“We splitting up again?”
Following Zeo’s question, the group all looked amongst themselves for some sort of confirmation. They’d united together outside of the hotel they all (well, almost all) had been staying in the next morning, and were working out their plans for the day.
When no such confirmation naturally came, Kiria answered, “I suppose so. Reina wants to go shopping, so unless you guys are interested in th-”
“Pass,” said Tyger, rolling his neck to relieve his bad-bed syndrome.
Unsurprised, Kiria instead looked over to Annabelle. “You wanna come with us, Annabelle?”
“Oh, um….” the elven girl began. “Actually, yesterday, Zeo and I decided to go sightseeing.”
“Oh? Where are you guys going?”
Zeo shrugged his shoulders and brought his hands up behind his head. “I didn’t really have anywhere specific in mind. The city’s huge, so I figured we could find lotsa cool stuff to check out just walking around.” He broke out into a playful grin. “We’ll just let the wind guide us, ya know?”
The concern on Kiria’s face was clear as crystal, but by that point, she knew that fighting Annabelle’s dogged devotion to Zeo just wasn’t the play, so she was just going to have to accept whatever ideas the two had in mind. “Okay, then,” she finally replied, albeit with a sigh. “Just try not to get into trouble, and contact me if anything goes wrong.”
As Zeo and Annabelle took off, Kiria focused her attention on the trio still in the vicinity. Reina was skipping around in circles, Tyger was rigorously massaging his neck and shoulder, and Cain was doing his morning stretches. Kiria had the feeling that he had already done them privately in his room, but wanted to show off how productive he was to the group without blatantly coming out and saying it, although that was just her little theory.
She had….a bit of a tough time picturing this group spending two or three hours out shopping together.
“So Tyger doesn’t wanna go shopping with us….Cain, I’m guessing you d-”
“Of course not,” Cain said, cutting her off. “Shopping is a waste of time and money, and leads to nothing more than material excess.”
Tyger growled. “Maybe you should go shoppin’. Buy somethin’ to help pull that stick outta yer ass.”
“What was that?”
Reina suddenly skipped into the scene, bouncing between the boys, cutting them off from one another. “Hey, hey, chillax, guys!” She took hold of Kiria’s hand, pulling her away. “C’mon, Kiria, let’s go!”
“What about the boys?”
“Aw, they’ll be fine!” Reina said with a bright smile. “They can hang out together, just the two of them! I bet they really, really missed each other!”
Tyger growled. “Shuddup….”
Cain scowled. “Ridiculous.”
“Just try not to kill each other,” said Kiria. “Remember, we’re meeting up at the pulse at ten. We’ll be in there for a while, so try to eat something before you head over there, and definitely make sure you use the restroom, too.”
“Aight, mom, damn,” said Tyger, which sent Reina bursting into a giggle fit.
* * * *
ULTRA PULSE
* * * *
The wind took Zeo and Annabelle down a long, winding path through the streets of Radecross. The first street they walked down was lined with a variety of general utility stores, such as a laundromat and a convenience store and a strip club and a sandwich shop, but once they turned the corner, they were once again assailed by the locomotive aesthetic, as though they had stepped into a whole other world.
What was once the busy, car-ridden Main Street was now a railroad that supported the largest and longest train the city had to offer. The train was so long, in fact, that it almost seemed as though it didn’t even have an end — onlookers could spend a whole day watching the street and see nothing but the chugging cars of the train pass by them. Perhaps the train was infinite, and was some sort of perpetual motion engine that powered every other machine in the city, allowing it to continuously metamorphize.
The sidewalks on either side of Main Street appeared to be bustling with more activity than any other quadrant of town. There were hordes of people of all species, sizes, and shapes from all sorts of snations walking to and fro. There were musicians playing songs, performers pretending to be statues, and swordsmen dueling each other to the death, encircled by impromptu audiences tossing their paychecks into the betting pools. And by paychecks I mean paycoins, because the citizenry decided that coins fit the steampunk look much better than checks, as they were bronze and silver and made satisfying tlink sounds as they were thrown into the streetside arena.
“Wow, there’s so many people here!” Annabelle gasped in awe.
“Yeah, it’s pretty packed today. It’s almost as crowded as the capital,” Zeo replied. “Makes sense, since it’s the weekend.”
Annabelle’s big, pink eyes went wide. “There are cities even more crowded than this?!”
“Yeah, of course. Have you….never been to one?”
The elven girl shook her head. “No….I’ve actually….never really been anywhere besides home. Well, except for Kahe Ana when we were kids, of course.”
The pair had to come to a stop before they could cross the next street, as the city guards were in the midst of clearing up a traffic jam. It seemed as though one of the horses, who had previously been employed to transport tourists around by carriage but now found himself jobless due to the current train transportation wave, had stormed into the street and started headbutting one of the little personal train cars, blocking off the flow of traffic.
In order to avoid killing the momentum of their walk, Zeo gently took hold of Annabelle’s hand and guided her down a parallel street. Since he was up front to break through the crowd and make a path for them, he was unable to see the enormous smile that had appeared on the elven girl’s face at the sudden contact. “Where does your family live again?”
“Losaria!” Annabelle answered.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“Ah, right, that does sound familiar. Small town?”
“Sort of? I mean, we don’t really live in Losaria, I guess? The manor is in the woods behind the town, so I don’t actually live there. But I’ve been to Losaria a few times! It’s really nice and peaceful!”
Zeo chuckled as the two carefully passed by a pair of drunkards screaming at one another, fighting over whether a train was superior when it was longer and thus had more cars, or if girthier cars made up for the lack of length with the efficiency and comfort they offered their riders. “Far cry from this place, huh?”
* * * *
ULTRA PULSE
* * * *
The boys walked mostly in silence. They had no destination in mind, and were mostly just killing time until the group was scheduled to meet up at the pulse.
Cain did spend that time observing the city, at least, not wanting to be unproductive whenever he could help it. His eyes moved over every pedestrian they stepped past, every train car that chugged by, every building they walked along, taking in anything and everything he could, and, more specifically, judging anything and everything he could. A man with bad posture there, a woman with a bland hair style there, so many store logos with terrible color compositions, and the trains!
Oh lord the trains! Loud, clunky, dull in design, and constantly discharging those disgusting gray vapors. “Absolutely ridiculous….!” he snarled underneath his breath.
It wasn’t until Tyger suddenly cut away from him to take a different path that Cain was whisked away from his mental judgement session and back into the tangible reality.
Tyger had stepped up to what appeared to be a community board. Surprisingly, the board itself didn’t appear to have any train theming to it, other than one single flyer someone had pinned to the board which advertised a train conducting training seminar. “See anything cool?”
Cain’s blood-red eyes scanned through each and every flyer, card, and photograph pinned to the community board, his brain automatically tossing any which contained the word “train” or “steam” on it into the mental recycling bin. Soon, he settled on one particular memo. “Interesting….”
Half a minute later, when no follow-up words came to explain that “interesting….”, Tyger let out a growl and smacked Cain’s arm. “What’s interestin’, blockhead?!”
“Chateau Aurum is opening to the public for the week.”
“….”
“….”
“The hell’s that mean?”
Cain sighed. “Ten years later and I still have to explain common knowledge to you. How sad it is to see life wasted on you.”
Tyger’s hand shot out, grabbing hold of the front of Cain’s shirt and aggressively yanking him closer. “You wanna get thrown into outer space?! Huh?!”
Rolling his eyes, Cain forcefully broke Tyger’s grip. It was so quick that the latter didn’t even realize it had happened until a moment later when his hand started to ache from his fingers jabbing into his own palm rather than the fabric of a shirt. “Chateau Aurum’s an island resort for the nobility, and only opens itself up to the public on rare instances, like major holidays.”
“There ain’t any holidays this week though, right?”
“No. The memo doesn’t state why it’s opening, either.” Cain ripped the memo from the board to examine it closer, ignoring Tyger’s scolding for damaging something that someone had put time and effort into making and displaying. He focused on the section noting some of the guests of honor in particular, recognizing some of the names. “Gai Lea will be attending? Interesting….”
Tyger turned back to the community board, not very impressed with Cain’s choice of reading material. As he haphazardly glossed over the flyers, he asked, “Did you….wanna go?”
“What?”
“That Aurum place. Did you wanna go or….whatever?”
Cain raised an eyebrow before re-pinning the memo to the board. “Why ask that?”
“Cuz ya showed interest in it, asswad! Why else w- agh, forget it!”
Shaking his head, Cain said, “Your emotional control is absolutely pathetic.”
“Piss off!”
* * * *
ULTRA PULSE
* * * *
The girls’ shopping trip was almost completely devoid of silence, mostly due to Reina. From the minute they had left the hotel, the little chameleon girl had been running her mouth, talking about everything from her Hunter training, to asking what Kiria’s Royal Guard coworkers were like, to an excited recounting of how well her beloved hometown ultrarush team was doing in the current season.
“We’re totally winning the championship this year!” Reina screamed, pumping her fist into the sky. “And when the betting pools start up, I’m gonna be freakin’ rich!”
After apologizing to nearby pedestrians who were surprised by the sudden outburst, Kiria hooked her arm around Reina’s as they stepped into Radecross’s largest department store that was, fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your stance), far too structurally large to be converted into some kind of train-themed operation.
It was the final store they were hitting up for their day one shopping trip, as ten o’clock was inching closer. While Reina really, really wanted to go to the local toy store, Kiria proposed they use their last few minutes before the meeting to gather somes supplies for the group’s trip into the pulse.
Reina was caught a bit off guard as Kiria nabbed a full-on shopping cart, as she wasn’t anticipating them buying much.
As the cart filled up with packaged food, snacks, and drinks, Reina’s head tilted to the side, and the tip of her scaly tail came up to scratch at it. “Are you getting food for everyone?”
“Yes.”
“Aw, that’s so nice, Kiria!” Reina reached over to the shelf and grabbed a box of her favorite lemon cookies. And then another. “But what if they’re already bringing their own?”
In truth, Kiria didn’t really expect any of them to. She felt a bit guilty about doubting her friends’ preparedness, but it was a feeling she just couldn’t shake with faith. “Well, then, I guess this cart’ll be just for the two of us.”
At the mention of that, she had to lunge forward and hold her arm out to prevent Reina from dumping an entire shelf of candy into the shopping cart.
* * * *
ULTRA PULSE
* * * *
The group reunited outside one of the city-side entrances to the pulse. Unlike the other side of the mountain where they first arrived, the entrances on this end were much more barren, and didn’t seem to be attracting any tourists at all. There were only two guards around as well, and all they really had to say was “Good luck. Don’t die,” and that didn’t feel particularly sincere.
Kiria couldn’t help but let out a slightly disappointed but not unexpected sigh as Zeo, Annabelle, Cain, and Tyger strolled up to the pulse with absolutely no supplies in any of their eight hands. Reina also let out a disappointed but not unexpected sigh as she began to divvy up the pile of snacks between them all.
“So now we’re taking the tunnels without the yellow paint on the walls, right?” Zeo asked as he tore open a candy bar. Even standing just inside the entrance, there were already plenty of corridors that appeared to fit that bill.
“We splittin’ up again?” Tyger asked.
“Noooo, let’s all go together this time!” Reina declared as she stepped between the two, hooking her arms around theirs. “We’ve split up way too much already!”
Giggling, Annabelle nodded in agreement. Kiria’s eyes met Zeo’s with a nod of her own, gesturing for him to lead the way.
As they headed into one of the tunnels, they realized that it must have been one unexplored by the city, as not only was it devoid of yellow paint, it was also devoid of any source of lighting.
“It’s really dark in there….” said Annabelle, her voice low.
“Spooooooky!” Reina whispered.
“Don’t worry, ladies, I got this,” Zeo said, bringing his hands to his chest, forming an invisible ball between them. A loud voice exploded from within him, amplified by the echoes of the tunnel walls.
FIRE!
A red flame burst from Zeo’s chest, floating into the air before coming to a stop a foot above his head. The light emanating from the fiery orb lit up the dark tunnel, providing the group with vision.
“There we go!” he said with a proud smile. “No need to be scared now, right?”
Annabelle’s face lit up even more brightly than the ball of fire. “Woooow….! Is that ULTRA Force, Zeo?!”
He jumped in place at the sudden outburst of excitement. “Hm? Oh, uh, yeah. It’s a Fire Install.”
“That’s so cool, Zeo! You’re so cool!”
Fortunately the red light of the flames was well-suited to masking the tint of blushing cheeks.
Off to the side, Cain smirked. “Oh, please. It’s a low-level function of a low-level Install. Nothing about it is impr- ack!” he yelped as Kiria yanked on his ear.
“Let her be excited, Cain.”
Tyger and Reina laughed.
And then they screamed.
All of them screamed. Because the ground underneath their feet suddenly exploded, and the floor collapsed, taking all six members of Class G with it.