Eaty and 3487 stand outside of the Commission Hall staring towards the crowd, having grown larger since they entered the hall, now probably 300 Seekers large.
“How are we going to get through that crowd?” 3487 asks.
“We’re not, we’re going up.”
“But aren’t rooftops off limits on the second tier?” 3487 asks nervously.
“I’d say more ‘discouraged’ than off limits. And with Bethlehem being out and about, I doubt anyone will worry about some Seekers sitting on a roof, if they even look up.”
“I don’t know,” 3487 says, hesitance in their voice.
“Fine, we’ll just go pack into the mob and be cramped together with Seekers all around us.” Eaty looks at 3487 and smiles.
“Rooftops it is,” 3487 quickly answers.
Eaty chuckles, “Relax, it’s just a warning if anyone cares anyways.”
“How do you know?”
Eaty shifts their eyes side to side in a sketchy manner, “Just trust me.”
A nervously shocked expression comes across 3487s panel. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Eaty laughs, "Nothing serious," Eaty begins walking away, "C’mon, let’s find a spot.”
3487 sighs dejectedly, and follows suit, "Here we go again."
Eaty and 3487 find a scalable two story building near the Administration Building. Upon reaching the top, large decorative spires rise up at the four corners of the roof, and a small ornate half wall, its shape imitating waves, it runs between the spires, connecting them. The ornate design of the building is a stark contrast to the blandness of the buildings of the first tier. Eaty and 3487 set up beside one of the spires sitting a bit back from the edge, the half wall obscuring them from the ground level, but still allowing them to see the stairs to the third level.
"This is the nicest rooftop I've ever been on" 3487 says, almost in awe.
"The perks of the second tier" Eaty says.
"I think I could live up here" 3487 begins walking around the rooftop and inspecting all the little details, that could never be seen from the ground. "Like why is there even engraving here?" 3487 is crouched down looking at engraving on the inside of the half wall surrounding the rooftop. "No one could even see it from the ground!"
"I assume its for the hobo who set up shop on the roof, what was their call sign again? I think it started with a 3? They were part of the ETA generation too, i think." Eaty sits down, the half wall now obscuring all of their view other than that of the rooftop and the sky.
"Real funny. Too bad that could also be you." 3487 stops inspecting the architecture at this comment and props up on the wall staring towards the stairs to the third tier.
“Technically mine starts with a zero, but I'll give you that one." Eaty laughs. "Tell me when you see them coming.”
“You don’t want to watch for them? Aren’t you excited?” 3487 asks.
“No, not really.” Eaty tilts their head up, looking at the sky.
“Why not? It’s Bethlehem, they were the First Seeker!”
“I’ve seen them before, and besides, Seekers like us will never interact with them in any meaningful way. This is the most interaction you'll have with them, and that's probably a good thing.”
3487 stays silent.
“Don’t get me wrong though. I was excited the first time I caught them on the second layer. So don’t let me take your excitement from you. They're nothing like a normal Seeker, it's a sight for sure.”
3487 smiles and turns back to watching the stairs. “I’ll tell you when I see something!”
Eaty stares blankly at the sky, the stars, the colors… the Ocular. They zone out for what felt like just a moment, but in reality must have been at least 15 minutes.
“Someone’s coming!” 3487 calls out to Eaty.
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Eaty gets up and stands beside 3487, they look to the stairs and see a massive Seeker, standing somewhere between 160 and 180 cm, a large heavy plate armor shell wraps the entirety of their body., In every joint of the armor, a brilliant purple glow can be seen, a large shoulder pauldron adorns each side of them, their head fitting between them, and a helmet over the head, fully covering it, but seemingly no moving parts to it, the front of the helmet is slanted forwards, the top pointing out towards whoever the wearing is looking at, purple strips illuminate from the front of the helmet, where the visor should be, but no visible visor is present. A slab of metal the size of Eaty imitating a sword, is hung on their lower back horizontally, making them appear even wider than they already are.
“Is that them?” 3487 says excitement mixed with fear in their voice.
“That’s not them.”
“What? Who is that then?!” 3487 says perplexed.
“Alpha - 2,” Eaty pauses, “Bethlehem doesn’t go anywhere without them.”
Alpha - 2, makes their way to the bottom landing of the stairs, and immediately begins ushering Seekers back from the gatehouse, and ordering the gate guards around, creating an exclusion zone in the crowd.
Eaty looks up to the top of the stairs, “There they are.” Eaty points to Bethlehem.
3487 snaps their head to the location Eaty was pointing to. Just in time to see Bethlehem begin descending the stairs 3487 let’s put a slight gasp, “That's them?”
Bethlehem stands at roughly 120 cm. A bulky white dress made of a thick woolen material, covers their entire body, hugging close to them, beginning at a collar around their neck, all the way until their waist, where the dress flows loosely and freely until it comes into contact with the steps below. The hem of the dress makes a circular perimeter around Bethlehem, the circular pattern continuing, until the back of the dress, where the pattern breaks, and a short tail, triangular in shape extends from the circumference of the dress, dragging behind Bethlehem as they move. Light gray tuffs of a fluffy wool like material covers the entire perimeter of the hem forming a thick outline. Large sleeves extend out from the shoulders of the dress, continuing until the elbow, their diameter much greater than that of Bethlehem's arms, the excess material falls and hangs like curtains under their arms. Gold Ribbon runs across the shoulders, and drapes under each arm following the pattern of the excess fabric of the sleeves of the dress. The ribbon comes back into contact where the sleeves stop, and ascending upwards and draping over a sheet of silver, that floats just above their forearm following it's movements closely. From where the sleeves stop, gloves begin, made of a thin white fabric material and entwined with patches of white transparent lace scattered about. The gloves run down to the palm, fully covering it. A small silver pauldron adorns their right shoulder, a piece of leather sits under the pauldron, its edges sticking out slightly past the pauldron, shadowing its outline, and keeping the harsh metal from rubbing the dress's shoulder. Interlocking layered plates of metal hang slightly off of the sides of Bethlehem, near the waist, seemingly floating slightly above and not attached to the dress that they follow the angles of, a white glow emanates from under each interlocked piece, The metal rises and falls, almost as if breathing. Along with the interlocking plates, a thick diamond shaped plate hovers in front of Bethlehem chest, moving around slightly in a set area, seemingly by itself.
Behind Bethlehem, originating from each shoulder, hovering slightly off the body the frame of a wing begins, the metal beam shoots up above Bethlehem, before sharply turning outwards from them, and ending in a shallow angled fall. Along the length of the frames, sleek beams of metal fall from them towards the ground imitating the skeletal structure of a wing, the beams becoming shorter the further from Bethlehem they get. When fully outstretched, Bethlehem's wingspan is wider than Alpha - 2. A black banner, outlined in gold hem, stretches across each wing. One banner depicts a dying star, The sky, small dots of light all across the banner, and the ocular, sitting in the center of the tapestry. The other banner depicts Centauri, and the frontier that surrounds it, below Centauri it depicts the sprawling depths of the planet, numerous passages, and at the bottom, a large white dot sits, half of it cut off by the ending of the banner.
Bethlehem wears a coronet of petals, made from various metals; Silver, gold, copper, platinum, around their head, their helmet seemingly invisible, but proven to be there, as a small thin visor hovers In Front of their face tilted upwards so that it obscures none of their panel and seemingly held to a non existent pivot. Their panel shines a pure, ghostly white light, two hooded eyes are displayed on the panel, but no mouth is currently displayed.
Bethlehem has reached the second level plaza by this point. 3487 stares in silence, along with all the Seekers below. Bethlehem walks to the center of the prepared exclusion zone and stops. Bethlehem meets the gaze of all the Seekers present, and without saying anything at all, turns and begins walking towards the administration building. 3487 turns to Eaty as if to say "They’re coming straight towards us!" But curiosity takes them once more, and they turn back to look at Bethlehem before saying a word. Bethlehem creeps ever closer to the administration building, Eaty’s eyes slowly trailing them the entire walk, until finally Bethlehem is right in front of the building Eaty and 3487 are on. Bethlehem stops, and looks up to face Eaty and 3487, Bethlehem's gaze meets Eaty's almost instantly. Eaty holds, locked to Bethlehem’s gaze for several seconds. Suddenly Eaty feels a pain course through their head, and reverberates throughout their body. Eaty stumbles a bit, and grabs at their head instinctively. 3487 tears their eyes from Bethlehem and looks at Eaty.
“Are you alright?!” 3487 says in a frantic hushed tone, quickly reaching towards Eaty and grabbing onto them, "What's wrong with you?!"
Eaty doesn’t hear anything 3487 is saying, A silent roar envelopes them, coming from the inside. A roar that Eaty has heard before, but not to this scale, the unmistakable roar of a reactor. The roar elevates, Eaty begins to feel the cascading flood of energy being produced by the reactor, the heat coming off of it smearing their armor. They can no longer feel their own reactor inside their chest, its tangible effects completely drowned by the phantom counterparts. And suddenly, even quicker than they manifested, the effects were gone, and Eaty was standing atop a building, slumped over a wall, near the Administration building, staring at Bethlehem, who had now averted their gaze, and continued walking seemingly oblivious to what had just occurred. Eaty clenches their fist, and feels a sensation on their arm, but chooses to ignore it, instead focusing on following Bethlehem until finally, they enter into the administration building. Finally out of sight, Eaty relaxes, and pays attention to the sensation they had felt before, looking over to find 3487 holding onto their arm and shaking them.
“Are you ok?!” 3487 continues to say.
“Yeah, I’m ok.” Eaty says, stumbling over their words, still slightly affected by the experience.
“No you’re not! I’ve never seen you just nearly collapse out of nowhere like that!” 3487 gets up against Eaty, “Come on, let me help you off of this roof, we’re going to a patcher right now,” 3487 says in a stern tone.
"I'm tell you, I'm fine."
"We're going"
Eaty, still somewhat dazed from the ordeal, and not feeling up for an argument, props up against 3487 and heads back towards the patcher.