relate to, just in the way you carry yourself, I don't have explicit accounts but it's just something I feel. I don't know…I'm not sure if any of that makes sense…."

Next to him, Kokei leans further and turns her head to face him with an expression of what seems like shock, or rather revelation. She just stares at him in silence with parted lips as he keeps his gaze forward.

That stunned expression then shifts into one of a minor guilt different from what's felt before as she grits her teeth with a wince, before it then shifts to a deep apprehension, a conflict of interests within her as her mouth quivers as if words sit at the tip of her tongue yet she's unsure about releasing them. She then shuts her mouth hard with clenched cheeks and gulps, resetting herself with a calmed balance, and after a steady blink she takes in a deep breath to steady her breathing. Her face relaxed, she collectedly asks, "Hey…Meditat…there's something I think I need to tell you…something I should've said long ago, something I shouldn't have kept hidden and lied about for as long as I did. But I can't…well…I don't want to keep hiding it."

Intrigued, Meditat turns his head to meet Kokei's gaze, his eyebrow raised yet he maintains his calm demeanor as he peacefully invites, "You can tell me anything."

Sitting on the bed side by side, Meditat and Kokei gaze into each other's eyes in silence, slightly leaning forwards just about the same angle, lit in balance by the soft light emitting from the walls. Face to face in this moment of serenity, Kokei finally professes: "Meditat, I'm from another-," just as a siren-like ring blares off a small holographic screen that projects in front of Meditat, shocking both of them immediately as they turn their gazes ahead to find a larger screen being projected off him, one that plays a news broadcast currently streaming aerial footage focused down on the familiar silver city, but with the unfamiliar sight of an infestation of contrastingly black roots the thickness of tree trunks densely covering the entire view of the city that the camera captures, with the banner below reading: 'NEST INVASION IN VERSEPOLIS SPACE SQUARE, OFFICIALS DECLARE IMMEDIATE 5 MILE RADIUS EVACUATION.'

Meditat glances at the smaller screen and nods before the screen slightly expands, and the voice of Dana exclaims: "Medit, are you seeing this? It looks like it just happened!"

Meditat grits his teeth, turning back to face the live broadcast before declaring, "Head to the garage with Ekitai, me and Kokei will meet you there and we'll depart immediately. We'll formulate the plan on the way, there's no time to stall."

"Got it, we'll see you there," Dana relays before that smaller screen vanishes, and Meditat waves his hand to close the larger broadcast screen. He crosses gazes with Kokei immediately, and he apologizes promptly: "I'm sorry Kokei, we need to move now. What were you going to tell me?"

Kokei grimaces in anguish, conflicted between two choices and ultimately sighing a defeated breath before surrendering in a disappointed tone, "It…can wait for after. You're right, we can't be stalling right now."

Meditat frowns at the postponement, though he nods firmly in comprehension before pushing forward and standing up to his feet. He steps forward and spins around to face Kokei who stands up, dragging slightly as though let down, to which Meditat promises boldly: "After this is done, we'll continue our conversation, I promise."

Kokei nods her head and accepts, "Okay," before Meditat spins forward and sprints to the bedroom's exit, leading her to run after him with haste.

Outside of the bedroom, Meditat and Kokei march at a brisk pace down the lobby, straight down the middle towards the pad. Behind them, that open doorway's frame emits an azure mist that covers the opening before solidifying, that azure door being the last vertex of the star composed of red, green, sky blue, and purple, standing out in the otherwise white room, as the pillars of heroes remains standing.

Rising up on an elevation pad, one hand grips the fully assembled handgun, intact though the cylinder is popped open, as Ekitai's other hand digs his overcoat's inner pocket to extract a clear flask containing a vibrant orange liquid, the container sized perfectly to fit inside one slot. After securing it in place swiftly, his hand reaches back inside his coat's pocket to pull another flask with a lime green liquid and place it in the next slot, rapidly loading his handgun as the screen under the hammer is now active.

A distant elevation hum soars past the lounge room, whose wide window screen displays the expansive mountain region covered in white snow, as green cannot be seen even to the horizon where the forest reaches. Opposite of that screen, at the far end of the lounge is the doorway to the kitchen, a few dishes left on the countertop including large bowls and plates, along with a baking tray left out.

Waiting on the elevation pad as defined by its hum, Dana rotates her bare hand before her other hand tugs down the black blazer cuff, and the texture of the hand's skin morphs into a metallic gold color to turn the hand into the signature golden appearance. The hand then closes into a fist as the knuckles transform again, now into a cyan-tinted diamond-like texture which shines with its own luminescence. Dana then reverts her hand, the knuckles returning to gold before all the gold returns to skin.

Inside the huge, bright garage sized more like a hangar, Meditat rotates his own bare hands before they both abruptly ignite on azure fire, though those flames swiftly taper to form a thin layer over his hands that then materialize into gloves, the palms of which are a soft white material. Flipping his wrists, the backhands of the gloves are a harder black material, and embedded on the knuckles are frosty crystals neatly cut. His inspection is interrupted upon receiving a tap to the arm, prompting him to turn his head to his right, his wavy hair being tossed from the sharp rotation. 

To his right stands Kokei, currently facing the opposite direction as him, and with her free hand she points down that opposite end which prompts Meditat to spin around. Upon doing so, his starry irises flare just slightly in anticipation, as on the other end of the garage approach both Dana and Ekitai side by side, and in Ekitai's hand is his handgun which he waves in the air before slotting it inside his overcoat's inside pocket.

Ascertaining their imminent approach, Meditat turns around again, facing away from them before raising his right arm up, his hand open. The white palm bursts into a blue flame that he directs forth, the stream reaching about ten feet far before expanding to build the mold of a sedan-type pod given its general shape facing towards them. That shape then refines down to oddly resemble a familiar pod, sleek but not boastful, for it's the precise mold of the pod that had picked up each member of the team and driven them around the Superverse. It then materializes, but rather than a discrete matte black, it returns a flashy blue wrap, not azure but rather cobalt, at least maintaining the singular color for the sleek aesthetic. It already hovers about a foot off the ground in rest.

That is but for a distinct logo printed on the pod's hood, one defined by its shape drawn in golden lines, a geometric composition of five diamonds that fit neatly together with a central, largest diamond in the center and the four others adjacent to its faces, the two at its side long and slim and the two at the top short but wide. The overall shape somewhat resembles that of a knight's shield, or perhaps a sharply angled heart, or perhaps both.

All four doors automatically dematerialize as Dana reaches Meditat's side and Ekitai reaches Kokei's, and as the four face the pod, Ekitai smirks and comments, "I missed this model, I hope you got the engine right."

Meditat nods and remembers, "Right," just before the pod suddenly releases a familiar roar, awakening before that roar tapers to a calmer hum though one still carrying aggression. He drops his arm to his side as Dana focuses on the hood before asking herself, "What's with the sign?"

Meditat turns to face her and shrugs his shoulders before answering, "I used some of my downtime to update some of our systems like the Link network, and somewhere between that I drafted an emblem."

Dana smiles smugly upon that answer, nudging her head towards the logo, exposing Meditat to then admit, "I might've had some inspirations, but I think it's distinct."

Dana shakes her head and strolls to the left front door, waving her hand and remarking, "And here I thought you were doing work, not art."

Meditat smirks back to her before thinking to them all, "Link Bellators, I had other work too."

Immediately, Ekitai and Kokei also turn to face Meditat in shock, and Ekitai's next to think, "Link Bellators, no way, he finally updated the chat name."

Kokei blinks twice and joins, "Link Bellators, heh well now I guess I'll get used to saying the name more."

Dana shakes her head at Meditat's smirk before judging mentally, "Link Bellators, I hope you did more than a rename."

Ekitai waves his hand and mentions in his spoken voice, "Well unless there's more tricks, I'm going to get comfortable in my seat, it better feel the same." Kokei giggles, and after watching him begin to approach the pod to its left back door, she follows but approaches its right back door instead.

Dana begins to follow towards the left front door as Meditat huffs through his nose in a controlled laugh and shakes his head, briefly promising in physical speech: "I'll share the notes later," before then marching to the right front door.

As Dana slides into the front passenger seat, the doors in the back materialize shut as both Kokei and Ekitai have been seated. Kokei watches Meditat climb into the driver seat just as Dana adjusts her posture and lets her door materialize. She then turns to watch Meditat find his own position in the seat, after which he allows his door to materialize shut, completely obstructing any sight of the interior from outside.

In the calm static of the engine's hum breaks a sharp bark, and in the next second the pod begins to ascend, the white lights of the garage reflecting off the blue shell and the golden rays of the emblem. In its gentle ascension, the pod turns completely the other direction as its nose gradually tilts up, shifting the direct rise to an angled rocket. Its nose aims at the ceiling where a huge breach opens in the shape of a diamond, bleeding even stronger white light into the garage, shooting a ray into the fortress.

The pod follows up that ray with a gradual acceleration matched by the hum's growth into a growl, passing through the drift out above The Peak where snowfall begins to leave minor white flakes on the roof and hood. Above all of the forest clad in white so much that it nearly blends with the sky, for it's just exited the tallest mountain in the hundred worlds, the pod continues its climb towards the white skies at an angle not as sharp as previously, for its destination remains within the globe.

That however doesn't mean the pod won't accelerate, for out in the open it quickly accumulates speed, turning that growl into a roar that shoots the pod straight into the white clouds where it proceeds to vanish, breaking a small hole through the blanket, riding off to battle to protect the city that is their home.

For it is the city where it had all begun.

Thus it is only apt for it to be the city where it all shall end.