Mari, Age 19:

  It hadn’t been long. She’d estimate she had been awake for a few hours at most. Barely long enough for a few tests and health assessments.

  An unsettling silence fell over Mari as she joined Alynne on a short trip in a wheelchair across the hospital. Too many things had happened all at once, and she didn’t really feel like she’d come to grips with losing two months of her life, either. Wheeling herself down the halls was enough to get her arms and lungs working a bit, taking the first hopeful steps towards recovery.

  “How are you feeling?” The tall Ravien woman pulled her from her ruminations with a quirked eyebrow.

  The question took a bit of thought and self-assessment, but eventually, she nodded. “I feel weak, or maybe just frail? That’ll take some work. As for mentally, I feel clear-headed and sharp for the first time in my life.” This life, at least, she mentally inserted.

  Alynne nodded, but gestured for her to continue. “Emotionally? That is as important as other aspects of your health, is it not?”

  Mari let out a short huff of laughter. “Emotionally? Did you see Kris? I get that she’s a friend and she’s always tried to be there for me whenever things took a turn for the worse, but for her to go as far as she did? It has me all jumbled up. I’m not the right person for this kind of thing.”

  Instead of understanding, a deep edge of animosity emerged on Alynne’s face. “I don’t think you understand. Maybe you’ve been around Karin and her romance with Constance too much. But for Kris, she’s made her choice. Her only choice. You better respect that, and don’t allow her to have wasted it. I hate to put pressure on you, but that girl has given you a damn gift, and you better treasure it.”

  Mari cast her eyes to the ground, voice faltering. “I never asked for-”

  “Didn’t ask for what? I’ve seen you two together on occasion over the years. Don’t lie to me and say that you don’t feel that way for her. I get it, you’ve got some memories in you now, and suddenly you feel older than you used to. She’s young and impulsive, sure. We all have met with our own fair share of torture in our lives. Kilthien may have to bear this cross for many generations, despite my best efforts to reinvent that technology. All I can ask is that you don’t make her suffer.”

  Mari closed her eyes, steadied her breathing, then searched for the reassuring safety of her Mindscape. With deep breaths, she took in Alynne’s words, which had been delivered about as close to as a threat as anything could be. Thankfully, submerging herself into that mental space allowed her to think faster than usual, even if the focus she needed wasn’t ideal.

  She’d been thinking about it all in the wrong direction. It wasn’t about preventing Kris from getting hurt by her inevitable death. It should’ve been about how much it would hurt her if those feelings weren’t reciprocated. Everything would be complicated, but whenever wasn’t it?

  With another deep breath in and out, she nodded. “You’re right. Sorry, I’ll put my best efforts forward.”

  “Good. Now, the results of your first round of tests.” Alynne straightened up and consulted the chart that was attached as a digital pad to the wheelchair. “I spoke at length to you about the blood condition you suffer from. At the time of your procedure, your blood’s affliction rate was at roughly eighty-nine percent of the estimated maximum I believe your body can tolerate.

  “You may recall that I delayed your regular treatments before the procedure, and I found something interesting. That capacity has increased. The affliction was more concentrated right before your tests than it was the first time we began your transfusions, back when you were just a child. Almost double what nearly killed you back then. Perhaps you’re building a tolerance, or perhaps there is some other factor. There’s no decent way to know with the technology we have right now.”

  Mari tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “What does it mean? I don’t really see why that would be interesting or useful.”

  “I don’t know, but you’re still going to have to be careful about where your blood ends up. On to the other tests. Brain scans are reading normal, which is very odd considering your state during the coma. It’s ‘very odd,’ since the scans show you’re different, but not at all similar to the scanned predications based on the original Marielle. It certainly changed you, but we may need time to find out how.”

  All of that made sense to her, but she couldn’t just explain anything about cultivation techniques. Well, actually she probably could. Alynne would be very interested, but she wasn’t sure it was right to share something so dangerous with anyone else. Just the dozen or so Dynast Souls of Earth had experienced their fair share of differences and conflicts, despite ostensibly being a team. There was no reason to spill the same possible problems to Sylpharia.

  “As for the state of your body, you’re right. You’ve lost significant muscle mass and your bone density has always been lower than the healthy standard. I’m setting you up with supplements to begin to help with your bones and other imbalances, but a decent diet will help, too. As for your muscle mass, I can give you a workout guide, but you’ll be spending a bit of your next few weeks in the rehabilitation center of the hospital.”

  Mari just nodded. She knew it was going to happen well beforehand. Exercise was the only tried and true method to get herself back in shape. Marielle had recommended that she ‘improve her baseline’ before trying any of the other methods out there.

  “Have you given my offer any thought?”

  The question threw her off for just a moment as she tried to recall what Alynne meant. Then, it clicked. “I haven’t really had time to wonder about being your assistant yet. We might want to wait for Karin to pick my brain about what I’ve recalled before moving ahead with any major decisions.”

  The taller woman just nodded, a thoughtful smile on her face. “You’ve at least gained a little maturity from all of this. Here’s hoping you know something useful. Just doing this for you and Vilke was enough stress. I’d hate to have to force it on any of the others.”

  “How is he, by the way?” Mari was slightly ashamed that he hadn’t come to mind since she’d come out of the coma.

  “He’s doing alright, though his own procedure went more smoothly, so that’s no real comparison. He has a visceral reaction to certain noises and he’s always hyper alert to his surroundings, which is a stressful thing I can relate to. He’s also mentioned nightmares, too. They’re worrisome, but there isn’t a whole lot to be done about them, really. Let me know if there are any of those in your case, as well.”

  “Right. Yeah, I’ll let you know.” Mari heaved another deep sigh as she glanced out the darkened windows. “It’s late, sorry I kept you so far past your normal schedule.”

  Alynne laughed, casting a smirk at Mari that looked disconcerting with her unusually slitted irises. “There’s that maturity again. I could get used to having more reliable youths around the city. But yes, I think I’ll call it a night for now. If you need anything, the aides are always right down the hall. Sleep well, Mari.”

  “I appreciate it, but I’ve slept long enough, I think.” Mari spun her chair, then wheeled into her room and set to work looking through the bag of things she’d brought to the hospital with her.

  Not long after, Mari hauled herself on unsteady legs across the rehab center. She’d been mostly just relearning to walk again. Two months normally wouldn’t have impaired her so badly, but she had compounding issues to contend with.

  First, her newly implanted memories were of a completely different body, and regardless of how Marielle called herself the Medjay, there was a fundamental difference in how well knowledge from the immortal soul herself could adapt to a new body compared to mapping Marielle’s memories onto her brain. Marielle was taller, stronger, and more coordinated. Mari had to retrain each of those individual aspects to correct for her own stature. Well, that or just find a way to make herself taller and stronger somehow.

  Then, there was the issue of the two planets. Earth was a bit less dense than Sylpharia, meaning the gravity was a bit less strong. The difference was extremely small, but it was enough that simply cloning Marielle meant her biology was adapted to the lesser gravity of Earth and it had marginally stunted her growth. Probably. She could admit that she hadn’t been eating properly.

  The difference in the muscle density between the people of their two worlds was noticeable, and suddenly Mari knew exactly why she’d always been weaker than her classmates, which was compounded by her overall lack of fitness. People from Sylpharia had adapted over time to have more compact musculature, making them leaner and naturally changing their bone structures to handle a bit more stress.

  Regardless, it all began with the little stuff.

  Walking until she was exhausted, then trying to lift some small weights for repetition, rather than pushing her limits. Then she would take a break to practice hand-eye coordination by using a device that would blink a light and check how long it took her to push the corresponding button. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better for reflex training than anything else they’d had on hand.

  Then, after resting, she’d hydrate before starting it all over again. And she stayed there, working at it in a repetitive cycle until she hit a sort of zen trance about it.

  “Hey there.” A voice pulled her from her thoughts as she stopped to take a drink of water.

  Mari looked up into the mirthful eyes of Kris, who was standing there with a damp towel and a graceful smile.

  “Oh, hey there. Thanks.” Mari blushed slightly as she took the towel and dabbed it across her forehead. Then she looked out the window and paused. It was very bright outside. A nearby clock said that it was well into the afternoon. Then she looked at her arm, which was quivering with strain and fatigue. “I didn’t realize I’d been at it for so long.”

  “Yeah? How long have you been in here? This part of the facility isn’t used much, but the aide said they hadn’t seen you all day.” Kris frowned in concern as she also studied Mari’s trembling limbs.

  “Huh. I think I’ve been here for fourteen hours. Lost track of time completely.” Mari felt the tiniest warning before her stomach growled embarrassingly.

  “Is trying to kill yourself in unusual ways becoming part of your new normal? I can’t say I’m too happy to hear about it.”

  Mari’s face went red. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t notice. Maybe I just have too much going on in my head? It’s weird, though. I don’t feel mentally fatigued or even a little worn out, so until I focused on how exhausted my muscles are, I didn’t even register it.”

  Kris’ expression turned thoughtful as she pursed her lips, which was a sign of academic curiosity, which Mari had always found cute. “That’s an unusual side effect. I don’t recall seeing anything quite like that detailed anywhere. I guess it isn’t really my place to make wild guesses. Take a break?”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure I could move another inch on my own, now that I’ve noticed it. You’re a life saver as usual.” Mari smiled warmly, feeling comforted by Kris’ presence and all too aware of the ‘advice’ that Alynne had given her.

  “In that case…” Kris turned mischievous as she closed the distance between them.

  “Eep!” Mari let out an adorable noise as Kris literally swept her off her feet and lifted her bridal style, turned on her heel, then strode towards the hallway with graceful poise. It was uncanny how effortless the pink-haired girl made it all seem. Sure, Kris was the ace of any sports she participated in, but carrying a person, even one as thin and frail as Mari, should’ve been pretty difficult.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Mari, for her part, just blushed a vivid shade of red and clasped her hands together awkwardly, completely unsure of what to do. She hadn’t known beforehand if she liked being carried, but to her shock, it didn’t bother her at all. Kris was gentle and unwavering, which was part of why Mari had never felt uncomfortable around her before.

  Instead, Mari found herself wondering if there might be any sort of boundary Kris could cross that would bother her. Being in a new situation encouraged her to let her thoughts wander as far away as possible, and the annoyingly random thoughts from Marielle’s memories somehow drifted towards the important life lesson about communication and boundaries when in a relationship.

  Her thoughts proceeded to spiral. Their friendship was complicated, often involving Kris saying things in uncharitable ways to smooth over the egos of various bullies around school. Mari found that harsh words really never hurt her. Physical violence was always off the table for both of them… and so on, her mind dove down the rabbit hole.

  Until, of course, her embarrassed brain shifted to sexual boundaries. That made her mind screech to a halt, her cheeks somehow becoming even more vibrantly rosy.

  “Are you alright?” Kris gave her that taut, concerned expression that always made her heart skip slightly. It was the look she saw in her every moment of need. The expression Kris wore every time Mari needed her help.

  Mari shook her head wordlessly, but buried her face in Kris’ shoulder, savoring the warmth. Somehow, the taller girl was able to carry her so smoothly that she couldn’t feel the footsteps.

  “You know, I’m competing in a Magball match tomorrow. Any chance we can get the medics to let you out to come watch?” Kris kept her voice perfectly low, fitting for how close they were to one another. Her voice sounded smooth and low, almost unfairly so.

  Magball was different from Karin’s famous sport of Magfield. The former was a one-on-one match, while the latter involved teams in a broader space. Magball was a common activity for students to broadcast to Elitheen City as entertainment based out of the school.

  Mari couldn’t suppress a small shiver that ran through her exhausted muscles. “I’ll try to be there, but you know how Alynne is. Maybe with the right chaperone?”

  Then, a stern clearing of a throat cut through the mood.

  “Ahem. My protectiveness is well deserved, seeing as you spent all day in the rehabilitation center where nobody seemed to think to find you. I suspect you’ll need one hell of a chaperone after this stunt.” From her tone, Alynne was clearly not amused with her actions.

  Curse Kris and her long legs. I don’t want her to put me down.

  Mari quickly pretended to be asleep, feigning loud snores.

  “And there goes the maturity.” Alynne sighed.

  Meanwhile, Kris’ shoulders were shaking slightly as she fought down her own laughter. “Did you need anything, Auntie?”

  “As a matter of fact, your mother does. It’s time to sit down with Mari and see what information we can gather from all of these hurdles. We’re now an hour late.”

  Mari felt Kris stiffen at the mention of her mother. That raised a lot of questions, not that there was time for that. She stopped pretending to sleep and twisted to look at Alynne. “Where do we need to go?”

  “Below. We’ve set up a secure meeting room to discuss this away from all the ears and eyes in the walls of the Citadel.” The Ravien then flicked her eyes to Kris. “Any progress on that project yet?”

  “What project?” Mari turned her eyes back to her friend.

  “Let me show you! Maybe you’ll have some insight.” Kris set Mari down on the chair of the medical aide’s station, then drew an object from her pocket. “This strange material was found in a sealed lab beneath the Citadel.”

  “In a room adjacent to where you and Vilke were found as children. It looked like a smooth steel wall, originally. It opened after we performed the procedures for your memories.” Alynne supplied, with obvious interest in the object in question.

  “So, it looks like some new crystalline formation, but also has the properties of a metal, too. Almost like the crystal grew over the metal, but they’re fused, or perhaps warped. This is just a fragment, though.”

  Kris held out the small item to Mari, and she took it gingerly, feeling slightly put off.

  “Here’s what the full piece looks like.” Alynne held out a palm-sized device, which lit up with a holographic projection.

  Mari’s breath hitched, her heart fluttering and mind reeling.

  The fragment in her hands indeed looked like crystalized metal. Red like rubies, but only on one side of the sheet. The other side was definitely the smooth feeling of steel, or at least some similar chrome metal.

  The projection was a larger sheet of the same material, though the perfect lines of the edges gave the impression that it had been cut off from a larger whole. But, emblazoned onto the surface were the damaged words that had once been imprinted on it.

  Hope Cla-

  “Hope Class Colony Vessel.” Mari finished for the part where the writing didn’t continue. In English.

  “You can read it? Then this has to do with Marielle in some way?” Kris asked the easy question. It was the obvious inference to draw.

  “We had assumed as much, based on the fact they were stored near to one another. We’re still analyzing it, though.” Alynne gave a small shrug, but disabled the projection. “Come, let’s walk and talk. We’re late enough.”

  Mari was quickly moved into a wheelchair before they set off.

  “Where were we? Right, you wanted my initial findings, so here’s what I’ve got. This has foreign energy condensation. The material is warped somehow, but unlike any other reaction I’ve studied before. The base metal on the reverse side is a fairly simple and common alloy with a primarily iron base. What makes the warped side interesting is the patterns within the structure. I’m working on testing what those patterns could mean.”

  Mari kept her mouth shut as she listened to Kris go over more details. Once the initial analysis was over, she finally piped up, though they’d already descended to the underground hallway between the buildings of the administrative core of the city.

  “Alynne, what are the odds the energy that warped the metal is Mana?” Mari asked, finding herself more curious than usual.

  “That’s exactly what my theory is. And given your familiarity, what is it that you deduce from the state it’s in?” Alynne always loved being the wall upon which her assistants would bounce their ideas.

  “This is a piece of the hull of Marielle’s colony ship. If there’s warping from Mana, it leads me to believe that the ship ran into some of the stuff while traveling through space. Like passing through a solar flare, but instead of melting the hull, it warped its very nature. But I don’t think it breached the hull plating, since the metal on the reverse side isn’t warped.”

  “Very good. That is a reasonable theory, given that mana isn’t particularly dense on our world. Something of this nature likely happened in space.”

  Kris hummed in thought as she pushed Mari along. “The fact that this thing is here might be a bad sign, though.”

  “How so?” Mari tilted her head back to look up at the pink-haired girl.

  “It’s spreading.” Alynne answered. “That’s why we’re studying it. A portion of the room around this fragment we found was also warped.”

  “That sounds bad, but if the thing has been there since before I was cloned, then it hardly is fast.”

  “The growth could turn out to be exponential.” Kris offered her worst case scenario.

  “Which leads us back to my earlier discussion with you, Mari. Remember how I mentioned the basis for our world’s solution to the blood disease you carry?”

  And that brought it all together for Mari. “Ah. You’ve been studying Mana and Magic to find ways to ensure the spread can be contained. And it also led to you studying me and my condition. No wonder you had so much insight on the topic.”

  Through a miracle of perfect timing, they arrived outside a well-lit meeting room. Voices echoed the moment Alynne opened and stepped into the doorway.

  “Ah. Let us table the discussion of the disappearances for later. Our actual reason for meeting has arrived.” Karin’s terse and proper tone had an edge of irritation. One which Mari ignored as Kris noticeably remained outside, not even peeking within.

  Mari lingered, holding Kris’ hand for a long moment before steadying herself and pushing off the wheelchair and onto her feet. She was weak still, but she forced herself through with sheer willpower. She did regret not changing clothes, though.

  “Mari. Good to see you, young lady.” Wovren’s voice was half jovial, despite what had clearly been a difficult discussion they’d just concluded.

  “Thank you, sir. Sorry to have kept you all waiting, but my rehabilitation session ran a bit long.” Her words were met with a snort from Alynne, but the others all softened noticeably at her apology.

  “Shall we discuss what you have remembered now? Perhaps a brief overview of what form your procedure has taken within your mind?” Karin cut straight to the chase with no preamble, as she always seemed to.

  “Yes, ma’am. This is a little complicated, so apologies if not everything is given in the most perfect terms. In essence, Marielle and I are somewhat separate personalities. I have some of her memories, but they’re mostly scattered. Flashes and dreams of her experiences come and go. Some other things are more prominent, which will be easier to show than explain when we get to that.” She paused, and there was a moment of silence as she collected herself and took stock of the people in the room with them.

  Karin was at the head of the rectangular table, and Alynne was seated to her right. Wovren was to Alynne’s right, and then Wovren’s son and someone Mari didn’t know sat to the right of the Ravien woman. To Karin’s left was Constance, then three more people that Mari barely knew. One was an Anvien who served as the head of the rebuilding efforts for the city. The next was a Ravien man that Mari had occasionally seen with Alynne at formal occasions—a soldier and her mate, if Mari had it correct. The third was a Sylpharien, one of the former oppressors of the entire world; notable by their oddly patterned eyes, in which his looked like spiral galaxies in motion.

  That last member of the gathered group was the leader of the last few living Sylphariens in the entire city, but a vital source of access to several of the restricted systems that ‘slave races’ weren’t supposed to have access to.

  “Are we supposed to listen to the insight of a child who openly claims to have obvious mental instability?” The Ravien man asked in a very uptight tone that set Mari’s mood spiraling.

  “That’s a fair point, really. Councillors, I know you have a tendency to run things in unusual ways, and sometimes they seem to work out, but what topic could possibly warrant such unorthodox advisors into this restricted meeting?” The Sylpharien’s intonation gave the impression he was still looking down on everyone around him, even though he was the one in chains like a criminal.

  Mari swept her gaze across them, but felt sudden fear tighten to her heart the moment she met the gaze of Alynne’s mate. The man looked like he was devising a hundred ways to kill her.

  She briefly retreated to her Mindscape, hoping for a moment to collect herself, her eyes closing as the fear tried to worm through her. When her eyes opened, the red pupils burned with an intense glow for a brief moment.

  “I’ll take this from here, Mari.” Marielle smirked at the soldier, and he flinched. “Just don’t expect me to take over for all your problems. ‘Kareen,’ was it? Show me the latest visuals you have.”

  Wordlessly, the holographic projector set into the table was turned on and the image of a space-faring vessel appeared there.

  “Thank you.” Marielle studied the ship, despite the slight blurriness of the overall image.

  “Pad?” Her question was met with a small tablet and a stencil. “Wonderful. You lot have a pretty language, by the way.” She twirled the stencil as she stared at the ship. Then she set to work.

  “Could be this character. Derived from this alphabet. Maybe some new conjugation of this?” Her words drifted in and out, each time seeming to switch to other languages. “But if this has a root in this, then it can’t work with this one.”

  The process only took a dozen minutes, occasionally broken by one of the occupants of the room trying to cut into her thoughts and needing to be shushed by Marielle or someone else. In the end, she tapped the share button on the tablet and watched the others looking at her notes.

  “I’ve drafted out the alphabets of a dozen different possible root languages and ruled them out one by one to narrow down the source language. Problem is, I haven’t been on earth in hundreds of years at a minimum. Languages shift and change quite rapidly. They often merge or borrow words from one another. I’ve narrowed down the likely party behind this, but your language is still a little tough for me. I’ll leave the explanation to Mari, but thank you for your patience.”

  Karin nodded, almost giving a bow. “Thank you, Miss Kishibe.”

  “Locke, please.” Marielle responded with a crisp Earthly salute.

  Then she was gone, vanished back into Mari’s Mindscape.

  “This is exceedingly detailed.” Alynne’s mate was combing through pages of symbols that Marielle had composed within a few brief minutes. There was newfound respect in his voice, which let Mari feel a bit of happiness.

  “Marielle grew up around her mother, who was a linguist. She picked up dozens of languages in a few short years. Then the war broke out. A global one that turned entire regions of the world into uninhabitable wastelands. All of this in the midst of a climate crisis brought on by their own energy sources. She ended up learning to defend herself alone in the world until she was picked up by a military group. If nothing else, she knows war better than anyone.”

  “So, what is the final verdict? We know the root language for this space craft, but what does this tell us?”

  Mari met the eyes of the Ravien man, holding steady with them. “It means this craft belongs to the people who drove me—sorry, Marielle, from her home. The conquerors of Earth are coming to finish the job.”

  Karin’s frown deepened as she stared at the last few words of the long list of pages shared. “And this?” She pointed to the part of the ship with different text.

  “A challenge, if I had to guess.” After all…

  There was only one sick fuck who would name their ship the U.S.S. Medjay before chasing her down.

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