Manicured greenery shredded by one of many different magical attacks flies by me. A branch reaches down and smacks me across the shoulder, leaving stinging welts that inflame and disappear in a matter of heartbeats. Tiny salt crystals fall from the healed wounds and clatter to the ground.

It should be a huge deal. I should be really worried that my body seemingly just did that. But right now, all I can focus on is the potential for the mech to pop out of thin air and sucker punch me. Will my awareness see it beforehand? Could I stop it with a shield of my own, or am I too weak for something of that magnitude?

Not knowing the answer to those questions sends a shiver down my spine and settles in my gut like a lead ball. No matter how much better I am than a regular-ass human, there’s things out there that are so far beyond human. Even if the mech is a poor quality reconstruction of Pearl’s people’s work, it’s still unbelievably dangerous.

“I can’t feel anything just yet. You’re alright.” Pearl pipes up, cutting away my mind fog with ease. “Fleur, can you do anything to help? Is your body strong enough to leave?”

A light, ringing tone bounces around my skull. “I think I am ready. Shelby, the moment I leave, I need you to accept me. Right now I am using Pearl as an intermediary between the two of us, but that will not work once I separate from her.”

“No idea how I’m supposed to do that.” I huff between exerted breaths. “Anyone mind giving me a quick little explanation?”

“It is simple; finish what began when you saved my life. Bind me to the world as Pearl has bound me to a form, and let me worship you in truth.” Fleur says seriously, and somehow, it doesn’t sound cult-y at all. Just… adoring. “Name my species, accept me as its progenitor, and speak me into the reality of this existence.”

Her words are excited and encouraging, but their contents are so far beyond my understanding that it’s overwhelming. I always knew Fleur would come out of the shell at some point, but I thought I’d be able to talk her down from worshiping me as a god. Or, at least, I thought Pearl would talk her down from it. Instead, it looks like my shellraiser companion fanned the flames of Fleur’s devotion.

And honestly… I still don’t have a name for Fleur’s people. Now definitely doesn’t feel like the right time to make a decision this important, what with all the danger, and I know I’ll be able to come up with something better if I sleep on it. Problem is… I don’t think Fleur’s going to accept that. She wants to come help me.

Even if it means her species is stuck with some lame portmanteau of ‘salt elemental’ for the rest of time.

“I… can we wait–”

“No.”

I grimace. That’s exactly what I was worried about. “Fine. Alright. I can come up with a good enough name that’ll last for the rest of eternity. No pressure.”

Pearl shoots me a look of disbelief. “You haven’t been thinking about this since I warned you? Shelby. Shame on you–this is the rest of Fleur’s history!”

“I know, which is why if we just wait a little while–”

This time, Pearl cuts me off. “Oh, no, you don’t get to delay Fleur’s grand entrance. Come up with a bunch of good names now. I’ll take over all the awareness using, so you can put all your brain power into thinking of a really good name. Um, by the way, the mech is about fifty feet in front of you and thirty feet to your right.”

My mind takes a second to parse the information, then I snap to the location Pearl said. It looks like absolutely nothing to me, not even a shimmer of a rocket booster’s heat warping the air. Their stealth tech must be extremely good. Or someone on board has a stealth spell.

“Any attacks?” I ask as I ready my coins. “Will it break the stealth?”

Pearl purses her lips in thought. “Our tech wouldn’t break, but it’s really complicated. If they can’t make the mech itself any better than what they have, there’s no way they perfectly replicated our stealth generators. But just to be safe, assume they can attack while invisible until proven otherwise.”

“Don’t forget me. I want to help.” Fleur makes another ringing noise, and Pearl shifts a little as if Fleur is right next to her. “Use your godly brain to give my species a name that will resound through space and time as something to be feared and revered.”

Okay, that felt like sarcasm. When did Fleur learn to use sarcasm? It’s not like she’s been constantly listening to me talk to Noland and Ursula for… weeks. Ah. Whoops.

“Gambler!” A voice roars through the emptiness, full of rage and vitriol. “You alone are nothing! Without the backing of a powerful patron, there is nothing you can do!”

It’s… coming exactly from where Pearl said the invisible mech is. I don’t recognize the voice, but I feel like I should. Maybe it’s Phineas? Or… Ernest using a voice changer? Either way, I don’t feel any attacks coming my way, so it’s not doing a great job of intimidation.

“Ignore them. I can’t feel any magic readying for an attack.” Pearl sighs in annoyance. “What a waste of perfectly okay tech. If I was behind the controls, I would at least give you a run for your money… and if it was a true mech, you’d be a splatter on the grass by now.”

Strange way to insult them and me at the same time, but I’ll just take the important parts out of those sentences. They’re not attacking. Hell, they aren’t even moving. Whoever’s in the pilot seat must not have a clue what they’re doing, or else they’d be doing… something. Running, fighting, attacking, whatever. But still something.

I cock my head and put on the smarmiest expression I can manage. “Was Gasp the only one who could pilot that thing? Or did all of you collectively lose a good chunk of your brain cells in the last thirty minutes?”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Why… I never!” The voice scoffed. “Insects like you need to know your place; crushed beneath the boots of your betters! Shout! End this vermin!”

The mech decloaks. It’s arm is outstretched, one finger pointing at me with smarmy confidence while the other arm is planted on its hip. I stare blankly at it in silence for a good few seconds, then shake my head and go right back to ignoring it.

“Alright, it’s useless. Wonder if Gasp actually was the pilot.” I muse just loud enough for whoever’s talking to hear.

“Mrrrrgh! Shout! What. Is. The. HOLDUP?!” The voice half-screams, half-demands as metallic impacts ring out. Almost like someone’s banging a control panel with their fists. “You–no, I don’t want excuses, I want results! I’ve seen what these things can do! Get your sorry, whipped ass up here and destroy the resort’s pet vermin!”

“Sorry… boss… but I can’t.” Shout’s voice, quiet and pathetic, joins the other. “It takes magic to work the weapons, and I don’t have the right kind of–”

“Are you kidding me?! You just stole the right damn magic from Gasp!” The voice hits a specific crescendo that brings images of flying spittle and bulging neck veins to mind. “If you can’t use her magic, what the hell was the point of all this?! Have you even tried, you sorry excuse for a speaker?!”

“I… sorry, sir, I have.” Shout’s voice gets quieter and even more pathetic. “It’s hard to control. I can’t even change the spell I already have going, or else everyone’s going to go back to normal.”

“NORMAL?! YOU CAN’T EVEN DO THIS MUCH?! This is why you’re constantly being paired up with competent speakers–because you’re so goddamn uselelss on your own that we can’t–” The voice pauses. “Shout, did you turn off the speakers?”

“Um, no, sir.”

“...Damn you.”

Both voices cut out at the exact same time. I… kind of feel like I just watched someone get reamed out for not doing their job right. It’d be a little sad if I wasn’t trying to seriously harm both the reamer and the ream-ee. Instead, it actually feels pretty damn satisfying. And the let one little nugget of information slip that they probably didn’t mean to.

The speakers aren’t all as strong as each other. Not even close. That’s definitely a weak point I can tell Call to abuse. It also looks like the mech’s not going to pose me any problems any time soon, unless someone gets their head out of their ass and manages to fire a weapon at me.

Leaving me plenty of time to think of a good name for Fleur’s people. I shift my coins to auto react with my awareness if the mech does manage something and resume slowly walking towards it while deep in thought.

My initial instinct is to make some portmanteau of salt, molten, and something to do with flowers. Honestly, if Fleur hadn’t asked to be called that, ‘Fleur’ would have been a pretty good name for the species as a whole. Maybe something stupid like ‘Nactar’, using the Na from salt and ‘ctar’ from nectar.

…Nah, that’s stupid. Way too punchy for someone as beautiful as Fleur. So, what do I know about salt, besides the grade-school level stuff? Not much, honestly. I was a business major. Haven’t touched chemistry since high school. But I do like the ‘nectar’ angle; molten salt kind of looks like what I assume nectar does.

I carefully step over a pothole and frown as the mech’s arms fall limply to its sides. They must’ve stepped away from the controls. Are they giving up? No, no, gotta stay focused on what’s important–naming Fleur’s species. The Preservation is just an annoyance right now.

So… nectar plus what? I’ve never named anything before, really. Salt. Nectar. Molten. There’s got to be something there that doesn’t sound stupid or way too obvious. What’s the specific name for salt crystals, anyway? I kind of remember there being one. Something-ite. Starts with an… A? No, an H. H-something-ite.

Wait, why am I wondering? Fleur definitely knows. “Hey, what’s the name for a salt crystal?”

“Are you referring to Halite?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Halite.” I nod to myself. “Give me a minute. I’ll think of something.”

Nectar. That’s close-ish to ambrosia, another Greek mythological thing. Maybe… Halsia? Halosia? Haltar? Halar? I wrinkle my nose and repeat them over and over in my mind; none of them spring out to me as the absolute best, so I have to discard all of them. I’m not giving Fleur a name that got barely fifteen seconds of thought.

“Halsia, Halosia, Haltar, Halar…” I mutter under my breath. “Nectite, Ambrite… no. None of those sound right. I’d probably need to put a ”

“Halsia…” Fleur trails off, her voice halfway between reverent and ferocious. “From halite, ambrosia, and it is a near approximation of a plant itself. A salt approximation of a plant. Just as I am a salt approximation of a living creature.”

Pearl winces and shakes her head. “Don’t call yourself an approximation.”

“No, no, I do not mean it that way.” Fleur laughs, full of confidence. “I mean it purely in my form–as I do not have to exist in the way a human would think of a sentient creature to have a body, and yet I chose to do so. I am salt and magic. I am Fleur. I am… a Halsia.”

I almost wince at the way she says a name I just kind of… threw out there. “You’re damn sure?”

“More than almost anything else.”

“Alright, if you’re happy with it.” I take a deep breath and straighten my back. “Fleur, I name your people the Halsia.”

…No fireworks. No fanfare. Not even a word from Pearl or Fleur. It’s like the world watched me do something stupid, and is staring at me wide-eyed in disbelief for how much of an idiot I am.

“Uh, did I do something wrong?”

“A little.” Pearl giggles. “You can’t just say something and think it’ll work. But if you look at Fleur in your Class Card, and alter her species name as the first to discover her, then you’ll finalize it. No turning back after that.”

“There is no need to turn back. I, personally, would much prefer to keep moving forward. Along with the both of you.”

“Aww.” Pearl hugs an empty space in her shell. “We’ll be happy to have you for real, Fleur! Adventures will be so much more fun with another voice in Shelby’s head to talk with! Ooh, just wait until you meet Illumisia–she’s going to love you!”

“I highly doubt that, but thank you for attempting to encourage me.” Fleur… laughs. “Please, Shelby, finalize my existence. If you feel you need my permission–which you do not–then I give you my everything. You are my god. It is time to act like it.”

Alright. Okay. I can do this. It’s just an irreversible change that could have consequences far beyond what I can imagine. Nothing too serious. I take out my Class Card, swipe over to my information tab, and scroll down until I see a shimmering space without a name. Next to it is a rudimentary description of Fleur–that she’s a salt elemental capable of complex thought–and nothing more.

I press my finger onto the sparkling emptiness. And for what feels like the first time in a while, a system notification plasters itself onto my vision.

Naming process for unknown entity initiated.

Once a name has been submitted, it cannot be changed without significant cultural upheaval.

Someone such as you is undeserving of this honour.

Enter name below.