Work Text:
5574 hours after first Terran-Alternian Hostilities
JH: it cant be done, rose!!!
JH: literally no way to channel that much power into the emitter within a couple nanoseconds!
RL: We are astonishingly close, Jade. The last projection provided recordable audio. We hit the peak. It only needs a little more to tip us over.
JH: hit the peak and then valves 6-8 exploded! and did you hear that audio rose? what the hell!?! :|
RL: It was… alien. Alien does not mean harmful, Jade.
JH: that.
JH: was.
JH: freaky.
JH: rose!!
JH: and i know freaky and COME ON this is me! i got suspended from the fusion labs at the oppenheimer complex! :P
RL: It may be quite disturbing to us. That is, after all, one of the natural side effects of tapping into a dimension between dimensions which humans only access between states of being.
RL: However, as you are yourself pointing out, research need not be disturbing to be dangerous.
RL: I am asking for your trust as a friend, and your capabilities as an absolute genius, Jade. Can you meet the power requirements?
JH: its very very very unlikely
JH: but there might be just one way
5612 hours after first Terran-Alternian hostilities
You are the only person in the Transitional Area, with even the Conduit behind two multi-layered walls intended to permit only certain energies through in a very precise pattern.
So it's a little bit of a surprise when the airlock blares its warning lights, and then another suited figure walks in.
JH: you didnt think i was going to send you off on your own did you???
RL: The method and destination of this experiment will be extraordinarily psychologically taxing, Jade. I did not decide on myself as the explorer for personal glory or sense of proprietary ownership of the experiment, but because of my psychological profile.
JH: and what about my profile hmmmm? :B
Oh. Hm. You have to ponder that.
RL: Your profile indicates that while easily disturbed your overall psychological well-being is phenomenally resilient. And would not be likely to suffer permanent damage.
RL: Who is going to be monitoring the power generation, however?
JH: doctor egbert!
RL: Then I suppose we are in the safest hands we can be. Projection begins in nineteen seconds.
JH: hey rose what are these suits made of anyway??
RL: A substance created by the preliminary experiments.
JH: ............
JH: .........
RL: Yes, the grey ooze.
JH: ......
JH: the grey goop?!?
RL: It bears properties permitting it to survive within the transient state. The solidified version should provide us with sufficient armor for our journey.
JH: weird also gross
JH: now lets do this!!!!
Projection. The Transition Chamber becomes an indistinct replica of itself, a reconstruction via brain activity of perception, and drops out from under you.
You are glad you are not prone to seizures. This zone is a pulsating mass of green fibers set against a featureless, infinite background of a flickering green and yellow.
JH: ummmm
JH: rose we have been here for several minutes isnt your portal only open for nanoseconds??
RL: From the perspective in our home dimension, yes.
JH: mannnnn since when are we working with disconnected timeframes???
RL: Do you read my project briefings at all, Jade?
JH: yeah sorry rose i just kinda tuned out at the technical diagrams that were copied from faust and alesteir crowley!
RL: Regardless. This is the first border zone. Our existence here should not be long from our perspective.
There is a form. It is of the green, and outside it. It rots with energy.
Exoskeletal.
Canine-jawed.
Winged.
Sword-bearer.
JH: rose what the fuck is this??
RL: I.
You backpedal. Sort of. Your movement is related to your motions, but nonlinearly, incoherently.
RL: I don't know.
It becomes solidified/whole/distinct.
RL: I think it may be a guardian of sorts.
RL: Or a predator. Stay still.
Pointless advice. It knows you are here. Perhaps it was created because you are here. Beady black little eyes swivel in deep sockets to face you, and it draws the sword from its gut.
Transition.
JH: rose!!!! are you there??? i cant see anything!! :/
RL: Rest assured it is a mutual condition, and not entirely surprising that we would be unable to perceive one of these environments
FP: )(ee )(ee )(ee! It's dark because it's D---EEP! And they don't want to scare you!
RL: Am I to understand you are the ambassador to the beings that dwell here?
FP: Y---ES! But not for you!
Shapes in the darkness. A purple illumination, pale and wan. Jade. A hint of things in the darkness, things whose presence you had anticipated, an anticipation that does not dull their impression.
And a skinny grey-skinned girl with opposite-arching horns in colorful, bare robes, with a double-ended golden trident.
FP: )(i! T)(ey've been waiting sooo long for you to find t)(is place!! Keep swimming up, until you S-----EE t)(em!
RL: I think we'll remain right here. I can hear them perfectly well.
FP: You are so strange!! Not at all what I t)(oug)(t )(umans would be!
RL: Is that so. And what preconception of us did you possess?
FP: T)(ey said you were a minnow t)(reat, until you became the biggest shark in the S----EA.
RL: Not the assessment I would have expected from the Horrorterrors.
FP: No, silly! T)(e Spymasticators! T)(e )(orrorterrors are "RESERVING JUDGEMENT".
RL: I suppose I must come around to the question that should have been asked at the start, namely-
JH: who are you????!!?
FP: Feferi Peixes! But you're t)(e new fis)( in sc)(ool, who're you??
JH: jade harley and im a civilian so thats all you get! >:[
FP: I'm not your EN-----EMY! We're both )(ere and not D---EAD yet! 38D
RL: A convincing argument, perhaps. Rose Lalonde, project director. If what I think about the Horrorterrors is correct, why haven't your people taken advantage of the properties of the Furthest Ring?
FP: They're just SCAR--------ED! S)(E knows, t)(oug)(. Maybe S)(E made all the legends. But S)(E mig)(t start using it if you keep winning!
RL: Who-
The return, abrupt and slow, is a sort of dulling of sensation even as light and sound grow.
The moment you are certain you are entirely within the Transition Chamber, Jade pops off her helmet. "Rose what the hell was all that?!?"
"I am going to find out."
[OUTBOUND PERSONAL LINK ESTABLISHED]
[ENCRYPTION PROTOCOL C/N/E ACTIVE. LATENCY 1311 ms]
RL: John, do you know a "Feferi Peixes"?