Crossing Worlds 16: Lucid

"There they are," says Stratos as the metal ship pulls into the harbor,

"Whose that with him?" asks Gun Man

"Must be the Nocturne queen, Sylvia I believe he said her name was,"

"Another queen?" asks Vondroncha

"Yes," says Stratos, "when Byron called me he said this Queen Sylvia was coming with him, apparently she also wants to meet Queen Thistle."

Viana is leaning against a wall, her arms crossed, "I heard her army has already conquered the Magnus Empire...I don't like it...not one bit..."

"Hmm?" says Tia looking her way, "this seems a bit out character for you...and no silly accent either."

"An empire of aliens," says Viana, "swoop in...and take over in mere weeks...leaves a bad taste in m'mouth."

"Because of what happened to Earth-DM and the Ju-El," says Gun Man, "I was a hero there too...to think all those heroes were bested so easily....yeah the parallels..."

"Hail Great Grandfather," yells Byron as the ship appears.

"No guards?" as Vondroncha.

"She had one with her," says Stratos, "according to Byron she sent him back to her army...for fear he'd cause an incident."

"Alright," says Vondroncha, "but alone...in...she looks familiar."

Sylvia nods her head as the party boards Byron's ship heading up stream to the Grand Lake that surrounds the twin island nation of Crimdalina and Postorina.

"According to her," whispers Stratos, "she's Rhulan's daughter..."

"Indeed I am," says Sylvia, "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Queen Sylvia of the Nocturne, daughter of the Goddesses Rhulan and Claire."

 "Claire the Alchemist," whispers Viana, "even more mythical a figure than Rhulan, Rhulan's top alchemist, said to be an immortal she brought to Aesperia from another world during the reign of her empire."

  The group looks at Viana, "I read the stories growing up, I am from this world after all, and grew up in the outskirts of the Sae-Kingdom."

  She looks at Sylvia, "According to the story I read Claire created the Humunculas race that became the fae race, and attempted to create another race by combining her essence with that of the Empress Rhulan, resulting in elves that were given a dark continent on another world to rule."

   Sylvia smiles, "Indeed this is all true, to a certain extent. However we were promised the Grand Desert of Ravashira as our kingdom by The Goddess mother Rhulan herself, and so have returned. She herself recently gave me the key to do so."

   "What?" asks Stratos

   "Not here," says Sylvia, "I do not like repeating myself, so I will wait to discuss this matter fully with Queen Thistle of the Light Elves and Stratalia."

   "Very well," says Byron sensing an odd tension, "Shall be off?"

   "Something...wrong," asks Byron noticing Sylvia giving Tia an odd look, and the small blue elf smiling.

   "Cute," says Sylvia.

   "O....kay," says Gun-Man looking at Viana who is walking away towards their cabin, clearly annoyed her questioning was brushed aside so nonchalantly.

  "Yes...I am," says Tia, her eyes seeming to study Sylvia.

  "Interesting trick," says Sylvia as she walks away.

  "What do you think she means by that," whispers Stratos after Sylvia is out of sight.

 "Eyes that see beyond the surface," says Tia, "hee, this looks like it will be fun."


   ******

   -Far away out in the Grand Sea-

    Hollia is awakened by the sound of Gold Wolf yelling and someone else laughing, a woman's laugh, she rushes to the cabin door and looks out the window. There is her uncle standing, golden spheres of energy pulsating in his palms as he stares down a woman. A woman wearing what looks like a black shredded kimono and a black bikini. She has a black cat tail, long spiky hair, and long pointed ears.

   "How the hell did you get here?!" demands Gold Wolf

   "Aw, always the annoying devil's bitch huh Gold Wolf? You must be working with the Ju-el then huh?"

   "The deportations..." mutters Gold Wolf

   "I knew it!" yells the woman.

   "No," says Gold Wolf, "I'm not,"

   She rushes him with a Ki-blade which he blocks with his golden energy.

   "Bastard," says the woman, "you will learn not to cross Ryo-Yoshino!"

  She shoves him back, splintering some of the faux wood of the deck.

  "Shit," says Gold Wolf, "if we,"

  "Who are you?!" demands Hollia stepping from her cabin, now dressed in her white robes and Lin Lin floating over her.

   The woman speaks as she turns, "I am the cosmic warrior, second strongest of the Galactic Guardians, Ryo-Yoshi..no..."

   She stops as she sees Hollia and whispers, "Hollia?"

  She lets out a fearsome *growl* as she holds the sides of her head, her body morphing into shadow and then into Rhulan.

   "What the fuck!?" yells Gold Wolf.

   Rhulan holds her head, her hands glowing white, "I have a splitting headache...shit...."

   She looks at Hollia and then at Gold Wolf, "Oh...you have to be fucking kidding me...I wasn't just dreaming I....shit...goddess fuck...shit..."

   She starts to pace while holding her head, "Sorry Hollia, not used to having a headache, for someone who doesn't really feel pain it is...many time more annoying."

   "Explain this!" yells Gold Wolf, "I know Ryo-Yoshino, she's a superhero from Earth, I've fought her, I've been forced to worked beside her."

   "I know," growls Rhulan, "I remember, you were a whiny bitch the whole time you fought those green space elves... fucking overlapping...how did I not see this coming...that..."

   She looks at Gold Wolf, "several of your allies are members of the Dimension Police arn't they?"

  "What?" asks Gold Wolf.

  She turns to Hollia, her eyes glowing blue, images are projected into Hollia and LinLin's minds, a great purple sphere of energy deep beneath Stratalia, in a room sorrounded by machinery and platforms, the energy being channeled into hundreds of mana wells, into hundreds more paths across different worlds across the multiverse into towers, wells, magic items, and channeled further around some strange eldritch seal, losing so much power just to relay to so many different worlds, and then into a crystal that houses a library and a woman there that resembles Rhulan with black hair sitting there as the mana is channeled into her and the crystal, expanding the walls and growing the library. She doesn't understand it.

   Thoughts enter Hollia's mind, "Accross thousands of worlds my power was channeled, masked by the nanites of the Rhulan Empire and the paths across so many worlds for the purpose of thinning the walls of my daughter's prison. Not only to get around a seal designed only to work on me...that was also boobytrapped to kill my daughter should I use force against it; but to also avoid being detected by those who would try and stop me should they learn of it...the Dimension Police; that same orginization that sent people  for Betty back on Los Rodos and that Black Circus deal. It made me vulnerable to something like the Mirror of Syris. I tried in the astral plane to find a way around it, the curse draining my power too quickly instead of in small tiring spurts as I had done during the days of the empire, it could cause problems if it damaged my body too much all at once...so I tried to reach out...like Thistle discovered, to find other sources of powerful magic to drain in my place...with my mind...in magical splitting channels.."

   The voice becomes a *growl* as Rhulan holds her head and walks over the rail.

   "I said explain it!" yells Gold Wolf surprising Hollia, "you cannot be Ryo-Yoshino! It makes less sense than what my mother...Queen Thistle was talking about!"

   "Would you shut up," says Rhulan holding her head.

   As Gold Wolf growls Rhulan turns to Hollia, "Hollia, Dream Projection Guardian, explain it to your uncle."

   "Huh..." says Gold Wolf looking between Rhulan still rubbing her temples and Gold Wolf, "Oh...um...wow...that's...esoteric...I mean its...that weird sleep magic thing I think...one of those weird spells that only work when you're asleep. It creates a temporary tulpa from part of your own personality that guards you as you sleep."

   "Bullshit," says Gold Wolf, "Ryo-Yoshino was no tulpa, she was powerful, second on her team only to Galaxy Girl...that overpowered..."

   "Oh..." says Rhulan, "right...I missed two."

  Gold Wolf stops as Rhulan says, "I went to that rock to get my mana back to repair my body and astral body...that demon had gotten ahold of the mana relay on that world...looks like there were two others. Galaxy Girl and Golem Gal had them...looks like they're gone now from that world...the relays that is. The Ju-el sure are efficient."

   Gold Wolf looks worried as Rhulan says, "They lost, exiled and others depowered."

   "Are you trying to say Galaxy Girl and Golem Gal...and Fordanda got their power...from fragments of your power? That's insane! That girl claimed to be the avatar of a living galaxy she was so overpowered and the other one was indestructable..."

   He pauses and his face flush as Rhulan is smiling while holding her head, her voice menacing "What you have seen from me here is nothing, all those enemies we faced...I should have been able to crush them like ants! Erase them from the very fabric of reality!...."

   She grabs her head, "shit...this pain...I..."

   Her hand stops glowing, and she is strangely calm as she stands and looks around her, like someone who had just woking up while sleep walking only to find themselves someplace strange, her words confusing them, "Fragmentation resolved...incomplete."

   Rhulan shakes her head and slaps the railing of the ship creating a blue sigil, the ship suddenly lurches nearly throwing Hollia and Gold Wolf off their feet. The ship is not moving, stuck in the water as if glued there. Gold Wolf looks over the sides and back at Rhulan.

   "Moments of lucidity," says Rhulan, "this is ludicrous! I have moments of clear thought, and then I am suddenly just enjoying this journey and trying to procrastinate it. I love traveling with Hollia, but time is a factor why..."

   *In strange dreams thoughts do come*

    "You!" shouts Rhulan looking to the sky.

   Hollia is nearly wide eyed as she looks up, she knew Rhulan was hearing it too.

  *You were the clues, the very thing that should have made me think clearly, but I kept ignoring you!*

   "The voice of the goddess," thinks Hollia, "she can hear it..."

   "I keep acting like I'm talking to someone else, thinking I am talking to someone else when I am just talking to myself!"

   "too...?" thinks Hollia, "talking...to herself?"

   *In dreams one speaks to others...but they are not others...regardless of their actions for or against you, their behavior, their words...they are not seperate people. They are you, creations of your mind, you are talking to yourself in your dreams*

   Rhulan looks at Hollia and says, "You can hear it too...I thought so."

   Rhulan yells to the sky, "you are my subconious! You are supposed to be the guide that wakes me up, yet you...no...I...walk and talk...and act like its a game or a storybook...so and so has joined the party...so and so has left the party...this..."

   Rhulan has a deadpan expression, "is an absurdity meant to alert me to my situation....that damned Dimension Drive....Ryo-Yoshino...Cataclysm of Ki...heh...my personality shifting transformations...borrowed by subsets of my own mind and....holy hell did that one give me some baggage I need to work with..."

   Rhulan *laughs*, "In short my dear Hollia, transformations like you saw in Osopika, that was the Necro Fairy...treated as new...because...of my weakened state...overpowering me...and..."

   *Do you wish to ascend?*

   "There was more than one," says Rhulan calmly as she paces the deck, "Hollia, wait here, I have to take care of this problem before it gets worse again."

   With that Rhulan flies into the air and with a sonic boom takes off to the North East. Leaving a confused Hollia to mull over the details between Rhulan's words and the images she was shown that Rhulan clearly doesn't want Gold Wolf to know. And to leave Gold Wolf to sit there thinking about those four powerhouses back on Earth-DM and the idea that three were using mana crystals dropping from the ether stream by using that world as a relay for a mana channel without a clear reciever...something he only knows about thanks to his type of elf using technology with a similar ability, and one was a "dream projection" reflecting only a piece of the very complicated mind of this being he had on his ship, this being that once ruled Aesperia, and seems to dislike the Dimension Police. His thought on that turns to, "I will need to ask them who she really is then. Even if their agents don't know her...she was stone for a thousand years and ruled here for eighthundred before...perhaps in their database..."

   He looks at Hollia, sitting there on the steps to the upper deck in deep thought and he himself thinks to the two looking into each others eyes in silence, something he recognizes from Earth-DM when telepaths would "talk" to each other. He doesn't know what she said to Hollia, but clearly it is something she doesn't want him to know about...likely related to her own loose words thanks to her headache about mana channels and relays...but relays to what he does not know.