Ori’un took XJ-V to his quarters as instructed, laying him down and watching him with curious eyes.
The sensation of ruination that filled the Cog was palpable – he felt the phantom pains of his eviscerated limbs and torn innards surge through him. He felt the scars across his chest where the blade of Sheloth had pierced his metal skin.
And behind his eyes, he could still see that mutilated monster’s face. Stalking towards him with utter confidence that His God would grant him victory.
“Ori’un,” he said. “I must look the very picture of failure.”
The giant sat himself on the floor, bringing up his feet in the meditative pose of the Dragon. It seemed some things were never truly forgotten.
“I meant what I said back there,” the Planeswalker told him. “You are more deserving of progressing to the Fourth Level of Corporeal Temperer than many Disciples I have met in my life. You and Feng-Lung, both.”
“Yet I cannot help but think that your test was not entirely altruistic,” the Cog continued, servos stuttering as his repair protocol kicked into high-gear. “You did not come here merely to test two Disciples.”
Ori’un licked his dry lips caked with the dust of the wastes. “No,” he agreed. “I did not.”
He smiled – a grin that was at once contagious and terrifying in equal measure.
“You could have had the strength to defeat the Xu’Jan,” XJ-V said, voice measured but firm. “Even with your connection to the Dao severed as it was. Yet you did not deign to aid us.”
“An Administrator cannot intervene,” Ori’un replied with a nonchalant shrug. “I had faith that you both would prevail. If I didn’t…”
“You would have killed him yourself,” XJ-V finished. “I know this. I have seen how you pass judgement. But you could not have been certain that the Xu’Jan would not have destroyed us.”
The Planeswalker’s smile grew only wider.
“There is much that is not certain,” he said. “But the mists of the Dao are slowly parting before our sight, revealing secrets we could once only guess at.”
“And I acted as your eyes,” XJ-V said. “Through me have you sought the key to unlocking your mysteries, even if I can only guess at what they might be. Perhaps Longhua was right to tell me that I should fear you, Ori’un.”
At this, the Planeswalker bristled slightly, rubbing his chin with the scarred back of his pudgy arm.
He leaned forward and spoke in almost a whisper.
“What do you think, XJ-V?” he asked. “Should we Cultivators simply hoard our knowledge, sitting and Dao-walking in our high mountains like old, ailing men?”
“You know what I think of this,” the Cog replied. “You asked me to make a choice. I made it when the time came.”
“That you did,” Ori’un nodded. “Even as it brought ruin to you. Even as it could have endangered this monastery.”
“It was not my intention to-“
“One’s intention never really matters,” Ori’un interrupted. “Not in the grand scheme of this world. Whether you knew it or not, XJ-V, now something I only suspected has turned out to be true: you have a power within you that is not born of the Dao, but of something else entirely.”
“Yuwa,” XJ-V murmured.
“He’s not dead,” the Planeswalker whispered back, as though the God was watching them through the oval window right now. “It is said in the legends that even Qing could not best Him for good. He could only compel the deity to slumber in the depths of this earth. But legends are legends – they are tales for boys who dream of adventure. This,” Ori’un nodded at XJ-V’s chest. “This is different. This is reality. What you and I saw in the field of Tekal was no illusion. No conjurer’s trick. We saw the light of a God give life to one of His servants who begged to have the power to slay us. And that same light,” Ori’un finished. “Lies at the very heart of your being.”
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There it is, the Cog thought. That’s why you’ve had such interest in me all this time. Was I just a curiosity to you, Ori’un? A means to an end?
“You can kill the light of the Dao with but a thought,” Ori’un said. “It is a power shared by only those of the High Eagle. Whether you like it or not, you’re our best chance at fighting them.”
“That is why I see myself standing beside you in the mists of the Dao,” XJ-V replied. “That is why I saw you approach the monastery and felt the rush of destiny flood through me. At the time, I was paralyzed with terror.”
“And now?” Ori’un asked.
“I am confused,” the Cog said, looking at the rain that had started to hail outside his chamber window. “Why go through the farce of a tournament when you could just take me by force and train me yourself?”
“An astute question,” Ori’un admitted. “But one with two simple answers. One: I happen to value skill and choice. You aren’t just a weapon – you’re a person with your own will. When I first met you I couldn’t know if you were simply another pre-programmed Cog carrying out your Prime Directives. Now I know better. Everyone here does.”
XJ-V sighed in the face of this ‘compliment’. The Planeswalker’s first impressions confirmed that other Cogs out there were not like him. Somehow, this fact made him feel even lonelier than he’d ever felt before.
“And the second reason?” he asked.
Ori’un answered with another impish smirk.
“It’s even simpler. Something distinctly human: Longhua would never give you up unless compelled to.”
“You may have forgotten which Master it is you speak of,” XJ-V said with a sardonic laugh. “Longhua bears no sentimental bone in his body.”
“I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong,” the Planeswalker replied. “I suppose I am forgetting that you are a machine, even if the Dao has opened itself to you. You can’t see what you’ve never had to understand. Whether that’s through your Creator’s intention or something else baked into you by the hand of another, I don’t know. But I can tell you this – Longhua may have begrudgingly welcomed you here before – but now he sees you as his most promising Disciple.”
“Because of this light,” XJ-V snorted. “Nothing more.”
“Wrong again,” Ori’un corrected. “Because past all that metal and all those blinking lights, you’re a Dragon, through and through. Why else would he have come for you, personally? You got the old man to do something I never could, XJ-V: you got him to leave Ramor-Tai for the first time in decades. Disciples have rested their laurels on smaller achievements than that.”
The Cog couldn’t help himself. The Planeswalker’s smile had finally managed to infect him. He was remembering, too, the face of the Master as he appeared before him on the blasted field of the village. He must have stewarded Feng and him home. Out of all eventualities the Dao could have shown him, this one had never even been a consideration.
“There is something you must also have thought of,” he told Ori’un, straightening up and feeling the energy within his breast swirl and swell past its limits. “The Cogs of old were constructs loyal to Yuwa above all else. They were bound to serve him in spite of any affiliations they had with Qing and those humans they served. How do you know I will not suffer the same fate? How do you know I do not currently serve the Lord of Light?”
Ori’un’s smile never dropped. “Do you? Do you feel that Light is yours to command, or are you under its control?”
The Cog looked down at the stuttering remnants of his right arm, sparks beginning to fly from the exposed wiring that poked out from his socket.
“I think we are about to find out,” he said.
Both men looked down to the Cog’s arm and traced the lines of power that stretched out in thin tendrils of luminescence from his core. No noise, no pain, no whirring of servos. It was like a living being reaching out from the Cog’s center and wrapping itself round his broken arm, breathing life into the flickering wires that waited to be restored to functionality.
The Cog’s face strained as he followed the lines, feeling his systems blur as something took over. The same thing that did whenever his repairs were activated. This time, however, the feeling as stronger. He felt his whole being shudder with the power that churned within him – a conflux of energy that spread out like an eagle’s wings.
“By the Dao…” Ori’un murmured.
XJ-V saw his metal skin slowly morph over the wiring, knitting itself back together like it was under the influence of some craven conjurer’s spell.
Then XJ-V fell back against the wall, seeing half of his arm rebuilt before him in a matter of seconds.
He said nothing as Ori’un rose, The last thing he saw was the bemused face of the Planeswalker before he blacked out again.
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