CHAPTER 24: CORE OPTIONS

"So the last thread just goes down into a cavern and ends?" Professor Davenport clarified taping a spot on a hologram floating in the air.

"Cavern makes it sound so big, it's quite small. Maybe a cave, or hollow instead?" Hiro told her sitting on the top of the tube of water. She was attempting to pull the water from her skin and wet suit. It took her two tries to get it all but soon she was dry and out of the submersion tub and standing by the professor's. "Man, Moria makes that look so easy!" She muttered before looking up to see the hologram the professors had gathered around.

Next to the tank, Professor Gendry had wheeled out another device. It was a large dome-like construct with a bowling ball faceted crystal set into the center. Above the device, a hologram of a human body stood in the air spinning slowly. As it spun to face her Hiro realized it was her as she looked right now in the wet suit.

A glowing ball of swirling energy glowed inside her chest slightly below and behind where her heart would be. Branching streams of power flowed from the lit center all through her body. Gendry was busy manually adding the information she had provided about where the final stream went, which was somewhere around her navel. There was a hollow empty spot there that the other threads flowed around making a natural spot for the hidden core to be.

Hiro's eyebrows came together as she traced a rather large stream traveling straight through the center of her head. She addressed Davenport, "Professor, are the mana channels like veins and arteries? Are they physical? And if so, will my brain be impacted at all by having that thing slicing my hemispheres in half?" She asked pointing to it. Her brain didn't feel different, but that didn't mean anything necessarily. It was magic after all.

"Yes and no," She replied wiggling her hand in the air. I touched on it a bit while we were mapping, it's both there and not there depending on a lot of factors."

"It's metaphysical until you make it real," Professor Daubenton broke in tapping the branching scars running up her arms. After being submerged for several hours mapping, had a bonus effect of her hands and arms now being fully healed. "Run too much power through before you're ready, and it manifests inside of you, and if you don't have the control," She bobbed her bat-like head, "it will make its way out of your flesh. Shape changers actively manifest power within because it will assist their transformations. Most other Sparks practice the opposite." She looked meaningfully at Hiro's hands once again before standing between the two other professors.

The two of them kept swiping at the Hologram to make her suspended form face themselves. Silently battling for control of the form. Hiro's eyes ponged back and forth between them until Daubenton settled herself between them and spun the holo to face Hiro.

Hiro found it strange facing a closed-eyed form of herself floating in the air as she had in the water. She looked so peaceful in the image. The Christmas tree impression the hologram was making drew her attention away from studying her face. She followed the branching streams of power with her eyes. It looked like someone took several maps of river deltas and pasted them all over her body.

There were two main rivers of power. One went up and branched through her mind. One went down and ended in the hollow above her navel. Four smaller streams flowed through her libs and split into tributaries throughout her body as they went. Her breath caught as she looked and looked, tracing the pathways with her eyes. It was singular and beautiful.

The three professors started discussing what was the best pathway amongst themselves while Hiro looked at her mana channels letting their discussion wash over her. She had half her mind following the thread of their discussion and the other half still marveling at the fact she had honest-to-goodness magic in her body and she could somehow see what it looked like.

"Button, you got all this right?" she muttered quietly to him.

"Indeed Miss. I have a copy of the scan in your file." Button replied promptly.

"Excellent, add it to my status screen thing you showed me earlier with all my concepts on it. She told him.

"As you wish, it is done."

Hiro took a moment to pull up the screen. There was now an option to overlay a copy of her mana channels over the outline of her body. She clicked it on and saw it bloom to life over her outline. She nodded whispering thanks to Button and tuning back into the discussion.

"We should tune some mana monitors to her to track her progress before we do anything else!" Professor Gendry was saying. "Jumping right into consolidation and mana channel enforcement will rob us of valuable data in how she progresses!"

"We have postponed the mana channel therapies long enough as it is. We should start with that right away while your team builds and tunes the monitors. Any data lost will be inferred from the next scan's progress." Professor Davenport argued.

They both turned to Daubenton who was watching Hiro whose attention had finally landed back on the trio. "I think we should all take a lunch break. Cadet Skylark and Professor Davenport have been deep in meditation for hours. I know I at least will be able to come back to make decisions with a clear head then. Gendry if your assistants can get the monitors done in that time wonderful. Otherwise, we will start the consolidation process while the energies inside are still in flux and willing to change to a more desirable path." Professor Gendry nodded his head at her as his eyes went distant and his jaw flexed as if he was speaking to his PGA.

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Daubenton continued, "If it is not ready in time, we will break when the monitors are ready to attach and resume after. Hiro while we are eating I want you to think about how you want your powers to interact so you have the direction and intent in your mind for the next step."

Hiro nodded slowly as she thought. "So I need to think about my confluences and how my powers were acting before the change?"

"Precisely. We need to remind your cores what they're supposed to do as we drain your mana channels of the water mana. I will help with that, and then Professor Davenport will help with the consolidation. This might take a few days." She muttered as she examined the branching pathways within Hiro. "But you also need to start thinking about your cores and if you want to try the path to bringing them together or if you want to maintain their separation.

Hiro bobbed her head thinking back to the vision within her buried core. She wasn't sure if the visions she saw had been the only options. Maybe they were just the most likely or best options. She hadn't messed with her time powers enough to know. Her gut was telling her that those were the most likely but maybe not the only ones. But which one was best?

The professors kept talking about theories and which exercises and therapies to start with while Davenport shooed Hiro into the side room to change to eat. They wouldn't need the water tub anymore for a few days. She began to ponder the potions while she dressed.

The visions were burned into her mind, three main paths. The first is a single unified core without the water concept. The second was what she decided to call the planetary core with the three cores revolving around the fourth. Water and time merge into the central sun with the other cores rotating around it. The final version was pulling the fourth core up and suspending them all within the water concept. This is the one where she made the flooding of the water concept work for her, but the other powers were muted.

She pondered while she rejoined the professors and they all walked to the elevator to go to one of the hospital cafeterias. There was one option she immediately didn't like. She did not want to flood out her other powers and make all of her power dependent on her water concept. While it was strong, it didn't feel right the more she thought about it.

That left the other two options. The singular core was an interesting option. The core had thrummed with power, but she hadn't seen or felt any water magic from it. It was almost like she had been able to go back in time and properly finish the change. Who knows, maybe that would be exactly what would happen if she put her mind to making a singular core. Davenport had said that consolidation into one was likely but also having multiple cores could result in more power. Or maybe it could dilute it.

She took a moment to select some food from the kiosk and wait in line for it to come out while the others kept talking. They hadn't needed her input in some time beyond telling her they would get a few relevant books about what they were going to be working on sent to her PGA. Button had confirmed he had received it and then Hiro put that to future Hiro to do.

Glancing around the area numerous folks were sitting at tables talking and eating. They all looked older than the people who had been in the dining hall at her residence. Which made sense since she lived in student quarters. The room had the same sleek modern feel of the rest of the building with blues and greens darting around in swirls on the walls. In all, it wasn't that different from other hospital cafeterias she had been in throughout her life. Well, if you didn't count the sheer amount of nonhumans in the room. Hiro was getting used to all the different faces now though.

As they sat to eat she thought about the planetary option. In that one, her water and time concepts have bound themselves together and the other cores orbited it. The magic that came out had braided together. A memory from a school friend's birthday party sprung to her mind. This was when she was young before her dad had left. Her friend had gotten one of those toys that spun hair into braids by pushing a button. They had all taken turns until everyone had multiple tiny braids in their hair. It was fun until one of her friends had put her locks of hair into the machine incorrectly. Her hair had gotten hopelessly tangled and she had to get the toy cut out of her hair. Would twisting or braiding her mana cause it to tangle and not be as efficient as the single core and single magic type?

She considered another type of braid she worked with a lot as an adult. Braided steel. Her shop outsourced their braided and twisted wire, but they were what they used when they wanted strong but flexible connections in their parts. They were good for tensioning things, and they helped certain projects keep their form as well. If it was this type of braid it should make her magic stronger right? Which one would her magic end up being? A tangled mess lacking in power and strength or something that comes out stronger for being separate strands woven together and supporting itself?

She ate the cubes she ordered looking between the professors. Professor Davenport was picking on Professor Gendry again and the tall thin man had gotten even paler if that was possible. He hadn't gotten any food, just some sort of smoothie with a lid and straw. Daubenton had a plate full of strange fruits while Davenport had some cubes like Hiro.

She had the best teachers around literally arguing over how to help her. Even if her magic started to tangle she bet one of them could help her smooth it out. As much as having a single core appealed to her desire to fly under the radar, she did not want to lose her water magic. It had saved her numerous times just with the power to heal her after her poor decisions. As they worked together on that she could also feel out if she could trust them with knowing about her fourth core.

She nodded to herself making her decision. She would try and consolidate the spread out water power into a fourth core combined with her time core. Then she would learn how to weave her different mana core's power into one unified stream. There were possible challenges to this, but it seemed like the best path. Perhaps an unknown path would make itself known as she went through the process. But for now, this would be her goal.

She began listening to the professor's chatter again. Professor Gendry excused himself to go check in on his assistants and the other two were talking about their assistants this year and who would be good to watch over certain steps when they had other places to be.

They finished their lunch and headed back up to the floor set aside for the research into the faulty change. Instead of going back to exam room one, with the tank they went to exam room six. Pushing into this room it had been cleared of most things. Only a bench with stacks of blankets, pillows, and mats that wouldn't be out of place in a yoga studio stood by the door.

Professor Daubenton turned to Hiro and clapped her hands, "Alright Cadet Skylark, Let's get your mana channels cleared out."