Interlude I

Urisiah Hylinch, AKA Mr. Fortuna, and his daughter Lyria Hylinch sat in their fully customized combat suits. Suits that had been designed to look like customized furniture inside the most deluxe safety rescue cube on the market.

A cube that Lyria had up until twenty minutes ago thought was complete overkill.

Actually, to Lyria this whole operation had been a complete overkill. Everything from her meeting that that odd man in a doctor’s outfit, to seeing that same man in chains, only to then realize that the chains were Illusionary cuffs designed to mask the wearer. Normally worn by celebrities who wished to hide their appearances from the public, but in this case they were apparently used to draw out the creepy girl in question.

To her father then inviting said creepy girl join them.

Well, the joining was under the pretense of fully awakening Lyria’s Primary Power to S-Class, and then the equally absurd statement of her, then awakening a second talent up to the same level as well.

There were of course only two problems with this scenario. First, there was no way to increase a Primary Power’s Rank after being prescribed after the initial Awakening. Then Second, there was no way to awaken a quote-unquote Secondary Power.

Yet, she had followed along like a good daughter.

To her father’s defense, he had been desperate to ship Lyria off to the Military boarding school for years. While Lyria was all for the benefits that having a Military Rank would offer her and their family, effectively prompting their family to upper-mid management level, she couldn’t only feel that her father had finally snapped.

What was it called, Precognitive Dissociative Disorder? The disorder where all Precogs inevitably look too far into the future too often and have a hard time differentiating actual timelines from what were the most likely scenarios?

Precognitive Dissociative Disorder, or PDD was common with those with Precognitive abilities, that was why all Precognitives either lost fortunes, or could never gain fortunes to begin with. The idea that by looking into the future to make a play, they ended up changing the course of the very stream they were looking at.

However, this was not the case for her father, who by some miracle had apparently gone from noting to everything.

The true rags to riches story, but now it seemed that his luck had finally run out as they were both here in this tin can, waiting for the enemies to destroy them. Out here, so long as Harbingers were around, it would take days for rescue vehicles to find them. Days that even this protective cube might not be able to afford, particularly with how devastating the Harbingers were.

Then in a matter of moments, several things all happened to converge at the same time.

First the girl, the exotic Cerusian but not-a-Cerusian flipped a mental switch and began going full psycho on their cube, tearing up the walls, ripping out wall cannons, and then somehow infusing them into her space suit.

Meanwhile, her father had chosen that moment to forcefully make it so that Lyria’s own space suit activated, wrapping tightly around her.

Vrrr!

By the time the suit had been fully activated and transformed from a couch to a mobile mechanoid suit capable of space flight, if only in minor bursts, the crazy girl left, but not before doing something so odd and momentous that Lyria knew it would forever change the Trajectory of her life forever.

Warning: Ignition Brokered:

Your power levels have been reassessed.

Primary Power: Darkness Power

Name: Lyria Hylinch Role: Magic Class Primary Power: Darkness Power [Energy Burst]: Energy Disrupt (D -> S) Can degrade the energy of any attack hurled at you or around you, up to the level of your affinity. Note: Power level now high enough to rip away energy bonds of connected cells.

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The updates were huge, before all she could do was at best be a minor disruptor for powerful energy waves that were heading directly towards her.

Now though, now she could feel the change as if even those beams that were being hurled at the side of her protective cube were no match for her.

Snap-crackle.

Then feeling an impact of such a beam, Lyria realized that those beams being hurled against the cube were exactly that, powerful beams of Energy Disrupt that were so powerful that they caused minor distortions of power.

But that wasn’t the only miraculous change for there was more.

New Secondary Power Slot Available User can choose to fill Secondary Power Slot with a second Darkness attribute related power of S-Rank. Or you can choose to select a power from another class of magic, degrading at a rate of one Rank per field of magic you move away from your primary element: Darkness.

Seeing the message, tears formed in Lyria’s eyes, as she realized she could finally gain the power and class she had always wanted. Not even waiting to see if she what options were available with the Darkness element, she mentally spun her Elemental energy dial to the left two spots to Life.

New Secondary Power Selected: Life

Note: Maximum Life power affinity ranking available: B- Rank.

That would put her in the top 85% of all Healers, if she had a B-Rank power.

Better still, she found that she could pick the power she wanted. Immediately she knew the power she wanted, one that was both rare and apparently readily available.

Life Power [Channeled Power] Limitless Regeneration (B): Can cause self and/or others to regenerate lost or damaged organs and vital points.

Not even hesitating to see if there were other options, Lyria chose the power and felt her mind connect to the world around her in ways she never thought possible.

A process that felt like it took minutes, but seemed like it should take hours was actually over in seconds.

In fact, before the crazed girl had even left the room, the changes were in place and Lyria had her new power strand coursing through her body.

“How is such a thing possible?” Lyria found herself asking as she felt her own body recovering from her personal use of Limitless Regeneration against her own body. Her mind so wrapped up in her own changes on a fundamental level, that she failed to register the danger she was still currently in.

“It is a matter of quantity over quality, I suppose. That many people with a mirror bonus of experience and Attributes that make her so formidable,” Urisiah noted, his voice distant as he seemed oddly whimsical.

Hearing her father sound so relaxed for the first time in such a long time, Lyria couldn’t help but notice.

Then pausing, she looked to see that her father’s mechanoid suit had now turned away and was facing the external wall. A wall that was now once again sealed, while displaying a soldier seemingly do the impossible.

Watching her move, the girl was fast.

No, not just fast, but accurate as well.

Lyria watched as the girl managed to seemingly fire unrelenting automatic bursts from the rotating barrel plasma weapon. A weapon the dealer stated in no uncertain terms that the weapons would not work if removed from the wall.

As if hearing her thoughts, or more likely seeing the future and reacting, Urisiah responded, “no the dealer stated that the warranty would not cover us if we attempted to remove them, and that they had mechanisms in place to disable the barrels should anyone attempt to remove them.”

Hearing the clarification, Lyria just nodded her head.

It was pointless to get in arguments with her father, for it was often hard to realize if he was yelling at the current version of her, or preemptively yelling to prevent her from doing something stupid in the future. At least, these were the excuses he often gave when explaining why he randomly started confronting her, when she had done nothing.

There was a silence as the two watch the fighter go wild, her eyes seeming to glow a deep blue.

Thump, thump.

Finally, the sound of a disturbance to the left side of the cube echoed out. These were the Spatial Anomaly detectors. Detectors that picked up a Black Worm Hole, technically this type of power was under the Darkness Element, but it was something that Lyria herself wanted nothing to do with. Partly for often only the caster was able to go through such portals normally, and mostly because when first testing out the powers many Black Worm Hole creators often find that they tend to create the worm holes too close to their body and end up ripping off their clothing. Something that sounds funny when you are on a planet, and just have to find a new set of clothes. While it takes on a deadly meaning when you find yourself jumping away to safety in the vacuum of space, only to find that your space suit was randomly removed due to your being in a hurry and not forming a proper escape tunnel.

That was why, Lyria chose her Secondary Power to be Healing related. Not just Healing related, but one of the most overpowered powers. While she wouldn’t be able to grow back full limbs or parts of missing torsos with her current version of the power, she could save many lives. Also, healers often weren’t forced to join assault teams, unlike Darkness element focused magicians.

However, her thoughts were drawn to the rather large and oversized monster that suddenly appeared.

Immediately upon seeing the image outside, Urisiah clicked a button, which began the recording of the external images.

For a moment Lyria wondered why, but then the answer came to her.

“A behemoth?” Lyria asked.

Urisiah nodded at first, only to then speak once he realized his head was likely covered in the new protective mechanoid suit, “yes.”

That was the thing, every interaction with a Behemoth had to be recorded and immediately streamed on a public broadcast account.

The reason being that Behemoths were known as planetary destroyers for a reason. While most Harbingers will get smarter and some might even exhibit the use of new skills or abilities after a few successful attacks, Behemoths were on a different level entirely.

Able to regenerate from death like states, so long as energy remains. Able to mutate and mature based on more exotic DNA structures consumed, and able to lead more and more Harbingers the longer they exist.

They were the perfect weapon of death, and it seemed that one had supposedly found them.

Seeing the monster, Lyria found herself wondering if the pod would survive a behemoth.

“No it won’t,” Urisiah answered.

“What?”

“No, we will not survive in here, if the Behemoth does not die here and now,” Urisiah responded, his glowing golden eyes seeming to refract in the view of his clear visor as he stared on at the carnage that was about to unfold.

“Should we leave?” Lyria asked.

“Just watch, and you will see our hope for the future,” Urisiah AKA Mr. Fortuna said, as he held up a mechanoid hand, indicating that his time for talking was over, as he desperately tried to read the future and perhaps attempt to change destiny once more.