"I wouldn't go too near that-- that sphere... It has a large amount of Flux inside it."

Lalna squinted up at the huge glass sphere through the rain. He could only just make out Nano's figure as she crouched on the top of the ball; no doubt she was glaring down at him as she shouted her reply. As much as he loved teasing his childish apprentice, there was still a prickle of fear seeing her with only a thick sheeting of reinforced glass between her and the unstable, angry node. It was sturdy enough for her to put her full weight on it, even with the Flux storm raging inside like a caged beast beating against it's prison, but if she got careless...

"Don't worry about it! I'm hiding from you-- I'm hiding from you because... I don't trust you with that gun."

Lalna chuckled and holstered his portal gun, then held his hands up for Nano to see he was now unarmed. He could imagine her furious face relaxing into the one that she always had whenever he started messing around: bridge of her nose pinched, eyes wary, mouth pulled in a slight frown as she got ready to chide him. Still on her guard, of course, but not ready to punch him and hopefully not pissed enough to slip and fall.

His eyesight was a little distorted and blurred by the steady rainfall, but he could still see the shape on the glass sphere go from on hands-and-knees to a full, if unsteady, stand. Nano's hand whipped around in the wind like a dark halo as she slowly inched into a good position to jump off and jetpack back to the ground.

Lalna's tongue poked out between his teeth as he squinted one eye closed. One thick glove came off to reveal his cherised power tool, and within a moment a glowing sphere of plasma was building in his palm as he took aim. It was going to be a wide shot, of course; just another continuation of the game that had chased Nano up to her hiding-spot in the first place, and hopefully one that would coax her to a safer haven.

The ball of plasma whizzed past Nano's ear and she staggered back. "NO-- And I don't trust you with that gun!" With Lalna on the ground and herself on top of the Flux containment sphere, the only way Lalna would be able to actually shoot her would be through the glass itself, which was thankfully impossible. She leaned over enough to shoot daggers down at him upon hearing his familiar teasing laugh. Was he seriously still passing this off as a game? "What're you doing?! What're you doing--"

"I like my guns." Lalna couldn't hide his wide grin of pride as he slipped the portal gun back onto his free arm. He feigned taking aim; even he didn't want to know the results of placing a portal on the only thing standing between the outside world and the raging node, but Nano didn't know that.

"Leave me alone!" Nano snapped down at him in her usual fashion. Another continuation of their game, which was usually followed by Nano soaring off to a safe spot further off and Lalna having to give chase. She shook one fist at him and turned on her heel to bolt in the direction away from her idiot of a teacher. He had a lot of nerve, shooting at her like that--

One foot came down too hard on a segment of glass already weakened by the Flux eating away at it. It shattered.

She gasped as her foot was suddenly resting on thin air and her leg jerked down. Her loss of balance sent her careening to land face-first on the glass; the sudden application of weight sent the rest of the weakened surface shattering as well, and all Nano could do was tumble through the air as she fell down into the Flux.

Crystals broke underneath her weight as she slammed into the stone bottom of the sphere. Nano pressed one hand against her face; her nose was warm and wet with blood, but all she could focus on was where she was. She was in the sphere. She couldn't see it at the moment, but she could vividly remember when Lalna had given her the special goggles and she'd looked for the first time at the whirling rampage of purple energy just barely contained. And she was in it.

"I've fallen-- I've fallen," she gasped. Through the glass she could see Lalna race up to her level before the scientist landed near the broken-open hole and stared down at her in alarm. "What do I do?!" Nano yelled up at him in barely-restrained terror.

"Y-You shouldn't be in there, Nano," Lalna stammered. He couldn't think of what else to say. This was ... he didn't have any words for it. This was a disaster. A Flux containment breach was easily one of the worst things that could've happened, and now his apprentice was right in the heart of it... He could hear her stammering, trying to form words, and he himself was mumbling weakly like he was trying to reassure her. He sat loosely cross-legged near the hole and stared down at her with a blank expression. What could he do? He wanted to scream, to curse, to do anything--

She wasn't insulated against the Flux like he was. For all he knew it was already taking root in her, infecting her, killing her slowly from the inside. Nano was going to die.

"I--"

His throat closed up and the scientist blinked a few times to shy away from tears. He had to be impartial about this. He couldn't let his emotions get in the way of what had to be done. Nano had never seen Lalna back in "the glory days", during the Tekkit War, but he could easily feel himself retreating back into that mindset that she had unknowingly coaxed him out of.

"...I'm gonna have to seal you in now. Forever."

Lalna's voice was quiet, but it still carried enough for Nano to hear. Even if she hadn't heard him, she could definitely see as Lalna grabbed supplies from a nearby storage meant for maintenance. "No-- No!" she shouted in desperation.  "No-- Why? Why?! Why'd you seal me in--"

"You've just fallen into the Flux!" Lalna retorted. He rarely raised his voice around her, but without thinking he was scolding her like she was a child. Without even paying her much heed, he set to mending the damage. Nano shouted up at him in outrage.

"There was a hole up there! WHY'D YOU HAVE A HOLE UP THERE?!"

"Well I, um, I, I-- I didn't expect anyone to go inside!" Lalna babbled. Nano's entryway had been the out-of-use maintenance trap door, which now lay in pieces at the bottom of the sphere along with his distressed apprentice. No one was supposed to go inside the sphere except him, and even he had stopped doing it as the node grew fiercer. The least he could do was seal the entryway before anything worse happened, even if it meant sealing Nano inside it.

"I didn't mean to, I was running away from you and your stupid gun!" Her eyes stung with anger-fueled tears. "This is your fault!"
Lalna broke into hysteric laughter as he screwed the last bolt into place and leaped off the top to hover uneasily next to the sphere. Inside he could see Nano bouncing around like she'd gone mad; he'd built the sphere to be impenetrable, but she was doing her best to test its limits in the hopes of an escape.

"I-- We-- Whoever's fault it is, it happened, and I'm afraid--"

"Ho-How do I, how do I get out?! Lemme out. Lemme out!" Her voice cracked as she pounded against the glass with her fists. Fear seized Nano in an iron grip. Was he really doing this to her? This must be some nightmare; there was no way the quirky, scatterbrained scientist she'd drawn close to would do this to her... right?

"You can't. You can't come out." He turned his head so he didn't have to see her heartbroken face. Her protest came out as a wail.

"Why not?!"

"Y.. I'm sorry, you can't come out. It's-- you're--" He was scrambling for excuses, and he knew it. As always, Nano saw right through him.

"But you don't even know what this does!" She pressed up against the glass and stared at him. "You don't even know what this does," Nano repeated pleadingly.

"I know!" It came out fiercer than he intended. Lalna slammed his fists against the wall; with his head bowed, he didn't see the shocked expression of Nano's face. "Exactly, we have to quarantine you--" He was doing this for her own good, he reminded himself as he pressed his palms flat against the glass sphere. Nano had to be quarantined. Nano had to be sealed in, because who knows what would happen if she was let out.

Even though a small voice in his head was pointing out to him that the longer Nano spent in the sphere, the more and more Flux her body was absorbing. She would be dead before sunset.

"It'll be fine! I'll be-- It won't do anything, lemme out--"

"You're not wearing protective clothing!" She wasn't listening to him. Light flared from inside the sphere as Nano's jetpack ignited and sent her richocheting up to the hastily-mended patch. Lalna watched in horror as his ever-inventive apprentice wedged her ruby sword in the gap and put all her weight against it. The seams creaked, then gave way. The impromptu lid popped off and with a roar of engines Nano was shooting up in the skies like a rocket.

"I'm coming out! I'm out!" Happiness surged in her as she breathed in the crisp rainy air, not even caring that her cheongsam was getting soaked through. "I'm out."

"Stay away from me," Lalna stammered as he drifted away from where she stood on top of the sphere like a king surveying her kingdom. At the same time joy was lighting up Nano, fear was plunging him into darkness. The most he could do was turn tail and run; Nano stared after him as he raced across the skies and out of sight.

"Lalna, where are you-- Lalna? Why are you running? Why are you running, Lalna?" She skidded down the side of what had been her prison and launched off to glide after him. Why was he acting like this? Shouldn't he be happy? She was happy, for sure. Ignoring his shouted protests, Nano called after him like their game from earlier had continued-- "Why are you running? Give me a hug~"

"Get-- Get inside this, this... This lovely... cube... It's..." Following the sound of his voice, Nano landed on an overlooking balcony and leaned over. Lalna met her eyes and immediately averted them. He never thought he'd have to use Rythian's prison again, but with Nano loose his only option was to try and coax her into it. "I-- It's beautiful in here, you could live here." His words sounded false even to his own ears. God, what was he doing? He wasn't even fooling himself.

Why was he so afraid? Why was he afraid for her? His entire life had been spent wrapped up in science and machines and theories and careful magic. Other people were not a priority for him. It had been weird enough that he'd taken this strange girl in, but now he was scared for her safety...

"No. Absolutely not." Nano dangled her legs over the edge of the balcony. "Just... no." With a light push she was in freefall, and again her jetpack activated to allow her to leisurely coast through the air towards the prison Lalna was trying to convince her to stay in. Even from the air it looked ominous: a dark cube, with only a skylight as it's distinguishing feature. "I don't trust you. It looks like that thing from X-Men, that they put Magneto in?"

Even in his current emotional state, Lalna felt himself smile. "Do you feel okay?" he called up to her as she glided in. "How do you feel?"

Nano's eyes unfocused slightly as she thought. "I feel... I feel a bit dizzy," she admitted reluctantly. "Feel a bit itchy." She landed with a thump on the skylight of the prison and stared down into it. Her fingertips tingled, and without paying much thought to it Nano ran her fingernails across her arm to try and soothe the itch crawling under her skin. "And a bit... warm." Not a comfortable warmth. This was the warmth from wearing blankets on a summer's day: clogging, sweaty, uncomfortable. Her skin felt cold to her own touch, and she couldn't tell if the chill she felt at odds with the burning warmth was the rain or something else. She wandered to the edge of the roof. "What does that stuff do?"

Lalna didn't meet her eyes.

"I thought it was just magic. I thought it'd be fine." Nano turned to look over her shoulder at the sprawling castle, where the Flux was lurking just out of sight. The itchniness made her scratch harder, her fingernails leaving white trails on her skin; there was something boiling underneath it, searing in her veins, and something in her wanted to let it out.

"Well, it is magic, but it's the... exact opposite of good magic." He still wasn't meeting her eyes. "It's like... pure chaos, and-- and evil."

"Oh." Nano looked down at her hands. Her palms tingled with the restless, burning feeling. "...And I've just fallen into it." She let her arms drop back to her sides. Fuck. Her hair was plastered to her skin, and her nose had stopped bleeding sometime during her daring escape. Shards of gems clung to the back of her cheongsam like deadly glitter. "Um." Her voice wavered. Lalna was laughing now, the kind of laugh that only happened after a near-death experience.

"Two questions?" Nano spoke up after she regained her composure. "One: Why do you have it?"

Lalna still wasn't looking at her, but at least his laughter had subsided. His stare was transfixed on the glass ball only just visible past his castle's towers. "Haha, well, it's a long story... It comes with the good magic, you have to have an equal amount of bad magic."

"Okay." She didn't sound convinced. Her conviction dropped even further after his follow-up.

"Especially if you make it angry. Like I did."

"And, uh, second question..." Nano jumped off the roof and floated up. Lalna watched her as she glided back in the direction of the castle; she turned in mid-air as he started to follow, and finally their eyes met. Nano's eyes had a faint sheen of purple to them now, or maybe it was just his imagination.

"What happens now?"