Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

"Should we be doing this in costume?" Harakin asked softly as they alighted.

Yuriko shrugged, "It's not as if we can change to civilian and back without drawing undue attention."

They landed next to the main road, actually, the only large thoroughfare across the town, if it could actually be called that. Sillyputty's main avenue crossed two-thirds of the town before it split into a Y-intersection. One leg went up north, presumably towards the Republic's border, while the other went directly west. The town centre was right at the junction, with a city hall, a business centre, an elementary school, and a clinic, arrayed around it.

It was just past dawn, and the inhabitants were freshly awakened and just beginning their morning routines. A petrol station was about half a longstride from the centre as well as from the town's border, and it housed a truck stop diner as well as a mini grocery store, from what she could see. It was out of her Anima reach at the moment, but clearly visible with Enhanced Sight.

There were no signs of the Unfettered or their recreational vehicle. Yuriko's hand twitched towards her phone, but she actually didn't have a separate cape device. Then again, her smartphone wasn't all that distinct, and she could keep an easy eye around. Then again, it wasn't as if she needed to bring the phone out of her pocket to see. She needed her finger to manipulate the touchscreen, but she could see with her perception. It just wasn't a skill she used much with her devices.

With a hand in the pocket, she opened the email Alexis sent her. The last sighting of the RV was on the road heading into town, but there were no pictures of them arriving. That was just an hour ago, and it occurred to her that it would be strange how he and Gramps managed to get the data so easily.

What, were they able to remotely access the traffic cameras from wherever they were? What was the term? Hacking? Shrugging to herself, she thumbed through the data and found nothing of note. Perhaps Desire would have better luck in Interstitial Space.

Where to start looking, though? Perhaps the town wasn't the best place to start, come to think of it; if they never reached here, that meant they either turned down some side road or they slipped into the cracks of reality. If it were the latter, she should be able to find traces of it using her Anima perception.

But since Desire was already doing something similar…wait, there should be more than one Interstitial Space, right? Or did a strong one collapse everything around it to itself? She didn't know, and she hadn't thought to check if it was true. It wasn't as if she could research it online, though. A quick check on the search engine returned obtuse excerpts from scientific journals that turned out to be paywalled, and works of fiction.

All the while, the two of them strolled down the main street. They attracted more than a few glances, then long stares. Yuriko's Regalia costume covered her entire head with a motorcycle helmet that she painted black with some fractal patterns in gold. Her clothes were a form-fitting coat over a white, ruffled shirt, black tights, an asymmetrical skirt that was shorter at the front than the back, and combat boots. She changed things up every now and then, keeping only the helmet consistent. Come to think of it, only the helmet remained the same, and it was mostly her Anima glow that gave her the signature look.

Anima perception, spread as thinly as she could, wasn't visible. The threshold to the signature golden glow was about a tenth of an iarvesh — her incarnation's Anima density was at three iarvesh. Hmm, was the unit of measurement correct? Iarvesh was used to measure Chaos density in the Myriad Planes at Equilibrium, but when they arrived at the shores of the Great Continent, they ascended high enough that Chaos had dribbled off to a low percentage. The exact amount varied by location though it fluctuated at a tenth of an iarvesh to as low as one percent.

In Astoria, Chaos was at the lower ranges. She no longer had a habit of keeping track, considering she didn't need Chaos to refill Animus now, since she converted esoteric energies to do so instead. It was a bit more involved, but she didn't use much Animus these days. Well, other than feed Desire anyway. Even so, her Chaos Lord could slake her thirst by dipping into Interstitial Space where the varied energies were much more prevalent.

Her reach spanned a hundred and twenty paces, but if she distorted and stretched her Anima, she could scan three times the width. It was barely enough to cover a good part of the town from where she stood, and she saw no signs of the Unfettered.

"Breakfast?" Yuriko asked with a sigh. They arrived at the petrol station that was close enough to the town centre that she could cover most of Sillyputty. The diner wafted enticing scents out of their smoke stack, and she could hear the sizzling crisp of bacon frying in a pan.

"I could eat," Harakin grumbled. She pointed at Yuriko's helm. "How are you going to without revealing your face?"

"I've a domina mask underneath."

She hadn't when she put on the helm this morning, but it was easy enough to build an Animus Construct — a golden mask that altered the contours of her face. Of greater concern was her rather distinctive hair, so she conjured a balaclava over her head, too.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Once they entered the diner, and when she removed her helmet, Harakin chortled, "You look silly."

Yuriko grinned, "It is Sillyputty town." The two of them took a booth and ordered the breakfast special, pancakes with sunny-side-up eggs and a hefty side of crispy bacon. Yuriko took coffee, black and half sugar by volume, while Harakin took fruit juice—orange, but if she based it on colour, it should probably be called yellow.

It was in the midst of breakfast that Yuriko felt a jolt through her connection with Desire.

Need. Important. Urgent. Come.

Not in words, but mostly in emotions. Desires.

The bacon on her fork froze partway up to her lips, then continued its journey. While she crunched down on her breakfast, the taste faded away from her active thoughts, Yuriko parsed through the sending. Urgent, but not quite needed-you-now urgent. Enough time to finish breakfast while she planned her actions.

It wasn't as if she could just slip into Interstitial space willy-nilly. She either had to find a gap or create one.

Fri'Avgi could easily cut a path, but as the artefact spirit was still asleep, she wasn't sure if the greatsword could actually help or if she would create a permanent rift instead. Bladeless Sword could cut a path, but she had to be careful so that the edges would seal back together. Or, she could hunt for the rift that the Unfettered used. She was sure that's who Desire encountered. The lack of real urgency meant that she wasn't in any direct danger, and considering her bound Chaos Viscount's power, she doubted that those cretins could actually endanger her.

So there was no need for haste, but no need to tarry either.

"I've got something," Yuriko said in between bites. "From Dee."

Harakin frowned, then shrugged. "Should we go now?"

"Finish breakfast first," Yuriko mumbled while she focused on the bond. She was right in her initial conjecture that the matter was urgent, but not drop-everything-and-run urgent.

She ate quickly now, just enough to savour the bacon and the bitterness of the coffee. A strand of consciousness briefly reminisced over the difference between Rumiga' kaf versus the more common occurring coffee, and noted that the taste was close but not quite the same, and the main difference being that kaf contained elements that increased Animus regeneration in neophytes.

And probably Knights and above too, come to think of it. She wasn't sure how the illustrious regenerated Animus at need. It couldn't be locked to natural respiration, or perhaps it was? The Imperial Path condensed Animus to a ridiculous state, after all, and that probably meant usage grew more efficient and more potent at higher levels.

As an Ancient, and probably Mystics, too, Animus was a secondary concern. Come to think of it, people in the Great Continent didn't use Animus at all. The Magi gathered Elemental energy within their Heart. Chronians upgraded themselves by replacing their fleshy bits with metal and oil.

She and Ilvarra weren't that close, for all the latter wanted to worm her way into the bedchamber, though they had conversed on varied matters. The crux of it was that Chronians were limited by how synchronised they were with their replaced parts, and the key aspect of that was Anima.

Carina was basically a Magi who had a familiar, much like how she was with Fluffington, though Sir Blue was more active since their strengths were close to parity. The greenette's skills involved making use of Shangrian technology as both offence and defence since she only used her spells for daily living and detection. She wasn't sure how developed Carina's Magi Heart was, though.

Could she even consider Shangrian tech as something to stand on its own? It was an amalgamation of hundreds of planes' worth of development, then mashed together into the most effective and useful bits while discarding the rest. The Empire's technology involved using Animus and Chaos as power sources. Chronian technology involved using the volatile material Ossifrum, which she was sure came from the bones of the dead mountain range. Astorian technology reminded her of Irvallan tech, though quite a bit more advanced. That one used harnessed lightning, electricity, to power machines made out of relatively common materials.

By the time that strand of thought reached the end, breakfast was done. Yuriko paid at the counter rather than waiting for the waitress to bring the check, and the two of them left. She noticed a couple of phones pointed her way as she put on her helmet, and the cameras followed them as they took to the skies. She could hear the murmur of excited conversation, and she knew that the clip would be posted on Capewatchers Online as soon as they could manage the upload. She felt a few threads connect by the time they returned to the point where the Unfettered had first been spotted.

She expanded her Anima perception and finetuned her focus to look for rifts in the fabric of reality. The canvas wasn't always smooth, especially around Astoria. There were little signs of scarring, repair, and cuts that were too small to even see for the mundane eye. All of the imperfections sort of blended into each other, and it took focus to notice an active breach, especially if it didn't leak too much esoteric energies. But even so, within a radius of a hundred and eighty paces, she spotted dozens of microfractures. Most of them didn't look like they'd been stretched out and repaired, however, except for a couple within paces of each other.

It was at the extreme edge of her reach and only after she flew ten paces off the side of the road. Carrying Harakin, she moved closer to the breach and noted how fresh the repair seemed. The fabric of reality repaired rifts at an inverse proportion to how big they were, and once they were at the micro fracture size, complete sealing happened slowly enough to seem frozen. The surroundings showed signs of quick repair. She couldn't tell which one was older, but she guessed within the last couple of hours or so.

"I feel Desire through both," Yuriko murmured.

"It's here, then?" Harakin grumbled. "Why don't you tear it open?"

"I'm not sure which one she's closer to."

"Does it matter in the long run?"

Yuriko chuckled, "I suppose not." She swiped with her index finger and sliced into the fabric of reality. The edges were as smooth as a mirror. The two of them stepped through.

And they wound up in the middle of a daemon pit.