Chapter 5 - Now Reporting In
“So, how exactly are we supposed to get out of here?”
That was the first question that Ignis asked after they exited the colosseum room, emerging from the abyss to step back into the wilds of the Rift Valleys.
As he said that, he shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand, peering upward at the canopy of trees that lay across the gap of the canyon. The light that shone through was dimmer now, a testament to the passage of time that moved forward without their notice.
Gwen’s claws picked at the smooth finish of her staff. “We… go back from where we came?” She replied, a bit confused as to why he was asking.
Ignis dropped his gaze, placing his hands on his hips while giving Gwen an odd look. “This might be a personal thing, but I don’t really fancy taking a trip through Lizard Lane again.” He slowly spun in place, examining the canyon. “Not to mention that we might still get lost underground. It’s better to have some open light to keep track of our surroundings, so we should head down the canyon and see how far it can lead us.”
Gwen could see the sense in that. Back when they were traversing through the ravine, she found that it was hard to keep track of how long they had been walking. And that wasn’t taking into account the sudden rush she had pulled him along for. Any chances of them marking their way back were obliterated in that one move, and now they had to rely on luck to get home.
Luck that was not coming for them, as it had been expended several times over the past few hours.
“I suppose that plan should suffice.” Gwen peered up at the tree bridges above. “Do you think we’d have to climb up the rockface?”
“If we have to climb up using rocks that sharp, then I’d rather turn back through the cave systems.” The boy began to stretch, warming up his tired body for the long haul back. “Unless your sudden influx of memories has anything to do with rock climbing?”
He asked that half-heartedly, but Gwen decided to check her new repository anyway. There were little vestiges of knowledge tucked away in corners of her mind, and rifling through what remained so few took less than an instant.
“No, they are primarily centered around the functionalities of the White Tower,” Gwen said. “How the teleporter works, the architecture of the underground room, and the location of the entrance are all etched in my mind, but they’re… incorporeal?”
Ignis shot her an incredulous look. “What?”
“No, not incorporeal. I meant–” She struggled for the words to describe what lived in her head. “Impersonal! It’s like remembering how a machine works. I have the information that tells me all its inner workings, but none of the memories of how I learned it and how it relates to my experiences.”
“So, you remembered what you learned in science class, but you don’t remember being in science class.” Ignis construed.
“Yes.” Gwen latched onto his simple metaphor. “That.” But what was science class?
Despite his quick understanding of what she was conveying, Ignis seemed quite off-put. “Is that how amnesia works?” He inquired of no one. “Is that how the brain just picks itself up again?”
“I regained these memories after following a magical call to my instincts, which then led us to a very large gateway that no one has discovered, that also connects to a mysterious tower via ancient teleportation.” Gwen then shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, when you put it like that, it’s sorta weird.” Ignis glanced up again, squinting against the sunlight. “Kind of wish Maya was here right now.”
“Maya?” Gwen tilted her head at him. “Is that a friend of yours?”
“She would be, but she’s being paid to spend time with me, so the correct designation is ‘bodyguard’.” Ignis grinned, slightly cheeky. “You know how I have this whole ‘rebellious prodigal son constantly against the authorities’ thing going on?”
Not in as many words, but Gwen nodded regardless.
“Well, there’s only so many times you can break the rules before your parents start to negotiate with you under the table. Dad couldn’t stop me from leaving Cassius, so he decided that the next best thing was to have someone ready to drag me back to Cassius.” Ignis took on a sarcastic drawl at that. “And Maya was the bodyguard he decided on. She’s part of the Dragoon Corps, a trainee still, but she’s better than the others already promoted to Privates and she has an Instrument. Getting out of here would be a piece of cake with her around.”
As Ignis’ rant about his bodyguard-friend(?) ran through Gwen’s thought processes, she discerned something very crucial about this Dragoon trainee.
“If this Maya was supposed to accompany you and bring you back to town, doesn’t that mean she’s been looking for us all this time?”
Ignis immediately opened his mouth to dismiss this question, but a split second later, crushing awareness and instant regret sucker-punched him in the face. “Oh God, you’re right,” He said with mounting horror. “Our deal– Shit, she’s gonna be so pissed.”
“You better snuffing believe I’m pissed!”
Both Gwen and Ignis flinched as a shrill and utterly annoyed shout blasted them from above. Gwen had no clue who it was and was merely reacting to the scream itself. Ignis, however, looked like he was half-ready to step into his own grave.
“Can you believe how long it took to find you?! I lost your scent halfway and ran around all stupid looking, like a half-eaten canary! I told you not to go out today! I had a salary negotiation, Ignis!”
“I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you!” Ignis retorted, his terror taking a backseat to his usual temperamental energy. “But I had a good reason to be out here this time, so will you fuckin’ stuff it for five seconds and just look over into the canyon?! ”
The sound of shuffling leaves and wooden thumps echoed from overhead, prompting Gwen to turn her gaze upward. The shrill shouter was no longer a mere disembodied voice, for the source of those high volumes was now leaning over a tree bridge, glaring at Ignis with the fury of a thousand suns.
“What?! What in the spark could be so important that you went back on our–”
Then that girl’s glare shifted slightly to the right, and all the wind in her lungs sputtered out. Her mouth was agape, her entire countenance now horribly mortified at the sight of Gwen’s third wheeling.
At the sight of her expression, Ignis just let out a sigh. “Yeah, she’s the main reason, but we’ve got another.” He gestured behind him. “Can you come down? I think you’d wanna see this.”
“U-Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m- I’m coming.”
And with that, she disappeared from view, no doubt trying to find a way down to them.
“...Are you sure you’re friends?” Gwen asked now that the rage match was over, looking quite baffled. “You seemed really mad at each other.”
“Well, I sort of deserved it. I broke a promise. Not that I regret escorting you.” Ignis huffed, expelling the remnants of his irascibility before smiling. “Besides, she’s just worried. I don’t usually make a habit of snubbing my friends, so the fact that I did probably rings so many warning bells in her head.”
Gwen wasn’t sure how to scrutinize that. In her short lifetime, ‘worry’ was something gingerly handled, whether through awkward questions or gentle concern.
Then she recalled the fight they had with the undead when a stinging shock lanced through her heart at the sight of Ignis about to be tackled off the edge. She also remembered their chase through the caverns, where her wish to ensure his safety bubbled over like a spilling pot.
‘Worry’ could be an itching thrum in the heart, but it could also be a furnace blazing in one’s chest. A feeling so intense that it inspired compassion either way.
“I see,” Was all she said though. She didn’t know how to express these inner revelations. “How do you suppose she’ll be getting down?”
Ignis pointed upward at the sky.
“By jumping,” He said.
“...Huh?”
And that was the moment a meteor crashed down in front of them.
No, not a meteor, Gwen realized after a miniature heart attack. It was the person she saw earlier, the one that had been screaming at them only moments before. Ignis’ friend and bodyguard, a girl named Maya.
Immediately, Gwen’s gaze was drawn to Maya’s ears and tail, which were reminiscent of a fox’s in every way except their color, the same shade of rosy pink as her hair. She was wearing Guardian armor, with pauldrons and vambraces and greaves made of steel and bronze, capped off with a custom-designed helmet meant to accommodate her protruding ears. Strangely, apart from those pieces, the rest of her outfit was made of lightweight clothing, with her only accessory being a yellow cravat.
She was also shorter than Gwen, discounting the ears.
“Alright, I’m down here now,” the fox girl said, expertly reorienting herself off the giant lance she used to plunge herself into the ground. “Ignis, you– Should have told me that you had company!”
It was obvious that Maya switched mood gears mid-way, but Gwen was mostly reeling as to how she wasn’t injured from that stunt. The ground had a crater in it now! Her hands should be liquified from the recoil!
“Yeah, well, you didn’t give me much of a chance to do introductions,” Ignis snarked. “But speaking of them, Gwen, meet Maya. Maya, meet Gwendolyn.”
“...Pleasure,” Gwen said slowly.
“...Same,” Maya echoed back.
Either completely oblivious or willfully ignoring the awkward tension between the two, Ignis sauntered over to Maya’s side and put a hand on her shoulder. “This probably isn’t a great reason, but Gwen is that girl I kept visiting at the hospice last week. She has amnesia, but she had an inkling that her memories were somewhere in the Rift Valleys. I ran into her by coincidence and decided to go with her because she wasn’t gonna step down on going, even if it was by herself. Basically, I was doing your job for another person.”
Maya seemed confused, but her small sigh belied exasperated acceptance. “That explains why you’re out here, at least.” Then she pointed behind them. “How does that relate to the giant gaping abyss over there though?
“That’s what she was looking for,” Ignis explained. “Now, suspend this disbelief, but… That’s not a cave. That’s another entrance to the White Tower.”
Flabbergasted. Shocked. Slightly murderous. Very incredulous. All the appropriate reactions to being on the other end of a bombshell drop. “You’re dissin’ me.”
“No, I’m very much not,” The boy replied. “If you go down there, you’ll enter a colosseum that segways into a humongous pillar room with a Yantra at the center, big enough to take up entire parties. It connects to Ground Zero. It doesn’t matter that we’ve several miles away from it, we can enter the White Tower at any time.”
“...God, you’re serious.” Maya breathed. She then turned to Gwen, who was startled at suddenly being given attention. “Uh, you, Gwendolyn! Is this real?! Is what he’s saying true?”
Gwen pursed her lips, her skin prickling at Maya’s searching gaze, but she soon found the strength to lift her head and nod. “It’s all true. We discovered it together when the White Tower’s call led me here.”
Compulsory distrust stained May’s face at her confirmation, but after one last glance at Ignis’ confident demeanor, it melted away into pure astonishment. Her eyes went wide, and her hands covered her mouth as if preparing to stifle a scream. Desperate hope and pure awe was blossoming into full bloom, and despite their lack of familiarity with each other, Gwen’s heart warmed at the sight.
‘We did something good.’ It was one thing to say it, but it was another thing to see it. And from the way Ignis was glowing with joy, it seemed like he felt it too.
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And even when the wonder finally ebbed away for well-drilled professionalism, Maya’s renewed enthusiasm was palpable in every swish of her tail. “Right then!” She affirmed, gripping the shaft of her oddly-built lance. “We need to report this to the higher-ups straight away! Grab my hand, one of you. I’ll get us out of here in a jiffy!”
“How will this work exactly?” Gwen asked as Ignis unhesitantly placed his hand in Maya’s care.
“I’m a Dragoon trainee,” Maya said, a new friendliness to her. “We may not have swords or shields or even some tougher armor, but we do get one special privilege.”
The fox girl bent her knees like she was getting ready to pounce. She kept her sights on the sky above, and as Ignis visibly began to brace his every muscle, Gwen felt a stirring shift envelop them.
“And that's…”
Something had changed. The world had changed and Gwen could almost taste it.
“INSTRUMENTS!”
There was no crack and certainly no thunderclap, but when Maya jumped with Ignis in tow, the earthly laws warped, and Gwen watched as they flew.
Gravity took its leave of them, their launch into the skies above less an exertion of strength and more like the wind catching beneath the wing flaps of a bird. With deft handling to make any acrobat green with envy, Maya jabbed her lance tip into the closest tree bridge and spun around it like a vaulting pole, bringing Ignis’ feet back down on the bark.
“Thanks!” The boy gave a thumbs up to her, receiving a nod in return before she flipped back over the tree bridge, pulling her lance free with the motion.
And as Maya floated down like a sinking balloon, all Gwen could do was stare, utterly astounded. It was incomparable to Ignis’ magic, which burned with the light of his passionate principles and his defiance against fate. To her infant senses, Maya’s magic was more calculated, a deliberate bid for control. The world did not simmer so much as it contorted, its own natural laws were rewritten to make way for exceptions.
Was this what all magic felt came across as? These phantom manifestations of ascendancy, changing the fundamental truths of what should be?
“Amazing…” That was all Gwen could say to that. Her words reached the ears of Maya just as she touched down, causing the therianthrope to flush proudly.
“Thank you, but it’s nothing special,” The Guardian said modestly. “Any Dragoon with enough training could do it. We’re Reasoners. Practice is what we preach.”
“It’s special to me,” Gwen contended. “I’ve never seen anyone fly before.”
“O-Oh! No, Gwendolyn, what I’m doing isn’t flight. It’s physics.” At Gwen’s confuddled explanation, Maya absentmindedly launched into an explanation. “You see, the Dragoons teach all their recruits about weight distribution and velocity control and– I think I’m losing you, so I’ll say it like this: I can control the gravitational effects of anything I touch, but I can’t control my directional momentum. That’s what the gun’s for.”
There were many details to digest from that monologue, but one, in particular, stood out to her. “What’s a gun?”
Maya barked out a laugh, exposing the little fangs that stuck out amongst her teeth. When all Gwen did was blink in response, her mirth died a slow death. “...Oh, you’re serious?”
“I have amnesia.”
“Ah. That sucks.” Redolent of another guardian she knew, Maya glanced away awkwardly. “...Want me to show you?”
She stuck out her hand.
Gwen was slightly hesitant about where this was going, but as always, curiosity won her over. “Sure,” she said. Taking the hand offered to her, Gwen gripped the limb tightly, thankfully not needing to be hyper-aware of her claw tips like she was with Ignis.
Maya gave her a half-reassuring grin as a thrum snaked its way over her skin, a feeling that made her teeth shiver in her jaw. The dissonance, the twisting of reality’s regulations rooted themselves in her mind like the press of a hot iron. Now a subject of its influence, the perfect narration for it inscribed itself to life.
‘A world imposing on another. The collision and combination of two planetary entities.’
How scary. How alienating.
How… familiar?
“Hang on!” Maya said, snapping Gwen out of her reverie. She barely tightened her grip in time before they were suddenly soaring, the wind rushing down their backs as they hurtled into open skies.
Gwen pressed her lips together, trying to keep her fright from escaping. But there was no way she could stay silent after they overshot the tree bridge where they were going?!
“Maya!” She shouted in lieu of flailing, her panic rising as they began to breach the canopy. “Maya, please!”
“Calm down, Gwendolyn,” Maya said, cool as a cucumber. “You wanted to see a gun in action, right? Well, here you go.”
Before Gwen could even think about responding to that, the wide barrel attached to Maya’s lance spun and clicked. Pointing the weapon at the rapidly approaching leaves, the fox girl angled their bodies and–
BANG!
A high-pitched scream rose out of Gwen when a powerful shot launched them downward, their bodies flipping all the while. Maya laughed openly at her reaction, a veneer of slight mockery to her mirth as she stabbed the lance into the tree bridge, anchoring them properly. “Land ho~” She sang, dragging Gwen back down to her hooves. “You have arrived at your destination.”
The white-haired girl was panting heavily, cold sweat running down her back. “I hate guns.” She decided then there, prompting another round of laughter from Maya as well as Ignis, who they had finally rejoined.
“I figured that’d be your reaction,” Maya said, scooting around the scene of Ignis helping Gwen from getting shaky-legged. “Now come on. We’re a long way from home with urgent news on our backs, let’s book it!”
“I don’t want to book it…” Gwen mumbled helplessly.
Ignis, her wonderful savior, could only shrug at that. “I don’t think she’s giving us a choice, Gwen.”
Maya laughed again, a horrible omen for the journey to come.
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“...And that’s all we have to report, sir!”
So said Maya, her arm bent in a salute. At her left and right were Gwen and Ignis respectively, the former staring intently at the floor while the latter put on his best unimpressed face. Though tired and aching and certainly bruising by this point, all three of them had agreed that the news of a second gateway to the White Tower was worth reporting on immediately, and took a detour straight to the Mayor’s Office the moment they got back to Cassius.
A decision every single one of them kind of regretted now, for each their own reasons. Even Maya, the most outwardly enthusiastic of them, sported a despondently limp tail as smiled with her salute.
The Mayor himself, who had just finished hearing out their story, had his hand pinching his glabella as if staving off a migraine. “That is… quite the claim, Cadet Angelou.” He took off his glasses and started to clean them, even though they were quite clear already. “And you three are… absolutely certain that this was the White Tower?”
“There’s no other place like Ground Zero, Dad,” Ignis retorted defiantly, the tension between him and the mayor palpable to anyone with basic empathy. “We were inside the White Tower. If we went over to Ascalon City right now and asked for witness testimonies from the Explorers inside, I’d guarantee you they would talk about two kids appearing out of a Yantra that doesn’t exist.”
“We need to cover our bases, Ignis. I cannot make fraudulent claims to the public, no matter how much I want to give them hope.” Mayor Reddington placed his spectacles back on his face, folding his hands. “Since we have three eyewitnesses, we can launch a secondary investigation to gather hard evidence. Photographs and proof of concept. If we can gather that, then we can prove the legitimacy of our claims to the Explorers and spread the news through official channels. If Dandelion were here, I’d ask her to investigate and use her network to pass on the information, but…”
“...She’s barely around.” Ignis finished, crossing his arms. “Neither of us can blame her for that though. She has to go all the way to Ascalon just to make enough money to keep the help around at home. And that’s not even talking about the time dilation…”
“I wish you were half as understanding with me as you are with your mother,” Mayor Reddington half-heartedly complained before straightening up. “Regardless, we will use what we have available to seize the opportunity before us. Cadet Angelou. Ignis. As the ones who discovered this second gateway, you will head this operation and be sent borrowed equipment from the Aureate Publishing House. Please take into possession as much proof as possible.”
The two aforementioned operation heads shared a glance, before turning their attention to the neglected third member of their party.
“Sir?” Maya asked, pointing at the white-haired girl beside her. “What about Gwendolyn?”
Gwen quickly tore her gaze off the floor at the mention of her name, turbulent emotions masked beneath a veneer of simple surprise.
“Gwendolyn?” The mayor repeated, pinning the girl down with his stare. “She’s an amnesiac. A civilian patient in the care of the captain. Unlike Ignis, who has an honorary membership within the guardian ranks, Gwendolyn has no jurisdiction to go out there again.”
Ignis’ temper visibly flared, and at the sight of his son’s expression, Mayor Reddington sighed. “Do not mistake me. She has contributed greatly to Cassius and she will be rewarded accordingly. I am simply saying that in her current condition, she has less right to this mission than even a civilian researcher. At least a researcher could defend themselves properly.”
Maya’s ears stood up straight beneath her helmet, her smile practically painted on to hide the sympathetic pain she felt at his statement. Ignis, in contrast, had no reservations about marching up to the Mayor’s desk and slamming his hands down on its surface.
“Oh come on, Dad!” He said viciously. “I know that you’re trying to look out for her and that you’re concerned about her health, but these are her memories. You can’t just keep her from at least trying to get back everything she’s lost.”
“Now you listen to me!” The volume of the Mayor’s voice heightened, causing everyone in the room to flinch. “Your compassion has always been your biggest strength, Ignis. But in this case, I cannot abide by your recklessness. Gwendolyn is in a delicate state; with her amnesia, she might as well be two weeks old! Are you asking me to place the burden of keeping her safe and alive on a constant basis on both of you?!”
“Respectfully sir,” Maya interjected brightly without an ounce of respect. “That’s my entire job description. You know, the one that lets the officers keep me from getting promoted? She’s also survived the journey there and back again with us as escorts, so putting our abilities into question is a moot point.”
“That is not the issue–”
“Then what is the issue, Dad?”
“You are to tell me that you want to stress this veritable infant of a girl? You want to lead her into danger, into the White Tower, where even the strongest of our people can die alone and out of reach? I will not have you making hasty decisions–”
“Why do you keep doing this?!”
A soft, long-forgotten voice amongst the crowd finally shouted out, unleashing waves of distress so tangible they may as well have been run over by a solid train. The arguing trio turned back to face the source of such distress, seeing for themselves the sight of ethereal, otherworldly, radiantly pale Gwen…
Splotched with heaving red.
“Every time…” She stuttered, the words croaking in her throat. “Even back then, when I couldn’t answer those questions, you made a decision about me before I could say anything! I know that it's dangerous and I know that I will get hurt – it’s already happened! But you can’t just- you can’t just… You can’t do this!”
All of the turmoil and anguish that re-emerged in the Mayor’s presence suddenly rushed out, her cries of sorrow spilling forth in a fashion not dissimilar to a toddler’s pain. The ways to communicate her feelings were lacking, but the weight of it, the agony, was still unbearably real.
“Stop this! Stop this all!” She continued to rage, unheeding the way reality itself seemed to burgeon with her despair. “Stop making me a burden! Stop talking like I don’t matter! I have the answers you wanted, don’t I?! So please…”
With pleading, tear-stained eyes, she looked up at them.
“Don’t leave me alone again…”
As her final declaration hung in the air, silence invaded the room, filling every corner with a tense and unendurable atmosphere. Mayor Reddington and Maya had long since looked away, both of them shame-faced, if for very different reasons. The cause of this incident, Gwen, was standing off on her own, shuffling away from everyone like it was her that pushed them to this point, and not the actual perpetrator.
And Ignis?
Bold Ignis, brave Ignis, always ready to pick up a thrown glove Ignis… Saw the withering image of the girl who told him his hard-won efforts had meaning, and walked away from his father.
He did not rise to injustice. He did not confront or judge the already cowed authority.
He simply stood by Gwen, took up her hand, and moved to leave.
“I think we’re done talking for today,” he told the others. A firm decision that left no room for denial. “Maya, come on.”
The fox girl jumped at the call, but only needed to take one look at the pair about to leave to know where she’d be going. “Alright. Later, Mr. Mayor.”
After casually demoting the mayor from ‘sir’ to ‘Mr. Mayor’, Maya went out first, pushing the door so that it stayed wide open for the two following behind.
“Let’s go, Gwen.” Ignis gently tugged her along, not even disguising the double meaning in his words. “I know a cafe with some really good hot cocoa. Maya and I go to it all the time after we get back to Cassius, so that’ll make you part of the tradition. Have you ever had hot cocoa before?”
A small shake of the head from Gwen, who gripped the hand holding herself with careful fierceness as they left the Office.
“Well, I think you’ll love it. The barista lets you ask for marshmallow refills if you want them, so take as much as you like…”
Those were the final words that Mayor Reddington heard before the pair went out of hearing range. It wasn’t a grand plan, but it was a comforting one, tailored for a girl barely moments away from openly weeping. The utter lack of commiseration against the offending party and the absence of ardent rallying of the downtrodden was unlike Ignis, who had a fire so bright he enveloped everything around him.
But here and now, for a girl he barely met, that flame was but a single candlelight in the night. Small but considerate, a perfect match for Gwen, whose entire world was but darkness.
‘He didn’t glare at me,’ Mayor Reddington realized belatedly, after shutting the door that the teenagers had neglected to close behind them. ‘He didn't glare at me despite it getting this bad.’
It was a low standard. A rope that had long fallen out of the heavens to descend to the earth, but the fact that it happened at all… Gave that foolish, shame-faced mayor a little bit of hope.
‘Perhaps I do need to go easier on that girl…’