"Sit wherever you would like," I suggested as L'Naan and I walked upstairs.
She looked around for a moment before she walked over to the dining table where Raven, Katye, and Echo were sitting. I headed over to the fridge and pulled out a fresh bottle of Roban Spirit Wine then brought it over. Katye passed L'Naan a plate of food when she sat down, and I poured her a glass of wine.
"I'm glad you joined us, L'Naan. Maybe Becca and Echo can make it through the meal without getting into some dumb argument as an excuse to spar against each other," Raven said with a teasing smile.
"I doubt it," I chuckled, sitting down next to Echo who also smirked. "In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if L'Naan wanted to join us after dinner. It would be your only chance at a fair fight, after all, since Fae can bring me down to the level of a Mortal."
"Spar? In what, the Shuttle Bay?" L'Naan asked with annoyance.
"No, we have a device called a Mind Linker which is similar to a holo-deck, but all done within our minds. It's a safe way for us to go all out without worrying about truly hurting each other, and since Fae controls it, she can restrict some of our abilities," I explained.
"Fae?"
"Say hi, Fae," I chuckled.
::Hello, L'Naan. By your understanding, I am the artificial intelligence of the ship, but what I truly am is the Item Spirit of this vessel.::
"Think of her as a person without a physical body, though she will have one in time," Katye explained.
"You Vazukuru are a strange bunch," L'Naan grumbled.
I chuckled, "You have no idea."
We started eating with some light conversation. Despite my warning, it was clear that L'Naan had gotten drunk with a couple of glasses, but it was for the better as she became more talkative and seemed to be enjoying herself. We told some amusing stories from our time in Eden while L'Naan told us some tales of when she was in the Maquis. It was surprising how relaxed things were between L'Naan and me by the time that we finished the meal, but that also meant that it was time for our usual nightly training session with L'Naan joining us this time.
"Here, use mine, L'Naan," Raven offered, holding out her Mind Linker. "My prototype is nearly done; I just need a few more hours and I can start testing it."
"Thank you," L'Naan replied as she took the silver disc.
"Are you finally going to tell us what you are working on?" I asked with a teasing smile.
"I already told you, once the first few tests are done," she retorted.
"Fine, keep your secrets. You just put the linker on your temple and Fae will do the rest, L'Naan, but I recommend that you sit first," I said.
L'Naan followed my suggestion and sat down across from me, on Raven's usual couch. Raven ran her fingers across my shoulders as she headed for the stairs and walked down them. The four of us put the Mind Linker in place, and we were all pulled into the Mental Plane.
Over the past few months, the 'lobby' area had changed from the white room to our old game room back in Eden. The room was circular with smooth stone walls, four doors with each of our names, and windows that overlooked the valley where we had once lived. All of us were sitting together on the two couches that we had, Katye next to me while L'Naan was with Echo, and Fae manifested herself opposite the four of us, behind the television.
"Welcome, L'Naan," Fae said.
"You're... the computer?" L'Naan asked with confusion.
"If that definition suits you, I am," she replied in an unbothered tone.
"This is why we consider her a person. High-grade magical items will often form an Item Spirit upon their creation, like Fae, and given enough time, she'll be able to free herself from the ship to walk in the physical world," Katye explained.
"How is that possible?" L'Naan asked in disbelief.
"Mana makes a lot of impossible things possible, even bringing back the dead," I said, enjoying the double meaning of the statement. "You can't define it by what you know of the universe."
"I suggest you just don't think too deeply about it. It wasn't until I could feel mana that I finally started to understand how different the world is with it," Echo remarked.
"You weren't born with it?"
"No, Raven and I only got this chance because of Katye and Rebecca, but it required that we bound our lives to theirs," Echo replied.
"Echo, you're not supposed to mention that to outsiders," Katye sighed.
Echo shrugged and stood up, saying, "Few people would agree to 'his' terms, but those that do are worthy to be among us."
Without another word, Echo headed for my 'room' which is where we would usually spar. L'Naan was curious about what Echo had said but she seemed to understand that it was not something that we should talk about.
"Shall we?" I asked, standing up.
"Fae, make sure that she plays fair with Echo," Katye said and stood up as well.
"To the best of my abilities, but Rebecca has proven to bend even my rules," Fae replied.
"Fine, keep talking; I'm going," I grumbled and headed for my door.
I did not wait for them and opened the door to my 'room'. Instantly, I was teleported to my coliseum and an axe was hurtling towards my head. With an annoyed sigh, I slapped the axe to the side then rushed forward as my feet crackling with electricity.
There was already a thin sheet of ice covering the arena floor which tried to grab my feet, but the electricity kept it at bay. Echo was standing next to the far wall with a bow in her hands and an ice arrow ready to fire. When she released it, the arrow shattered into a dozen pieces, and all flew at me with incredible speed. I released a burst of fire from my mouth and melted the attack as I kept running towards her. She was ready for me and threw another two axes at me after abandoning her bow. I simply teleported past them before grabbing her by the throat with one hand while the other pinned her wrist against the wall where she had been reaching for a sword that was hanging on the wall.
"Round one is mine as usual," I said with a smirk then let her go.
"Yeah, yeah... let's see you do it again so easily with the restrictions on," Echo retorted as she grabbed the sword off the wall.
I chuckled and started walking along the wall, examining the different weapons on display. After I managed to complete the Spatial Lock spell, my attention had turned to working on my fighting style. Before I had left Eden, Indra, my former teacher, had made a comment about it which inspired me to want to create a unique weapon for myself that would be able to change with a simple thought. The root of my power was Chaos, so I wanted a weapon that could utilize it after seeing the display of Axe-Force, that one of the Disciples had wielded against me.
I had twelve years of practice fighting with a staff, batons, and twin claymores, but I wanted a full picture of many different weapons before I tried creating my own. I marked a few different weapons which Fae would teleport into my hands while fighting since she could read my mind. Most of my powers would be sealed away while we fought, only allowing me to use Ice mana freely and enhance my speed but limited to what Echo could achieve. It was good practice for both of us in different ways since she was better with a sword than me while I could use mana far easier than her, and we were relatively equally matched with the restrictions.
Katye, L'Naan, and Fae walked into the coliseum just after I let go of Echo. L'Naan was obviously impressed by what she saw as she looked around the snow covered roman-style arena. Echo and I slowly made our way to them as I finished picking everything that I wanted to try tonight.
"Feel free to pick out whatever weapon that you want. There is plenty to choose from," I chuckled.
"This is where you spar?" L'Naan asked.
"I've always had an interest in ancient Greece and Rome, so this is the default appearance of my training room. Each of our rooms are customized to us and our impressions of what we need," I explained.
"And you use all these weapons?"
I laughed, "Lord, no; I'm just trying out different weapons, so I can create something more suited to me. I have a unique way of fighting, so my old teacher suggested that I make something specifically for me."
"If you know the weapon that you would like, Fae can recreate it for you, based off of your memories," Katye added as the twin swords that she and Lexa had used appeared in her hands.
"You're sparring tonight?" I asked with slight surprise.
"I figured Echo and I could go a few rounds while you and L'Naan do whatever it is that Dragons do. You can play with Echo afterwards you fully squash this," Katye replied.
"Fine," I sighed.
"Fae, can you transfer us to Echo's room?" Katye asked.
Katye, Echo, and even Fae disappeared in the next moment. I sighed with annoyance since this was Katye's doing and pushing me to fully confront L'Naan in a safe environment. I had been saying for days that we needed to fight this out, so this was my chance.
"They ran away quickly," L'Naan remarked.
"Well, the discomfort yet allure of your Dragon blood is probably ten times the amount you feel compared to me, so I haven't been the easiest to get along with recently," I replied, summoning a pair of silver claw gauntlets from the wall. "Fae, restrict all use of mana for me, but leave my perception and strength alone."
::Affirmative.:: Fae's disembodied voice echoed through the coliseum.
"And fighting is the solution to this?" she asked.
"That's what the databanks say, but I'm not a hundred percent sure that it will work here in a Mental Plane. You're the first person that I've come across with Dragon blood, so I'm still trying to figure it all out."
When she was close to me, it was like there were two warring sides fighting against each other while I was caught in the middle and being pulled in both directions. Both were instincts from my Dragon side, and, in a sense, it was like getting instantly sexually frustrated and absolute hatred just by catching her scent. My mood had been getting to the others recently which was why I had started using the Yin Realm to move around the ship.
L'Naan did not say anything else as she walked away, examining the different weapons. She stopped when she reached a section of weapons from the Star Trek universe, specifically Klingon ones. Her fingers slid along the smooth metal of a bat'leth but did not pick it up.
"After my father left, my mother moved us back to Qo'noS and threw me into a Klingon monastery to learn about honor and discipline. I hated every minute of it," she said quietly. "Before, I had always been too Klingon to fit in and then, suddenly, I was too human. I wonder what she would think if she could see me like this... Am I finally the daughter that she always wanted?"
"Families are hard. Mine was a piece of work, especially my brother... It's not easy, but once you find your chosen family, you'll realize that there are people that will accept you for you," I replied.
"And when you lose that chosen family?" she asked, looking back at me.
I sighed because I knew this was hard on her and said, "You redefine your place within them, or you find another."
L'Naan gave a sigh then pulled the bat'leth off of the wall. It was a double-sided scimitar/hook sword/lujiaodao hybrid-edged weapon with a curved blade, four points, and three handholds on the back. It was the trademark weapon for a Klingon, so I was not surprised that she knew how to use it, only that she chose it after what she had said.
She twirled the weapon between her hands, much like how Worf would in 'The Next Generation' show. It was easy to tell that she had some experience with the weapon, but it had been a long time since she had used one. Still, she approached me slowly, circling slightly so her back was not directly to the wall. She was being cautious, but that was smart since she had no idea how strong I was.
I let out a steady, long breath and relaxed my stance, bringing my hands up, as I said, "You can have the first strike."
"You're looking down on me," L'Naan said.
"You're looking down on me," I retorted. "I've been fighting or sparring nearly every day for the past twelve years. I may be below Katye and Echo on the experience level, but they have over ten more years of practice than me and the gap is shrinking."
She grunted with annoyance and then swung her bat'leth to deliver a heavy, over-the-head chop with both hands. It was an obvious move that would be easy to dodge and counterattack as she recovered from overextending herself. I huffed with boredom as I backhanded the blade with a gloved fist which knocked her attack off course then slammed my shoulder into hers as she stumbled forward. She could not react fast enough, so she fell back on her butt because of the hard shift of momentum.
"Save the big moves for when your opponent's stance is broken, and they can't react quickly. Anyone could have dodged that move," I chided.
She gave a quiet snort of anger as she pushed herself back up and held the bat'leth properly spaced out between the handholds. With the right end, she thrusted the points for my shoulder and sternum. I blocked the blade with the reinforced knuckles of my gauntlet, but she easily shifted her weight to the other end, stabbing it upwards for my stomach. Using my other hand, I grabbed the blade then yanked her to the side and planted my foot in her gut at the same time.
L'Naan could not help but release the bat'leth as she coughed uncontrollably once she could breathe again. I knew the feeling quite well since it was a move that Indra and Anya would regularly use on me, and I had to say, it was nice to deliver that pain to someone else. I stabbed the weapon into the ground then walked a few feet away. When L'Naan stood up, there was anger in her eyes, but I just smiled and beckoned her to come at me with a hand.
She roared as she charged at me, not bothering with the bat'leth. My clawed gauntlets disappeared since I only needed them if she was using a weapon. She threw a punch at my face, but I tilted my head to the side and slammed a right hook into her ribs, cracking several because of my strength. Although she grunted with pain, she followed up her missed punch with an arm sweep down towards my neck. I had to drop along the path of her arm and catch myself with a hand, but I used that momentum to kick her on the other side. She managed to cushion the blow with her other arm, but she was knocked off her feet yet again.
The broken and bruised bones would hurt just as badly as they would in the physical world, but they would 'mend' quickly. She laid flat on the ground for a few moments while her body recovered before she stood back up. With a yell, she threw herself at me like she had in the cargo bay, but I was ready for her this time. I widened my stance and let her ram her shoulder into my chest, though I did not fall. I slammed my fists on her back which forced her yet again to the ground.
This kept going on for nearly two hours before she finally stopped getting up. Every exchange ended the same way since I had far more experience and regularly used unexpected moves to counter hers. It was clear that tenacity was another Dragon trait as I had gotten the nickname of 'Stubborn Fool' from Indra during our training sessions since I would throw myself so thoroughly into them that they would only end when I was knocked out or completely exhausted.
"You lasted longer than I did when I first started my training, but you couldn't be knocked out like Indra used to do to me," I said, offering my hand to L'Naan.
"How old were you when you started your training?" she asked as she let me help her up.
"Age is a weird thing for Katye and me... I was thirty-seven," I replied.
She gave me a confused look as I looked like the sixteen-year-old Octavia Blake from 'The 100'. With so much mana in my body, I really did not age like a normal person, nor did the others. Raven and Echo even seemed to get a little younger, back to their appearance in the show, when they joined us here with their own mana.
"You're forty-nine?"
"Fifty, actually, though I tend to act the same as I did in my early twenties. In our group, age is just a number since we can live for incredibly long periods of time," I chuckled.
"You're a strange bunch," L'Naan said.
"Spend some more time with us and you'll realize that you still have no idea of just how strange we are," I retorted with a smile, "but we also understand what it's like to be an outsider. You're welcome to come by and have a decent meal, a sparring session, or to just hang out whenever you want."
"I will," she promised.
Things between L'Naan and me were not completely solved, but the nagging urge to beat the crap out of her was gone at least. Of course, there were other things that I still wanted to do to her, but I had a lot more experience in suppressing those urges, and I had Raven, Katye, and Echo to help me with that problem. Her schedule did not make it easy for her to come to our ship often, but on her days off, she would come by and have dinner then spar against me or Echo. I had also stopped sneaking around and was eating in the Mess Hall again since I no longer needed to avoid L'Naan.
About a week later, Raven finally revealed what she had been working on for the past two months. It was, in essence, an environmental suit that was powered by mana, but there were a number of surprises built into it. There was a fully interactive computer display with short-ranged sensors within the helmet, the chest piece had thrusters that would allow the wearer to reach impulse speeds, the gloves could throw up a temporary shield that can block phaser fire from a ship, and the boots were magnetic so the wearer could walk on the hull of a ship. Raven loved zero-G, so I was not surprised that she created something like this, but it was still an incredible feat of magical engineering.
"Can you guys hear me?" I asked with the helmet on.
"Loud and clear, Becca," Raven said with a smile. "Everything looks good, so you can start when you're ready."
"Well, here's hoping it won't end up like my first spacewalk," I chuckled then teleported myself on the other side of the Shuttle Bay shield.
Since I had already proven that I could survive in space without an environmental suit, Raven agreed to let me do the final field test in case anything went wrong. Thankfully, everything seemed fine as the boots locked onto the Voyager's hull automatically. I turned around and waved at Raven, Katye, and Echo who were still inside the Shuttle Bay.
"Rebecca to Voyager. Do you read me?"
"We have you, Rebecca," Janeway's reply came through the headset.
"Alright. I'm about to detach from the hull so please keep a transporter lock on me."
"Understood."
I gave my three, one last look before I jumped off of the ship, my boots demagnetizing with a thought. For a moment, I floated weightless as my momentum carried me away from the ship. It was an incredible feeling and impossible to describe; it just made me feel so small compared to the universe around me.
The power level was displayed as a bar and percentage on the right side of the HUD. Just floating was slowly consuming power at a rate of one tenth a percent per second, but thankfully, I could easily refill the crystal power core about ten times over before a low-mana headache would set in. With a thought, the thrusters activated, and I rushed forward with incredible speed, now using an entire percentage per second.
Voyager started moving so that they could keep up with me. I could control my direction with my thoughts alone, so I could change course easily. Just to mess with Tom, since I knew he was flying the ship, I suddenly stopped, turned around, and charged straight at the massive spaceship. He did not even have time to adjust their course, but I shifted and zoomed around the ship while laughing.
"Are you okay, Rebecca?" Janeway asked with concern.
"Yes, Captain, sorry if I gave you all a scare. The maneuverability of this thing is incredible," I chuckled. "Give me a moment to refill my power core and then I'll be ready to test the shields."
"If you are sure about this."
"Raven has done numerous tests on the shields, so I should be fine even at the full power of your phasers," I replied as I stopped my momentum with the thrusters. I channeled my mana into the crystal core that was touching the center of my chest and watched the power level rise. Once it was topped off, I said, "Alright, Captain, I'm ready. The shield can only last for five seconds, so I'll countdown activating it. I'll cast on three."
"Tuvok is ready with the lowest setting on the phasers," Janeway said.
"One, two, three," I counted then activated the shield, spreading out my hands.
A dome of dark maroon energy encased me just inches beyond my fingertips. A warning flashed across my screen, alerting me to Voyager locking onto me with their weapons and then that they were firing at me. As soon as the phaser hit, the suit instantly lost five percent of power, but the shield held which was the important thing.
"Everything is fine on my end. Can we bump it up to ten percent of maximum?" I asked, refilling the power core quickly.
"On your count," Tuvok replied.
"One, two, three."
The shield remained intact throughout all of the tests. For every ten percent that the Voyager increased the strength of its phasers, the amount of mana consumed was increased by five, making maximum strength drain fifty percent with a single hit. It was good to know that the shields could work, but dodging was clearly the smarter thing to do.
I flew back towards the Shuttle Bay and teleported myself back inside. Sadly, I had to give the gear back to Raven, but she promised to create a set for all of us. This suit would give us a lot more flexibility in the future as well as be fun for a couple of adventures we could have. Raven had really outdone herself with this idea, even though Fae had led her through the process of creating it.