CHAPTER 13: CLOSING TIME

Hiro listened to the fluctuating voice of her translator as Duffy told her Moria's idea. Moria was still concentrating on her web and didn't spare many words to help the explanation. What it boiled down to was since they shared the water concept Moria could tap into her power and use it to stabilize and close the anomaly. She didn't realize how easy it would be to draw from her strength until she accidentally drew Hiro in when she reached out with her power. Hiro had gotten caught in her water-gathering field that powered her water web.

"I don't know how to do that though. Just a few minutes ago I almost unraveled a huge section of her web then I almost blew my arms off!" Hiro protested after Duffy finished their explanation. Ghram was studying her fingertips as they talked. He was using his powers to guide them to heal properly. She was studiously not looking at them as flesh and muscle regrew. Ghram had explained how easy it was for self-healers to make mistakes when they were first starting out and not grow nerves back properly. His main goal was to ensure she could feel her fingers when she was done while not leaving her in intense pain.

"ALl yoU Have to DO is reacH out like You DID the first tIMe. MoriA will do the Rest." Her translator was slowly calming down but still had spikes of crackles and pops when a stray bit of electricity flared up. "You're alrEAdy doing it with GHRam now. He's DIrectING your poWer. It's the SAme thinG. We cAN Call for backUp But it WIll take TOO lonG for it to ArriVE. IT wiLL take SOMe time and SHE can't stabilIZe the anomaly herSELF. The longer we leAve it the more THings will break dOWn. Our PRIMary dirEctive is to clOse anoMalies with all REsourcEs avaIBable. InclUDIng new sPARKs." Duffy frowned at their own words. Clearly disapproving of the argument.

Hiro dubiously looked at her arms, covered in fresh white scars and her fingers pink and raw to the second joint. The pain of newly regrowing nerves sent tendrils of fire up her arms. Her doubts in her mother's voice ran across her mind. 'If you do this much damage to yourself with your magic just imagine what you're going to do to them.'

Duffy, Natia, and Bellator had handily finished off the last two Bison once Hiro had dealt with the Three that had been harassing the group. Bellator and Natia were keeping an eye out for any more threats while Ghram worked on Hiro and Duffy talked to her. Moria had taken a more relaxed posture with her palms up and elbows bent. Water spiraled up from her palms connecting her to her web.

Moria was in a stalemate with the fractures in the sky. The central point kept breaking. It was like an ever-changing impact point of a broken mirror. Moria's power couldn't close the new cracks in this central area fast enough. As they spread her water web flowed along them keeping the anomaly from getting any bigger. It also didn't get any smaller.

Hiro's volunteer cloud had followed her over to the group. The edges brushed up against the uncontained center of the anomaly. Any part of the cloud that touched it flashed from rain into other things. Snow, hail, and mist had all fallen from it at one point or another. Once a sandstorm had even blown up and everyone had to shield their eyes. Some sand still clung to their damp clothes. Every time it pulsed into something else Hiro could feel it. Her chest would tighten and her heart hurt like the time she was broken up in high school.

Hiro redirected her attention to the sad raincloud. The edge was currently snowing softly before the white flakes were whipped away by the greater storm. With a deep breath, she came to a decision. She couldn't leave the sky like this. She could help.

Ghram had talked her through letting his power guide hers. It was surprisingly easy to do when one person knew what they were doing and expected it. She had literally shocked him with the electricity still coursing through the water inside her channels. He said it had been no more than a static shock, but she suspected he had been lying. That hadn't helped her trepidation over reaching out to Moria.

Ghram started flexing her fingers one by one as they healed. She closed her eyes against the pain. "Duffy, what happens if I cause more destabilization? What happens if I mess up?"

"A few things can HAPPen. More monSters can FORM," Hiro was over the jumps in the translator's voice. She clamped down on the power still sparking around her skin and pulled it in to feed her healing. "There can be another planer shift to a new biome. If it's accelerated chunks of the world can start dissolving. But the likelihood of that happening is very low. The concepts you absorbed want to bring order to these anomalies. You can probably feel it." Hiro nodded that she could.

Duffy continued the translator smoothed out fully now. "Trust your magic and it will do its part. You'd have to actively fight all the instincts you absorbed with your concepts in order to make things worse. And to be frank, you don't have enough control over your magic to do that yet. I'm Surprised you didn't kill yourself with the lighting."

Duffy paused sighing, "I apologize for putting you in that position. I made a call in the moment, and it put you in danger. We caught it so fast that it hadn't had time to fully form and I thought it would be ok to bring you in. Moria reminded me that regulations said new Sparks can assist if necessary and it seemed necessary. Any help would not reach us fast enough otherwise."

Hiro's eyebrows drew together and she reopened her eyes to examine Duffy's face. There was an unreadable expression behind the visor. Unsure of what was going to happen, Hiro went with her tried and true method of taking all the blame. "It was my fault the Bison got out of hand. I should've stayed on the ship like you told me to. The raincloud," She pointed to the clearly odd cloud above her, "Was messing with the ship, so I had to take it outside. If I hadn't done that then none of this would've happened. I'm sorry." She looked dejectedly at her feet. Her mom would have started screaming at her for making excuses. She braced herself for it. When it didn't come she glanced up and Duffy was just watching her with confusion.

Duffy shook their head dismissing what she had said. "Bison? You recognized the monsters? Interesting, but something to get back to later. I forgot you're so new at this. When your concepts are being directly affected by an anomaly, every instinct inside you is going to tell you to go fix them. It was my responsibility to warn you of that in the absence of training. Then I compounded the problem by making a split-second decision to bring you into the anomaly when I was told you could help. The initial changes to the monsters made them hard to deal with, but then the lasers and Ghram getting his shoulder dislocated we need to wrap things up sooner rather than later. I thought it was the best call to protect my team. In my misjudgment, I didn't protect you as I should have. You ended up helping a lot by taking out three of them in one blast."

Hiro's incredulity about the situation grew the more Duffy talked. This would've never happened as a kid. As an adult when she made mistakes she'd get mostly good-natured teasing from her coworkers and a stern talking to from her boss. She had even been written up a few times at the beginning of her career at the machine shop. Only one of her coworkers, Clint, would lose his cool if one of her mistakes affected his part of the process. Apologizing quickly often would head off the worst of his wroth though. It had taken a few years before she had stopped expecting to be yelled at when she made mistakes. The stress of the day had not put her in the best headspace to deal with the unknown of what was going to happen next. She was still figuring out these new people.

Hiro glanced around at the others, trying to see where the shoe would drop from. Natia was looking a bit sheepish as she watched the storm sweep across the prairie. Ghram was wholly focused on her hands and didn't seem to be paying attention. Her look lingered on Bellator, he didn't seem to like her much. His lips were in a thin line, but it didn't seem he had anything to add to Duffy's little speech. Moria had closed her eyes, her face was drawn and strained.

"What's done is done now, and we can examine everything in debriefing. For right now all I need to know is if you're willing to try and help Moria or if I need to call for backup from headquarters." Duffy raised their eyebrows at her while unconsciously rubbing the gemstone behind his ear.

If working at the shop taught her anything, it was to own up to and fix her mistakes. She nodded to them, "I'll do it." She flexed her fingers on her own. They were stiff and painful. Still a lot better than the unfeeling mess they had been after she channeled all the electricity she had absorbed. The rain had accelerated her healing quite a bit. keeping her skin wet as she burned through her power to heal the extensive damage. "Ghram, I don't know if I can pay attention to both healing and helping Moria. When do you think they will be healed enough to put on the back burner for a bit?"

Ghram distractedly glanced up at the sound of his name before refocusing on her hands He held her wrists gently to tap into her power before it reached the damage. He guided it with finesse. She was a sledgehammer and he was a scalpel when it came to control. "Give me a few more minutes. Once all the nerves have regrown we can let your natural healing take over for a while. It will hurt like hell until we can get back to it, but it will heal fine."

"Ok," Hiro was very much aware of how much it hurt. She was honestly shocked she hadn't passed out from the pain. "Duffy, is a high pain tolerance part of magic?"

Duffy nodded, Hiro no longer noticed the short pauses in between their conversations while various devices translated. "Yes actually, after the change your body is able to handle all forms of input including pain better. The more attuned you become with your power the better this ability becomes."

She nodded contemplating everything while Ghram finished with her hands. They were alternating between tingling and burning. Duffy's response to her defying their orders was baffling her. No sign of anger. Maybe they used different body language than she was used to and she just wasn't picking it up. The fact that she could read them all so easily suddenly struck her as odd. Did all humans evolve to use similar body language? Something to figure out later. During debriefing, that's when they would let loose for sure. They just didn't want to compromise the mission or distract her from what was happening now. Satisfied that was what was going on she waited until Ghram let go of her wrists sighing.

"You really did a number on your hands kiddo. But they should be ok for now. Let's get this anomaly closed up so we can go home. Maybe we can finish that scan too. Your internals feel marginally better than when we first met, but there are still things going on inside you that give me pause." He shook his head and took a step back while gesturing towards Moria.

Hiro hesitantly walked forward. Ghram had told her that physically touching the person you were combining magic with helped. Something about preventing interference from outside concepts. Moria opened her eyes as she approached and gave her a tired smile of encouragement.

She moved her already open palms out just a bit more in a gesture for Hiro to join. In heavily accented English she said, "When you're ready." She closed her eyes again, the strain evident on her face.

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Hiro took a big breath, wiping her hands on her shirt nervously. They were both soaked through from the rain and it did nothing to clean them but the motions calmed her nonetheless. She stepped forward adopting the same pose Moraia was in. Her arms bent ninety degrees at her side palms up as if in worship. She didn't want to interrupt the flow of water rising from Moria's palms so she placed her hands underneath hers. Gently cupping the back of her hands.

She closed her eyes and reached within herself. She spun the water flowing through her magical channels like Moria was doing, keeping the electricity that filled her tightly insulated. She worked it down her arms and into her hands before speaking. "Here it comes. There's still electricity inside it. Don't be shocked." Her hands and arms buzzed in pain as the power went through the still-healing channels but it was manageable. She could do this. She focused outward before reaching her power slowly toward Moria offering it to her to take and use.

Moria, forwarned reached back ginerly accepting the stream of power she offered. She took it and insulated it with her own power. She formed Hiro's power into a thick trunk. A tightly contained stream of electricity at its core. Moria's power formed a bark directing it to where she needed it to go.

Hiro focused on controlling her power as it left her. Now that she wasn't overflowing with more than she could use, it was manageable but not easy. She did not want to blow off her fingertips or hurt Moria. Moria was soon drawing her power up and out and Hiro sent her senses up with it. The thin web Moria started with turned into a vast tree with branches sent to pull in the fractures in the world back to the core of the anomaly.

To her mundane senses, it was a magical water tree lit up from the inside. To her magical sense, it was breathtaking. Moria sent shoots of power off and grabbed cracks, mending them and then following them back to the source. It required control and multitasking. It required confidence and trust in her power. Something Hiro currently didn't have with her own powers. Moria had it in spades. It radiated from her magical control.

As they worked the branching grew smaller and smaller as Moria used Hiro's power to smooth and correct the rifts in the sky. Each time one of them closed it made Hiro feel a little better. The pressure she had felt since she first saw the sky fracture lessened each time another break was smoothed away. If she opened her eyes she would've seen the volunteer raincloud shrinking as well.

Within twenty minutes Moria and Hiro had patched all the branching cracks and Moria spun their power around the anomaly's core. Branches reached out and then bent back surrounding the core of the fracture in an orb of power. Water and electricity prevented the cracks from escaping their new prison. Hiro could feel the rupture pulse dangerously and she tensed up. Moria seemed unconcerned, slowly shrinking the orb around the cracks. She gently pushed her hands down into Hiro's and then drew their hands up pulling more power through their connection than before. Hiro refocused on providing the power she was reaching for.

Hiro was getting tired. She might be able to focus on projects all day, but this kind of magic had drained her physically and mentally. She faltered for a moment, the power of lightning she had absorbed all but depleted. It shone above their heads now making the orb around the anomaly in the sky crackle and glow. She took a deep breath and continued to push out power.

Moria stopped trying to pull more than she was giving and the flow of power restabilized between them. Hiro swayed and she felt Ghram put a hand on her shoulder. A feeling of strength flowed into her from his touch and she felt more alert.

The three of them together worked to close the anomaly. Ghram stabilizing her while she fed power to Moria who used her control to compress the orb tighter and tighter until it was no bigger than one of the orbs that held a magical concept in the caverns. Moria cut off the power between them and then reached a hand up to the orb. She made a pulling motion and the orb moved.

The sky warped and bent and she slowly pulled it toward the group. It reminded Hiro when someone pokes holes in plastic. The membrane stretched before a pop of pressure released it and the sky returned to its standard shape. It dispersed the storm clouds, snapping back to punch a hole in the center of the storm and pushing it outward. The orb finally released it flew quickly to Moria's hand. She was careful to hold the spinning sphere of water and electricity above her skin. Not actually touching the thing.

"Anomaly sealed," Moria looked between all of them with a tired grin. "Good work team!

Hiro joined in with the tired cheer as the team celebrated their victory. She was exhausted, but it felt good to be helpful. The little voice of doubt was silenced while she put her anxieties on the back burner for the moment. She looked around expecting the prairie to start changing into whatever it used to be. When it didn't she looked to Duffy who was busy scanning the orb with their visor. She wanted to ask why it didn't revert.

"It'll slowly die off now the anomaly isn't powering it and the natural landscape will eventually reclaim it." Hiro jumped as Natia spoke from beside her and her translator jumped in. How a woman with giant wings could sneak up on her she had no clue. Natia took a moment to focus on her hands and they morphed back into their normal brown skin. "When they are done tell Duffy that I went to do a sweep to make sure all the monsters are dealt with. If they didn't show up to defend the anomaly there probably aren't any more, but it's procedure." Without waiting for a reply Natia took a few steps back and with a few great flaps of her wings she took off and flew away.

"She does not waste time does she?" Hiro muttered to herself.

"No, she doesn't," Ghram agreed swinging his backpack off his back. "We're both exhausted, let's wrap your hands to make sure they stay clean while our magic reserves build back up."

Hiro nodded and they started the process of cleaning and wrapping the thin and tender skin that had regrown on her hands. "Thanks for your help back there," Hiro told him as he worked. "I was struggling to keep up with Moria."

"You're welcome. That's what healers do. You may be new to this, but you stepped up to help us, so I stepped up to help you. Us sparks have to work together to save reality after all." He shot a smile up at her before returning his attention to wrapping her hands. She mulled over what he had said. The dynamic between the team was strange to her. She worked with the guys at the shop of course, but everyone had the feeling of not my circus, not my monkeys when it came to issues they weren't paid to deal with. The managers would help out of course, but that was their job.

Her hands felt bulky and stiff by the time Ghram was finished wrapping them. She could flex them just a little, he hadn't wrapped the gauze very tightly. "Everything inside is still looking good, but this should keep them protected in the meantime."

Her hands hurt. They had been hurting this whole time but now she had nothing to focus on she felt it acutely. Pain radiated up her arms. She let her arms down by her side and the throbbing instantly increased in intensity. She lifted them back up and gently rested them on her forearms in front of her, doing her best to keep them elevated. How power reserves were tapped out. She had sent every bit she had absorbed earlier into the containment orb that Moria and Duffy were pouring over right now while the group waited for Natia to come back. She would be stuck with the pain for a while.

"You know, with all the magic and technology I wasn't expecting gauze wraps." She remarked.

"We when the magic runs out and we're away from the med bay we go traditional. Magic and technology can do most things, but sometimes there's no access so that's where my backpack comes in." He patted his med kit backpack fondly before zipping it up and putting it back on. He winced a bit as the strap went over his left shoulder. "I popped it back in place, but it still hurts" He explained

She gave him a sympathetic look. She was selfishly glad he had decided to conserve his power, she might not be able to feel the tips of her fingers without his magic. Both of them patched up as much as was practical for now, they approached Moria and Duffy. Moria was still carefully holding the captured and stabilized anomaly above her hand. Duffy was muttering to themselves. It was so quiet her translator didn't even pick up what they were saying.

Moria's crooked smile greeted them as they approached. Duffy completely ignored them and focused on the electric orb and visor. Moria shifted her attention to Ghram, "All good?"

He nodded in assent, "Nothing permanently damaged, everything will heal in time. I can't get back to the base's medical bay, I'd love to do a few deep scans to be sure."

Some of the tension in Moria relaxed. Her glance shot guiltily at Hiro's hands and she shifted her weight back and forth. Then a torrent of words rushed from her, "I'm sorry my idea got you hurt. I felt our magic connect and I knew I could close the anomaly with your help. I didn't have any idea you had the lightning concept. I should've guessed from the ship, but I didn't think about it. I knew you had water, but normally sparks don't mix water-based concepts and electric-based concepts. It was a small risk of being drawn into the water while I was controlling it, but once you mix in lightning I couldn't help you out like I thought I could."

It was Hiro's turn to shift uncomfortably, she was the one who messed up Moria's magic to begin with. She had an apology to make herself, "I'm sorry I messed up your control mid-battle. I wanted to see what you were doing to see if I could learn from it. I have the electricity and sky concepts as well as water and all of them felt so wrong. I couldn't hold back from at least looking at what to do."

Moria shook her head, "Wait you have three gold concepts? Sky water and electricity do make sense. Some sort of weather-themed confluence maybe?" Bellator gave Hiro a glance at this revelation before scowling and turning back to his watch. Moria cut herself off, "No, not the point, we'll talk about that later. That was a minor interruption and my control teacher would've berated me for losing focus. You didn't know any better. We didn't tell you. It would be mean of me to expect you to know rules you haven't been taught when you come from a closed world. Duffy or I should've explained better but there was no time."

"Yeah, I've only been on this world sixteen hours and thirty-two minutes. It's been an eventful day. I really wish I had Button back." Moria gave her an odd look, but before she could ask about anything Duffy spoke.

"You'll have a new PGA by tomorrow. some people from headquarters will be bringing a replacement in their relative morning which is mid-morning for us here." They met eyes with Moria, "We'll talk more about what went well and what went wrong in the debriefing, as soon as Natia gets back we will head out. I have the scans needed to synthesize a containment unit and have already sent the order back to the workshop so it should be ready soon after we get back."

They all looked at the sky to see if they could spot the dragon-winged Spark. Everyone but Hiro suddenly tensed up at once, Bellator drew his sword still searching the sky. The others looked to Duffy.

"Form up around Hiro, Moria, and the anomaly. We don't want something breaking containment before we can get it back to base. Delta formation." Duffy instructed pulling their laser rifle out from thin air. Hiro hadn't even noticed that it disappeared while they had been examining the orb. She was also confused, what was wrong?

Two seconds later she saw Natia winging toward them as fast as she could. Six seconds later she noticed the grasses under Natia swaying violently as something passed through them. Soon whatever was disturbing the grass reached the edge of the battlefield where Bellator's sweeping wind blades had knocked it down. What greeted them was a horde of small monstrosities running toward them. At first, it looked as if they were chasing Natia but as they got closer she swerved and they did not follow as she divebombed across the tops of them with freshly summoned claws attempting to break their charge.

Hiro got a good look as Natia plucked several from the group to drop back amongst the ranks to sow confusion. They had centaur-like bodies with the bottom half made to scramble on four legs, with the backward-looking knees goats had in the back. The top half was covered in dense fur and had four arms each one holding onto a variety of weapons. Mostly melee weapons like swords and spears, but a few seemed to be running with guns. Their size was truly strange. They were all quite tiny. None of them were taller than Hiro's knees. Each one looked different than the others with various horns, colors of fur, and body shapes. It was like a race of pygmy goat centaurs mixed with spiders. Their faces were all odd as well, though Hiro couldn't quite make them out yet, there were a lot of flashing teeth distracting her from looking too closely.

Natia's attempt to break the charge with dive bombs was a mixed success. There were too many for her to truly do them much harm. At least Hiro thought so until she zig-zagged back and put on a final burst of speed. Natia opened her mouth and breathed a spout of flame across the plain. Everything was still soaking wet, but the monsters she had targeted had fur that went up in flames. She took out at least half of the group. The ones in the taller wet grasses were protected from the brunt of the damage. Still, they kept coming. Slowed but not stopped by the line of fire across the prairie.

Bellator was pale, "Are those what I think they are Commander?" He asked Duffy.

Duffy's face was drawn and set into a frown. "Yes, Those are Genisis beasts."