"You can play with the Net later! Leave your wardrobes and let's go! It's time for Iris' treatment."
"Treatment?" I wondered but did as the lady of darkness demanded and shuffled outside.
It was weird, to leave a place that felt like the outdoors and enter the true outdoors. But there were differences. More sounds, more smells. A mix of heat and cold and dry and moist that struck against the skin as... natural, highlighting the unnatural parts of the place I'd just been.
"What kind of treatment are you getting, Iris?" Sam asked.
"It's rude to ask such things, Sam," Lana said patiently. But Iris answered anyway.
"I'm gonna walk again!" She announced with a passing zoom overhead in her chair.
And that upset me.
I remained quiet throughout the walk to town, even as she attempted to explain how to them. Though it was easy enough to distract myself with the clothes alone. Not only did they warm me perfectly, but they didn't get wet. Even after the snow melted, the water formed neat beads and dripped smoothly off.
Other than that, I was astonished by how different our clothes were. All Iris had was a blanket draped over her seat. But she seemed more than content with that.
Redd wore what looked to be an absurdly soft white shirt made from something that couldn't have been wool or silk with some overalls covering them. A hat with a shape I couldn't quite place sat atop her head and her boots were made of polished leather, with rounded toes instead of pointed or flat ones.
Sam, on the other hand, had some sort of suit with the buttons off to one side and a large hat that reminded me of air pockets in bread dough. It was black with white like the rest of her clothes and floppy on the top from the weight of her hair being stuffed inside. But, like Redd's clothes, it fit as if she was born in them.
Like mine.
Before I could pay attention to the lights in my vision, I heard Amun's voice in the distance and saw the changes in what remained of the uplifted village for the first time. All there was were huge warehouses and construction yards in what seemed like every plot of land as well as a few parks and still empty spaces, save the small hut of a building we were headed to.
Inside, was Amun and another guy standing next to Horas and Lois, looking around a bunch of… stuff like it was the greatest thing in the world. It was metal mostly. And also metal that radiated with a strange energy, like a strange type of vibration or something I've never felt before.
Whatever was gathered, it was all arranged inside a room that had a bed with a metal slab hanging over it. Seeing it spawned a single image in my mind that related to Iris being crushed. And I leaped forward.
"What are you going you do to her!?!"
Amun reached his hand out before I even made it halfway and let a burst of multi-colored light released from his hands. I watched in horror as a deep blue light flowed into Horace and Lois while a silvery-blue light flowed into Sam, Redd, and me.
Suddenly, I was in the middle of a vast, seemingly endless ocean. Not floating, but standing on the still waters. Staring at the pale sphere floating high above, Mani, reflected off the still surface before me.
And then, I fell.
Below the water, I sank until the light was but a dull blue glow. Down until my feet touched the summit of an undersea mountain, where the impact of a great hammer forced air from my lungs, allowing a deluge of water to fill my lungs.
It was water. Yet the water flooded my lungs with the coolness of a spring meadow, giving me… life, focus, and energy along the likes of which I've never thought possible. I breathed and the dull glow brightened to a crystal-blue sea. I breathed again and a sea of magnificent creatures came to life around me. Coral. Crabs. Turtles. Squid. Octopuses. A legion of fish and an army of sharks. Whales. Dolphins.
Orcas.
Dominating them all were orcas of tremendous proportions. They glowed with heavenly light as they charged toward the mountain. Towards me. Towards Sam. Towards Redd. Jaws open wide, they screeched and charged until all turned black. Leaving a strangely familiar name echoing in the darkness.
"Chako."
I heard my voice as a longing whisper, calling out to the depths like a child answering her mother's call.
And then, I was standing before Amun again. Staring at an outstretched arm- my arm, quivering and quaking from the indomitable geyser of hope and awe and shame and gratitude that threatened to make me fall into a heaping mess on the ground.
"W- what was that?" I gasped, looking around at the tearful faces of Horas and Lois and Sam and Redd. And even Iris.
I asked. But… somehow, I knew. Like the silent man next to Amun, I knew that now, I was… possessed. Or… blessed. Maybe cursed. Or perhaps… all of them. And yet none.
I knew, somehow, that I was many things now. Above all, I knew I was beloved by the sea. All because Amun, the Man Inside the Moon, declared it so.
All because…
"You are… a God!" Horas sobbed. "A living God! In the flesh, standing before me! Oh!" he fell to his knees, pouring rolling sobs out into the room. "Oh! I am not worthy!"
"No need for theatrics, Horas." Amun sighed as if he was embarrassed. And what a ridiculous thing to say that was. But neither he nor the guy beside him thought anything of it. He just looked at Iris and asked. "So, Iris, it's time for you to decide."
"Decide on what?" I couldn't help but ask. Then pressed forward. "She said you told her she was going to walk again."
"Oh, based on what she decides, she'll be able to do more than just walk." He grinned with a certain unsettling excitement. "Above all, I am a man of my word. I do not make threats or promises I don't intend to keep. That includes the promise I made to Iris."
"Now." He held up a jar of some off-white cream between him and Iris. "As I said before, the quickest method is to grant you control of machines, giving you magic and mobility without the need for an operation. Or." I wiggled the jar. "I can use this. It was made from the core of a unicorn's horn. It will instantly heal your spine and give you the ability to walk again. However, much work would be needed for you to regain your former strength. Much less become as powerful as I imagine you'll be.
"As such, I suggest you become a warlock."
Horas' face paled. "A warlock? You can't be serious."
"But I am." Amun grinned wide. "Gods can have warlocks just as well as they can have clerics and paladins, you know. And, though Iris can become both, they won't give her what she desires. Making a pact with the Divine Engineer can. And the condition of joining me in my adventures as my protege is something she'll already be doing since I adopted her."
"What about us?" I blurted. And Amun turned to us, speaking without delay.
"You three have been blessed by Mani. And Mani, Moonlight, is a domain that holds power over the sky and seas. Now, you have the same power. And you two." Amun turned to Lois and Horus, "Have been blessed by the Divine Engineer to help you teach these kids. You can become a priest and priestess if you want. But there's no religion for that one, so you won't have to do anything differently. So." He eagerly clasped his hands and turned his smile about the lot of us. "What do you say?"
"Yes." Iris, for once, calmly gasped. And after a glance between Redd and Sam, I gave a firm nod.
"Deal."
"I would be honored."
"Of course!"
"Outstanding!" Amun burst out in… laughter? Then held a hand out toward Iris. "Are you ready?"
She floated towards him in agreement, prompting Lana to round me and the girls up while the other guy led Horas and Lois outside with excited mumbles.
"Come, girls. I have much to tell you. And something to show you."
***
Iris
***
That blue light. That beautiful light of the Divine Engineer awoke something within me. Like a switch flipped in my brain, I was suddenly much more aware of… everything. Sensually aware of not just my surroundings, but… aware of certain items. This chair and the many things hidden within it. Almost like it had senses that connected to my mind.
My mind. That alone switched into something far greater than anything I could have ever imagined. In an instant, I learned how this technology- and my body worked and how they could meld together to make something incredible. I saw tiny devices- divine machines of mithral made so small that light couldn't even reflect their images into our eyes properly. And so machines were needed just to see them. Machines.
Or magic.
The machines going into my body were both. Arcanites, Amun called them. Mithral infused with his divinity. Making each molecule a machine that could manipulate atoms and build molecules or synthesize chemicals out of them. Or, with the divine power they held, infuse various magical energies into whatever molecules they manufactured.
The energies going into my body were of Space-Time and Nuclear Magic and Mana Rays and Dark Radiation. Electromagnetism and more. All fused with the fibers of my bones, muscles, and organs. And it wouldn't hurt either. It would happen in the blink of an eye. All because Amun would speak in some weird and really old language while blue lights flashed around me. Turning me into something he called an Augmented Human.
Those tiny machines would live in my body forevermore. And I'd have powers. Not because of the same type of magic that kept me like this for years. But powers born from the blessed machine. Or, no. Powers born from my God.
A God of many things. Intelligence. Knowledge. Research. Learning. Logistics. Militaries and Industries and Empires. Change. Freedom. Exploration. Nature.
Dying. And thus Living.
Even in the engineering domain, all of these aspects of his divinity were present. The devices he either already knew of or learned to create through exploration and research largely mimicked nature in some way. And those devices largely gave others like myself newfound freedoms in life, allowing us to learn and explore nature and bring change to empires.
With those same boons, I became more intelligent than any human could be. And soon, I would become even more.
I would soon become an arcane biological machine- a human computer that was free to explore the realms and change my body as I deemed fit. A mutable being, reborn with a body that could change to befit any environment.
The cost was to have limbs severed, my spine deconstructed, and my bones liquefied before they were all refabricated into fantastical limbs, organs, and bones made of divine metals and ceramics. But that wasn't the issue.
I felt like he knew something about that issue as he took me in his arms and laid me on a bed. He looked at me expectantly as I look at the strange coffin hanging above me. It had a crease running down the middle, with a small window hanging from an arm that positioned it directly in front of my eyes.
"I'll remind you again. The research for this is incomplete. So, I'm unsure if you'll be able to obtain an affinity core after this."
"I am." I smiled weakly. "I believe in you. You can do anything!"
He bounced in place, laughing, but he still stared at me like he was worried. "Are you okay?" he eventually asked.
"Uhm." I turned my eyes to the screen, not wanting him to see me tear up. "I don't want to be your cousin. I- I want to be adopted. Please." I turned my eyes back to him, sobbing.
He approached with what I thought were tears in his eyes to rub my head gently, a deflated but warm smile spread across his face. But then again, his eyes were so strange, I was unsure if he could even cry at all.
"Of course," Amun whispered. "But that means you'll have to meet my girlfriend, Zakira. The woman who is now your adoptive mother."
"Mom." I corrected with a sob.
"Mom. He agreed. "But your mom is a busy woman. Just as busy as your Dad. So, it may be some time before you meet her. Not only that." He leaned forward, smiling differently somehow. "But this means your name from this day forward is Iris Cole! And that has its own benefits." He said, tapping at my brown in a way that made me understand many new things. Amazing things. "Is that alright with you?"
I found myself trying to copy his charming smile and looking into the reflection of that screen to see nothing like it, but the fires in my eyes were far brighter than his could have ever been.
"Let's do it!"