I have no idea how this works, so I just start by pushing some mana into the coin. It... goes right through. I actually feel my mana push through the coin and come back out into my other finger. The coin seems to heat up a little though? But once I stop it goes back to normal... So I try holding it between a finger on each hand and do it again. My mana passes through the coin, from one hand to the other. And a bit of heat again. Is that it? All it does is let mana go through? I start to panic a little, but stop myself, taking a few slow breaths.
I can't just leave it there, I need to think it through better. Every other strange object had some kind of special thing that it would do. Like my divine gear lighting up, or the divine totem connecting me to Reena. Does a nuvrite coin not have any special function like those do? Or does it getting a bit warm count?
Maybe I'm just not using enough mana. Take another deep breath, holding it close and letting more mana flow through. A stream rather than a trickle. I feel The Reeb suddenly move again, but I can feel it much more distinctly now that I'm focusing on it. It's not moving on its own, it's just getting dragged along by the flow of my mana as I move more of it at once. It feels like it's being sucked toward the coin with the flow of my mana. I have no idea what will happen if it tries to go through, so I quickly stop.
I've never tried controlling my mana like this before, but I've gotten a bunch of practice moving it around lately since I've been hitting The Reeb with it all day. I try to split my attention a little. I hold some in place around The Reeb so it won't move around, and let the rest of my mana flow, sending a good amount moving through the coin. Dividing my attention is actually easier than I expected.
This time I realize something new. The amount I'm sending into the coin doesn't match the amount coming back out. At least some of the mana is being used up. But what is it being used up for? I don't know, and I don't even know how I would go about figuring it out. But then something actually happens. Except... I'm not really sure what. It feels like something hits the coin and my hand. I stop, then hear a small thump as something falls on the floor in front of me. I pick it up, only to find my little improvised cloth bag. Wasn't this stuffed into my robe?
I... might have discovered something? I don't really know. "Let's try again..." I breathe the words to myself. I hold the coin in one hand above the little bag on the floor. I let my mana flow and the bag suddenly jumps up and sticks to the coin!
I pull on the bag, and it actually resists a little before I pull it off the coin. I can feel it pulling back toward the coin even as I hold it. I move it away and the force fades until it disappears entirely. Then I bring it back and it is attracted again.
Actually, there's one other thing. When I hold them close together, some of my mana comes back... different. It's like The Reeb, where it doesn't exactly match all my other mana. But also not like The Reeb. It isn't completely different, only... sort of different...
I take a closer look, poking around the new mana that feels much more similar to mine than the completely strange feeling The Reeb gives. It feels kind of... light? Like a sort of pure white sunlight or something? I sort of get the impression that it's pushing away the rest of my mana around it. But... the mana only changes when I hold the bag close to the coin? I have no idea what sort of change it's causing, why the mana is suddenly different, so I stop after a few moments. Since light mana feels like it's pushing the rest away, I try... kind of doing the opposite. I push my mana into it, clumsily swishing it all around the changed stuff and surprisingly, the weird lightness of it seems to mix in with the rest of my mana and fade away. As I do, I think I can kind of start to feel the individual bits of mana getting mixed back in. Whatever is happening, it's a relief that it's reversible.
With one less thing to worry about, I turn my attention back to the coin and the bag. What in the world is happening here? Pushing my mana through this coin causes it to attract the bag, and change my mana in the process? Wait, maybe it's the other metal in the bag having some reaction, not the bag itself. Everything else that interacts with mana seems to be metal so far. Well... I'm not so sure what my divine gear is made of, but the divine totem certainly looked like metal...
I carefully untie the small bag and deposit the contents on the floor. This is really hard since I can't see anything. I try not to lose the tiny specks of metal and rust in the dark as they sit on the cloth. Since the effect seemed to be affected by distance, I hold the coin close to the little things and use a smaller amount of mana. Since it gets used up when I'm doing this and I don't have an endless supply, there's no reason to waste it unnecessarily.
I pass a little mana through the coin, so hopefully the effect will be small. But right next to the bit of metal and rust, I see that they both react immediately. And I actually see it, because one of them starts to glow.
"What?" I hear Aiden say suddenly. Even the tiny speck of light is plenty to see by after we've been sitting in this pitch black room for so long. "What is that?" He asks. Now that I can see him, I find that Aiden looks maybe nine years old, and has a messy head of blond hair so bright I can even tell in this darkness.
"Umm, I think I figured something out." I answer. I rub the glowing thing between my fingers. Judging by the smooth, round surface, this one is the tin. I look at the coin. The bit of rust is stuck to it. So both things react completely differently? Tin glows and rust is attracted? I have no idea why these things have these specific reactions. Moving the tin a little, I easily determine that the glowing tin is the source of my mana changing. Which fits... I think?
"What did you figure out?"
"Uhh, it's really hard to explain, but I found a way to use a nuvrite coin to make a tin ball glow. Sorry, I can't really keep it up forever though." I doesn't feel like I'm using that much mana, but who knows what might happen if I run out? Is there any way to get more? Whenever I checked my divine gear in the past, my mana only ever went down, so I should at least try not to be too careless. I slowly let the light go out. I'm surprised just how low I can keep the trickle of mana through the coin when the two metals are placed directly against each other, but I would rather save it for some time we might actually need the light.
"I don't understand, how?"
"Sorry, I think it's something only I can do with them, so I can't really explain it. But as far as I can tell, I can get this coin to interact with different things in different ways. Mostly metal things though."
"Metal things? Then why not try it out on the door hinges? Maybe we can break them or something?"
"What are door hinges?" I ask. I wrap the rust in my cloth and stuff it back into my robe, but keep the coin and tin in my hand.
"Over here, give us some light." I reassure Jenny I'll be right over there, then he takes me to the door, where I light up the room again. He points at two metal things at the top and bottom of the door. "These are hinges, they attach the door to the wall." One side connects to the door, the other to the wall next to it. There's a round cylinder in the middle, which looks like it's made up of a few different pieces. So that's how doors can swing open like they do... I never noticed them before. "If we can't open the door from this side, maybe there's some way to break the hinges to knock the door down!" Standing alongside the door, he kicks hard into one of the hinges. Even with a loud metal bang, it doesn't budge at all. Metal is really amazingly durable. Wait, now isn't the time for that, we need to find some way to break this durable metal!
"Looks like iron, there's no way we can break this..." Aiden mutters. "Is that coin trick of yours any good on it?"
"I don't know, let's see what it does..." I hold the coin up to the lower iron hinge, and push my mana harder. The light flares brighter as I do, and immediately, a new color of mana begins to come back. Surprised, I stop, and the light goes out.
"What is it?"
"Ah, sorry. Just uh, give me a bit to... figure something out."
"O...kay?" He doesn't understand my hesitation, but I'm flying blind here, just trying things out without any idea what the results might be. I can't let myself be stolen since I need to go into combat. And I definitely can't let them be kidnapped. I'm supposed to protect people! So I'll do anything I can think of to get us out.
I take a few moments to look inward again. Mixed in with the white light type mana, now there's a kind of brownish, dirt, earth-like feeling mana. It feels surprisingly sturdy where it collides with my normal... colorless mana, I guess I should call it. It's even easier to feel the individual bits of mana since they all seem really durable. I try pulling on them some and get them to move like the colorless does, though it's harder. I break them all up and mix them around with my other mana, feeling the odd earthen feeling fade away. It takes more time and effort than the light mana though since it's really sturdy and harder to control. It must have come from the iron, the way the light mana comes from the tin. Like, by doing whatever I'm doing to it, it's also changing the mana in exchange. Depending on how much time and effort this takes, it might take a while to turn all the brown mana colorless again...
"Ok, I think I've got it. I'll try it on the iron hinge at the bottom. Try kicking it and see if it's any easier to break."
"Got it."
This is a long shot of course, I have no idea what effect it might have on the iron. On the small chance it makes it softer or more brittle or something, it's worth a shot. So I push my mana through once more. The tin lights up, but the iron doesn't visibly do anything. I hold it closer and push harder while Aiden lines himself up to kick it again. Suddenly, the coin feels grows really hot, but flies out of my fingers before it can even burn me or anything. The light goes out as a loud metallic clang rings through the room. It sounds like the coin hit the hinge suddenly.
Jenny squeaks out a scared voice behind us.
"What happ-"
"Shh!" I silence Aiden as he begins to speak. I listen closely. But I don't hear the coin hit the floor. We have no light without it. At least I still have the tin, but I need the coin. I listen for where it lands after it bounces off of the hinge, but instead hear a faint scraping sound. It only lasts a moment before it stops, and I hear the coin bounce off the floor right in front of me. That took way too long. Was it... stuck to the hinge or something?
I pick up the coin. Questioningly, I touch it back to the hinge. It sticks with some force, like the bit of rust did earlier. "What the..." It's the same thing as earlier, but now the iron is doing it without any mana? I can't find any pattern to these things, they seem so random. Just to double check, I pull out the bit of rust and hold it up to the iron, feeling it attract to the hinge as well, but a lot stronger. It actually sticks right to it and doesn't fall back to the ground. So it really is the same thing.
"Umm, I think I made the hinge... attract other metal things?" And rust. Didn't Gremory say rust isn't metal?
"What does that mean?
"I don't really know." He makes a grumbling sound like he doesn't get it, but neither do I. I'm just trying anything I can think of. I take the coin and relight the tin, careful to keep them away from the hinge. It seems that it made it attract metal rather than weakening it or something. "What else can I try..." I mutter. I look closely at the hinge in the light, moving it around to get a good look at it. How does a hinge work exactly? It clearly has separate parts, so maybe I can take advantage of that to make it fail rather than trying to break it by force.
It connects to both the wall and door with nails, those could be a weak point if I had some way to pry them out. Maybe the attraction from the coin would be enough? I hold the coin up to a nail and crank up my mana output. The coin gets painfully hot and pins my hand to the hinge, directly over the nail. It looks like it attracts both things to each other. I try pulling, but my arms are so tired after the day I've had, I have almost no strength to pull at all. After trying fruitlessly, I stop. All I'm accomplishing is wasting mana and flooding myself with earth mana in the process. And maybe burning myself if I keep that up for too long at once.
"I think we might be able to pull the nails out by attracting them together, but I'm not strong enough. Do you think you can do it?" I ask Aiden.
"Sure, leave it to me," he taps his chest confidently. I give him the coin. Without any light, I only hear him moving around for a bit. "Looks like it sticks to the nail like you said..." I hear him pulling a bit, but then he says, "They don't stick together that much. It just pulls away from the nail before the nail comes out."
"That's right, they attract more when I use my mana..." I say.
"Mana?"
"Ah! Don't worry about it." Did I really just say that without thinking? I shake my head. "Here, I'll try using the coin, can you help me pull?"
"Sounds good." He gives me back the coin and I hold it up to the nail again. I hold it so it pins my hand to the hinge lightly once more. Then Aiden stands close at my side and grabs my hands.
"Ready?" I ask.
"Yeah."
"And... Pull!" I force my mana through in a powerful flow and we both heave with all our strength. It feels like the hot coin and nail are going to crush through my hand as we pull. Earth mana floods through as we lean into it and keep pulling. Then all at once, we lurch backward as the resistance disappears. We topple to the floor together and I hear a metal clang skitter across the floor. "I think we got it?" After we get back up unsteadily from the floor, we find the nail lying halfway across the small room. That's one of the three that hold each hinge to the wall.
"Just eleven nails to go," I say to myself.
"It's tough, but we can do this," Aiden says confidently.
"We can get out? I can see my Mommy again?" Jenny asks.
"Yeah, just give us some time and we can do it," he replies with clear determination.
"Just leave it to us," I chime in happily. We're going to get out of here, this is great!
We quickly return to the door to get to work on the other nails. However, the door suddenly swings open and we freeze in place behind it. Another child stumbles into the room and the door slams shut. Together, we release our held breaths.
----------------------------------------
"Hey, who's there?" A girl's voice asks.
"Don't worry, I'm Aiden, this is Aria, and Jenny." Aiden responds, even though we can't see.
"What's happening? Are they kidnapping kids?" the girl asks.
"Yeah, looks like it, but we're getting out of here."
"Really? How are we going to do that?" she asks skeptically.
"Aria has some weird powers, we're using them to get out."
"Weird powers?" she asks even more skeptically.
"More or less," I explain, "I can use a nuvrite coin to do various things with metal. We're using it to pull the nails out of the door hinge."
"And how is that going?"
"We've gotten one so far, we need eleven more," I explain.
"We only need to take off the ones on the wall, so it's just five more nails," Aiden corrects me.
"Oh, that's great, I didn't realize that." I respond.
"Hmm, so we really are getting out of here?" the girl asks with just a bit of hope this time.
"Yeah," we both answer together.
"Well, I'm Mary, is there anything I can do to help?"
"Wait, Mary?" I take the coin and use it to light up the tin so we can see. It's been a few months, so I didn't remember her by her voice, but when I see her, I realize this is the first Mary I met. "Wow, it is you!" I exclaim.
"Wunay?!" She jolts.
"I'm called Aria now, but yeah." But she immediately backs up to the far wall.
"My Mom told me about you!" As soon as she says that, I know my cover is blown.
"Don't worry, I'm not actually dangerous!" I wave my hands frantically.
"What are you talking about?" Aiden looks at me skeptically. I don't want to tell him, but if Mary already knows, there's no way he won't find out anyway.
"I'm actually a rail unit." It's easier to say than I expected.
"You what?!" Aiden jumps away as soon as he hears that.
"I'm a broken rail unit," I explain. I light up my divine gear while I'm at it. "I can't use my divine gear at all, so I'm not even dangerous. I've been trying to keep it secret since it just makes everyone scared of me and I don't want to make everyone scared." Isn't that a little too honest? But it doesn't really look like either of them are convinced. Jenny, in the meantime, just looks back and forth in the now very bright room.
"Why should we believe you?" Aiden hisses. "My parents told me all about you things."
"Yeah, I heard the story of Rostor not long ago. I know what they say about us..." I don't feel as sad about it as I should. Why is that? Then I glance at Jenny. "Hey Jenny, you're a bit young to hear about this now, just cover your ears, ok?" I try to ask her nicely.
But she just shakes her head. "I don't know what you're talking about, but it sounds like they think you're a bad person. She's not bad! She's really nice!" Jenny's unexpectedly stubborn. I guess there's no point trying to convince her, she won't really understand anyway.
For now, I try to at least convince these two so we can get back to work on escaping. "Mary, you helped wash me up that day. I've always been really thankful for that. When you were helping me, did you ever think I seemed dangerous?" She doesn't answer, but looks down a little. "Aiden, I know we just met, but do you really believe I would be stuck here if I was some crazy powerful weapon? I couldn't even pull out that nail without your help."
"Ugh, that's true enough..." He kicks at the floor.
"I know rail units normally have all sorts of destructive powers, but the manastone in my forehead is broken, so I don't have access to any of them. You can feel for yourself." Woah, that is way too much information! I don't need to tell them about all of this! It all seems to just be coming out naturally as I speak for some reason. I walk over and lift Aiden's hand to my forehead. He flinches a little at my touch, but I guide his hand up to press his thumb against my forehead and so he can feel the shards of the manastone.
"It's true..." he mutters. I do the same for Mary.
"Normally I could use the manastone to draw all sorts of powers out of my divine gear, but I can't do that with it broken," I explain. "I'm really not dangerous." They finally seem convinced, and let out long sighs.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
"Fine, I'll believe you... for now," Aiden says.
"Good enough, let's get back to what we should be doing, getting through that door."
"Yeah." Aiden nods strongly. He recovers surprisingly fast.
Now that I'm not hiding that I'm a rail unit, we have plenty of light from my divine gear. I actually try to restrict the mana I push into it since it's too bright. I get it to dim a little, but I'm already sending it the tiniest sliver of mana that it's difficult to maintain it at such a low level. It flickers in and out a little since I'm not that good at controlling it. And unlike using the tin, I'm not receiving a steady flow of light mana from doing it. Not that that matters, as far as I can tell. It's the earth mana that I'm more worried about. I have more than I'm comfortable with already, so it's going to take a lot of time and effort to turn it back to normal.
Unfortunately, now that I'm using my divine gear, I need to split my concentration three ways. One part for my gear, one to hold The Reeb in place, and one to push mana through the coin. The earth mana is hard to control, but I try to sweep some of that up with my normal mana so I don't need to convert it later. Together with Aiden, I press the coin against the nail, push my mana through, and we pull with all our might again. It almost feels like we're going to pull too hard for the coin to hold on, so I keep pushing my mana harder, even though I'm sloppy with it and kind of push it all over from the effort. Once more, we suddenly lurch backward as the nail comes free. I land on top of Aiden, my head swimming.
Mary helps us up. "So that's how you're doing it? How do you get the coin to pull like that?" she asks while she goes to pick up the nail.
"When I push my mana through this coin, it causes different metals to do different things. It attracts iron, so if I push my mana through really hard, we can attract the coin to the nail and pull the nail out," I explain.
"I don't really understand," she immediately responds, shaking her head and hands at the same time, "but it looks like it works. But... why are you so happy about it?" She looks a bit worried.
"I don't know. I don't think I should be so happy, but I am for some reason." Seeing our progress, I feel like I'm about to bubble over with laughter and joy. This isn't right. There's no way I should be so happy right now. I realize it logically, but I can't deny that I feel really great. I just have no idea why...
"Come on, let's keep going. We should get out of here as soon as we can." Aiden is grinning too.
We repeat the process on the last nail of the bottom hinge. One more strong pull, and it comes free. Everything is spinning. It's hard to think straight. It's getting hard to consider all of the earth mana I've absorbed.
"That's it! I've absorbed way too much earth mana, haven't I?" Even as I realize that, I feel myself suddenly getting worried about it. I have no idea what will happen if I keep absorbing earth mana. What will it do to me? Maybe there will be too much and I won't be able to turn it back? I'll have no colorless left and be stuck with all earth forever! My breath comes fast and my heart races. I shake my head quickly. I'm getting way too worked up, aren't I? Even without anyone asking, I explain, "When I use my mana to pull on iron, it seems to convert it from colorless mana into mana that feels like earth in some way. Doing it over and over again, I'm probably absorbing too much earth mana and it's messing with my head. I shouldn't even be telling you all of this, but I just keep talking. It's like there's no filter between my brain and my mouth right now." I hold my head in my hand.
"Yeah, I think I know what you mean," Aiden says, still smiling. "I feel weirdly happy even though this is a really bad situation."
"You do? I might be letting some of the earth mana go to you by accident." I'm pushing and pulling it around all over the place and I'm still not good at it, so I must be getting some into him.
"What is mana anyway?" Mary finally asks.
"I'm not sure. It's some kind of energy I have. I've been trying not to mention it around people since I don't know if they have it, or if only rail units do, and if it will reveal that I'm a rail unit. I was going to ask Francis about it tomorrow since he already knows I'm a rail unit-"
"That's fine, that's fine," Mary cuts me off as I continue to babble. "So this energy, that's how you can pull those nails out, but it changes and makes you... like this, when you do? Is there any way to stop it?"
"Not that I know of, I've been figuring all of this out while we have been trapped in here. I'm just trying anything I can think of."
"Well, if the mana changes when you use it, can you try using the mana that has already changed instead?"
"It's harder to control, but I have to do that. I don't think I can take much more earth mana contamination." Because that's what it feels like right now, contamination. Like when something bad gets into the water, and the water isn't good anymore. I turn to Aiden. "I have no idea what my mana will do to a human. Let's see if I can do this..." I press my hand against his arm and try to pull. At first, nothing happens, so I change the way I'm doing it a little. I pull all of my mana away, trying to draw the mana out of him. Like how Reena taught me to pull in church. But now, I keep pulling harder and harder, until I eventually get a flood of earth mana.
However, that's immediately followed by some other type of mana I don't recognize. It's like colorless mana, but not my colorless mana. Aiden shudders, his body going completely limp. I catch him as best I can, but he's much bigger than me. Did I just pull mana out of Aiden? Humans have mana too? It's a tiny amount. A really, incredibly miniscule amount, but there is definitely some. Frantically, I use every last bit of control I've learned to clamp all of my mana together as hard as I can, ensuring none of his gets mixed together with mine. My divine gear goes out since I can't spare the effort to keep it lit. Then I push it all as one to expel the different mana. I push every last bit back into Aiden.
My head goes foggy as my concentration frays from focusing so hard to do that. I have to stop and breath for a few moments to recover. Compared to that, I can relight my gear with a mere thought. Aiden immediately stirs. He pushes himself back up out of my haphazard grip. "What was that?"
"I uhh... I think I accidentally pulled your mana out of you when I was taking out the earth mana. On the bright side, I found out that you do have a little bit of mana. I guess you can't control it though?"
"No clue, but that was really weird." He shakes his head. "Looks like I feel normal again though. How are you?"
"I'm feeling great. Which is probably a really bad thing in this situation." But it feels like a knot of anxiety is gnawing at me underneath the overly happy feelings. "I'd say I'm at roughly... Maybe twenty to sixty percent... so let's go with forty percent earth mana right now." It's an incredibly vague figure since I can't really get any solid idea about exactly how much mana I have bouncing around inside me all the time, but that's kind of how it feels, I think.
"Well, let's keep going," he says with a serious look. We only have the top hinge left. However...
"How are we supposed to do this?" I ask while looking up at it. There's no way I can reach the top hinge. There's no way any of us can reach it!
"Oh, this is really bad..." Mary worries aloud.
"If you stand on each other's shoulders you should be able to reach." Suddenly, a solution is presented by Jenny, who has just been watching so far. When we all look at her in surprise, she stiffens and mumbles, "I do it all the time with my brothers and sisters..."
"Let's try it," I say excitedly.
But Aiden sighs. "We both need to pull to get it out, I can't help if I'm holding you up."
"That is a problem, we need two people to pull the nails. Can Mary do it?"
"I'll give it a try!" she says with enthusiasm. Aiden looks back and forth between us with a worried expression. Then he gulps and gets into a low stance. I climb up onto his shoulders, then Mary does as well. Even on all fours, Aiden begins to buckle under the weight of both of us at the same time. He gives a loud grunt, pushing up so hard his entire body shakes under us, but then collapses to the floor again, panting heavily.
"Sorry, I can't do it. Not both at once," he apologizes.
"No, don't worry, it was too much to expect you to lift both of us at once," I immediately apologize back. I'm really small, but Mary is almost as big as he is. It really was too much to ask.
"If we can only get one person up there, maybe we can both lift Aiden and he can try to pull it alone? He should be the strongest," Mary suggests.
"It doesn't attract to the nail hard enough unless I run my mana through it." I shake my head.
"I see..." she mutters.
"Maybe there's some way for me to apply more force..." I wonder. What do I know about that? Hard individual hits always dealt more damage in sparring. And it was the same for Gremory hammering metal. Maybe I can apply the same thing here. Concentrate all of the force to a single good hit instead of spreading it out like we do when pulling. I pick up one of the nails and examine it. Maybe rather than trying to pull the nails, I could use the ones we already pulled to break through the central cylinder instead? I look closely at the hinge one more time. With better lighting, I can get a much better look at it.
The cylinder seems to be made of three parts. A door section, a wall section, and a center section. The first two parts mesh together repeatedly, with each side going to connect to the wall or door. The last section however, reminds me a lot of the peg that Gremory showed me. It looks like a long pin wedged into the gap of the two sliding sections. That pin looks like it holds the whole thing together, the same as those pegs he talked about for knives. Without it, those two parts could pull right apart. If we can slide the pin out, we can get out. The question is, can I get the pin out myself, unlike the nails that I can't? If I can hit it with a good powerful hit, I just might be able to. But how?
The first thing I try is just poking the top of the hinge with the nail. But... it doesn't work? Dumbfounded, I poke at the pin a few times. But the point of the nail just won't touch the pin easily. It's like something is pushing it away forcefully. I take another nail and find the same thing. Why? I try with the bottom of the pin instead, but the nails are attracted instead of repelled. They are repelled from the top and attracted to the bottom?
"What are you doing now?" Aiden asks.
"I'm thinking about trying to take the pins in the hinge out instead, since I think I might be able to do that myself, but something is weird about the nails, look." I hold up the nails. I try to tap the points together, but they keep pushing away from each other whenever I try. Then I try spinning the nails around, but the same thing happens. Just to keep trying everything, I turn them again, touching head to point. This time, they attract and stick together.
"I don't know what's happening..." he mutters.
"I don't either." I hand him the nails so he can feel it for himself while I explain. "It looks like they don't just attract, they can also push away. I might be able to use this to get the pins out, but I don't understand how it works. Will I be able to figure this out? Ahhh!" I groan and hold my head in both hands. "No! I'm sure I can figure it out!" I suddenly declare with way more enthusiasm than I should feel here. Nevertheless, I quickly start trying a number of things.
First I test the nails, it seems all of their points pull to the bottom of the hinge and push away from the top. They also pull heads to points, but heads repel heads, and points repel points. If I line them up side by side, they actually spin so that the heads connect to the tips. They became like this when I exposed them to my mana, so I try it again. Using the coin, I hit one of the nails again. But I don't see any changes. I try it on another nail, and this time it reverses the head and point. Now this nail's head attracts to the heads of the other two nails. But the other two still repel one another like before.
What was the difference? I try the third nail with no change. So I turn it around and try again. This time, the ends swap once more. So it relates to the direction the nail is facing? I try again, this time running my mana through the coin in a specific direction instead of just throwing it around randomly. I intentionally push in the opposite direction as last time, and get the same effect as turning the nail around. So the direction is based on the flow of mana.
I think about it a little more and come up with an analogy so I can picture it better. The mana flows like a river. Upstream to downstream. I'll think of them as Up and Down for now. If I think of the head of the nail as the Up end and point as the Down end, then I see that the head - Up - and the points - Down - of the nails repel the same type, but attract to the opposite type. Do they have the same behavior with the coin? After using it to make the head Up and the point Down, I place the nail on the floor with the head toward me. I hold the coin near it, then push my mana through the coin specifically so the Up end at my finger will be right next to the Up end at the head of the nail.
The reaction is instant. The nail goes sliding away across the floor. "It works!" I grin with glee as my testing works out.
"Woah, it does work." Both Aiden and Mary blink at my unexpected discovery.
"Maybe you aren't dangerous, but you can come up with some really crazy things, can't you?" Mary asks.
"I guess so." As long as it gets us out of here anyway. I go and pick up the nail, testing it once more. It looks like pushing on the Up side against the Up of the coin didn't cause the ends to flip. So I should be able to hit it with really strong pushes to make the nail hit the pin strongly. By concentrating all of the force to a single point hitting like that, I might be able to push the pin out alone.
"Nothing to do but test it," I say. I hold the coin and attempt to run a strong flow of mana through it, using just the earth mana this time. It's much more difficult to move the tough, strange feeling mana, but I do it. I need to if I don't want to keep absorbing more of it.
I run the coin down the hinge to ensure the whole thing ends up with Up at the top and Down at the bottom. I test it with a nail, making sure the Down end of the nail attracts to the Up end at the top of the hinge pin. All that's left to do is hold the coin over the nail.
I take a deep breath, gathering my will into all of the earth mana. Will this really work? No way, of course it won't work. Why would I expect this to work? The pin is really stuck in there tight isn't it? Argh, there's no way to figure it out but to try!
Then I hit it, like a powerful punch, forcing as much through as I can, all at once. I at least make sure I'm sending it through in the right direction. The coin instantly flashes hot in my hand and rips out of my grasp. I hear it rebound off of the ceiling and floor, and everyone ducks reflexively. The coin bounces numerous times before it comes to a rest on the other side of the room.
"That was unexpected," I giggle.
"Come on, be careful," Mary scolds me. I just look at the pin.
"It worked!" I jump with joy. "It actually worked a little!" The nail pushed down, just starting to displace the pin a little bit. If I can keep doing this, I'll get the pin out on my own! I just need to keep a better grip on the coin when I do it. So I retrieve the coin and try again. I hold it in my palm this time to get a solid grip. I position it over the nail again, and I throw another strong burst of earth mana through all at once. The recoil is shocking. The hit that's hard enough to displace the pin pushes the coin away with so much force that my whole arm holding onto it is yanked straight upward. It actually feels like it's almost lifting me off the ground when I do it.
But that won't stop me. As soon as my arm comes to a rest, I put it back over the nail and hit it one more time. With each push, powerful recoil throws my arm up into the air, and the pin slides down a little. I try to push harder each time, hitting the pin with as much force as I possibly can. Every one feels like an awful yank on my tired arm, but the pin slides a bit with each strike. Stringing together one rapid hit after another like this really makes the job go a lot faster. Even if the pin hardly moves each time, I can repeat it really fast to get it moving at a good rate.
Then I try something a little different. I hold the coin between my hands, pinning it tightly between my palms. With one hand on top of the other, I sent my mana up from the bottom, straight through the middle of the coin, into the hand on top. With both hands locked together, the recoil is much easier to control, mostly running up to my shoulders, which can take the impact a lot better. I hit the pin over and over quickly, until it has nearly slid all the way out.
"Hold on Aria, we want to be ready when we get out of here. We need a plan," Aiden warns.
I stop and ask, "What's the plan?"
"Well, I was just thinking we all probably got trapped here because we were lost in those twisting streets. We need some way to navigate if we're going to make it back out. But I still can't think of any way to do that. You have any more tricks you can think of?"
"Nothing I can do. There's only one way I know of to navigate perfectly, and I don't have any control over it."
"What is it?" they both ask excitedly.
"It only works at the second, seventh, and twelfth bells. They blow a whistle that I can always hear and I can navigate to the location it came from."
"That sounds exactly like what we need!" Mary exclaims.
"But I can't do it until the next whistle," I reply. We have no idea what's going to happen by then! I panic. They might come back. They might take us away. Or realize what we're up to. It could be anything!
"It shouldn't be too long until the twelfth bell though," Andy says. "I want to get out of here as soon as possible, but it's no good if we have no way to get out of this district. We should weaken the hinges, then wait until the twelfth bell to escape. Then we can use this whistle navigate."
After my moment of panic passes, I'm glad that he has a good plan. If that's what he says, I'll go along with it. "Ok, we'll do that. First we need to secure this one then," and I point at the hinge pin nearly falling out of the hinge. Aiden just uses his hands to hit the lower hinge back into place enough that it won't break if the door opens again. "Next I'll work on the upper hinge. "Can you give me a lift?" Aiden picks me up and I stand on his shoulders while working on the other hinge pin. I first set the hinge's bottom end to Up and the nail's point to Down, then get to work pushing it up toward the ceiling, since I can't reach the top, even on Aiden's shoulders. I throw one burst of mana after another. I keep using the earth mana, and I can feel it slowly shrinking as it gets used up. Both the bubbling happiness and the knot of worry fade bit by bit as well. I continue until I get the pin most of the way out, but it doesn't look like it'll break from opening. Then I give Aiden the ok, and we all sit down to wait. I feel... a little less off now.
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It was already around the tenth bell when this all started, we really shouldn't have too long until the last bell. While waiting, I work continuously to mix in the earth mana and convert it back. There's still way too much of it. I can't go back to the orphanage in my current state or I'll end up telling everyone everything. Then everyone will hate me, I'll get kicked out, I'll have to go back to the rail program, and I'll die all alone!
"So, it's Aria now?" How did you end up with that name?" Mary asks, breaking me out of my spiraling anxiety.
I shake myself. "Well, I spent a couple weeks living with Marrianne and Francis when I got sick, but I couldn't stay there because Marrianne hates rail units and I knew she would find out eventually, since I have to go into battle later. Until you guys, Francis was the only person who knew I was a rail unit and accepted me anyway."
"I'm still not sure if I accept you," Mary says warily.
Even though that hurts, it makes me giggle in my current state. She’s going to tell everyone what I am, isn’t she? I keep giggling, but I can't stop thinking about how it will destroy my life. My head is really messed up right now...
I finally get focused back on the topic. "Well, he's the first person to believe in me. When I left, he gave me the name Aria. I'm still not really sure how he came up with it. Something about changing the number to a letter?"
"What was your name before that?" she asks.
"It wasn't really a name, they don't give us actual names. But my full designation is AR1A. So Francis changed it to Aria."
"Huh..." she mutters.
"If you left there, where are you living now? Where were you living before anyway?" Aiden asks.
"Originally I lived at the building used by the autonomous rail program, where they keep all the rail units. But I left there, and now I live at the orphanage."
"The orphanage?" they both ask. I can't see them in the dark, but they sound surprised.
"Yeah, I don't have any parents, obviously, so it was the place to go, more or less."
"Huh... And it's better there than back with the other rail units? Why did you leave anyway?"
"Well..." Even in my stupidly honest state, I hesitate to talk about it. But there's no reason to hide any of this at this point, so I just continue to say whatever comes to mind. "Living there was terrible. I didn't exactly realize it much back then, but I didn't have a good grasp on my own feelings, so I didn't really understand how awful it made me feel."
"Why?" Mary asks, sounding worried.
I sigh, they aren't memories I want to dwell on. "Basically, I never had a place there, and even if I did, the treatment was... I mean, it was so bad it's hard to explain. Think of it this way: We lived in a stone building with no furniture, so we all slept in a pile on the floor. We never washed. None of us, at all. They never even taught us that 'washing' was a thing. That's why you found me like that, that day. That was the first day I ever went more than a block away from the rail unit building." Even in the dark, I can feel her recoil.
"Woah..." Aiden mutters.
"But that was just one part of it. They also fed us nothing but bread and soup every day. And looking back at it now, I'm pretty sure the soup was just water," I giggle, the sadness not even registering right. "The bread was so hard I had to soak it in the water to be able to chew it." I didn't really get it at the time, just how much I hated eating that bread. It was like chewing rocks.
"Nothing but bread?!" Mary sounds shocked. "There's no nutrition in bread! You'll stunt your growth like that!"
"Nutrition? What's nutrition?" My head starts to spin suddenly. What is this?
"Nutrition is what makes you healthy and makes you grow. If you don't get it, you won't grow right. You'll be too small and weak. But there's basically no nutrition in bread!" she exclaims.
"Nutrition... bread..." I mutter. I've had this conversation before?! I put a hand to my forehead. I feel like I've forgotten something.
Then it comes back to me. The night when Emily told me about nutrition. Realizing that it was the handlers' fault I was too small and weak. And... the overwhelming rage when I realized it. Even now, I clench my jaw just thinking about it. But I don't feel as angry as I did then. Maybe I can't feel as angry with my mana all out of sorts. Not to mention, any anger is dampened by the memory of everything that came after. I hit Emily! I was the one who hurt her?!
I groan, holding my head in my hands. "What's wrong?" Aiden asks.
"I just remembered something that I think I made myself forget. When I learned about this the first time, I was so angry... I'm seven years old," I explain. "Because they only ever fed us bread, I never grew like I should have. They must have known we wouldn't grow right, but they only fed us bread anyway." Instead of anger, I only feel regret now. "I was so angry when I realized that, I hurt my friend, and said a lot of things I never wanted to say to her. It hurt so much, I made myself forget all of it..."
No one says anything to that for a little while. If they had any more questions before, they probably don't even want to know any more now, because they don't ask anything else. I didn't even get to the sparring that haunts my dreams every single night.
When I get back, I have to apologize to Emily. Not only did I hurt her, I even told her we couldn't be friends because I would have to leave... I can't believe I said that, after everything she's done for me. I know I'm being selfish being her friend, knowing I'll hurt her in the end. But I did it anyway, and I made myself forget before I could even properly apologize for it.
I can't even be sad about it right. This awful, bubbly happiness just keeps insisting that I should be happy that we're still friends, and that nothing worse happened. It's torturous, sitting quietly in the dark like this with nothing but my anxious, worried thoughts that want me to be happy. I go back to trying to convert the stupid earth mana again. I just want to keep myself occupied for now.