Rising Shards

Being cooped up in a facility for weeks on end was starting to drive Myles a bit loopy.

In their old world, she’d been a globetrotter. Never one to stay in one place too long, always looking for a new adventure. Well, her adventures were mainly done to find ways to fight against the evil reigning power over her home, but the adventuring was fun too. She’d explored dungeons in volcanoes, flew planes, solved ancient puzzles, the works.

In this lab? Nothing of the sort.

”It’s just...stifling, I guess,” Myles said when she relayed some concerns to Octa.

Their main caretaker here asked to meet with them regularly, which ended up feeling like therapy sessions to Myles. Octa didn’t give lots of warm and fuzzy advice, but she did hear them all out.

”If it helps, you have moved around a lot already in this space, in a way,” Octa said.

”What do you mean?” Myles asked.

”Taramin Labs are equipped with state of the art void hopping technology,” Octa said. ”Without even feeling it, you’ve been in several locations in the city, and a few out of state, jumping into the void and back.”

”So this place moves around?” Myles asked. ”Why?”

”There are enemies of our work,” Octa said. ”To ensure our experiments don’t face any unexpected or unwanted interference, we keep some of our labs moving.”

”So there are enemies of us?” Myles asked. ”As in people trying to find us specifically?”

Octa’s face remained stoic.

”It’s not something where you’re keeping us captive, and people are trying to free us, right?” Myles asked.

”Nothing of the sort,” Octa said. ”I’d give everything to protect you.”

”Well, thanks, I guess,” Myles said.

”It’s alright if you don’t believe me,” Octa said. ”I will let my actions speak for themselves.”

Myles met with Ash afterwards who was stationed at one of the desks in the study area. Myles was glad that if nothing else, this closed off facility meant she couldn’t be separated from her sister again. Back home, they’d been split apart for what felt like ages.

”How’d that go?” Ash said.

”About the same as usual,” Myles said. ”Did you know this place is moving around a bunch?”

”Huh?”

Myles did her best to explain it, it wasn’t good enough for Ash, apparently, who said she’d just ask Octa to explain it later.

”Fine, fine,” Myles said. She poked at Ash’s notebook. ”What are you working on?”

”Just writing down all the changes between here and back home,” Ash said. “We’re twins now. Isn’t that weird?”

”That’s like the fiftieth time you’ve mentioned it,” Myles said.

”Still, isn’t it weird?” Ash said.

It was, but Myles couldn’t give her sister the satisfaction of agreeing with her there. Back home, Myles was a few years older, but something had been messed up with time either there or in the move to this place, and now they were the same age. Myles did feel a bit more spry, but nothing felt different enough to worry about it. Whether Ash was her twin or not, Myles was still her big sister.

“I was probably born first,” Myles said. “I still feel like I’m older than you.”

”Maybe that’s just your personality,” Ash said. ”That obnoxious big sister energy.” Ash poked at Myles with her pencil.

Myles responded in kind, grabbing a pen off of the desk and poked Ash with it. ”And yours too, very annoying younger sister personality.”

The sisters got into a sort of swordfight duel with their writing utensils, which got rather intense in spite of their weaponry, until they were interrupted by the others.

”I hate to break up whatever this is, but Octa wants to meet us,” Esther said.

”Again?” Myles said.

The devils found their caretaker at the massive locked gate. With her were three people, who didn’t look like any of the workers they had seen. They looked like they were the same kind of devil Cani that Myles and the others were. One had a red skin tone like Charmaine, one had a bright lilac tail, and the third had a silver helmet on.

”I’d like you to meet your new teammates,” Octa said.