Child of Aidon
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SS [11] Turning Eighteen
🕑 Added 2025-07-10 01:27:47 +0000 UTCThe streets of Helmforað stretched upward more than outward like an inverted forest steel and glass suspended in a dead silence. The city had no sky. Only darkness above, interrupted by bridges like ribs crossing between the vertical towers. Red emergency lights still flickered in intervals along the towering structures, pulsing like veins long after the heart had stopped beating.
“Warning: wanted fugitives Fuyumi Tsukihana, Aurelius Lyns and Tanisha Scalebound have been located in the city. This individual should be considered armed and dangerous. Please alert local authorities suspicious activity is noticed in your area. You should not approach.”
Tanisha had stopped trying to count how many levels there were. She’d looked up once and spotted what might have been a garden dome, cracked open and bleeding greenery from a skybridge high above. Then she looked down and the streat level just faded behind the crossing levels of ways and roads. Levels upon levels of forgotten civilization stacked like sediment.
They walked on wide avenues paved with dark alloy and glassy panels that flickered beneath their feet as though reacting to their steps. Sometimes lights would try to activate as they passed, only to sputter out in bursts of arcane static. Strange sigils glowed softly on doorways and signs, but none of them could read the script.
“This place is still creepy,” Tanisha said quietly, glancing around. “Impressive but creepy with no people around.”
Fuyumi was silent beside her, glancing upward as the sound of metal creaked overhead. A walkway trembled far above them, disturbed by a gust of stale air or something more deliberate. The ghostborn’s hand stayed close to the hilt of her blade.
Movement from above made all of them freeze for a moment before a many armed caterpillar-like robot called a grub made its way down. The group relaxed and moved out of the robots way. It was a G-11 Grub. They were the ones that cleaned the place up after a fight. They were also the reason they never found any bodies of mummified people or destroyed androids after a fight. Tanisha thought they were cute, they even had little lights for eyes that were very expressive if interacted with.
“This place is wrong,” Aurelius said. “It feels like it should be bustling. But it’s just… empty.”
They passed what had clearly once been a market square. Towering light spires rose around the platform, their heads shattered, wires dangling like hair. Vending stations, too advanced for anything the trio had seen before, lined the walls, their surfaces blackened by old fire or cut open as if scavenged.
There were no corpses. No bones. Just signs of chaos and sudden violence: burn marks on the walls, massive gouges in the floor or walkways left collapsed. They knew what happened here, the Site Administrator initiated an evacuation, and kill order. Those that didn’t escape died here. It was a grave city, a necropolis that serves as a lost history to both humankind and Yuki.
“I wish we had time to actually look though this place.” Fuyumi said. “Laxy and Ivoi have been great at telling me about the humans that lived here. But the ability to walk the streets without worrying about an attack would be wonderful. This place is dark and damaged. I wish I could have seen it in it’s prime.”
They took a spiraling ramp upward passing through the next level up. Here, the city grew more narrow and industrial. Catwalks crossed between service towers. Pipes the size of carts ran through the walls, some of them cracked and leaking pale mist or the faint scent of burned mana. Machinery the size of houses lined the walls, some of it humming softly in standby.
Fuyumi passed a massive door twice their height, covered in unreadable text and blinking lights. A screen above it lit up as she walked past, displaying a faceless diagram of a person in glowing orange.
“It’s trying to scan you,” Tanisha guessed. “Probably wants an ID.”
“Probably best it doesn’t with us being criminals and all.” Aurelius said.
They kept walking. A track hung overhead, the vehicle inside it long derailed and hanging sideways from its broken harness. Tanisha had asked if those were gondolas once but Aurelius said they looked similar but were too big. Tanisha found it fascinating and decided to call the broken vehicle a sky box.
Eventually, they crossed a wide corridor flanked by statues. One of a twenty-foot tall figure in full armor, faces hidden behind mirrored helms. Aurelius and Fuyumi knew the figure or at least something similar. It appeared almost like the head True of the human religion. They called the figure Sól but Tanisha had no other reference for human religions and to her it just looked like a man with a weird mask. The second figure was of a woman who also had the same faceless mask but neither of her two party members knew who the figure was supposed to be.
“I still think it may be Véla.” Aurelius said off handedly.
“The mother? No She is not associated with the masks.” Fuyumi said as if rehashing an old argument. “Korma on the other hand took after her father when the sky shattered.”
“That must be a Yuki belief because Véla is the one that crafted the masks.” Aurelius challenged.
“We can talk about theological discussions later.” Tanisha interjected. “You both can talk about your divines and I will talk about mine!”
“If you want to talk about Bjorn you would do it anyway.” Aurelius said.
“How is he doing?” Fuyumi questioned.
Tanisha sighed, “His emotions have been almost nonexistent, I get faint things here and there but nothing significant through the bond. I know he is fine because of the soul connection though.”
They moved on past shattered elevators, up ramps, over broken skybridges. Everywhere there were machines—walls that pulsed with light, terminals with dying power, holographic images frozen in loops of nonsense code, well not all of it was nonsense to Tanisha thanks to her lessons with Laxy.
One showed a map, blinking furiously as if trying to hold on to the last vestiges of power. Another played a distorted advertisement in a language none of them knew, showing stylized figures happily boarding a sky box. Tanisha wished the sky boxes still worked. It looked so fun.
When they finally reached the lab’s outer shell, they recognized it by the enormous circular hatch built into the side of a deep vertical shaft. The Xenobiology Lab. Or at least, that’s what Laxy had called it.
Tanisha placed her hand on the console beside the hatch. A faint hum answered her, followed by a pulsing ring of red light that moved up her arm, scanning her. She felt a pull, as if her own aether was being sampled.
[Access Confirmed: G-Series Override — Welcome, Auxiliary Designate.]
The hatch spiraled open with a hiss of released pressure. Pale blue lights flickered on in the hall beyond. A line of ventilation shafts activated above, drawing in stale air and releasing the clean scent of recycled ozone.
“Well,” Tanisha said, stepping into the threshold. “That’s probably the nicest welcome we’ve had in weeks.”
The three of them entered the lab—leaving behind the haunted city, and its dead civilization, for now.
The lab was vast—multiple floors of quiet emptiness, filled with abandoned workstations like those in the R&D wing Laxy oversaw on the upper levels. But unlike up there, this lab contained rows of vivariums, each one housing a different monster in a carefully controlled environment. The mana fields kept the creatures docile, the glass and barriers thrumming faintly with containment enchantments.
“It’s weird that they don’t age,” Tanisha said, peering into one of the tanks where a many-eyed beast floated lazily in a bubble of greenish mana.
“Monsters are technically just corrupted mana,” Aurelius replied. “These aren’t even the oldest ones out there. As long as they’ve got a steady supply of mana, they’ll outlive anything.”
Fuyumi coughed lightly behind them. “Not the ghostborn. Or djinn. Or vampires…”
Aurelius raised his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay—so there are a few others who cheat time too.”
They continued deeper into the facility, into what appeared to be the inner lab—a near mirror of Laxy’s personal chamber. But instead of weapons and forges lining the walls, there were more vivariums, these smaller and more delicate, each one containing a carefully cultivated plant. Some were aquatic, their fronds drifting lazily through nutrient-rich fluid; others were terrestrial, vibrant with alien colors and shapes. A few even responded subtly to movement, retracting or blooming as the group passed.
Ivoi stood in front of one such tank, watching a violet, leafy plant as a sprinkler system above it activated. It made soft thunder sounds as it sprayed misted water over the foliage, simulating a storm.
Like Laxy, Ivoi had adopted a humanoid form that masked her robotic body. But unlike her sister, who chose the appearance of a tan-skinned human woman in a lab coat, Ivoi had gone in a very different direction. She had modeled herself after a cernunnos—Tanisha’s own species—claiming it was her favorite biological form. Her skin was a few shades darker than Tanisha’s, and her horns curled elegantly back over her head. Her long, raven-black hair was tied into a neat bun, and she had a hydra-like tail that swayed slowly behind her. Her eyes glowed a brilliant blue, and her attire consisted of sleek, all-black laboratory garb—no white coat in sight.
One detail remained unchanged from her sister: the large mechanical wings folded along her back. They didn't look flight-capable, more decorative than functional. Neither of the twins ever used them to fly, relying instead on aether to float. Tanisha had begun to wonder if the wings were relics from their original
Maybe personal aesthetics? I think I would look good with wings.
“Your back!” Ivoi said cheerily. “Several of you are injured. Would you like me to look you over?”
I just need rest,” Fuyumi murmured.
“Same here,” Tanisha echoed, her voice weary.
“Very well.” Ivoi said as she floated over to the group. “I will assume that your hunt went well. That means that there are only two more of the S-19’s in the facility but none of them should be in the direction of the power plant.”
Tanisha led Fuyumi over to the corner, where their sleeping bags were already laid out. Once the ghostborn was settled, she dismissed her armor into her inventory with a mental command. Underneath, her bodysuit clung to her form, still intact in the vital places, though torn and scorched across her abdomen and thighs.
She sat beside Fuyumi with a groan, feeling the aches in her muscles catch up to her. The damage was manageable, but the fatigue was setting in hard. She exhaled, staring up at the ceiling where a few soft lights imitated stars.
“I can monitor your vitals if you’d like,” Ivoi offered gently. “No intervention. Just observation.”
“Sure,” Tanisha said. “Why not?”
“The larger S-series don’t add to our overall count though, right?” Aurelius asked.
“Correct,” Ivoi nodded. “The large series—specifically the S-16 through S-20—all have internal reactors. They do not draw power from the facility’s main grid. So, unfortunately, defeating them does not shorten the time we have before we go from present tense to past tense.”
“It feels like a waste of time,” Aurelius muttered.
“We had to clear the path to the power plant,” Tanisha said. “And we still have several more large units to take down.”
“The Shadowmaw was the least armed of those remaining in the city,” Ivoi added. “The S-16 Sentinel and S-17 Siegebreaker are still active. Only one of each remains, but the Sentinel has undergone heavy modifications well beyond its base specifications.”
Aurelius exhaled heavily. “And you can’t tell us what those modifications are.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Of course,” he muttered, already turning away. “I’m going to take a shower.”
Ivoi perked up immediately. “Would you like me to accompany you to take skin sampl—”
“No, Ivoi,” Aurelius said flatly. “You may not come with me to take samples from the water. No, you may not ‘observe for scientific purposes.’ And no, I am not giving you any other bodily fluids either.”
Ivoi sighed, folding her arms. “But you’re a newly catalogued species. I haven’t even begun a full biological profile. Tanisha and Fuyumi let me take samples.”
“She is very gentle about it. She even gives great massages,” Tanisha said.
“No, no, I think I would rather not be studied while I bathe, thank you.” Aurelius said.
With an annoyed snap of her fingers, Ivoi turned her attention back to one of the vivariums, watching as water misted down onto a curling, thorny fern. Thunder noises accompanied the mist, and the little plant’s leaves twitched.
Tanisha watched the gynoid curiously. She acted more like a real person than Laxy did. Or at least she was far more expressive.
Was it because she worked with animals and monsters?
“Do you ever get lonely down here?” Tanisha asked.
Ivoi turned to her and smiled, “I know I exhibit some humanlike actions but do not confuse them for genuine emotions, I am not biological so things like loneliness are not possible. People are variables to my routine but I am alway content.”
“Huh… okay, I think I understand.”
“I stopped trying to understand how they worked shortly after meeting Laxy.” Fuyumi waved her hand dismissively. “Robots, androids, golem are all just magic to me even if you call the magic different names.”
“Why are you so interested in Aurelius?” Fuyumi asked.
“Elves didn’t exist when I was created.” Ivoi said as she stood up and moved to another plant to watch it be watered next. “Or at least there is no record of them in this facilities database. It is possible they were on a different landmass.”
Silence settled between them for a moment, the lab filled only with the soft hiss of mist and the whir of machinery.
Then Tanisha spoke again. “Aurelius mentioned what happens after we stop the hurricane. Are you worried about your family too?”
Fuyumi shook her head, red eyes drifted lazily across the ceiling star like lights. “No, my family is all about challenging themselves against anything the Chaos Lands throws at them. Many of our Elders have lived through multiple hurricanes by this point and given the duration of this one they are probably, eh… excited?” She shrugged, “we will go with excited, for the challenges to come. What about you? The last hurricane happened before the wendigo were even created. They might not be ready for one this powerful.”
“You didn’t spend much time in Yuhia did you?” Tanisha asked rhetorically. “I am not worried about Yuhia being invaded by monsters. Wendigo believe in strength over everything else. If monsters invade even a Monster Tide they will jump at the opportunity to get stronger.”
“What about your family?” Fuyumi asked.
Tanisha hesitated, then said, “Bjorn’s my only family. I’ve got a couple human friends, though—they’re in Yuhia. Hopefully still in the Academy. Hopefully staying put until the storm ends.” She let out a quiet breath. “Last time I sent a letter was over a year ago. Told them I was heading across the Chaos Lands, toward Mesha. They probably think I’m dead.”
“Weren’t we headed towards the Force Isles?” Fuyumi asked?
“I sent the letter before the change of plans,” Tanisha said. “You think your family is looking for you? You have been gone a while and the hurricane is dangerous like you said.”
Fuyumi was quiet for a long time, “I don’t think they care much. I didn’t leave in the best position with my family. We live a long time but that also means we hold long grudges.”
Tanisha sat up from that, “You never mentioned that before.”
“It… it was not something that I think mattered.” Fuyumi replied, looking down at her hands.
“Personal relationships alway matter.” Ivoi added not turning away from the plant being watered. “If we survive this, I recommend you try to find common ground with your family. I believe they care about you, even if it may not seem that way.”
“Thanks, Ivoi but it is not that simple. Not with my grandfather.” Fuyumi said.
Tanisha opened her mouth to ask more, but decided against it.
After a moment of silence, she said quietly, “Wendigo have a tradition called shiagaunt. In that tradition they removed the people that have caused shame to the family. There was once a time my name was Freja, I was a failure at least that is what my family believed. They probably still think that. My father and mother believed that I was destined to bring down the name of the family. They were wrong.”
Tanisha laid back down on her sleeping bag and looked up at the ceiling which was domed, she hadn’t noticed that before. She then closed her eyes.
“For a long time I wondered what I would do if I met them again. I saw my mother, broken and defeated. She was one of the most powerful women in Yuhia and she would have let me kill her in that sorry state.”
“Did you?” Ivoi asked.
“No. I don’t think I would’ve left the room alive if I had. Her Hand was in there too.” She exhaled. “When I think about that moment now… I still see the woman who almost got me killed. The one who left her daughter to die alone and scared in the woods. I’m still angry. My father, the last time I saw him, he told me he to have a short life.”
Tanisha laughed to herself, “yeah, fuck you to dad. The thing is, even though I am angry at what they did and I am kind of sad it ended that way. It was bound to end that way, don't get me wrong, but after I left them, when I was really on my own that’s when things got put into perspective for me. I don’t care about the Salstars. About their game, politics or power struggles. I don’t think I ever did.”
“I appreciate you opening up but, why are you telling me this?” Fuyumi asked.
You brought up your family. Got me thinking about mine—or the people who used to call themselves that. I don’t know what happened between you and yours, but if you ever want to talk about it… I’m here. My bridges are burned to ash, but maybe yours aren’t. And maybe,” she added with a small smile, “maybe we can finally do it over a drink. I’m turning eighteen.”
Fuyumi smiled at that, “Oh, yes as soon as you can drink we are going to drink like there is no tomorrow!”
“Deal,” Tanisha chuckled. “Tomorrow I am going back up to see Laxy. I have to get my armor repaired.”
“We will all go up.” Fuyumi said. “I actually wouldn’t mind sleeping in a real bed for once.”
“True, but Aurelius will probably have us sleep in Laxy’s room.” Tanisha said.
