The following hours were hell.
Joram kept from looking around as he played a repetitive tune that you’d expect to hear in the background of any lounge in the early 20th century back on Earth. It didn’t stop his perception for picking up on the crowd gathered at the base of the “stage”, held back by those fancy rope and stand barriers you’d see in a high-class restaurant or theatre.
He suspected, though, that they kept their distance due to the small signs affixed to the top of those posts that read:
GOING PAST THIS POINT WILL RESULT IN BEING BANNED FROM THE PREMICISS.
He was genuinely pleased and gratified that the signs had worked. That said, it didn’t stop people from calling out to him between sets. Or throwing various things. Like their contact information, crystals, or other more… provocative items.
Alicia had assigned someone to gather everything sent over the rope barrier into a small crate off to the side of the stage, freeing him from having to see it all. That said, he could still perceive the starstruck fans gathered behind him.
Yes, he’d set up the grand piano in a way that would have sent any concert-goer, performer, or event planner into a fit. His back was to the audience, saving him from being stared at directly. Even as his High Elan self, he was finding it very difficult to keep colour from rising on his face. It wasn’t as bad as it had been when he’d played at Starfall, so there was that.
But the fact that he was still having issues performing in front of others after having assimilated the saiyan sample was telling. He was much more of an introvert than even he’d suspected. Or maybe he just had incredible stage fright.
That said, having women throw their personal effects at him as he played was something entirely new to him. And eminently embarrassing. Especially when he needed Kinkade’s help to keep playing without interruption because of his growing anxiety.
Avi wasn’t there in person. She’d made a new psicrystal that she’d put the Alicia personality into and had her covering for her. That he needed to still be there in person was ridiculous. He’d have already switched places with Kinkade if he’d had a chance to do so.
But he’d been stuck on stage for almost four hours now, only pausing to accept a glass of water every now and then. Not that he needed it, but taking the cup of water and nursing it allowed him to calm his nerves a bit.
He was going to need to work off this stress later. And as much as the thought of doing that with Avi appealed to him, he needed to do it solo. He needed to be away from the temptation of her embrace so that he could properly focus on stabilizing both his physiology and mental state.
When Alicia finally announced last call, he was relieved. Then when the café was finally emptied, he stood up, stored away the grand piano and bench, and gracefully said his goodbyes before slipping away…
… Right into his waiting fans outside.
He bolted, surprising them with his speed. Once he rounded a corner he used [Empty Body], slipping into the ethereal state that had allowed him to escape his first performance. When he’d successfully lost the mob, he shifted back to his Realm, right into the gravity room.
Joram took a few minutes to just breath after that, centering himself. After he calmed himself, he became his Aneath self, set the gravity to his current comfort level, and got to training.
As he worked through his various exercises and kata, he thought. He processed everything from the past day, trying to make sense of it all.
He focussed on his feelings for Altaea, from when he’d first met her to after she’d suddenly left him behind. He very much considered that his feelings for her had been one-sided, given their relatively short time together. But he also examined the power dynamic between them.
Altaea had not only given him a new life, but had also trained him, taught him everything that he now knew. That sort of relationship hadn’t been an equal one. If anything, she’d held all the power there. From literally remaking him to gracing him with her knowledge; she’d been the one in control.
But she hadn’t held that over him.
If anything, she’d treated him remarkably well, his ridiculously difficult and borderline torturous training aside. Yes, it had been on a level that he’d needed healing countless times throughout just one day, but he’d asked for it. He’d been driven to learn everything he could from her.
He supposed that on some level, he’d known it wouldn’t last.
Every story that he’d written about her had ended with her being pulled to one of her other selves to merge back into one being. He seriously wondered if her divided selves weren’t unlike his own [Schism]s. Like how he’d taken a sliver of his personality and used that to make a psicrystal to house each of his new [Schism]s, giving them the autonomy needed to help him.
Had she been split in much the same way? He really didn’t know, but he did know that even though they were split, they were still one being just waiting to come back together again. So strong was the pull that once one version of herself became powerful enough, it would start drawing other powerful fragments of herself from across the multiverse.
Was that what had happened to her?
He shook his head, ridding himself of that circular line of thought. What mattered right now were his thoughts and emotions regarding her.
Ultimately, he came to the conclusion that he really had grown to love her dearly. And, if he wasn’t being delusional, he suspected that she’d started caring for him on a deeper level than someone who’d picked up a puppy. He couldn’t say to what degree, or even how, she’d begun caring for him, but he felt that she had.
Which led him to Avi. The Altaea Virtual Intelligence that Altaea had made for him.
Was she meant to just be a companion for him as he made his way in an unfamiliar, hostile, and profoundly dangerous world? Surely Altaea would have known that leaving such a construct with him would lead to… complications.
Because Avi had acted the way she had at the beginning, he’d been OK with friend-zoning her. It had been even easier to do because of the loss and hurt he’d felt. Keeping an avatar of Altaea at arm’s length had been easier than probing the reasons behind Altaea leaving him a companion that looked exactly like her. That, and he’d been convinced that she was only a VI, something that only emulated intelligence. Something that he wouldn’t worry overly much about developing feelings for.
But over the years, and especially after Avi had revealed that she was a fully functioning AI, that had changed. He’d been shaken to learn that. And, upon further introspection and reflection, he’d started treating her much differently than before. He’d really started to rely on her. Started to really care for her.
After she’d made her own body, he realized that his feelings had further been muddled. She’d gone from an intelligent figment, able to control a psicrystal to do what she needed, to a living biological entity. Not just a hard light [Holographic Image] that gave you the impression of life, but a vital being that could comfort with a touch.
He couldn’t count the conversations he’d had with her over the years. Nor could he fully grasp just how much she’d invested in his wellbeing. And that also gave him pause. Was his dynamic with Avi similar to what Altaea’s had been with him?
Did he hold all the power in their relationship? Was it imbalanced and thus fundamentally flawed? Their souls were connected to each other. If he perished, would she also perish?
Then another question came to mind: was her loyalty and devotion to him a result of her programming? Had she been designed to stay with him no matter what? To be an eternal companion for him through thick and thin? Nothing more than a custom-built slave?
That thought disturbed him more than anything else so far.
He was aware that slavery existed in this world, and that it was commonplace enough to be considered normal. He hadn’t paid much attention to it for fear that he’d grow to need to do something about it. Joram was fundamentally against making another person a slave. If they willingly sold themselves into slavery, well, that was their choice.
But the thought of legally owning another person, being able to decide their fate didn’t sit well with him, to say the least. He wasn’t unaware of how close he’d come to that by demanding a Heart Oath from the Trio. But it wasn’t slavery. He didn’t own them, nor did he have the legal rights of life and death over them. He just required loyalty from them so that he didn’t have to worry about them stabbing him in the back.
Bit it was still a bit too close for comfort when he took the time to think about it.
He decided, then, to release the Trio from their Oaths to him…. Well, mostly. He’d need to keep the part where they couldn’t share his secrets with others. Needing to keep what he’d shared with them a secret wasn’t just to keep him safe, but also everyone who relied on him for their safety.
Which led him back to Avi.
How could he determine if her base programming was affecting her attachment to him? He hadn’t gone into her directory, wanting to make sure that he didn’t cross any personal lines with her. Had that been the right decision? Could he have found something in there that would have allowed him to free her? If indeed there was something?
For as smart as Avi was, and how long she’d lived for, he wondered just how much real-life experience she had to go on. He knew that she’d gone through every bit of data he’d stored away over the years, watched every bit of media he had, read every book he owned. Yes, the bulk of what he owned was fiction, science fiction, or fantasy. But he still owned his fair share of life-applicable books from self-help to psychology textbooks, but that didn’t substitute for real-world experience.
What he was getting at was, even though he was an adult, was she? Was Avi developmentally mature enough to make serious life choices? It was one thing to play around with technology and another thing entirely to develop a healthy relationship with another person, especially an intimate one.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Which brought him once again to the question of whether or not she’d been programmed to be any sort of companion that he’d ever need.
He stopped then, leaning over and panting as sweat dripped from his face to land on the floor between his feet. Every muscle in his body burned and complained at him from overuse. He took a moment to breath, then stood up again and stretched everything out before using [Mend Body] to heal the damage he’d done and [Body Purification] to rid himself of the lingering weakness in his muscles.
Joram felt as his body restored itself and kept going as it made itself stronger after the intense travail. He wondered at just how crazy his body would become, images of Goku flashing through his mind.
He tapped at his omni-tool, increasing the gravity once more before starting his routine over again.
He still had much to think about.
* * * * *
*1346.04.27*
Tatia lay in bed, looking at the ceiling in her room. She’d only “slept” for a few hours, waking fully refreshed a couple of hours before dawn. She hadn’t expected that. So, she’d accessed the Crystal Mind again, going through the insane cultivation method that Joram had left for her.
Unlike Sulia, due to Tatia’s cultivation being completely abolished before her change, she would need to start over from the very beginning. She would have time to decide if she wanted to follow Joram’s path, or continue on the one she’d been on before the attack.
She wondered if Joram truly understood just how broken Encompass the Universe truly was. He claimed that it had been left for him by the Founder, Altaea. If what he claimed was true, then the cultivation method might very well have been created by Altaea herself. Then left for him to find and use.
Encompass the Universe didn’t go into much detail beyond the basics, which made Tatia wonder if Altaea had purposely left out very important information. If she had left things out, had she left other manuals behind that would fill in the gaps?
Because one of the most difficult things a cultivator needed to progress wasn’t how they manipulated the various tiers of mana in their body or their core. It was incorporating the Elemental Laws into their core. The more Laws a cultivator learned and progressed, the harder it was to incorporate new Laws into their core.
With the ability to create two cores, a cultivator would gain untold power over their peers. Being able to form even more had the potential to create an absolute monster. And Joram had given that method to her and his mother. Sulia had said that she was close to where she would try to consolidate, to reform her core. She had also let Tatia know that she would try for more than one core, the same way Joram had.
Tatia wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Joram’s accident while trying to form more than one core had caused untold pain and problems for him over the years. Did she want to watch her granddaughter go through the same things she’d seen Joram go through?
Tatia laughed at herself then. What right did she have to stop Sulia from doing exactly what she was planning on doing herself?
She held up her right hand, palm facing the ceiling, and gazed at it. The diamond on the ring Joram had given her sparkled in the early morning light. It truly was a marvel. To think that something so small could contain so much.
It not only held Joram’s annotated Encompass the Universe Technique, but also several other volumes that he thought she could use. It was also, what he called, a modified psicrystal that would allow him to always have a connection with her; a way to find and reconnect with her should the Network go down in the future.
She smiled at his consideration of her. Her fears of the past now made her a bit ashamed. She’d feared that he wasn’t truly a part of their Clan, a part of their family. It may have been justified at the time, and perhaps it was what had helped Joram bond to them so well, but she still felt a bit ashamed.
Tatia shook her head, then paused as the odd sensation.
She brought her hand down to her head and felt at the short hair that had grown over night. It hadn’t grown even an inch, but even that much shocked her. Her hands then went to her brow and found that her eyebrows were indeed regrown, along with her eyelashes. She felt at them a bit more and found that her eyelashes seemed a bit longer than before, a bit fuller.
Was that Joram’s doing, or her own?
It didn’t matter, though, so she refocussed on the ring. It didn’t function like Sulia’s Crystal Mind, but seemed to just… work. She could always access the information stored in the ring as though she’d always known it. Yet another ridiculous item created by Joram and given away as though it was nothing.
Well, maybe not nothing. She was reasonably sure that he wouldn’t be giving something like this out to just anyone. His filial love and devotion were exemplary. She’d need to find a way to somehow pay him back one day.
Tatia went over the steps of forming and creating multiple cores over and over again, visualizing it, imagining the feelings described by Joram as he’d experienced them. She did all this in her Knowledge Sea. As baren as it currently was, it provided her with a great place to work things out. To tease at thoughts and follow them as far as she could.
It also helped that her Knowledge Sea hadn’t diminished after the ritual as Joram had thought it might. Indeed, Sulia’s cultivation had dropped to the peak of Body Tempering because of the ritual, which had still surprised both Joram and Avi because they’d thought that she would need to start over from nothing.
It just showed that they didn’t know everything. Well, not that she’d expected him to know everything. No, but it did show that there were still things that she could teach him. Especially regarding cultivation.
She then went over the part of the manual where he mentioned the inability to store mana where one’s core would normally be after having drawn his cores into his Knowledge Sea. Tatia wondered at that. Was he just missing something, or had he truly managed to effectively rip out his ability to cultivate normally?
Tatia recreated the image of her own mana-ways that she’d used for almost two hundred years. Every part was exact and true, from its shape to the very curve in each and every pathway. From there, she emulated what Joram described, how he’d drawn his cores away to his Knowledge Sea.
It didn’t work. In fact, if failed spectacularly.
It took her some time to remember and create a new model of what she remembered of her body before she’d consolidated her cultivation so long ago. She tried again from there.
Failure after failure followed as she tweaked one thing after another, refusing to give up. She’d work through what she could in her mind before she got close to needing to do the same in real life. And when she grew too weary to run the simulations she would switch over to building, what Joram called, her Knowledge Star.
She’d get stronger. So strong that she wouldn’t fail her family again when the tides once again turned on them.
* * * * *
Wentian got back to the manor in the early afternoon, having spent the morning on the training fields. It was a good feeling, the soreness and light aches he had after a good series of spars. It was even easier to keep practicing here as the students of the Academy were a bit more… restrained during spars, resulting in fewer injuries and less downtime for healing.
He closed the door behind him and noticed that the “piano” was still missing, meaning that Joram hadn’t returned it yet. Which probably meant that he was still away. Which meant that he could enjoy some peace and quiet. No worrying about scary company arriving, nor the need to serve said scary company.
Wentian shuddered a bit as the memory of Clan Clear Knowledge’s Matriarch returned to the fore of his mind.
Even though she’d been crippled, she still had an intensity that scared him. And he hadn’t even been the target of last night’s warning.
He truly felt sorry for his martial sisters. Not only had they been dragged into the extermination squad in the name of gaining worldly experience, but they’d also died with a good number of the squad. Only to be brought back to life by the young master of the clan they’d been sent to destroy.
He respected their resolve to not attack indiscriminately when they saw that they’d been lied to. He also respected their choice of vows to Joram, a form of atonement for what they’d participated in. He did not, however, respect the feelings they’d obviously developed for Joram.
Wentian wasn’t sure exactly how deep those feelings went but he was well aware of the “injured-soldier” and “captive-soldier” syndromes that people developed from time to time after traumatizing events. He wondered if they’d developed such syndromes and, if so, what he should do to help his martial sisters through it. Or even if he had any right to interfere in their lives.
Well, Bai Lian was different. He’d watched over her for the first couple of years after she’d joined the Sect, making sure that she wasn’t taken advantage of. All because, after a long and particularly painful day of sparring, she’d found him laying in a park, stomach growling, and had immediately set out and brought him a bowl of noodle soup.
Just that.
He hadn’t fallen in love with her or anything so trite. But he was someone who repaid kindness. Someone who appreciated a kind heart and worked to protect it. They’d become friends of a sort after that.
She’d been too shy to do much more than speak a few words to him when he inevitably showed up to chase away someone with ill intent. It had been hard to deal with her flustered self as she tried to find ways to pay him back for his kindness, so he’d come up with a way she could “pay” him back.
By buying him meals every now and then. He considered it more than worth it. Free food for just showing up and scaring someone away was a no-brainer for him.
Now Bai Lian, and he supposed Mo Yu as well, had fallen for their one-time enemy. A person who they were sworn to. He wasn’t sure if they’d already fallen for him before they made their Oaths, but that didn’t really matter. He saw her feelings developing very quickly over the past two days and worried.
She was young and inexperienced in the world. Especially when it came to men and romance and such things. He knew full-well that she was more comfortable being a scholar than a warrior. Knew that even with all that book-learning that she didn’t have what she needed to know to navigate her current feelings without running face-first into a wall.
Wentian went to the kitchen and started preparing ingredients as he thought. He found that cooking helped to calm his nerves when he had particularly difficult problems to navigate. As he thought, his hands moved by rote. Peeling, chopping, dicing.
What to do…?
* * * * *
Avi leaned forward, letting her forehead knock into her desk. She didn’t mind, as that was preferable to what she was feeling. In fact, she lifted her head again just to let it drop onto her desk again as she warred internally with what to do.
She’d been too impulsive. Much too hasty, acting without thinking things through properly. Had she put herself into a dead end? Had she screwed herself over hard?
Well, the question wasn’t if she had, but just how bad it would be for them both.
She let her head roll to the side and looked at the results on holographic display again.
“Yup, still the same,” she said, closing her eyes again.
She’d been hard at work since leaving Joram the night before, having pawned-off the grand opening onto her newly created Mind, Alicia. It had been a fun diversion to play a role for so long, but she really needed to get back to work. Especially after last night.
Avi cracked an eye open, sneaking a peek at the display again and sighed.
No matter how many times she looked, it wouldn’t change anything.
She’d been mistaken when she’d told Joram that the gland responsible for transforming during a full moon was easily taken care of. In fact, not only was it not easy to remove the gland, but it wasn’t possible to remove it without removing the tail entirely.
The gland in question wasn’t located in one discrete spot, it went the full length of the tail. Not only that, but it also located in the vertebral foramen, right along with the nerves. Which wasn’t the worst part. No, that honour belonged to its ridiculous regenerative properties. Unless the entire tail was amputated at the root, every part of it would grow back.
Even then, the tail could regrow unless the amputation was properly done. She was amazed at just how strong a healing factor saiyans had. It was also quite bothersome.
Avi had wanted to find a way to keep their tails given how taken with them Joram had been… and admittedly how much she’d enjoyed the tail play, however brief it had been. But given the risk of seeing a full moon twice a month, well, it wasn’t really a question if they’d keep them or not.
What she was worrying about was seeing Joram’s disappointment to the news. She knew that it wasn’t ultimately a huge deal for either of them. But, given the development in their relationship last night, she worried a bit.
Well, a lot. If she knew Joram, he was likely having an existential crisis over it. Avi really didn’t want to add anything else to his plate. The risk of his mind going off on a tangent and coming up with absurd conclusions wasn’t small.
Over the years she’d well and truly grown to love the man-boy. She’d worried that she would forever be in the friend zone with him, but had more or less accepted the fact. He was incredibly dense when it came to women or emotional intelligence, which had somewhat worked in her favour.
Avi looked over at the display again, but this time waved a hand to turn it off, then sat up again, thinking.
It would be easy enough to avoid a full moon in the future. Heck, with their fields of perception, they could just keep their eyes closed on the 14th and 28th of each month. No problems there!
But would that fly with him?
Standing up, Avi ran her hands through her now very unruly hair and began pacing. As she paced back and forth, her hair once again raised up and out a bit, gathering into veritable spikes of hair. Just like a damned saiyan’s hair.
She stopped, concentrated for a moment to find Joram, then nodded to herself. It was best to break the news to him sooner rather than later.
Nodding to herself again, she shifted to Joram and promptly fell flat on her face.