"So... How does this thing work?" Nova asked as she stared at the floating disk Asher had thrown on the ground. The disk was wide and black with its surface filled with many tiny a holes, they were almost unnoticeable.
"You stand on it." Asher answered blankly.
Nova could feel the veins tensing in her head as she looked at Asher's flat expression. "That's not what I meant." She clenched her teeth, however Asher was already on the disk, calling them over.
"Okay~" Yenn however, asked no questions as she jumped to stand beside Asher, on the floating board. Naturally, Nova didn't resist too much after that.
Asher had said this unusual contraption was going to take them to Coity faster, but Nova couldn't help but wonder how.
The black disk lit up as little lines of light flew out of the tiny holes, passing through their bodies.
"This machine is my personal teleporter."
Nova and Yenn turned their heads to look at the man between them as he suddenly spoke.
"It shreds the particles of every matter its light touches, cutting our whole bodies into creepy little pieces and then rearranging them at a whatever checkpoint I want."
"..."
"..."
Yenn, especially Nova stared at Asher with their eyes almost popping out of their skulls.
"You bastar—" Before Nova could completely strangle her brother, their bodies had already scattered into bits.
"L–let go! You didn't feel any pain did you!" Asher struggled with Nova's hands clasped around his neck as they fell from the sky, down to a wide lake. "See, we're here. It worked out!"
However, Nova was already frozen from shock, so Asher couldn't do much about her superior strength even as he pulled.
He could have had more of a chance of pulling out of her grasp if Yenn wasn't currently hugging his other hand and laughing like a child on a rollercoaster.
"Again! Again!!"
———
Asher rubbed the tip of his chin. "Hmm. It's gonna be hard to find her since I don't have any bio-data on her. And I can't use your blood since she wasn't exactly cut out of your body..."
Asher dipped his hand into his 'hammer-space' like pouch and pulled out something that looked like a black pen. "... But we can work this out after I do a couple of... experiments."
The pen's tip suddenly opened, revealing a glowing drill inside it and tiny metal legs spinning around the drill. As Asher looked back up, he suddenly noticed that Nova was already taking off into the sky.
"... Guess she wants to do her." He put the small pen back into his pouch.
"She probably just wants to go where your hands can't reach her." Yenn sat on the floor as she dipped her legs into the lake, kicking up water.
"OCD?"
"More like, 'Avoid-The-Mad-Scientist-itis disease.'" she chuckled. " You're too intense my guy."
"What? The machine disintegrates your pain receptors first, so... I think It's cool."
Asher plopped down beside Yenn and lied on the floor to look at the bright blue sky. Both he and Yenn sat in silence as they did their own thing. It wasn't awkward as one would expect though. This was because even after all that time they spent apart from each other, Asher and Yenn had pushed through many hardships together when it was just them against the world.
So, even if she hadn't yet opened up to him completely, their relationship was still alright.
"It's calming isn't it?" Yenn asked.
"I guess. But we've still got stuff to do."
"There's always something to do." Yenn chuckled. "Life is always one thing and then another. Let's just have as much fun as we can. If you want, we could call it, 'taking a moment to think.'"
"I am thinking. I'm thinking about a lot of things—.
Yenn covered Asher's face with her palm. "I'm obviously not talking about that kind of thinking you grouchy baby~."
As Asher looked up, he could see Yenn's cute round face blocking the sun's glare, with the glint in her eyes softening his.
Her countenance had colours of warmth, happiness and a little bit of longing painted on her visage. She had on a simple smile from other's perspective, but Asher could see those colours.
Taking a whiff of both the calming scent coming off her body and the nostalgic one spewing out of her soul, Asher's eyes close shut.
Most men would definitely go crazy if they could feel Yenn's soft palm resting so gently on their face, with her warmth at this much of a proximity, but it was the opposite for Asher at this moment, because he couldn't be more sane and relaxed.
He was at home.
"So... Wanna go first, grouchy baby?" She ruffled his hair.
Asher smiled, understanding what she meant.
"Asher Tuttel. Age 21. Height, 185 centimeters.
It's been seven years since I stayed at this island, and during the time I was away, I've lived a wrecked life going from one place to another.
I wanted to learn everything about the world so there'd be no surprises for me, so if anything or anyone came for the ones I cared about, I'd be prepared.... But I guess I got knocked off course at some point. It was all about gaining power then, and I went to extreme lengths to get it.
I became a killer, one that lived off the screams and pleads of dying souls. I knew it was bad, I knew none of the people I loved would want me the way I became, so I avoided them.
But what else could I do? Somewhere inside my unholy soul, I knew I enjoyed it. While the rest of me denied, I knew it was a lie, haha, I know it actually feels good while I pretended to abhor it. So as an hypocritic act of repentance, I stole from corrupt states and sometimes even countries, and gave most of whatever I had to the undeveloped parts of the Earth.
So even though it was pretty messed up, I had a lot of fun adventures, learned from all sorts of people, and because of that, I'm at least happy to say that I'm alive."
After that, Asher could only hear the whispers and sounds of nature, and none of the woman who covered his face.
As Asher opened his eyes a bit, Yenn covered it with her other palm, completely preventing him from seeing her face.
"Now look at what you've done.... You big bully" Yenn and Asher laughed as they continued to sit in silence.
"So... Not going to say anything?" Asher asked.
"Mhm mhm." She shook her head. "I'm not ready yet—"
"Nova!" Asher suddenly pulled Yenn's trembling hands away from his face, the unexpected action causing her to fall on him. However, without slowing down, he lifted her in the air and ran towards the residential area of the province.
"Ah! What's going on?!"
"Don't let go!" He didn't explain.
———
BEFORE...
Nova was flying around the skies of Coity, trying to find Nebula. But after a while, she decided to do a thorough sweep of the place as she was moving to fast to notice much anyway.
Coity province was a city built around a very wide lake that took most of the size of the entire province. Its city had mostly bungalows in it, and more common was that, the buildings were made primarily of brown water absorbent materials that almost looked like wood with fluffy white rooftops. Most of them looked like vacation homes too.
But the most unusual thing Nova found about the city was a long stream of deep blue water, flowing from the center lake up a mountain in the distance.
It was unusual because not much force was coming from the lake to be able to push a wide stream of water to these lengths, and even up a giant mountain. In fact, the water would have looked stagnant if Nova hadn't paid attention to see that it was flowing, albeit slowly.
Withal, the strangest of all, was that people would constantly walk on the flowing stream of cobalt water without sinking into it.
Nova tapped the water with her feet, and true to the laws of floatation, her leg sunk. She then turned ahead to look at a couple of children running over the same stream and playing on it.
She stared curiously, trying to figure out what manner of sorcery those children were using when she suddenly felt a tap on her shoulder.
"!!!" Nova jumped as she turned to look behind her.
She saw a woman's surprised eyes staring at hers. Before long however, this woman laughed at her weird actions. "First time in the city, huh?" She asked as she rested her hands on her waist.
This woman had short pink hair over her girly, petite looking face. She wore a pink spaghetti top, blue thigh high pants, and a transparent overcoat.
Nova calmed herself as she nodded.
"Well, one thing you need to know about this water is that it can read your intentions. If you want to stand on it, you just have to believe It's solid... Kind of like how you're doing now.
Nova opened her eyes wide as she realized she was really standing on the stream. But no sooner had she turned her head below her, than she started sinking like normal.
"Aiyya. You're such a cutie–pea aren't you?" The white haired woman clasped her hands with stars in her as Nova started floating above the water.
Nova's face depicted a look of pure, unstained innocence, so it wasn't strange that a person was calling her cute. Moreover, with her quiet nature that almost made her look shy, and the curious glint shining in her eyes, this was even more so.
Nova looked at the woman with a raised eyebrow before deciding to leave. "Thank you." She flew to the ground and continued her search.
The pink haired woman looked at the Nova as she strolled, and then smiled. "She really is too cute. I can see why Buster wants her" She turned around and walked off in the opposite direction. "Now where is that block head?"
Nova walked for quite a while, going from one building to another, growing increasingly restless. What if Nebula didn't materialize? What if she had somehow ended up in an unfavorable place or habitat? After all, her soul did fly out of Nova's body without her own shell.
Nova sighed exhaustedly. 'Maybe we should move to the next province.'
She turned her head to the stream road again. However, this time she noticed something wiggling on it.
'A person!.'
Without hesitation, she blasted over to the moving object.
"Hmm?..." But, what she saw ahead was the tip of what appeared to be a blue tentacle instead of a human. She sighed in relief.
Soon enough, she got curious by what that tentacle was doing in the middle of the road when she suddenly felt a tug on her leg. But when she looked, what was pulling her wasn't a tentacle, but a man's hand.
"!!!" Nova couldn't resist against the force of this underground person and was pulled straight into the water.
"Nova!" Asher and Yenn had arrived a little too late as her head disappeared, falling into the stream.