photonedge | did someone order a family reunion

did someone order a family reunion

It's been a little while since Lloyd and Sheena left - enough time for things to have calmed down a little, as much as anything can calm down when a couple of strangers waltzed in, freed the captive Aegises, and rewrote the entire blade system within a few months. There's a lot to do, in the wake of that, but none of it is quite so urgent as before. And somewhere in there is a night, at least, where Malos and maybe Anna had found themselves back in Meltokio, and in their own beds, for the first time in who knows how long.

For her part, Mythra had taken Zelos's inability to visit her universe as a challenge, of some kind. She'd checked and double-checked and made Pyra double-check her coordinates, used a few tricks to gather up the power needed to slingshot herself into the next universe over. Easy enough, right? She'd waved off Rex's concern about the fact that Zelos had landed after the jump as a core crystal, not an awake blade - Zelos was made with weird restrictions, even if those had been altered after the fact. Nothing that applies to Mythra.

It's clear almost immediately, with an Aegis's processing speed, that something had gone wrong. She loses Zelos's signal, can't get ahold of it again, in the limited transitional time she's got to her name. But there's something. It's not quite right, but - it feels like Zelos, to some degree. Probably not one of his fellow Aegises, but maybe someone who'd known him, or come from the same place. Good enough for her, and she latches onto it, using it as a lifeline to anchor herself to this plane.

The culmination of all of this, of course, is a teal core crystal, faintly glowing, clattering to the floor with a surprising amount of noise outside of Malos's room.

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If the noise hadn't woken him, the explosion of ether sure would have. Malos jolts upright, adrenaline flooding his system for as long as it takes him to recognize he's still in his own room and after that initial burst of ether everything is quiet, so he probably isn't about to get attacked or anything. Still. Better get out of bed and see what the fuck is up, right?

So Malos does.

He stumbles upright and makes it to the hallway, which is as far as he needs to go before he finds the source of all the commotion. It's the dead of night, so it's dark even with his ether lines aglow, but it'd be hard to miss the core crystal glowing teal on his floor.

The... hell?

Malos absolutely sees no reason for a core crystal to have just deposited itself on his not-quite-literal-but-also-not-entirely-metaphorical doorstep, but. There it is. What's it doing here? How'd it get here?? Questions that a dormant core crystal sure isn't going to be able to answer.

He hesitates before picking it up to awaken the blade, because maybe that's not something he should without consulting Anna, but she's sleeping like the dead, and with the way the system is now, the blade can always end resonance with him once they're awake. So, no big deal, right? Anna probably wouldn't even be mad if it was permanent, honestly. And if she was mad, she could deal, same way Malos has been dealing with Kratos.

Besides... looking closer at it. That's the shape of an Aegis core crystal, right? Is that Mithos'? It's about the right color, though it does't taste like his ether. Maybe it's Martel's, though he swears hers was a darker green than that.

Either way, he can't exactly not wake them up. Hopefully they don't mind him being their driver for all of ten seconds.

He picks the core crystal up, sending a request to resonate.

Edited 2019-08-19 20:59 (UTC)

Well, this was a stupid fucking idea.

Her isolation lasts just long enough for Mythra to start tearing apart everything that had gone wrong with her plan, the point where she'd run out of power and had to reach frantically for the closest source. Her resonance snapping isn't a huge surprise, as much as she hates it, but she should have taken into account how much harder the transition would have been on her physical form than on just her core. Damn it.

When Malos reaches out she accepts almost instantly, barely examining the driver's identity. She can't do anything stuck like this, so what does it matter who it is? Though... is that a blade's ether signature? Something about it's different than what she's used to, something more like Poppi than anything, but not quite right. Well. She can ask, in a second.

The girl who takes shape in front of him isn't Martel, though he could be forgiven for thinking so for a second, the way the green of her ether lines tints her blonde hair. The sword that materializes in his hand simultaneously is familiar, too, though it glows with a color unlike any version of it that Malos has seen.

She touches down on the floor, graceful as she never is otherwise, and takes in her surroundings first thing. Alright, looks residential. Nothing she can't blast her way through if this goes badly.

"Hey," she says to her new driver, casual, barely even looking. "Sorry for the intrusion, just needed to make a pit stop here." I'll be out of your hair in a second, she means to continue, but then she returns her gaze to Malos, makes eye contact, and her words die in her throat with a strangled noise as her eyes go wide.

What the fuck?

Edited 2019-08-20 02:04 (UTC)

"Uh," Malos says, eloquently, staring at his... his blade. His blade. This is a little weirder than he thought it would ever be. The whole... being a driver thing. "Not the Aegis I was expecting."

She won't stop staring at him, like she's... seen a ghost, maybe? He thinks that's recognition singing in the emotion bleed, under all that horror and anger. Yikes.

He blinks at her, then at her sword in his hand. It's a fucking incredible well of energy he could tap into, if he wanted to, not that he's quite sure what he'd do with it. What he should do with, it, actually...

He spins it around in his hand, mindful of the blade and all that ether it's outputting (there's not a lot of space in here), and hands the hilt back to her for her to take. Seems more polite than just dismissing the thing, and he's never had to dismiss someone else's weapon, anyway.

"Believe this is yours," he says, conversationally. "Name's Malos."

He should just let her deal with whatever the fuck she's dealing with, but the way she's staring at him is kind of driving him bonkers.

"...Got something on my face?"

Okay, Mythra, breathe. Take stock of the situation. Sure, he looks like your dead sort-of-brother, but the core crystal on his chest is the wrong shape entirely. (The scars around it, semitranslucent enough that the edges catch the glow of his ether, are new, too.) And his ether signature is familiar now that she's searching, but... it still feels more like Zelos than like the Malos she's used to. So, not the same person. Somehow.

"I'm," she says, and then, "What the fuck."

No, this is still weird. He doesn't seem like he's a threat, at least - actually, the opposite, for the moment, the way he's offering her sword back to her. She takes it, silent, letting the blade collapse in on itself but not desummoning it entirely as it hangs at her side. Just in case.

"This is..." she starts, again, unsure where to begin exactly. "A hell of a joke someone's playing on me, that's for sure." She swallows, finally pulling her gaze from him to the floor. "I'm Mythra."

This resonance feels all wrong, but is that just because she's a blade in resonance with another blade? There's others in the link, too, more distant, but she's pretty sure she's more aware of them than she should be. What the hell is this world?

She still seems wary, which Malos supposes he shouldn't blame her for. Stranger in a strange place, all that jazz. He wonders what the joke she talks about is. Why does he have the feeling it's got something to do with him?

"Mythra, huh," he says, mouth running to avoid too much silence. Oof, do his eyes need to adjust from being blinded-then-suddenly-not-blinded by her sword. Anyway, keep edging for polite, Malos, you don't need to scare her into attacking. "Well it's nice to meet you. You, uh..." No, he can't not ask. "You recognize me, or something? Obviously, I don't remember anything before this time around the block, but..."

He isn't sure where to go from there? He just wants to know why she keeps looking at him like that.

"You know what, you wanna head downstairs and talk this out over coffee, or something? So long as you aren't in a hurry, or anything--"

"Why would you not r--" Mythra starts, immediately, before the reality of the situation catches up to her. Right, this Malos is a normal blade. Whatever that passes for in this universe. Of course he wouldn't have all of his memories. (Of course he's had previous lives.)

She lets out a slow breath. Dismisses the sword, in a less-blinding swirl of green. She doesn't have the full access to the network that she's used to, which is weird enough all on its own, but it's not hard to tell that it's the middle of the night. "Kind of a long story," she says, pairs it with a tight smile. "Coffee sounds... okay, though. Wouldn't want to wake anybody telling it." This house seems a little big for just Malos, and that awareness of the extended resonance loop she's found herself part of suggests there's somebody else around. His driver? Are the stairs behind her? Fuck, they are. She turns to head for them, leaning on her Foresight just a little in case something is up. That's a lot of ether being burned very quickly, in a few short bursts, though she's not drawing from him, at least. She's pretty sure she shouldn't be this worried, but, well. It's Malos. It's a new universe. She can't tell how impacted her senses are by the change in networks. Better safe than sorry.

Edited 2019-08-21 07:03 (UTC)

So she does know him. Well that's gonna be awkward. Still. Nothing to do but take it in stride, Malos.

He laughs, when Mythra suggests waking anyone. "Wouldn't worry about that, Anna sleeps like the dead." Once they're down the stairs, he slips past Mythra and into the kitchen, turning the lights on so he doesn't have to operate the coffee maker in the dark. "If coffee doesn't sound good, you can have whatever's in the fridge-- That is, if it's still edible!" He laughs. "We haven't been home in a while, and now that I'm thinking about it, I'm pretty sure we forgot to clean out the fridge."

The coffee maker chimes, and Malos pours himself a mug. It takes him a second to dig a definitely-clean and definitely-not-Anna's mug out of the cabinet for Mythra, but once he's got one he holds it out in her direction.

"If you want coffee, you gotta make it yourself. I ain't guessing how you like it, and I know some people are real picky about their coffee."

Some people being Anna.

Edited 2019-08-21 16:28 (UTC)

"Anna?" she asks. "That your driver?" This is so much. But... it's not Amalthus's name, so that's something. A relief, she thinks.

"Yeah, okay," she says, with an expression that probably means to be a polite smile. She takes the mug, a little tentative, and steps over to pour herself some. "Thanks."

She opens the fridge in the hopes of there being some kind of cream, but--

"I... don't think that's milk anymore," she says, eyeing it for a second longer before she closes the fridge, maybe a little more firmly than needed but there's no way she's risking that thing coming out. Even she has standards, alright. She compensates for the lack of milk by pouring enough sugar into her coffee to create an unholy sludge, taking a sip with complete confidence that yes, this is what she wants to drink.

Mythra seems... relieved when she asks about Anna being his driver. Alright. (Maybe whenever it was she met him, his driver was an ass. That'd track, right? It'd explain her wariness, for sure.)

"She's my daughter, too," Malos says, just so it's on the table. He adds just enough sugar to his coffee to take the edge off of it, and also because the sugar makes it easier to ignore the fact that the coffee is a little bit stale. "But, y'know, that's what tends to happen when your driver finds you when they're ten years old." Actually, sending a look at Mythra, and that core crystal, maybe she doesn't know? Aegises are like that...

He kind of wants to ask about the Aegis thing, but finds no reason to rush. There will be plenty of time to ask about that and how the fuck she recognizes him, later. Maybe when she's a little less uncomfortable about this whole mess.

He laughs when she slams the fridge door shut, almost chokes on his coffee. "Sorry 'bout that," he apologizes, grinning, only mildly sorry. Her reaction was priceless. "When it's not bum-fuck o'clock at night, I'll uh. Well, whether I take it out to the trash or vaporize it on the spot, I'll deal with it somehow."

Edited 2019-08-22 05:43 (UTC)

Mythra flushes at his laughter, bristling in a way that's more performative than anything. Maybe she's a little offended. "Pretty sure something in there might be alive," she says, by way of explanation for her reaction, even though that's almost definitely not true. "I'd leave it shut til you want to deal with it."

Hm, this coffee is missing something. She puts it down, adds another splash of sugar, tastes it. Perfect. She mulls over the rest of what he'd said for a moment. Is his driver a kid? "Huh," is all she says to that. And then, a little more thoughtfully: "You been with her a while?"

He lowers the mug after a sip, and way the light reflects off his core catches her eye. Now that it's not dark she can see that it's too small for the space it sits in, uneven in a way a core crystal never is without alteration. "Your core crystal," she blurts. That's what she'd missed, somehow - no wonder his ether signature had felt weird. C'mon, Mythra, don't just say that and nothing else. She tries to play it off, vaguely aware of but steadfastly ignoring the fact that the resonance link seems more open than she's used to. "Guess that makes sense, if she's your kid." Without thinking she reaches up to her own core, traces a pattern down the center of it that no longer exists.

Edited 2019-08-22 07:07 (UTC)

"Noted," Malos says about the fridge, still laughing.

"Anyway, yeah," he says, leaning back comfortably against the counter. "Anna's been my driver for... dunno, thirty years now?" He cannot keep himself from smiling, cannot keep the fondness from bursting in his chest, saturating the emotion bleed. He loves Anna a lot. He hopes she and Mythra get along, regardless of how long Mythra's here for.

He touches his own core crystal when Mythra mentions it, still smiling. "Well what was I supposed to do? Let her die?" he asks, because obviously the answer is no. "Though I gotta admit, it was a close one. If Jin hadn't been there..."

Even if the memory's kind of stressful, Malos is still grinning about it, because come on, it's Jin. Thinking about Jin always makes him happy.

"Well, let's just say I wouldn't've even thought of splitting my core crystal with her if Jin hadn't suggested it. So, he saved our lives-- which... Jin does a lot. He's amazing." Malos? Blushing? Maybe a little. He smiles to himself, taking a drink of his coffee to hide it-- Then it occurs to him what this emotion bleed probably feels like, and that Mythra probably has no idea who Jin is. "Oh. Right, uh. Jin's my husband, by the way. Dunno how long you plan on sticking around, but seems silly not to tell you that."

Edited 2019-08-22 17:15 (UTC)

Mythra just lets him talk for the moment, filling in the gaps of her understanding of their dynamics. Thirty years... Well, he wouldn't be speaking badly of even the worst driver after that long, but this Anna can't be that bad if he's so well-adjusted. Mythra kind of hopes she gets the chance to meet her, actually.

Alright, Jin exists in this world. Well, so does Malos; that's not a huge shock. And then Malos mentions that they're married, and she chokes on the sip of coffee she'd just taken. The emotional bleed is more surprise than anything else, but that strange sense of recognition underpins it yet again.

"That's. Congratulations," she says as soon as she's recovered, which maybe isn't the right response in this situation but it's the best she can muster up, okay. It makes sense, though, much as she hadn't been expecting to hear it. The way that-- Alright, she's not getting caught up in thinking about how Malos had sounded, before the end, talking about Jin, not with this resonance where it is. She sets that aside, firmly. "Sounds like you've got a pretty nice life going here." Well. Whatever had led him to have to share his core crystal with his driver aside, but he doesn't seem bothered by it.

(Holy shit, is Malos blushing? That's probably the least bizarre part of this whole thing, but it sticks with Mythra anyway.)

He has a good point, though. How long is she planning on staying? She'd figured she would just give her temporary driver a quick explanation and get some directions to the nearest of this universe's Aegises, get some help from them to make the jump back home, but now, standing in this domestic, if messy, home, listening to the way Malos's voice gets so fond when he talks about his family... Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she stayed for a few days. She should be able to get in touch with Pyra and Zelos even from here in dreamspace, and she'd planned on staying in Zelos's reality for a little while anyway - it'll be fine.

Things Malos was expecting? Certainly not Mythra to choke on her fucking coffee at the news he's married. He raises his eyebrows at her, noting the sense of recognition that fills the emotion bleed. Does she know Jin, too?

"Yeah, it is a pretty good life," he tells her, fond, satisfied with it. It's gotten a lot better since teh war ended, and the blade system was rewritten, but honestly his life has never been bad. He knows blades that have been through much worse than him.

"...What about you?" Malos asks. "I mean, I ain't trying to interrogate you, promise, but-- Tell you what, pick a question. Tell me a little more about yourself, or maybe a bit about whether or not you actually know me? Is this..."

Actually, hey. That core crystal. The whole Aegis thing. Her sudden appearance... This wouldn't be the first time Malos has dealt with the whole 'I know you but not YOU' business, either. It's just that Lloyd and Sheena didn't recognize him, but rather everyone else.

So: "Is this an alternate universe thing?"

Hoo. Mythra lets out a soft breath, gathering her thoughts. It's not like she'd expected to be able to avoid the topic, but she'd kind of been hoping for a little longer before it came up. She'll tell him, she will, but...

"Yeah it is, actually," she says, grateful he'd figured out that much and let her start this with something easier. "I was trying to hop universes to visit a friend, but something went wrong. Ended up landing in this one, instead." She shrugs, more casual than anything. Honestly, trying to make the jump at all, with the ultimate source of their powers beyond reach and with Zelos's failed attempt, had been a bad idea, but what was she going to do, not try it? That's coward talk. She continues, because he'd come up with that one quicker than she would have expected for a normal blade: "You deal with this before?"

"A little bit, yeah," Malos answers. "Met my grandson from an alternate universe and one of his friends, helped 'em free the Aegises here. That was wild." He laughs, thinking fondly about Anna and Lloyd interacting, the pranks, everything else. "Not that I was his grandpa in his universe, but-- Y'know, me adopting Anna was kind of a fluke, so."

He laughs, nervous, takes a drink of coffee to hide his unease. It's not. It's not really a big deal. Not one worth getting worked up about, not this time of night. Better to just-- not think about all the universes, all the lifetimes, where he doesn't exist and Anna is fine without him. He has this one, that's enough, and.

Not something he's gotta dump on Mythra, anyway.

"Anyway, yeah, I'm real used to the alternate universe business." He raises his eyebrows at Mythra. "Who was it you said you were looking for? Or, I guess if you're pretty sure you're in the wrong universe, it doesn't matter."

"Grandson?" she says. Okay. The idea of a blade adopting a kid, and subsequently their family, by proxy? Not weird. The idea of Malos having all that? Significantly weirder. But, okay. Free the Aegises, he says. So, a world more like Zelos's than her own, then? That makes sense, with the signal similarities. "...good, though," she finishes.

And then he asks about her friend, and - that's an easier topic, at least, even if one that might be more related than he thought.

"His name's Zelos," she says, fondness in her voice. He'd been her and Pyra's only friend the whole time they'd been asleep, really - it's a shame their universes seem to be unable to intersect any more than they already had. "But yeah, I'm definitely in the wrong place to meet up with him." She pulls one of the slightly-dusty chairs out from the table, crosses her legs as she takes a seat. "Your resonance frequency felt kind of like his, so I reached for it, and--" She shrugs. "Here I am." The more she thinks about that the more curious she gets, actually. Does he know why? It's not like he's an Aegis, in this world, she's sure of that.

"Yeah! Lloyd's a good kid-- he's gone back home now, though, and this version of him is with his dad right now. Anna and I just had things to finish up in Meltokio, and it seemed silly to drag him along..." Malos scratches at his neck, then figures if Mythra's sitting down he might as well too. He drags another chair away from the table, plops himself down across from Mythra, bringing his coffee with him. Oh, maybe he should have topped that off, first? Ah well.

Then she mentions Zelos, and Malos lights up. "Oh!! I know Zelos-- he's a good kid, too." Then he processes the rest of it. "Though, uh, if you're pretty sure he's not the Zelos you know, it might be better to avoid him? Be a little weird for y'all, y'know..."

As if the conversation Malos is having with Mythra right now isn't weird for exactly the same reasons, but... Better hope she doesn't make that connection. Malos isn't exactly sure how to get into the fact that Zelos has had more than enough being compared to another Zelos, and isn't sure it's really his place to say, considering... eveything.

"Dunno why I'd feel anything like Zelos," Malos remarks. He knows it's possible for blades to have similar ether signatures, even in spite of having opposing elements, but no one before Mythra has said anything about him and Zelos. "Maybe it's just because I've spent a lot of time with him...?" But even as he says it, he seems unsure.

Mythra laughs at Malos's description of Zelos, a little surprised. "Guess you're right," she says, sounding at least mostly convinced. "I think this world's a lot more like the one he's from than anything, but it still wouldn't be the same." The evidence for that is sitting across from her, after all.

"I can't put my finger on it," she says, frowning thoughtfully as she watches him, like she expects some physical tell to explain it. "Maybe you guys came from the same place, or something?" She says it casually enough, but rethinks almost immediately; Zelos was created, he'd told her. But, well... she and her siblings had been created, too, in a way, hadn't they? Maybe that was just a more recent event in this world than it had been in hers. Mythra takes a sip of her coffee, rather than voice any of that.

"I mean-- Zelos is artificial, and last I checked, I wasn't?" Malos says, but there's a note of uncertainty to it, because like. How. How do you know, actually. "And I mean-- he's an Aegis, anyway, dunno what the hell I'd have in common with him."

"Anyway--" Subject change time! Not that Malos is uncomfortable, exactly, just doesn't think this train of thought is going to take them anywhere exciting enough to stay on it any longer. "What's your universe like, huh?"

"Maybe I'm wrong," she says, with a little shrug, though she's pretty sure she hadn't imagined whatever similarity that was. She can double check the data later, maybe compare it to Zelos's signal again if she can get in touch with him from here. "Not like I've ever physically met him."

But the way Malos had shrugged it off... Mythra pauses. Alright, Mythra. No point dancing around it forever. You're not going to be happy til you say it, anyway. She takes a long sip of her coffee for strength, sets the nearly-empty mug back onto the table. "...Actually," she says, letting her gaze fall to the mug instead of looking at him. "The Malos in my world was-is an Aegis. So. Maybe more than you think?" The slip is quick, easy to miss as she corrects herself with a touch of not-quite-grief. He's not dead, she reminds herself. Not permanently. She's still not sure how she feels about that.

Edited 2019-08-29 05:48 (UTC)

Mythra's grief is quiet enough in the wake of Malos' shock that he barely even notes it. A quick okay, if her Malos is dead, that's gotta be weird is the only thought that really graces his mind about it, because the declaration that Malos is an Aegis in her universe? Hello??

"A'ight," Malos says, deadpan in his shock. "What the fuck."

That's-- why would he be an Aegis there and not one here, huh? And him?? An Aegis?? The thought's kind of hilarious, honestly, but Malos doubts Mythra has any reason to lie. He laughs kind of nervous regardless, though, wonders about asking if this is some kind of joke--

And then his eyes find the shape of her core crystal again and the realization hits him like a train. Delighted and shocked all at once, Malos puts his hands on the table and uses the purchase to heave himself to his feet, leaning not-quite into Mythra's space but definitely towards her.

"Does this mean we're siblings!?"

Edited 2019-08-29 19:16 (UTC)

Maybe it's something about the way his shock reverberates in her veins, way too loud for a normal resonance, or maybe it's just the face he's wearing, but Mythra's on her feet nearly instantly, the movement almost too quick to be seen. He still towers over her, anyway. She lets out a small laugh, something dry and self-conscious.

"Something like that," she says, rests a hand on her hip. "Sorry, I know that's a lot to spring on somebody."

Edited 2019-08-30 02:53 (UTC)

"What? No, I mean, yeah," Malos says, quickly. "It is a lot but." He realizes she looks uncomfortable, straightens so he's a little less in her space. "I'm not-- mad?"

He runs a hand through his hair, expression edging more towards delighted even if baffled. He sinks back into his chair. "That's... me? An Aegis? Still feels kind of like a joke, but. I kind of like the idea of having a sister." (It feels right, somehow.) "Oh-- guess this is kind of awkward for you though, isn't it?"

Malos backs off, and Mythra realizes what that must have looked like - felt like? - to him. Whoops. She's about to sit down again, pretend like it never happened, when she thinks better of it, goes to pour herself another cup of coffee instead.

She's only half-facing him, but she shakes her head anyway. "If it's a joke, it's on both of us," she says, softer, but falls silent as Malos continues.

The way he says it - genuine, a little lost - is something she'd never expected to hear attached to Malos's voice. It's... Her expression softens a little, too, as she finishes dumping sugar into her new coffee, takes a seat again at the table. "There's Pyra and Alvis, too," she says. Sometimes it feels like it should feel strange, the way they'd just fallen back into long-forgotten routines when they'd found Alvis, but it had been so natural. She snorts into her coffee as Malos continues. "It's weird for both of us, I guess," she says. "It's fine."

Edited 2019-08-30 10:48 (UTC)

"I dunno, I'm pretty sure 'talking to your brother who doesn't recognize you' has to be much weirder than meeting an alternate universe version of your sister you didn't even know you had," Malos counters, teasing gently.

"Pyra and Alvis, huh..." he asks, feeling the names on his tongue. They feel right, too. Familiar, somehow. "What the hell. Three whole siblings I had no idea about." He kicks back in his chair, balancing it on the hind legs, which is absolutely a mistake if he falls because the pain share will definitely wake Anna up, but he's pretty sure he's not gonna fall. "Tell me about 'em. Tell me about yourself. I wanna know more."

OH BOY I SURE DID

GGGGOD

Re: GGGGOD

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he was gonna be polite and ask about mythra but he got distracted thinking 'bout jin

the gay thoughts caught him

(alvis voice) no escape!

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there it is

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