Chapter 4: Chance Encounter
Watching her mother rise from her Throne and walk into the crowd of the banquet while everyone else seemed to ignore her, Ariana had a confused expression plastered on her face.
She turned to look at her Father with the same expression, only to notice that his eyes were also following her mother. It also seemed that none of her siblings had seen their mothers departure. The only ones able to perceive it were her Father and herself.
Turning back to look at her mother, Ariana's eyes began to glow a subtle red hue as she observed her mother's every move. Noticing the bluish aura around her, Ariana's expression morphed into one of fascination as she studied every aspect of it.
After a sufficient observation, Ariana began to circulate her own mana around her body, generating a nearly identical aura around her, performing her own [Iro Iyipada] ability almost instinctively, except hers was coloured red. To check if her hypothesis was correct, Ariana first slouched an action that would have rewarded her a glare from Julia, who had been standing at the side of the hall all night. Noticing no reaction from her personal maid, Ariana began to wave her arms around for one final confirmation.
Seeing absolutely no one reacting, even her Father, a mischievous smile slowly formed on her lips as Ariana reached down and touched Shirogane. As she did, she watched as the Aura around her slowly spread to her dragon as well, filling her with even more excitement.
When both were sufficiently covered, Ariana rose from her seat and made her way toward the exit of the banquet hall alongside Shirogane, slipping through the door and escaping with none the wiser.
Ariana then mounted Shirogane as they rushed toward their favourite spot, the tallest tower within the castle, in which they would exit out the topmost window and climb further to the roof.
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Just outside of Kyrhea's atmosphere, the world in which Ariana resided, a strange phenomenon was occurring.
Purple lightning began to manifest out of nowhere, flashing around wildly, creating a storm that seemed to grow larger and larger as time passed. Within the storm of what seemed like electricity, a large black spot began to form and expand at a much faster rate than the storm.
A bright flash of light manifested from within the spot before the entire storm spontaneously vanished. In its place, a strange aircraft appeared—the Albatross-class dropship. Within the ship, one could see that all power had yet to be restored, and due to the proximity in which the Albatross appeared to Kyrhea, it began to be pulled into its atmosphere by gravity.
As the dropship began to inch closer and closer to Kyrhea, a dim orange light began to shine from within the cockpit.
"Where are we…?" Solace muttered, attempting to restart the dropship's systems.
She turned around and noticed both Samuel and Dr. Halloway appeared to be unconscious.
"Wake up, Sam."
Along with her words, Solace also connected to Sam's Gungnir armour and injected in a mild stimulant.
With the stimulant entering his veins, Sam awoke only a few seconds after, jolting in his chair and looking around.
Noticing Solace standing in front of him on the dash and Dr. Halloway still unconscious at his side, Sam turned back to Solace, asking:
"Status report."
With a sigh, Solace stood at attention before narrating what she knew. All the while, she internally wished Samuel wouldn't be so mechanical all the time. She understood the need for it and that he was the way he was due to his upbringing, but at times, she struggled to differentiate which of them were the machine.
"Current location, unknown. We're caught in this planet's gravitational pull and are entering its atmosphere. Ship systems should be online in 30 seconds, but impact with the planet will occur in 31.64 seconds. If we go by our usual cooperation statistics and your usual reaction times, we should have enough time to fire the engines to make a safe enough landing."
"Understood. Begin reactionary calibration."
"Alright, you know the drill; when I say Mark, you say Sync."
"Mark."
"Sync."
"Mark."
"Sync."
"Calibration complete. Hmmm…?"
"Problem?"
"No, it's nothing bad… It just appears that your reaction time has improved quite substantially. I wonder why… Anyways, be prepared to fire the engines on my mark. 5, 4, 3, 2…"
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After reaching her favourite spot, Ariana sat down alongside Shirogane as they looked over the city and the shining stars of the sky above.
Feeling a little introspective, Ariana sighed and said,
"Hey."
Tearing his eyes away from the night sky, Shirogane looked toward his mistress, replying:
"Yeah?"
Hearing his reply, Ariana continued.
"You ever wonder why we're here?"
Looking back toward the stars above, Shirogane appeared to be in thought before supplying:
"You know, Ari, I used to not care. When I first hatched and met you, I just decided to go along with whatever you were doing and hoped that everything would work out for me. But after all that's happened, you know what I've learned? My expectations of a human child, especially a princess, to be unable to provide any form of excitement was rather silly of me. In all honesty, I've greatly enjoyed my time exploring and going on our little adventures, getting into all sorts of mischief."
Hearing Shirogane's reply, Ariana displayed a smile and gave a curt nod, replying:
"Likewise, Shiro…. Likewise."
With them both returning their eyes to the stars, Ariana noticed a particularly bright star that appeared to be getting brighter by the second. As it became brighter and brighter, Ariana realised it was actually something falling! Following the burning object with her eyes, time seemed to slow down from her perspective as her mana coursed through them. Using her accelerated thought process as well as her enhanced eyesight, Ariana predicted its trajectory and hurriedly mounted Shirogane, shouting:
"Go! Fly in that direction! It's time for our next adventure!"
With a roar of confirmation, Shirogane spread his wings before diving off the tower, only to spontaneously grow from his previous 6m length to a massive 12m before soaring in the direction Ariana had pointed.
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"...2, 1, Mark!"
Firing the engines at full thrust with no delay between his actions and the ship's systems coming online, the Albatross began to rapidly slow to a halt before it gently touched down in the centre of an open, grassy clearing, surrounded by trees all around, roughly 60 meters in radius.
Feeling the ship land successfully, Samuel powered down the engines while activating its optical camouflage, making the entire ship and its contents invisible.
"Running scan of the surroundings. Nothing other than local fauna detected within a 300-meter radius, for now, I'll keep it running as I perform further system checks, just in case." Solace said as she began her work.
Samuel rose out of his seat and moved over to check Dr. Halloway's condition. Finding that she was only unconscious and not in any life-threatening danger, Samuel provided a similar stimulant to the one Solace used on him to wake her.
With Regina coming to, she looked around before settling her eyes on Samuel, kneeling next to her.
"So we survived, huh?"
"Affirmative."
"Status?"
Samuel proceeded to give her a rundown of what he'd heard from Solace, allowing Dr. Halloway to get caught up to speed.
"I see… Solace, how go the diagnostic checks?"
"98% complete Doctor. The Albatross sustained some minor damage, and the atmospheric scanners appear to be malfunctioning."
"Malfunctioning how?" Halloway questioned.
"It's picking up some unknown type of energy within the atmosphere that I've never seen before. However, with the quantity of energy the scanners are stating, it should be visible to the naked eye at such concentrations. Which is why I believe it to be a malfunction."
"Not unless it is something we've yet to discover." Halloway rebuked as she rose from her seat and approached the dash to peer outside.
"Is it dangerous?" Sam asked
"Inconclusive. Not enough data to confirm. However, we should be fine within the Albatross; I can't detect any of it inside… Scratch that; it seems both you and Dr. Halloway already have trace amounts of it building in your systems." Solace replied.
"Scan vitals."
"Already on it."
Regina and Sam waited in silence for Solace's verdict.
"This… this is amazing!"
"Report."
"The energy seems to be completely harmless, but instead of just doing nothing, it's actively reinforcing your biological processes! No wonder your reaction time seemed to have improved!"
"Show me the data!" Regina asked as Solace immediately sent it to the datapad that the Doctor still hadn't released since escaping the lab.
Looking over the information herself, while studying Sam's vitals provided through a live feed from scanners in his armour, Regina's eyes shone in pure fascination and shock.
"Unbelievable… this energy appears to be finding flaws within the augmentations provided to the Einherjar and using itself as building blocks not only to repair any damage done but improve upon it significantly!"
"All the negative side-effects of the procedure are being undone! It's even reinforcing your very DNA, further preventing the appearance of any hereditary diseases that may have been dormant that you received from your biological paren-" Before she could finish her statement, something appeared on the ship's scanners that alerted the three.
"We've got company, unknown object approaching at high speed, ETA to arrival, 13 seconds!"
Sam immediately generated his assault rifle, prepared to face any opposition.
After a few seconds, what appeared to be a flying reptile, landed within the proximity of the Albatross. But what surprised the three was the young girl mounted on its back.
Ariana, arriving where she predicted the object to crash, found herself confused when she reached the clearing but didn't see any signs of an impact, let alone an object.
Hopping off of Shirogane's back, she began to walk towards the centre of the clearing. As she moved closer, she began to feel as though she were being watched. Channelling mana towards her eyes once again, Ariana immediately discovered the cloaked Albatross parked in the centre of the clearing. She could even see Sam and Dr. Halloway looking at her alongside the tiny Solace.
With her eyes widening at the strange contraption before her and the metal giant within that appeared eerily familiar, Ariana met Dr. Halloway's eyes as she said.
"I can see you, you know!"
Hearing the child's words, despite not understanding the language she spoke, each of them had varying reactions.
"She's looking directly into my eyes. Are you sure the cloaking mechanism isn't malfunctioning?" Dr. Halloway asked.
"I am, the cloak is functioning at 100% capacity, and all levels are stable." Solace replied.
"Solace is right; I noticed that when the girl first arrived, she couldn't see us. However, right after her eyes began to glow red, she immediately looked in our direction." Sam stated.
"Any idea of what language she's speaking?" Halloway asked.
"Unknown dialect. Running a translation program." Solace replied.
"Hey! Did you hear me?! I can see you! Come out!" Ariana shouted.
"Doctor, your orders?" Sam asked.
"Well, what harm can a little girl do? Plus, the reptile seems to be under her control. Head out there and keep her talking so the program can do its job."
"Understood."
With that, Sam turned around and proceeded to the exit at the rear. After leaving the Albatross, he made his way to the front where the little girl was standing defiantly with a pout on her face and her hands on her hips.
"Finally, you came out! What are you? What is that big metal box?! And why did you fall from the sky?!" Ariana rapidly asked, fascination burning in her eyes, despite the faux-annoyed expression she wore on her face.
"Apologies, I can't understand what you're saying." Sam replied in a neutral tone of voice.
Hearing the foreign dialect coming from the giant metal man, Ariana frowned in frustration, adopting a contemplating stance. However, as if a lightbulb had gone off within her mind, Ariana smiled before holding out her hand towards Sam in a gesture of a handshake.
Seeing the little girl's action, Sam stared at her hand for a brief moment before holding out his own hand as well.
Smiling in jubilation, Ariana skipped forward to grasp the metal giant's hand. The moment they made contact, Ariana began circulating her mana through her hand and into Sam's.
"Warning, foreign energy intrusion detected."
Seeing the alert appear on his HUD, Sam looked into Ariana's eyes to find any sort of hostile intention she may have.
Finding none, Sam remained still as he allowed Ariana to complete her action.
Finished with her spell, Ariana closed her eyes as a rush of information flooded her mind. It caused her to become dizzy, making her briefly lose her balance and almost fall backwards.
Noticing the strange state Ari was in from where he was standing, and because she hadn't given him any prior notice, Shirogane believed the metal giant had done something to harm her.
Rushing forward with hostile intent, at a speed a creature of his size didn't have any business moving at, Shirogane moved with the intention to separate the two and figure out what the giant had done.
Sensing the hostile intent from the giant reptile, as well as witnessing the speed at which it was approaching, Sam released the girl's hand, firing his armour's boosters, which shot him back roughly 15 metres before raising his rifle to a levelled position.
Shirogane reached Ariana's side, who had fallen on her butt after losing Sam's support, and began nudging her while asking Telepathically,
"Ari! Are you alright!? What did he do to you?"
Hearing the urgency in Shirogane's voice and noticing the situation quickly getting out of hand, Ariana promptly moved to calm Shirogane down.
"I'm alright, Shiro, he didn't do anything. I was just using a translation spell and became dizzy after the large influx of information. Sorry, I should've told you this might've happened beforehand."
After rubbing Shirogane's head in a placating manner, Ariana looked up at the metal giant, asking,
"Can you understand me now?"
Hearing the girls' words, Sam, as well as Dr. Halloway and Solace were surprised.
"I'm sorry if my friends' actions startled you. I was merely trying to perform a translation spell to learn your language and speak with you, but the large amount of information caused me to become lightheaded. My friend can be pretty overprotective at times, and without me having informed him of what I was doing, he reacted badly. I hope you can forgive him."
With Ariana rising to her feet, followed by her performing an apologetic bow in his direction, Sam lowered his rifle after hearing the girls' explanation. He still remained alert but attempted to appear less threatening.
"Sam, bring her in, I want to have a chat with her." Dr. Halloway's voice appeared within his helmet.
"I don't believe that is a wise idea, Doctor."
Ariana was confused as to who the metal giant was speaking to.
"That's an order, Sam."
Sam hesitated for a brief moment before replying.
"Understood." before looking towards Ariana, stating,
"The doctor would like a word with you."
Hearing his words, Ariana looked up to see a woman waving at her with a gentle smile.
"Okay, can Shirogane come?"
With the girl pointing at the creature next to her, Sam was about to deny as the creature was simply too big to fit. However, before his very eyes, Sam witnessed the creature shrink from its previously massive 12m length to a reasonable 1.5 metres. Even with its smaller size, Sam was still going to deny it access before he once again heard Dr. Halloway's voice.
"Granted."
With him not being able to voice his opinion, Sam returned his rifle to his nanobot storage units before gesturing towards the back of the ship, indicating for Ariana to follow.
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