“Come back here you bothersome cat!” The Revifier said as the nano-chatte teleported himself and Anna away. Anna was pushed forward by the nano-chatte who threw her into the portal as she barely managed to escape the Revifier’s telekinetic grasp. The nano-chatte wasn’t as lucky and was yanked back into the Revifier’s hand.
“What were you expecting? Did you think I would let Anna exhaust herself?” The nano-chatte said as the Revifier looked at it blankly. The Revifier finally stopped acting as she knew the nano-chatte was too brainwashed to buy into any story it weaved to make it understand why she was right. The only way to deal with a nano-chatte was by killing or enslaving it.
“Yes, actually. It seems like I overestimated her willpower. If you get out of here alive, make sure to tell her that’s why she’ll never get my blessing. I thought that giving her something to be spiteful about would increase her willpower drastically, but it didn’t. She’s not extraordinary in either spirit or mind.” The nano-chatte couldn’t move at all, and it had already used all its energy in the teleportation so it couldn’t do anything but sit there and talk.
“You can’t discard someone for not reaching your sky high standard.” The Revifier froze, and blinked a couple times before replying.
“A hivemind that… respects non-automatons? Am I hallucinating?” Nano-chatte’s were typically dismissive of anyone who they deemed primitive. Considering they were at the apex of achievable technology, there weren’t a lot of civilisations or people they considered non-primitive. A nano-chatte that wasn’t dismissive was a rare find. You had the rare oddity that enjoyed studying primitives, but no self respecting combat nano-chatte would even care about defending any sort of primitive.
“No. I, or anybody known to exist, does not have any ability that could make you hallucinate.” The nano-chatte said with its usual cold robotic tone.
“Now that I think about it, you are an odd one. How did you even do magic?” The nano-chatte’s thought process stopped. All seven Ai’s and biological personalities shifted their calculations and speculations towards figuring it out. The nano-chatte was not biological, and non-biological things can’t do magic. Perhaps the rule was circumvented thanks to the biological personalities? No. Robots with entirely biological personalities still couldn’t use magic. “You're funny, you know that?”
“What do you mean?” The nano-chatte said.
“Oh, you know what I mean. You think so much about the simplest things. Your old pal even gave you the answer not so long ago.” The nano-chatte kept thinking and thinking, but always within the box.
“What do you mean you can’t teleport us there?!” I said. Anna just claimed that she couldn’t teleport back, and not in a practical sense because she didn’t believe in my ability to distract the goddess, but because she didn’t believe herself capable of teleporting without the nano-chatte.
“I told you! I was only able to do it because of your armour. It gave me the will to actually do it.” Anna said back, practically yelling at me and Chrisitan.
“Just do it! What’s stopping you? Whatever it is that’s stopping you, remove it, and teleport us there before the nano-chatte gets killed.” I said, wiping my black sweat off my forehead as I struggled to not let my aura spread too far.
“I can’t!” Anna said.
“Why not!?” I yelled back.
“Because I’m not chosen by anyone! Of course it's easy for you to say ‘just do it’. You never had to try as hard to reach my heights. You’re blessed by two gods. What do I have? Nothing! I have no talent. I have no blessings. I can’t just do stuff.” What did she mean? Of course I work hard. I have died… three times? Who cares! I have died plenty of times. Has she died?
“What are you even on about? I have died. I have sacrificed myself at every opportunity I got just to save others. What do you mean I don’t have to try?” She turned back to Christian and then back at me to punch me.
“I can't die! You can! If I sacrificed myself, it’d be over. You have another privilege that just won't let you die.” The punch had little effect on me. It was as if she didn’t even try anymore. Her will to hurt me wasn’t actually there. She just had to do it to keep her anger in check. “If you want to teleport so much then why not use that damn book to learn it yourself! Since it’s so damn easy apparently.” That’s exactly what I did. I stood down, picked up the book, and stopped my aura while covering most of myself in the curtain.
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“Pal… you alright?” Christian asked Anna, to predictable results. She just glared at him. “My bad. Stupid question. Look. I don’t know what’s bothering you, but you gotta let it go.” Anna didn’t stop glaring at him as he held back tears of anger.
“Let what go?!” Anna said, before Chrisitan sighed.
“That stupid attitude you got. You can’t just limit yourself like that. Call it being naive or whatever, but I believe anyone can do anything they can put their heart to. I mean, look at the lad. He was a normal guy, like us, and he got strong not only through luck, but by knowing how to use that luck. Even if he wasn’t blessed by any god, he would’ve ended up here, with us, because he’s the type of person to reach for the highest peak, and when he falls, he just picks himself back up and hopes for better luck. That’s the type of person you are aswell, you just haven’t realised it yet.” Anna raised her eyebrow at the stereotypical speech, but then just dropped her head into her arms, silently thinking.
“So what? Am I supposed to wait for magical talent?” Christian chuckled to himself after Anna said that.
“No. You already have it. You teleported once, and I don’t see that armour teleporting back, so it wasn’t the only thing in charge of teleporting. You have the luck it doesn’t, and that luck being that you’re alive, and can read that book.” He pointed to the magic book I was reading. Christian didn’t know my armour was actually alive, but his message was what mattered. “And you know what you do with luck?” Christian waited for Anna to finish for him.
“You… use it.” Anna picked herself up and marched to me, snatching the book and accidentally revealing my face a little. “Oh! Sorry.” She turned back to Christian and flipped through the pages. “Alright you two, get close. Christian, leave a note in case Sam comes here.” Christian quickly ripped out a comically small notebook and used a charged bit of wood to write something, and then nailed it on the door entrance with a tiny splitter. Anna quickly took a deep breath and pushed her hand forward to… no effect.
“Come on, keep trying. It’s ok. We’ve got plenty of time, trust me.” Christian said. Anna took another deep breath, and thought about how the nano-chatte envisioned teleportation. It envisioned it as a portal swallowing people up. Maybe she couldn't create that with just pure willpower by herself, so she’d have to use her body as well.
She pushed her palms forward and started splitting space. For one brief second, she saw a white void of pure energy and destruction, but it was quickly replaced with a normal portal that sucked the three of us in.
“Grab onto me.” Said Anna. I grabbed onto Christian, who grabbed onto Anna, who grabbed onto the wall of the portal tunnel and dug into it with her palm. She crawled through the hole she created and pulled us in as the hole and portal closed.
“Come on little cat. One more guess. Your thought process is oh so adorable.” I activated my aura of un-change as soon I saw the Revifier again. The nano-chatte was locked under several chains made of pure light. The Revifier was levitating above him and just gleefully smiling.
“Why are you acting like that all of a sudden?” The nano-chatte was so high up that he couldn’t even see us, but the Revifier certainly felt us. Her having a tone shift in the middle of speaking indicated that pretty clearly.
“Revifier! Give me back the nano-chatte. You have no goddamn right to complain about me not trusting you after you just kidnapped my most trusted friend.” The Revifier turned to me while faking surprise. I looked back to see that Christian and Anna had already disappeared. They’re probably waiting for an opportunity to steal the nano-chatte away while I distract the Revifier.
“Oh? Are you attached to that thing? It’s a robot incapable of doing anything by itself, and thus, it’s weak. You deserve a suit of armour that doesn’t pretend to be alive.” I already felt mentally exhausted, but me giving up on arguing with her and attacking her without thinking was probably part of her plan, or she just planned everything out from the start and it’s a double bluff.
“Trust me, the nano-chatte did more for me than any other piece of armour would’ve done.” I suddenly jumped to attack her after saying that. I wasn’t about to let her get another word in so my statement would be the last one in the argument, and thus automatically right thanks to it being unanswered. She just disappeared after I reached her and grabbed me from behind to throw me into the ground she raised to slam into me.
“Do you think you can do anything to me just because you have an unshakable will and a new aura? That’s almost as hilarious as you trying to pretend that using a gun was a good choice.” She raised me and lowered the ground, only to slam me and raise the ground again. How long did I have to distract her? This is already more than my half dead body could endure.