Chapter Text
The blast wouldn’t have been coming straight at her if she’d just stayed still.
She slammed into the figure, her senses immediately overtaken by the fiery spectacle that formed a disc above her, shooting out in all directions. Even facing away from it, she could see the sudden flash of light through her eyelids, and the sudden heat nearly robbed her of her consciousness yet again.
She rolled off the figure, pushing herself back up onto her feet, her brain screaming at her to get away from the danger.
If she’d just stayed put, she wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place.
…but, the figure she’d just bowled over- it looked just like her. Just like her. Bipedal, roughly the right height, no strange added limbs and teeth- and, legends, even if there was the slightest chance that that thing was just like her, the slightest chance that she wouldn’t be alone out here any longer- well, then she wasn’t going to let it be murdered right in front of her. Not a chance.
However, that wasn’t her current concern, with one of those fiery alien bastards probably set to lob another one of its heads at her.
She didn’t even bother to open her eyes- she’d rather keep her vision intact, thank you very much- and instead slammed her psyche straight into Empathic vision. The world went black around her, and she watched herself from all angles- her own lilac figure darting away from the danger, laced with streaks of blue and white; a sort of tired fear that had latched onto her bones a long time ago, refusing to leave ever since. Three figures were clear behind her- one far enough to not be an immediate threat, then the just-like-her figure in a murky green-and-white (still down on the floor, slow to react to the danger), and the fiery bastard in a pale yellow (seemingly focused on her, instead of the figure. shit.).
The latter promptly glowed with emotion. Yellow-hot. That could only mean pure, unadulterated joy.
Which, for these particular bitches, was highly correlated with them chucking their head at their latest victim, for another deadly firework show.
She’d only made it a few metres away, but hurled herself forwards to avoid the blast-
-instantly regretting it, as pain spiked through her skull. Unfortunately, while her Empathy was quite useful for locating living beings, it was utterly useless for noticing inanimate threats; such as the pile of boulders that she had just accidentally slammed herself into, headfirst.
Colour blinked out, her consciousness leaving too quickly for her to swear at her own stupidity.
-
“Starai bene, starai bene, starai bene…”
Her senses slowly fizzed back into existence.
She hadn’t heard those noises before, but something about them was comforting, so she forced herself to listen beyond them. Hopefully, whatever it was wouldn’t realise she was alive, and thus would leave her alone.
There were soft rustling noises, but nothing particularly concerning- the world was back to its usual calm ambience, with soft chirping noises from the Ceiling-Sky.
She wished she could take a look at whatever was near her using her Empathy, but she felt so drained of energy that she knew that attempting that would do nothing but give her a worse headache.
She tried to focus on touch instead; she couldn’t feel much of breeze, so she was probably somewhere relatively sheltered. That could make anything near her a larger threat- but meant that anything else wouldn’t spot her.
More obvious was the sense of trapped heat that was eating at her skin, dragging back memories of the damn fiery bastard, and the figure she’d saved. Or, attempted to save, at least. Those blasts were deadly, and as far as she could remember, she’d been a little too unconscious to have been of help. She was surprised she’d even survived-
“So. Is she alive? Or what.”
Just a few words, but it felt like the weight of years of torture had suddenly been lifted from her shoulders, like maybe, just maybe, all her searching hadn’t been in vain.
Without thinking, her eyes were open, and she’d shot upwards into a seated position-
There was a girl in front of her. Small, young, with bright orange hair and-
She blinked slowly, looking at the girl’s skin, then down at her own to make sure she wasn’t going mad.
“Oh! You are alive.”
A deeper voice, and she looked to her side to see a second… person?
He reached out to help keep her upright, and she flinched away.
The two figures were both… blue. She couldn’t figure out why, and deep down she was terrified that these weren’t actually humans, but just another deadly creature that was about to try and detach her limbs from her body-
“Woah, calm down! Uh… can you… understand me? …uh, hello? Ciao? Hola? uh… konnichiwa?”
But it could talk. In human languages. Two of whom she understood. She hadn’t heard any of these creatures talk before.
…there was a giggle from the second figure, the small girl.
“Don’t be silly, Dulsie! She’s just a newborn- she can’t talk!”
“I’m a-?”
She cut herself off with a hoarse cough. Her voice felt clunky, grating against her vocal cords. That made sense- she’d had no reason to talk in the past legends-know-how-long, and noise tended to attract danger.
“I’m… not… a newborn?”
Was she doing this right? She couldn’t remember the last time she talked to someone.
…she couldn’t remember a lot things.
“See? Of course she can talk. Most newborns can-“ ‘Dulsie’ said.
“Oh my Kora, can we adopt her?? I want to adopt her! She doesn’t have anyone else, right?”
“Zossie, that’s rude! She’s right there!”
“Yeah, and so are we, so we can adopt her!”
“You can’t just go around adopting people.”
“Yeah we can! Aunties Poppie and Zara adopted a baby just two months ago, remember?”
…they seemed like siblings bickering. Were they siblings?
She decided to interrupt again; all this noise was doing her head in, and setting off alarm bells. Legends know what all of this could attract.
“Am. Not. A newborn.”
If anything, the small girl was a newborn- that ‘Zossie’ looked only ten or eleven. Personally, she was closer to ‘Dulsie’s’ age- late teens, she guessed.
This interruption only caused Zossie to beam from ear to ear, darting over and raising both the stranger’s hand and Zossie’s own.
“See? You’re orange, I’m blue. So you’re a newborn, and I’m a native! See?”
“…native?” she asked.
Zossie beamed again.
She could feel the yellow-hot emanating emanating off the kid, and tried to back away from the strong emotion.
Zossie spread two hands up towards the ceiling-sky. They seemed strangely pale against the pitch black crystals that coated the ‘sky’.
“I was born from a womb, in one of Ultra cities! You’re a newborn, so you just appeared- poof!- out of nowhere, in Ultra wilderness! But don’t worry- we can look after you! You’re my big sister now, after all.”
“Zossie, you CAN’T ADOPT HER.” That was ‘Dulsie’ again.
“That’s why mum and dad are adopting her!”
“No they aren’t!”
The two siblings devolved back into bickering.
She watched the two quietly, not quite able to make sense of her own emotions.
…just …appeared?
But she could remember… before. Back when the sky was an endless blue void, and she knew people who looked just like her.
That was real. That had to be real.
…she couldn’t remember their names. Only snippets of their faces. Words that they’d said, but never voices.
They had to be real.
She slowly lowered herself back onto the cold ground, letting it seep into her bones as exhaustion claimed her again.
-
She quietly watched the two walking ahead of her.
Dulsie- or ‘Dulse’, as he’d corrected her- had settled into a murky green, though streaks of pale blue kept twisting around him. She’d guessed it was fear- but when it was more prominent, he’d start glancing at Zossie more often. Perhaps worry for his little sister?
She tuned back out of her empathy. There was no use wasting energy decoding their emotions- the colours were different for every individual human, she knew that for a fact. One person’s happiness could be a cool yellow, while another’s could be a warm pink. …though, she wasn’t certain how she knew that.
Regardless, she’d got all the information she needed.
“…can-“
“Sh!”
She glared at Dulse’s interruption.
“Is. Gone. Can talk.”
Dulse looked around worriedly, before pulling up the visor on his strange white helmet to give her a stern look.
“…it could still be following us. Guzzlords can be extremely quiet, even for their size- and with all Ultra rocky terrain we’ve been traversing, we can’t rely on vision. Plus, there might be other threats nearby.”
“Nothing. Nearby. Not in…” she shut her eyes, fighting off exhaustion as she made a rough calculation- “…kilometre.”
Dulse stopped at that.
“So we can talk!” Zossie said.
She gave a quick nod to the younger girl, regretting it as the sudden movement made her vision blur.
Dulse laid a hand on her shoulder to stop her stumbling over her own two feet.
“…how… do you know that?” he asked.
“Empathy.”
“What?”
She sighed, entirely out of energy to keep the conversation going.
Zossie darted over to her side, beaming up at her.
“Anyway, since we can talk now, I’m Zossie, and that’s Dulsie NOT Dulse, he’s totally lying to you about his name and you can totally trust me on that, and we’re headed this-a-way to Ultra nearby town- Dulsie knows how to navigate to it, and I’m gonna learn how to as well! I’m gonna join Ultra Recon Squad, maybe make my own branch of it with Dulsie! You should join too, it can be a sibling bonding activity-“
…maybe she shouldn’t have told the others that it was safe to talk. Zossie was going to drive her mad at this rate.
Though… it was certainly nice to hear another human’s voice, for what may well have been the first time. Plus, now that Dulsie wasn’t scouting ahead for danger, she could rest a bit of her weight on him. Or, rather, quite a lot of her weight. She quietly considered letting herself fall unconscious once again, as she watched Zossie bounce around in excitement.
…she could barely remember the last time that had been an option.
-
It had been a while of walking, before they stopped for a break. Dulse had been insistent on getting back to civilisation as quickly as possible, but some things could convince even him to stop.
She watched in awe as Dulse tempted down the paper-creature, letting it circle twice around him before darting a hand out to try and catch it.
He failed the first time, but on his second attempt he managed to hook his fingers behind a flap of the paper.
The paper-creature let out a high-pitched shriek, struggling to get away- since it didn’t bother to attack, Dulse was able to keep his grip on it, getting both hands on it to start unfolding it.
It only took a few clumsy movements to completely unfold the creature, his two companions watching on in a hushed silence during the slow process.
Dulse hesitated, then loosened his grip and let go of the creature.
It refolded itself back into the same shape, bobbing up and down gently in the air before turning to face Dulse, and floating over to land on his outstretched hand.
…she’d never seen one so calm as this. It had lowered its sharp yellow ‘collar’, letting it bend in the breeze behind it.
It just stood there, waiting, until Dulse finally held out the promised berry- and with its treasure clutched in its grasp, it darted straight up into the sky. In under a second, it was so high up it nearly vanished from view.
She had light scars coating her entire body from encounters with those things- they were sharp, fast, and utterly dogged in their pursuit. She had no idea what kind of suicidal fool was the first to try unfolding those things, but it was a skill that she was immediately determined to learn.
A loud laugh next to her nearly scared her out of her skin. She was still unused to noise meaning anything other than immediate death.
“Did you see that?! I told you Dulsie’s just Ultra absolute coolest person in existence, and when we make our own Recon Squad we’re gonna put ALL other Recon Squads to total SHAME!”
Dulse rubbed his neck in embarrassment, before moving back over to his discarded pack.
“Anyway, uh. Food. Yeah, we’ll have a quick break and eat, then we can get back on our way. I’d rather not sleep out here if we don’t have to.”
They all ate quickly- she absolutely adored the food these two had in their packs. It had about as much flavour as a piece of wet cardboard, but if her suddenly returning energy levels were anything to speak of, they must’ve been much more nutritious than anything she’d managed to scavenge in the past few years.
The same couldn’t be said for Zossie, who was making over-the-top facial expressions of disgust at every bite.
Noticing the stranger’s gaze, Zossie brightened and turned towards her.
“I’ve decided on a name for you! Poipole! I think it suits you, right Dulsie? It’s Ultra same colour as her hair!”
“Wha- Zossie, you can’t just change people’s names! She probably already has one!” Dulse slowed and looked at the stranger sheepishly “Aaand I’m just realising that I really should’ve asked your name like. A couple hours ago, probably. Sorry about that.”
“She’s a newborn, how would she have a name? She doesn’t even have parents yet. Right, Poipole?”
She glared at Zossie. “…Lilac.”
“Eh?! …your name’s Lilac?” Zossie asked.
She shook her head slowly, then pulled her hair and shook it at Zossie. “Lilac. Not. Purple.”
Maybe her endless quest to try and educate people on more colour names was a waste of time, given that it wasn’t particularly useful knowledge outside of Empathy and a few snobbish art circles- but she’d be damned if she’d let her name be some gross mispronunciation of ‘purple’.
…did she have a name, before this? She felt certain that she did, but she couldn’t for the life of her think of what it might have been.
Zossie pouted. “I didn’t say it was exactly Ultra same shade as Poipole is, I just thought that would be cute! But hey, whatever you say, Lilac. Oo, can your middle name be Poipole? Lilac Poiple Amamo. Amamo’s my last name, so now its yours too! Cos we’re sisters.”
She was quite tempted to tell Zossie ‘no, my name isn’t Lilac, and it certainly isn’t ‘Poipole’ who even pronounces that word that way? I was just telling you my hair colour and I’m not going to let some random stranger choose my name for me- also, quite frankly- you talk too much, and I am far too tired for this bullshit’, but she knew that her vocal cords would never hold up for all of that. Thus, she settled on the closest thing to a ‘compromise’ that she could come up with on short notice.
“Lilac. Amamo. Not- Poipul.”
Zossie pouted. “Fiiine. I still think Poipole would suit you better though.”
-
More time had passed, to the point that while Lilac had regained enough energy to walk consistently, Zossie had given up on the entire prospect, and had settled for using Dulse as a portable armchair.
Lilac dashed a few steps ahead of the two, using a stick in the next patch of dirt to sketch out the fiery bastard from earlier; then mimed pulling her own head off and chucking it at some nearby rocks.
“Uhhh Nihilego! Buzzwole! Oo, oo, Stakataka! Uh-“
Dulse slapped a hand over Zossie’s mouth to shut her up.
“Is this Ultra one you saved me from earlier? When we met?” he asked.
Lilac nodded.
“That one’s called Blacephalon.”
“Darnit! I thought I was close that time!” Zossie said.
She shuffled around in Dulse’s arms so that she could comfortably cross her arms over her chest to sulk.
“Hey, hey, stop wriggling! I’ll make you walk again if you keep doing that. …plus, Stakataka’s a cube. What part of any of that made you think ‘cube’?”
“It totally could’ve been Stakataka! You’re just jealous cos my answers are more creative than yours.”
“They’re not creative, they’re blatantly wrong.”
Lilac raised a hand in a ‘halt’ motion as she crested a hill, and the other two fell silent.
She lit up her Empathy, trying to make out the form of the creature up ahead.
She’d only seen it for a moment, darting behind a rock, and for a single horrible moment she’d thought it was an Empty (she’d have to inquire after that thing’s actual name, eventually). But it was just her tiredness making her Empathy almost totally ineffective, that she wasn’t able to rely on it as a warning system for before she got close enough to see the creature. With a bit of pushing though, she was able to sense traces of emotions, walking through the rocks up ahead.
…it seemed humanoid, and while it could still be some awful creature, at least she was certain it wasn’t an Empty.
She remembered the first time she’d seen one of those things. She’d been scouting from atop a cliff when she’d heard a skittering noise behind her, and turned- expecting some loose rocks or the like.
Instead, there had been that humanoid creature- more humanoid than anything she’d ever seen, yet so decidedly inhuman that she’d recoiled at the sight. White, ceramic skin, limbs thinner than bones, joints up the length of its thorax, where there really shouldn’t be any joints at all- all framed by a transparent dome of ‘hair’ that looked like a transparent, suffocating sheet.
It moved towards her, and she pulsed her Empathy out, only to find nothing at all. It was like a hallucination, containing no more emotion than your average rock.
She hadn’t been scared. It was like when she watched horror films, Before she arrived here- her Empathy made it so blatantly obvious that the nightmarish creatures were nothing more than soulless pixels on a screen, that she struggled to react to it any more than one would to a painting.
Maybe, if she’d been scared of the creatures in horror films, she would’ve gotten out of the way before this one had tried to kill her.
The Empty had lunged without warning, slamming into her at extreme speed, and driving one of its blunt limbs into her stomach with so much momentum that it drew blood. Too much blood.
She hadn’t even noticed the physical pain, because when it hit her, the Empty exploded into emotion. Only one emotion- no stable, background hue, no intertwined shades of complex emotion- nothing but the black-hot glow of gleeful malice.
The only thing that had saved her was that, in her struggle to get away from the overload of emotion, she fell off the cliff behind her.
She’d cracked a few bones, she was sure of it, but she was left barely conscious after hitting the thick undergrowth of a forest- instead of the unforgiving black rock that coated most of this world, which would likely have killed her.
She was just conscious enough to pull a few long, purple ribbon-leaves out of the undergrowth, tying it around her waist in a desperate bid to stop the bleeding- and then drag herself under a pile of fallen, rotting leaves, where the adrenaline wore off, and let her drop into a vivid nightmare-laden unconsciousness-
She flinched away, nearly screaming, as something touched her arm.
“Woah, woah- just me- just me, Lilac- it’s just me-“
She blinked blearily up at Dulse, and took a few shuddering breaths as she returned to the present.
“…hu- …human. I think.”
She pointed over in the direction of the creature she’d been trying to track, hoping Dulse got the message.
“…Dulsie, is she ok?”
“Zossie, hush. Lilac? Lilac, talk to me-“
It was nice. To finally be around people. People, who would look out for her.
She dipped into unconsciousness once more.
-
She woke as the motion beneath her finally stilled- immediately forcing down panic at the fact that, at some point, the motion must have started without her noticing it.
…perhaps an earthquake, as her Empathy wasn’t picking up anything from whatever she was lying on- unless of course, she’d worn it out so much that it wasn’t even able to extend that far away from her core.
She focused on her hearing instead, hearing a hushed muttering near her- multiple mutterings actually, now that she was concentrating.
“…do we wake her up?”
“We should let her rest-“
Those voices, she could recognise. She opened her eyes, glancing at them before pushing herself upwards to survey her surroundings.
She was surprised to find herself in some sort of wagon; sleek and black, with brilliant white lights lining the sides. There were other humans (humans! She felt dizzy at the sight), some disembarking the wagon who were dressed similarly to Zossie and Dulsie, and others coming over to them from the side of the road who seemed to have… if not more ‘casual’, at least less-armoured outfits.
She tuned back in to what her- rescuers? family?- were saying as Zossie grabbed her hand, dragging Lilac to the edge of the wagon and helping her off.
“-near Ultra bakery- we live right near Ultra bakery, isn’t that cool!- but we’re not near any clubs or something fun like that, there’s a really good one up on Vallasium Parade that I’ll bring you to soon!- but yeah if you really want you can have your own room I guess, but I think it would be more fun if we shared a room and we could stay up all night and play games together-“
“Zossie. She’s not going to share a room with you. Also, leave her alone. She just woke up.”
“She can speak for herself, Dulsie. You don’t get to speak for her. That’s why she’s gonna move in with me and-“
…it sounded like Zossie had been talking about a town of sorts, so Lilac shook the fatigue from her brain and tore her gaze away from the humans around her- forcing herself to look further up the road-
Oh.
That… was certainly not a ‘town’.
The word ‘skyscraper’ came to mind, but the buildings ahead of her were far more sophisticated than the haphazard grey towers she’d come across Before. She couldn’t tell apart the walls and the windows from this distance; instead, they seemed like giant black crystals, twisted and sloping in beautiful patterns. There were no ‘levels’ of organization- no grids of roads, leading to squeezing in as many buildings as possible between them, leading to builders trying to match eachother’s styles as the town grew- no, this was clearly organized in one go, made like an artwork- and with roads existing not just at ground level, but suspended between buildings as well, to complement one another.
In the centre of it all was a pillar of blinding white light, beaming downwards from a building set into the Ceiling-Sky, that was built like a combination lock.
Lilac felt like she’d been beamed directly into the distant future. This was all- so incredibly alien.
Zossie must have noticed her staring, the little kid beaming and hopping out in front with a large gesture.
“Lilac Amamo, welcome to Ultra Megalopolis!” she snorted, and quickly turned to Dulse- “Was that dramatic? It felt dramatic. I’ve always wanted to do that!”
“Calm down, Zossie.”
Dulse walked up to Lilac, gently holding onto her shoulder in case she collapsed again.
“Hey. Lilac? You’re alright. We’ll get you somewhere safe, where you can sleep it off.” He said.
She nodded silently, holding out a hand so Zossie could grab onto her again.
Zossie beamed and complied, dragging Lilac down the road once more.
Life moved on.