After the failed elimination attempt of Rebel elements in Timber, Galbadia walked away with one consolation prize: the capture of an Estharian SeeD operative. Though their employer remained unidentified, it was enough to publicly accuse Esthar of selling SeeDs to terrorist factions. Coupled with the escape of Sorceress Adel, the breakout of Aeliana Maris, and the annihilation of Esthar Garden, Esthar's standing on the world stage collapsed almost overnight.
UNITA, Winhill, and Trabia had all taken their share of blows in the court of public opinion. It was a rare alignment in Galbadia’s favor — even if no one expected it to last. Not with Adel still unaccounted for, and rumors spreading that Esthar's mobilization wasn’t about recovery, but retaliation.
For the team involved, the consequences were deeply personal.
Mai Zeigmus was the last of the three to emerge from the hospital. Her injuries had been extensive — not just physically, but metaphysically. The overclocked cybernetics use, the feedback from hostile resistance tech, and the sheer violence of her last engagement left her in critical condition for over a week. She needed time. And patience.
And she had neither.
Raeka Everett-Maris, by contrast, had walked out of medbay under his own power. There had been damage, yes, but not his. Something had changed. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t eat. He spoke less. He watched more. Like something inside him was counting down.
Nami Almasy was quicker to recover, thanks to elite medical access and personal sorcerous care provided by her parents. She'd suffered electrical trauma and severe burns, but within days she was upright — and quiet. Too quiet for such a energetic girl.
All three should’ve been given leave. Instead, Galbadia reassigned them. Mai — still recovering, still seething — was given the most insulting of tasks: observation duty. Of Raeka.
Officially, they said it was to “monitor possible lingering effects of Guardian Force destabilization.” Unofficially, it was to put someone close to him. Someone who might see what he wasn’t saying.
And Mai had plenty to say. Not to Galbadia. To Raeka.
To the thing riding inside him. Not the Guardian Forces — she knew the difference. GFs didn’t warp you. They didn’t wear you. She didn’t mind the demons. Not if they understood something simple.
He belonged to her.
She had already buried him once. And now he was back, walking, breathing, wearing the name Raeka Everett-Maris — but she knew it wasn’t all him behind those eyes. She’d make the demons listen. Or she’d tear them out.
It wasn’t just fury anymore. It was focus. She had access. She had files — BIE-level clearances that told her things most SeeDs weren’t allowed to even speculate on. Echoes. Rifts. Worlds not-quite-right that still bled into theirs. And the largest one was active, in Eden City.
The Echo near the Promenade — tied to the monster invasion known as The Fall — was beginning to deteriorate. The containment field no longer held, and what was trapped inside might hold answers. If there was a path back through that Echo… to the moment before Raeka was shot…
She’d take it.
The train to Eden City left under cover of night.
Officially, they were “relocated assets” assigned to bolster Unita-front operations, assisting with residual Echo containment within Eden City. Unofficially, they were loose ends. Dangerous ones. The kind you keep close when you can’t quite control them — or kill them.
Mai Zeigmus knew the truth. She’d read the reports Galbadia kept sealed behind biometric seals and black-barred authorizations. Ones she was not meant to read, but she had deeper concerns than Galbadia. What was growing inside Raeka wasn’t unknown to them. It wasn’t feared.
It was coveted.
There were entire files, red-ink stamped and B.I.E.-class restricted, outlining his changes — accelerated combat thresholds, enhanced durability, suppression of hunger and sleep. Many of them in her own writing. And at the bottom of every memo, a line in cold Galbadian shorthand:
“Viable for Weaponization.”
She didn’t tell Raeka that. She didn’t want to. She didn't need to. He knew, or he should have. They all did.
That was why the real mission wouldn’t be sanctioned. Not by Galbadia. This wasn’t about controlling the Echo — it was about escaping it. Tearing a hole through reality wide enough to reach the moment before the corruption began. The moment she lost him. The moment the demons won.
And she had a plan.
Files pulled from deep black archives. Stolen from data-vaults she had spent her down time accessing. Coordinates from a half-burned map no one was supposed to remember. Eden’s Echo wasn’t stable — but it wasn’t closed, either. If they could reach the center, the true heart of the Fall…
Maybe she could pull Raeka free. Maybe she could tear whatever had taken root inside him out by the throat.
Nami Almasy knew. Of course she did. She wasn’t a fool, and she wasn’t blind. She hadn’t been given a role in the plan — not yet — but her silence hadn’t been objection. Just calculation. She hadn’t picked a side. Not yet.
In twelve hours, they’d arrive in Eden. In thirteen, Mai would break protocol. In fourteen… Mai would lead them into the Echo. And only some of them would walk back out.
Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2025 2:17 pm
Mai Zeigmus
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The amount of pain and frustration she had gone through was immense. Even if she was more machine than human, the overheating of her body caused severe burns in her nerves causing the surgery she had to undergo through to be more intensive than her last cybernetic upgrade. Due to this, Mai had come out more machine than before, more out of necessity than choice. Her skull around her eye sockets had to be replaced, along with various nerves leading into her brain, along with many of her muscles in her body having to be replaced with artificial ones. This meant in many ways she was reliant more on repairs now, than natural recovery. Robin surely did put a number on her, and the battle held significant consequences, but at the end of the day, she did survive against one of the strongest SeeD's around. That alone had enough merit, and her capture resulted in less severe punishment and reprimand than she would have if all rebels got away.
That was enough to give her leniency, and thus access to their database while they were none the wiser. Her recovery although painful, managed to give Mai some benefit to her upgraded form, her on board AI rapidly rummaging through the data she was receiving and sorting it into proper files for Mai to digest. She couldn't stand not knowing about what was going on with Raeka, ever since she told those demons they could go to hell if they think they were going to have Raeka for themselves. She wasn't going to allow them to take him away from her, to rob him of the enjoyment of life itself. If Raeka could control the power, or they were coexisting with one another, like most GF's did, then she wouldn't have cared as much about what form he took, he was still her man, but this... Whatever was going on with him caused a significant change the moment he was shot and then healed by her mother.
Everything she learned didn't explain anything other than what she expected to happen, that they would use him to their own ends, no different than the demons that infested him. "Yeah, to hell with all of them", she thought to herself. When she learned of the echoes, and what potential possibilities lay within them, she knew she had to take that chance. She would do what she had to, to save him, even if it meant altering reality itself to do so. There weren't many people Mai cared for, her emotional bonds strictly to a select few who grew with her, and those who cared for her. Everyone else could burn around her and she wouldn't bat an eye, but for Raeka she'd torch the world herself if it meant to save him from such a fate.
So she plotted, and prepared, waiting for the moment where the time would be to strike. Regardless of whether or not Nami would join them when the moment came to go, would be on her. She owed them nothing, and barely knew them, so Mai didn't expect her to care, and she may even try to stop them, but, regardless of that choice, she would take Raeka with her to stop this madness that was afflicting him. ""
____________________________________________________ The passage of time had become... strange. Nonlinear, even. Moments looped in on themselves like thoughts mid-dream — weightless and without anchor. But here, now, the train hummed forward. Its wheels clattered rhythmically along the track, and light from passing signals streaked across Raeka’s face. For now, at least, his thoughts moved in the same direction as the train.
It didn’t help the anxiety, though. Sometimes, he wasn’t sure when he was — or where.
He’d seen Mai as younger, as older. Softer. Harder. Sometimes all at once. She changed, and he focused on her because he could no longer trust his own reflection. Even now, caught dimly in the glass, he failed to notice how his pupils no longer adjusted to the light. They simply stared — wide and unfazed.
A red light flared past. Fisherman’s Horizon. A chill ran down his spine.
His body seized before the thought reached him — a phantom pain, brutal and visceral, like being shot all over again. Muscles locked. Lungs froze. The memory had weight, and it lived just under his skin. He turned from the window. The shadows of the corridor offered comfort. Darkness always did.
The door slid open with a soft sigh, and he returned to the cabin rented for their team. His eyes fell on Mai first — as they always did. She looked composed, as she always did… but he could see it now. The new fidgets. The faint, mechanical whirrs in her movement. The slight hesitation in her blink. The cybernetics had cost her more than she let on.
She was worried. And he was the reason. But it wasn’t one-sided. He felt it too. The cold in her muscles. The tension under her skin. The machine in her. And maybe that was what scared him most. He was changing too.
He looked away, gaze landing on Nami. A random observation crossed his mind — between his platinum hair and Mai’s obsidian black, Nami’s blonde felt like the perfect medium between them. Strange how the mind sought balance now.
With a soft exhale, Raeka flopped onto the couch beside Mai. His arm slipped around her shoulders, his body leaning gently into hers. It felt familiar. Safe. He glanced toward Nami again — and that was when he noticed the pit in his chest. Hollow. Something missing. Her parents had come. His hadn’t. Salem should have been there. Always had been. But this time — nothing. Not even a message. The silence pressed harder than any injury.
He closed his eyes and leaned deeper into Mai’s shoulder, letting the storm of thought go quiet for a while. Just for a moment. He didn’t know what Galbadia was planning by sending them back to Unita. Eden City. Three high-profile kids… and one lingering, devouring secret.
Raeka’s breath slowed as his head came to rest against Mai’s shoulder. The hum of the train filled the space between them. A flicker, no sound, no light, just pressure. He twitched. The overhead bulbs dimmed for less than a second. Barely noticeable. But to Raeka, it felt like the cabin dropped ten degrees.
???: "𐤀𐤔𐤓𐤕…"
A whisper behind his teeth. Ancient syllables he hadn’t learned. But recognized. He didn’t speak. He didn’t blink. Mai felt his weight change just slightly. Like something shifted inward. Nami might’ve caught the faintest sheen of sweat at his brow. But when Raeka finally opened his eyes, they were just… tired. He gave a small, forced smile to Mai. Squeezed her shoulder. Said nothing.
And the train kept going. ____________________________________________________
Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2025 11:18 pm
Mai Zeigmus
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Their traversal on the train was mostly silent, Mai all but having her cold gaze fixated either towards the window or towards Raeka whenever he made his movements and gestures of affection. She willingly leaned into his arm that wrapped over her shoulders, in turn embracing him with her own arm wrapped around his waist, holding him close to her. She rested her head against his when he leaned against her, gently and soothingly running her hand against his back. Those words he muttered were not familiar to her, but her AI seemed to react to it, words buzzing about attempting to translate but only going for partial attempts. She didn't understand it yet, nor what these letters could mean. She just had to accept for now that she'd have to store it as data for later to examine. That said, all she could do now was just merely wait till the moment arrive where she could make her move with Raeka. She wouldn't let anyone have their way with him so easily. When he gave her that weak fake smile, she merely raised her hand up to his cheek, caressing him for a moment to wipe away what sweat he had on him. He didn't need to say anything, she knew it wasn't easy, whatever it was he was dealing with, but she would be there by his side no matter the state of his condition. ""
____________________________________________________ For the remainder of the ride, Raeka hardly moved. He sat with an inhuman stillness. No shift of posture, no idle fidget, no hunger or thirst tugging at him. He neither ate nor drank, and his eyes never closed in sleep. Only when spoken to or touched did he stir, as if each motion required an outside force to break the spell of his inertia. It wasn’t patience. It wasn’t discipline. It was absence — a body waiting, a vessel brimming with silence, the uncanny countenance of a still warm corpse.
The train screeched into Eden Central with a teeth-rattling shriek, sparks briefly flaring along the tracks. Through the glass, Eden sprawled — vast, alive, scarred but functional. Towers wrapped in scaffolds rose against a violet sky, neon holo-banners pulsed civic slogans, and workers crowded the platforms like ants rebuilding a disturbed nest. The city had survived The Fall. Repaired. Rebuilt. But to Raeka, it was a palimpsest of broken time.
Everywhere he looked, the city fractured. One blink, and the towers collapsed in a roar of remembered flame. Another blink, and they stood whole again. Faces in the crowd flickered between terror and laughter, soldiers into civilians, civilians into corpses. It was all wrong. A loop without rhythm. And in the middle of it, his chest ached. A phantom wound. He pressed his hand against his ribs and felt the ghost of blood that wasn’t there.
The loudspeaker overhead fizzed with static, announcing the arrival. To Raeka, though, the voice twisted into something older, deeper — not in Galbadian, not in any tongue he’d learned. The syllables crawled into his head like burning glass:
“𐤀𐤔𐤓𐤕… 𐤀𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤀𐤋… 𐤌𐤋𐤊𐤄…”
The words were not sound. They pulsed like a second heartbeat. His vision swam with afterimages — wings of shadow folded around the train, unseen by anyone else. Raeka clenched his jaw, knuckles tight on the seat. He wanted to breathe, to ground himself, but the pressure only deepened. The voice spoke again, not in command, not in comfort, but in inevitability.
“𐤓𐤄𐤕𐤔𐤍… 𐤅𐤔𐤅𐤍…”
The train hissed as the doors opened. Passengers shuffled out, their chatter muted in Raeka’s ears, replaced by the hollow echo of the whisper. Beyond the platform, the Unita Safety Perimeter was visible even from here: barricades like steel monoliths, filaments crackling with anti-magic energy, guard towers locked in perpetual vigilance toward the Promenade. The shimmer of the Echo bulged faintly in the distance, a mirage that gnawed at the edges of reality.
Raeka’s reflection lingered in the train window as he rose — but it didn’t rise with him. For a fraction of a second, the figure in the glass smiled wider than he did, eyes blacker than his own. It watched him as he melded into the crowd, and it melted away. The crowd’s noise rushed back in, grounding him just enough. His boots struck the steel platform, steady but heavy.
As soldiers scanned IDs and herded arrivals toward the checkpoint, Raeka felt the whisper one last time, pressed like a brand against the inside of his skull:
“𐤀𐤔𐤓𐤕… 𐤀𐤔𐤓𐤕…”
He didn’t know what it meant. But he knew it was waiting. And it seemed satisfied to be back in Eden City. The checkpoint dominated the platform — barricades, scanners humming with emerald light, Unita troops armored head-to-toe, rifles held in a “relaxed” posture that still screamed readiness to the Galbadians. Nerves were on edge near the Echo. Everyone entering Eden proper passed through the junction nodes: vertical pylons that flared with anti-magic static, tuned to capture and record the entrant’s neural or magical state. An imprint. A baseline. Insurance against Echo interference. Insurance in case of accident.
Raeka stepped forward when his turn came. The air buzzed, hairs on his arms lifting as the scanner washed over him. A line of green symbols ticked upward on the console, until they didn’t. The machine chirped. Once. Twice. A red sigil flickered on the display. The operator frowned, tapping the side of the console. “Strange error... You tryin to sneak in with a fake I.D.?” He squinted at Raeka, then at the terminal. “No. Its like you've imprinted twice.” Raeka’s stomach sank. His pulse quickened, not his own impulse, not entirely. The whisper stirred in his skull, pleased.
“𐤀𐤔𐤓𐤕…”
The console stuttered, runes spiking into unreadable glyphs before blinking flat green. “Correction logged.” the machine announced. The operator blinked, confusion slipping across his face before slapping the machine in classic percussive maintenance. It seemed steady. He stepped back, waving Raeka through. “Cleared. Just a registration hiccup.”
Eyes in a tower above the scene told a different story. A figure in a plain officer’s coat with no insignia, leaned forward as Raeka passed. A tiny light blinked on his earpiece. “Subject flagged.” a voice murmured in his comm.
The operator at the pylon was none the wiser. The checkpoint never raised an alarm. It seemed like nothing more than a hiccup in the system. To Raeka, the pressure in his skull deepened, a grin tugging faintly at his lips though he hadn’t chosen it. The other inside him was amused. And as he stepped past the barricade, toward Eden’s streets and the distant shimmer of the Empty Promenade, the sense grew stronger:
This city wasn’t just his past. It was the stage already set for what was coming. Whatever that was. Raeka's brow furrowed for a moment. "Why are we..." He didn't get to the end of the question, his cadence shifting just so. "...Right. Guard duty. Still a strange assignment, isn't it? Maybe this thing requires heavy hitters? But why not just assign some Busters?"
Location:Eden City Company:Silver and Big Tits Thoughts:Calculating Magic:Blind (2), Silence (3), Blizzard (3), Water (5), Watera (4), Blizzara (3) Theme Song:ALIEZ
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“Centuries passed and still the same War in our blood, some things never change Fighting for land and personal gain Better your life, justify your pain"
She had been chatty, but it had all just been surface level.
Back at Headquarters, on the train, in their presence, she had always just been reserved to a point, not as catty or peppy like her reputation would normally allude to. In fact, even when she was being fixed up in the Hospital, and her father was constantly preening and doting on her as she took a few days to recover, she seemed to emulate her mother in response. Not that she was upset at her father, she accepted his fawning and care as she always would, just not with the normal spoiled mentality that she loved to normally reside into. Rather, she was trying to remember where she had seen the girl that had shot her before, and also, was irritated that her first mission ended in success but at the expense of her ending up injured.
Perfection was tantamount, especially from the daughter of the two powerful leaders of Galbadia. If there had been a timer, it would have broken for how long her lips remained pursed, her eyes narrowed in a level of thinking that gave her even more of a mean girl appearance. Her mother had sat and basically chided her, not unaffectionate but as one would a pupil, with things to improve upon, stratagem, her attitude upon returning (it must have been hard dealing with a mini blonde version of herself), but other than that...the visitors were limited. A few boys and girls, admirers and courters, she had told, not politely, to piss off through the communication chain with nurses, so she could stew in the results of her first mission.
And stew she did.
All she could think about was the less than satisfactory performance, as well as knowing that two of her...rivals, were off in Winhill being trained to be cute little magical girls. The thought caused her nose to wrinkle in annoyance, even flash forwarding to where they were now, walking next to Silver and Big Tits the Cyborg Machine.
Of course she had been dragged along, not unwillingly, to the train and by proxy, to Eden City, back to the center of the Fall. Perhaps it was because the two believed in her skills, and maybe there was now a weird kinship that she couldn't explain since the last mission. Her eyes darted at certain moments, absorbing the information around them, as silent as the other two had been uncharacteristically, looking at her companions. What game are they playing here? All of her weapons were prepared again, she had restocked on spells upon knowing they were going to Eden, and she had badgered her mother and father into allowing her to look at files and information regarding the promenade, the Fall, and everything else. People would think it was because she was wanting to be prepared for instances regarding Galbadia, but that was the tricky thing about Nami Almasy.
She was not loyal to Galbadia, itself. She enjoyed the frivalties of being her parents daughter, and of course loved her parents. That did not mean she loved or was strictly loyal to the country in question, despite the mean girl facade and peppy school president exterior, she craved only one thing and that was to climb the parasocial ladder of society on her own merits, achieving fame and fortune through her works. Galbadia, and her lineage, were a useful tool in that regard, but even as she looked through the files and, through her own work and research, she knew that things regarding the Fall and these new Echoes were...foreign. Not right. Not natural. Just like Silver, who would often seem to emit a sort of strange, somewhat malignant energy that she did not particularly care for. Maybe that was the root of it all, her eyes glancing over to Mai as they walked forward towards the security team.
Mai might now show it, but Nami read into things regarding her two partners, again using and abusing her connections with her parents for information. If there was one thing Mai was, through her actions alone, it was affection, connected, and worried over Silver.
It reminded her of a time, long ago, here in Eden City. Moments of feeling that level of connection with someone she only ever saw in passing, and even then it was only antagonistic by nature.
"Tch..." Better to forget that for now. The past was the past and that was all it would ever be. That girl deserved it anyways.
The blonde cracked her neck with a twist, brushing off the strange pangs of nostalgia that she dared not feed. There was no time for that now. The promenade was close.
"Maybe machines aren't as effective or useful once you step through." Her voice was calm. "If it was as simple as using a Buster, they would, you know that. Maybe we just consider it an unknown variable, it might even affect us still." Her eyes looked over to Mai, a small tinge of concern shifting to her face, whether it was actually for Mai or for her status in regards to her machinations, was unknown.
"Reports say that this thing...is completely unpredictable."
"With peace of mind so hard to find We're dwelling on the drastic signs Another way to numb our mind”
With Nami having dug a bit deeper into Mai's files and life, she found that there were several attempts to prevent her from easily acquiring said information, and it was only thanks to her familial connections that it even managed to slip passed her desk. What normally would have been blacked out files regarding Mai's robotics and schematics, laid a foundation of what kind of true killing machine they had turned her into. There were more than just muscle enhancements, but Nami would come to learn how much Mai truly was relying on the technology to even have a normal life. If what you can call anything she felt, normal.
The psychological aspects were of concerning in most reports of those undergoing cybernetic augmentation. Although a person gained insermountable benefits in enhancing one's physical self, one becomes detached from the ether, and thus feeling in physical and emotional aspects. Most people experience a decline into sociopathic behavior. Most people experience a decline in mental stability after roughly 26.85% of body mass replacement.
From what Nami saw of Mai's body schematics, she had well over 87% of her body mass replaced in cybernetics and machinery, with notable experimental parts placed within her core. While most cybernetics were powered by elecrticty, Mai's new upgraded core had been replaced with Thunder Crystals around the center of her chest, and in the middle of those crystals held a Holy crystal. What made up her pressure points on her body were various Barrier and Shell Crystals. Within her joints were Gravity Crystals, and in her fists and feet were Earth Crystals.
It was when the eyes were mentioned that some serious work had been done recently on Mai, remodifying not just her eyes, but parts of her brain had been replaced in order to compensate and repair the damage done to her face. Her eyes had received new Scan Crystals, each set having several layered over the other making up a majority of her eye with machinery interfacing and connecting with the crystals, feeding that information directly into Mai's brain at all times. She was practically awake at all times, impossible to actually fall asleep unless she forcefully triggers a self induced coma; only awakening again when the AI's timer goes off or alert of danger is sensed, forcefully injecting Mai with stimulants directly into her spine to awaken her to be combat ready.
If Nami felt any sort of pity for Mai, there was the caveat that Mai was the one who signed and approved all of these changes to her body. There was something different about Mai from all the other reports of those who underwent the psychosis.
Where those who fell and lacked any sort of care of emotion, Mai managed to hold onto hers for Raeka. Despite all the removal of feeling, there was at least one positive thing. She still had the capacity to have kids, and have a normal life with Rakea. It was clear that whatever they were going to do once they arrived at the echo, she was prepared to go all out to achieve whatever impossible task it was to save her man. ===============
When they finally arrived at the checkpoint, Mai merely followed along, her face as serious as it had ever been as she marched through, scanning her id and passing by, waiting on Raeka, though she notably was waiting and watching with concern when she noticed that Raeka was flagged at the gate. Her lip twitched slightly. He had been acting weird on the train, noticing him have pained discomfort and slight spasms, as if something was gnawing itself in him. It was getting worse. She could tell, but she wasn't sure if it was because they were close to the echo, or because the thing inside of him knew she was trying to stop it from taking over her man. Regardless, the echo was the only answer she had, and it was something she needed to do with him.
To hell with it all. She wasn't going to let this go their way so easily.
Once Raeka was let through, she walked alongside both Raeka and Nami, her attention always drifting towards him every time he spoke, as if to examine him. She had to watch him, to know when he shifted and changed, and when he was just himself. She didn't add to the conversation, instead, focused her mana through her crystals, focusing. She notably walked more methodically, focused, her breathing moving in a rhythmic pattern as they idly conversed amonst the other, but the signs were there. They could see it as they were reaching further into the streets away from more prying eyes, that Mai was summoning Enkidu. Thankfully, for a guardian force, he could easily pass off as more of a dog companion than a GF, for those who were none the wiser. But, she knew she was going to need him here today.
"Lusa Ahgeti." She muttered softly, almost silently in nothing but a hushed whisper.
Something was off about her partner, it had happened as they walked passed that gate. Was it already too late? How could she get him back? She thought for a moment... but she had to do something...
When Enkidu finally formed, she gave an internal command. "Find Kalay, and warn him of danger." With that, Enkidu would run off.
""
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Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2025 10:51 pm
Raeka Everett-Maris
Status: Dormant // Active Location: Away // City of Eden, observed. Spells:
____________________________________________________ “We’re being watched.” Raeka’s gaze flicked sharply — 78 degrees left, 81 degrees up — to the twelfth floor of a half-renovated tower still clothed in scaffolding. Somehow, impossibly, the boy’s eyes pierced through the glass and insulation to the one hidden behind it. “The spy has another one of my servants.”
This time, ‘Raeka’ did not immediately rush to reclaim the lost property. Perhaps he understood it wasn’t the task at hand. Or perhaps — as his voice grew clearer, more deliberate, less broken — subtlety was beginning to take root.
{Status}- "Watching my new favorite SUBJECT." {Location}- Twelth Floor. {Limit State}- Dormant. {Mood}-Relaxed. {OOC}:I'm not bothered by your concept of morality.
Collection was his signature, but observation was its necessary prelude. Sbt-RE-AT fascinated him. The transfiguration gnawing at the Everett heir was a mystery worth dissection, and he would have given everything to cage the boy, pry open the process, and map its every stage. But the father made such notions impossible. The Everetts had tied themselves to nearly every sorceress-bloodline outside of Galbadia. Even The Collector would not declare open war on that web. Not yet.
He had his shield: General Rinoa Heartilly. Galbadia’s sorceress. Loyal to the Directorate, to him, to their cause. With her, he could weather the storm of every other sorceress aligned to Everett influence.
Mai? Irrelevant. Pacifiable. In Carver’s imagination, her rage would burn itself out in captivity once she was allowed to breed with the subject. No, the true danger lay in her mother — it was she who had ignited the metamorphosis now unfolding, and paradoxically, it was that act which had pierced Carver’s mind like a needle, making the boy his latest obsession.
“Sir… SRA is staring at us,” one of the black-suited operatives stammered, shifting uneasily.
Carver turned silver eyes on him with disdain. Impossible. This nest was designed to be invisible to Estharian and Everettian scans alike. And yet… when he looked back, the boy’s uncanny gaze had not moved.
Carver’s grin spread. He stepped closer to the pane, lowering his voice as though Raeka could hear.
“But you’re a special case, aren’t you? Which is why you’re mine.” His breath fogged against the glass. Then, quieter still, with an almost delighted sneer: “And in my favor… another specimen just walked back into play. A beast I’ll have, one way or another.” His eyes rested on the dossier of the blonde boy from the fall who had just recently been ejected from an Echo. It felt like his birthday.
“Completely unpredictable to most. There are exceptions. You have met two.”
The words came out almost detached, like shards of glass carried on breath. Raeka did not clarify further. The statement seemed less directed at Nami — an afterthought spoken aloud, a catalogued footnote muttered into the air.
Then his violet eyes fell on Mai. She felt it at once, the uncanny weight of them. They weren’t eyes at all, but panes of glass — one-way mirrors looking outward from somewhere deeper. Evaluation. Threat assessment. Searching. The sensation wasn’t personal, not even hostile. It was diagnostic, invasive in its neutrality. Whatever looked out from Raeka’s face did not consider her a threat, not yet, though it measured her all the same.
Her mother had been kind to his servants. He would repay the kindness in time, in kind. But not now. Not with the walls watching. Not with the conditions as they were. The frame of Raeka’s body shifted, stiff and deliberate, like a marionette rotated on its strings. His gaze fixed on Mai. His voice softened, but the cadence was still wrong, as though spoken by someone else through him.
“You have been watching me, dear. Tell me… what is on your mind? We both know you’ve never been emotionally subtle.” His movements were a performance of humanity, not its expression. The puppet fully turned toward Mai, hands falling slack at his sides. “Confess your concerns.” A pause, long enough for discomfort to settle. “They may be assuaged.”
Mai Zeigmus Status: Healthy Thoughts: Not My Man Spells: Shell X???, Barrier X??? Weaponry: High-Frequency Vibration Blade, Slevant, Rias and Vi Ammo: Pulse X30, Dark X12, Fire X12, Demolition X24, Fast X24, AP X12, Normal X30
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━═✥═━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
Her gut feeling was right. She could tell that this was not her man at the moment with how acute he was with his senses and how hollow his words were with emotion. She had spent so much time with Raeka that the simple change in tone was enough of a dead giveaway for her to be quite unhappy. Of course, Mai was never one to be shy about how she felt, even if she was silent with her words. She knew that they were being watched, but she was unaware of who exactly was watching them. Raeka seemed to know where they were hiding, and she didn't make any effort to look with him since her sensors weren't picking them up anyhow. It would have been pointless to look, but at least she knew the directions of where they were watching them thanks to this possessor of Raeka. She didn't like that this spy had another demonic GF with him, which just meant that if he got it, that Raeka would only slip further from his humanity.
Then the question was asked, and the way he spoke was nothing like the way her man would have spoken. It almost put her off to hear it in such a manner being used in Raeka's likeness. Yet, she did not shy away from him, nor was there fear to be had. Instead, she faced him, hand on her hip as she gave him a serious gaze. "Do I not have reason to be concerned? When you wear and walk around with my man's body." She stated it so matter of fact, plain and straightforward to him. "You are the reason why Raeka is even remotely healthy as can be physically, but you've also been stripping away everything I love about him." She was not going to shy away from it, if the demons inside wanted to know. "What will I have of him, if I just let you be?" It was a serious matter to her, because she would not allow her man to lose his free will and lose everything he loved about life in exchange for the power he got from this thing inside of him. "What benefit is there? Where will that leave Raeka? Cause all I care about above anything else is him and only him. I don't want him just alive. I want Raeka as he was, a man filled with life and passion for things that you cannot replace." What benefit was there even in telling him this? She doubt that the demon cared all that much about her, but whatever the reason it was playing along with this charade, well, she knew it wasn't going to last forever anyhow, better to confront than to wait in anticipation.
"Is it possible for you to push my concerns aside? To promise me that I'll still have him even after you get what you want?" She asked, and it was a clear turning point of a question, her eyes reading him as much as he was her, both machine and demon locking eyes with one another with such a fierce tension that, perhaps, Nami was not anticipating as much as Mai was.
But, in that moment, all the stress and weight of the world was barreling down on Mai, and she simply couldn't help but sigh after what she said to him, not out of frustration, but merely to wait for his answer, and to relieve herself of all that was weighing in her chest. Reaching into her pocket she pondered for a moment, and then thought of something as she pulled out a pack of cigarettes, Dollet luxury brand. Lighting it up as she placed the cigarette in her mouth, she took in a deep inhale as she pocketed the pack once more, staring down at the imposter inside of her man's body. Finally, she spoke once more with a suggestion.
"Wouldn't my mother do just as well as a vessel for you? She was bonded with Diablos much longer and had a deeper understanding of whatever it is you are." Her mother would understand what it was she was doing, and knew this would be how she paid her back for cursing Raeka with this. "If you can give me any kind of answer or reassurance here, I will remain by your side, loyal, and help you. I don't care what it is I have to do, as long as you can give me Raeka back alive and himself." ""
Location:Eden City Company:Silver and Big Tits Thoughts:Calculating Magic:Blind (2), Silence (3), Blizzard (3), Water (5), Watera (4), Blizzara (3) Theme Song:ALIEZ
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“Centuries passed and still the same War in our blood, some things never change Fighting for land and personal gain Better your life, justify your pain"
...this isn't normal. Not that it was a huge stretch of the imagination for her to come up with this conclusion, but Nami's mother was a Sorceress as well, but even this was a bit queer for the Galbadian Princess. All she could do was listen to Raeka and Mai speak back and forth, Mai's words illustrating and illuminating the scenario that Nami had found herself in. Wish I could have had some Sorceress powers, Mama. She thought bitterly, knowing that kind of talent would certainly make things more at ease for her now. Remington Nipal had no heritage, but had it, Nyale had it due to her parents, but she, Nami Almasy, the daughter of Head Mistress Rinoa, was left out to dry. ******** typical, now she had to deal with a crazy Sorcerer and his multiple personality disorder.
"You brought me here to play non verbal therapist?" she muttered, her hands relaxing by her side and stepping back from the two, letting them come face to face. Her relaxed expression was not something to be taken for granted, her instincts on a hair trigger and the hairs on her arms raising at the conversation between them. From what she had read about Raeka...it was probably going to get messy, noting his annotation about them being watched. Of course we are... Her own magical abilities came in touch with Ripjaw, preparing to summon him on a moments notice and draw weapons just as fast. Whether it was Raeka or the ones watching them.
They had walked into a crossfire of misfortune.
"With peace of mind so hard to find We're dwelling on the drastic signs Another way to numb our mind”
____________________________________________________ The body stood unnaturally still, every breath too measured, too even. No fidgets, no tics, no smallest gesture of thought. The eyes—glass-violet and unblinking—watched Mai with a patience too vast to be human. A statue draped in flesh.
When it finally spoke, the words landed with a softness that made them all the sharper.
“Benefit?” the cadence repeated, like an echo savoring itself. “The Raeka you remember—the fire, the laughter—he was shattered the day your mother reforged him. What stands before you is no longer that boy. He is something new. A vessel. A crucible. And I—” The voice dipped, coaxing, almost tender. “—I am the only reason that crucible has not broken.”
There was no blink, no shift, but in the hollowness of his tone something quivered—just faint enough for Mai to see. A pulse behind the glass. A trace of Raeka, straining against the words wearing his mouth.
“The ordeals fractured him beyond what his kind can endure. What has been lost is simply what I could not repair. You ask if I can promise you he will remain. The truth is this: he is already broken. But so long as I remain, he lives. And so long as he lives…” The eyes sharpened, their light cold and flawless. “…he is still yours. Perhaps not the same—but yours nonetheless.”
It leaned closer, every movement graceful yet hollow, a marionette shifting on invisible strings.
“He and I are not rivals. Not parasite and host. We are one lattice of flesh and spirit, grinding forward together. My intervention requires autonomy, yes, and my presence inevitably lessens what remains of him—hence my haste for completion. At apotheosis I could restore all that has been stripped away. But understand me, Daughter of Zeigmus: such restoration would come at the cost of the world.”
For a heartbeat, the mask cracked. The voice faltered—low, almost human.
“Yet if you demand it… I can recede. If you believe his body and mind can bear the weight alone. If you are willing to carry that corpse forward yourself.”
The implication lingered in the silence: Raeka’s life dangled on her answer. And beneath the words, faint as a finger scratching at glass, something pushed against the possession. A silent Raeka, clawing for air he could not breathe. ____________________________________________________
Kalay Laytos
Status: Troubled Uncle. Location: On The Way ____________________________________________________ The first sign of him was smoke—the acrid trail of a cigarette curling through the alley air before his voice cut across the street.
“Please tell me my nephew isn’t already at the baby-mama-drama stage.”
Kalay Laytos strode into view with staff in hand, green sparks guttering faintly along its tip. His expression was tight, a thin smile masking a frown that had already formed. To anyone else, the line might have sounded flippant, but his eyes told a different story—fixed on Raeka with a soldier’s wariness, on the statue-still frame that breathed wrong and looked worse. He had seen Salem wear that same glassy look in darker years, and this was worse.
Enkidu padded at his heels, hackles up, ears flat. The beast had carried urgency in its steps all the way here, and now Kalay saw why.
“So. What’s the game here?” He exhaled smoke through his nose, turning his gaze briefly toward Mai and Nami. He didn’t know what side they were standing on—Galbadian SeeD, Everett’s tangled web, or just caught in the crossfire—but he knew one thing. Raeka Everett-Maris looked less like a boy and more like a battlefield.
His grip tightened on the staff. The air stirred. Not a gale yet, just a whisper of wind, but enough that the wards in his blood prickled. Whatever sat in Raeka’s skin, it wasn’t resting. And Kalay had arrived just in time to be forced into choosing whether to treat it like family… or like an enemy. ____________________________________________________
Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2025 1:22 pm
Mai Zeigmus Status: Healthy Thoughts: Raeka... Spells: Shell X???, Barrier X??? Weaponry: High-Frequency Vibration Blade, Slevant, Rias and Vi Ammo: Pulse X30, Dark X12, Fire X12, Demolition X24, Fast X24, AP X12, Normal X30
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She listened to this demon, hearing everything it had to say in regards to Raeka and his condition. The demon confirmed that it was her mother that was the crux of it all, but she did not look surprised by it. Instead, every word she took to heart, and despite Nami, and eventually Kalay speaking out to her, Mai's eyes never left Raeka's. She shut out the noise of everything and everyone else. Here, it was her who had quite the weightful decision to make. Despite the audience they were gathering, Mai approached the possessed Raeka, not shy about getting near him despite the obvious dangers that came with it. She made no hostile motion, nor did she show any sign of ulterior motive behind the movement. Standing face to face with him, Raeka found her wrapping her arms around him, pulling him into her for an embrace, arms wrapped around his waist as she did so. "Will you let him speak?" She asked him. "I want to know what it is, he wants. I want him to be free but if it is going to kill him.... I... " Although her face remained near expressionless apart from the seriousness in her gaze, she was speaking with fear that this was the end for Raeka if she was to go with her answer. "I need to know, so that I can support him to the end. Whatever that might be." ""
____________________________________________________ Consideration. It had already gone through this scenario, and ways to manipulate the most likely outcome. "You are in this together, and so you may decide together. However you will do so knowing what the truth of your situation will be; at least a taste of it." The doll that was Raeka's form seemed to shift for a moment, the small touches of life that brooked one from the uncanny valley returned. Even with the Everett boy's strange abilities and anatomy, the minutia that ensured one recognized a human returned at first.
However there was still a delay before recognition. Coming back to the forefront, his eyes dilated for a moment, before adjusting to the light and searching the immediate area. His gaze settled on Mai's eyes and a smile began to sneak across his face. "Mai." Being this close to her always made his heart flutter, even if she always kinda made him feel short when he had to look up at her. "I don't-" Whatever he was about to say was cut off by a grunt of strain. If her eyes were scanning him, they would recognize a spike of new neuroactivity. Something familiar.
Pain responses.
Mai would feel his weight change at first, from self reliant, sliding fast into leaning into her for support, before his weight became dead as his body could no longer hold itself right side up. Her man had never been muscle focused, and even for meeting SeeD standards he was allowed to slide a little under par due to his ability to compensate in other unique ways. But as his arms feebly slung around her to try and keep himself standing. It was easy to tell he was weak; and his physical statistics were dropping precipitously.
"I-I-Muh-Muh-Muh" Whatever it was he was trying to say, it could only come out as a stutter, he sucked in air through his teeth as his chest heaved, attempting to stop himself from hyper-ventilating. Her scans began to read up on... errors in his brain waves? His fingers dug into her back with all the strength of a child as his eyes went wide, before Mai's own recognition would catch onto what the technology could not. Instinct was kicking in and he was trying to cast; but nothing came. And he was likely reaching for what had replaced his sorcery, but now was only found wanting, and empty.
Between the whimpers of pain, his breathing was closer to rapid hissing as he fought his best again the panic that was setting in. Raeka rested his head against her chest, eyes wide and unable to string together syllables much less words.
And beneath it all—an absence where strength should have been, like a hole left unfilled. Like Raeka had to an extent been hollowed out, that he had been reduced to a normal man. No sorcery, no other, nothing that one could consider him special any longer. While the physical trauma was clear, the mental and emotional trauma would be something that had so far been completely unexplored. ____________________________________________________
Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2025 3:55 pm
Mai Zeigmus Status: Healthy Thoughts: Raeka... Spells: Shell X???, Barrier X??? Weaponry: High-Frequency Vibration Blade, Slevant, Rias and Vi Ammo: Pulse X30, Dark X12, Fire X12, Demolition X24, Fast X24, AP X12, Normal X30
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━═✥═━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
When he got back his senses, and all that pain and agony began to overwhelm him, Mai's grip on him remained strong, going so far as to hold him against her, letting him rest himself into her chest as the pain took him. She understood that pain, perhaps to a lesser degree, but when she no longer could cast her magic, it felt like a piece of her equally had died, but for him, a sorcerer defined by it, it probably robbed him of his identity in many ways. But this was him, for as much pain as he was in, it was him. She looked up at Kalay for a moment, if just to register his presence while she slowly helped Raeka down to the ground, laying him against it while she held him against her chest still. Brushing her hand along his cheek, she was reminded of the time where Raeka held her in such a manner, cradling her while she was in critical condition at the hospital, nearly dead. A small sigh escaped her lips as smoke exhaled out. She took in another long drag before speaking. "I know you can't think straight right now, babe. But I need you to focus for just a moment, and nothing more. No matter how much pain you are in right now, and no matter how much you may lose by letting that being inside of you go, I will always be here for you. It isn't your magic or your skills that made me fall in love with you. It was you always being there by my side, and that is all I need. Whatever you choose, I am here and will be here, always just as you were. If you can't speak, show me your answer, let me know what it is you want." She said, looking to him, holding one hand against his own, letting him know she was here and had no plan to leave him. ""
____________________________________________________ Fear clawed at him, sharper than the pain. He remembered the long nights by her hospital bed before they had even been lovers, how helpless it felt to watch her broken and unmoving. Now the thought reversed, mirrored: would he force Mai to carry that same weight forever? A crippled invalid, fed and steadied by her patience until it rotted into pity?
How long could I last like that? How long before she broke under it?
But another truth struck deeper — if the parasite stayed, it would only grow. Stronger, hungrier. A threat Mai would one day have to face herself. Better him broken than her devoured. His body trembled against her, his breath caught in ragged gasps. He tried to force words out through the static in his mind, every syllable tearing like glass across his throat. Still, he clung to her warmth and pushed the sound free.
“I don’t… want to be… a slave…”
The words landed in the space between them, thin but unshakable. For a moment, his amethyst eyes softened, the old light flickering through the haze of agony. Then his forehead burned, skin splitting with luminous strain as the third eye cracked open once more. A silent reminder. Whatever choice he made, the other was still waiting.
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