Wave's Allure
-
Geo jumped, scooching over quickly with hands raised placatingly, "It's okay! It's okay. We're right here. We..."
He sighed, letting his shoulders slump, "You didn't mean to do what you did. You were being controlled by someone else. But we stopped them and you're safe now!"
He clenched a fist as he was pained by Triese's expression. It'd be easy to brush all this away, pretend none of this happened, just to comfort her now. But...
"Triese, look at me for a sec," he suggested, trying to redirect her attention, "This isn't the first time I've dealt with something like this. I've had friends that this has happened to before. People who have felt just like you're feeling right now."
He thought of Luna, every venomous attack burning with unheard rage. And her regret afterwards.
"They're okay now, and you will be too, okay? I promise."
-
Triese almost couldn't believe what Geo was saying. None of what just happened even felt real. "I-I was controlled...? I-I... really, really, it felt like I was dreaming..." she sniffled, squeezing herself a little. "I... I don't want to hurt anyone! I don't understand what happened...! Wasn't there...?" Slowly, as she remembered more of the battles she'd drowsily stumbled through, her eyes went wide. "Wasn't there... a Mega Man...?"
"Correct me if I'm wrong," Lurerre chimed in from Triese's PET - her voice was still a little echoey and distorted, but it was a marked improvement over when they arrived here. "But it seems as if Lady Triese was forced to perform an unwilling Wave Change. Otherwise, I'm not certain how we could have... coexisted, for even a moment, in that space..."
Triese frowned. "I-I don't think... it felt... unwilling," she nervously admitted. "But... I don't think I could stop myself! It was too loud, and there was too much going on and..." Stopping herself, she immaturely slammed her feet on the floor as she wiped away her tears. "Lurerre, this sucks!"
"Please listen to Geo, Lady Triese," Lurerre insisted. "He's right. This isn't a failure on your part... and you seem to be healthy, thankfully." God, thankfully. It wasn't like she could have done anything to help her, so it wasn't like she failed. At least she didn't seem to be as harmed as she was after the rescue, but... still.
"No, it's not that, it's that-!!" Triese blubbered, shamefully burying her face in her knees. She couldn't bear to look at her PET, or Geo, or anything at all, at the moment. "It's... it's... it's that...!!"
She'd fought. She'd been something else. But she messed it up. It was all a trick.
"I-I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I-I was stupid... I-I don't know what... to say..."
-
Geo sat upright at the mention of Mega Man. Maybe she was more conscious after that fight than he thought.
She probably was also able to remember a lot of the fight too, given her reaction. Siren must have gotten her influence deep into Triese...
"You weren't stupid," Geo stressed, pausing for a moment to gather his thoughts, "Wave Changing... It works because a pair to work together to be better and stronger, but Siren didn't do that! Siren was the stupid one! And so that's why you're here and she isn't..."
Although... there was always a seed that FM-ians latched onto to take control. Some commonality between them and their host that they manipulated. For Triese and Siren... The only thing he could really think of at the moment was 'interested in water' and that was definitely not enough to go off of.
But at the same time.
To suggest that she did want this in some way? That she was in part responsible for her misery right now? He couldn't bear to bring that up with her at this moment. She was devastated enough as is!
Geo clenched a fist again, smoldering with righteous rage over such a nice person like Triese being taken advantage of. He imagined his own words and feelings being tossed aside like that and wanted to punch Siren all over again.
-
Triese sniffled again, shuddering as she tried to collect herself. Geo was trying to support her! Geo was being nice to her, and nothing was going to happen to her... but she still felt hollow, like she was rejecting everything around her and just wanted to fall back asleep so that she didn't have to think about this anymore. She'd messed up. She'd messed it all up.
"I-I shouldn't have tried... to..." she mumbled, thinking about her stupid bug experiments. It almost sounded like a dream come true, didn't it? She tried to help her friends... and someone appeared to her, offering her the chance to help the world... but it was all a trick. It was her fault for falling for it. "I-I'm... I was weak... I don't w-want to... hurt someone... because of that..."
"You weren't going to," Lurerre said. "You must not have been acting of your own will..."
All Triese could muster in response was a quiet whine. Eventually, she looked over to her PET, then back at Dr. Goodall from across the room . "I-is everything... going to be okay...?" she sniffled. "It's... it's done, now, isn't it...?"
-
Geo's eyes went wide with concern as Triese berated herself. For the moment he was too stunned to speak.
Dr. Goodall took this opportunity to speak up as she typed, "Triese, my dear, everything is going to be okay, because you're so much stronger than you think. And I earnestly believe that. Not many people are kind enough to hold back an FM-ians influence, and from what I can tell with the lack of damage to key structures, you did a wonderful job fighting back. You were very brave!"
It was a nice thing to say, Geo knew, and he noticed the lack of detail about what actually had been damaged. The many, Many Satella Police Wizards that fell in that fight would be difficult to replace, but not impossible. And who knows how much damage Siren Splash had accrued before he and Omega-Xis had found her.
Aaron knelt down and offered a white cloth to Triese, "It's all done. WAZA's sensors aren't detecting any traces of a rogue FM-ian, and those sensors are world class!" he chuckled, briefly, "You're safe now, I promise."
Geo fell back onto his hands behind him, sighing deeply as he finally felt the anxiety of the lingering battle leave him. He looked over at Triese and gave her a reassuring thumbs up. It was over!! And thankfully, no one had gotten hurt.
-
Dr. Goodall’s reassurance worked well on Triese, if only because it began to shift the blame away from her. “R-really…?” she mumbled, going quiet as Mr. Boreal handed her the cloth. She tried to clean off her face, before she gave up and instead blew her nose in the cloth. “U-umm… thank you…”
“Ah, see, Lady Triese? You’re already feeling better,” Lurerre chimed in, trying her best to sound supportive. “You’re getting stronger by the day. All of that, and you don’t even… er, appear… sick.”
Triese’s lips twitched as she failed to read between the lines of what Lurerre was saying. Then, she took a few deep breaths, before slowly propping herself back up. “U-um… I know I said sorry already,” she mumbled to Mr. Boreal. “But I want to apologize… again. I’ve kind of been… nothing but trouble today, huh…?” She gave Geo a precocious glance. “And I’m sorry that you had to see that,” she said. “I-I promise, I’m way better than that! I just wasn’t… ready…”
She narrowed her eyes, frowning as more of the details in her fuzzy mind filled themselves in. “Wasn’t there a Mega Man…?” she wondered to herself. “Where is he?”
-
"What!? You haven't been any trouble at all!" Geo blurted out as he sprang forward, "Triese, I had a really good time today showing you around and hanging out! I'm just glad you're ok after all of that."
It was night and day really. Siren Splash was ruthless, singularly focused, and cruel. And Triese was everything that wasn't. She didn't deserves this.
Omega-Xis appeared with a groaning bellow, "Are you two done having your pity party?"
"Mega..." Geo chastised strongly with just a sharp glare.
"I'm serious! What use is it to mope around and feel sorry for yourself?" he huffed, folding his arms against his chest, "So you got taken over by an FM-ian, happens all the time! That's just the thing with humans, you all've got this little hole of loneliness in you that FM-ians nestle themselves into all nice and neatly, there's no use feeling sad about it, it's just human!"
He and Geo shared a look and then he palmed his partner's head and ruffled his hair, making it full of static and even more spiky than it already was. Geo batted Omega-Xis away, chuckling.
"So just listen to your partner Lurerre there, alright? She sounds like she knows what she's talking about," Omega-Xis concluded with a prodding point towards Triese's PET.
-
Triese took Omega-Xis' response so sincerely, it was almost painful. In fact, it was so blunt that it made her giggle a little - she could totally imagine Lan getting super mad at the insinuation that she was pitying herself. Just thinking about her friends... brought her a little closer to reality. Away from the nightmare she'd drowsily stumbled through. "R-really...?" she mumbled. "That's... that's kinda scary, but if you say so, then... yeah!"
Despite being given a vote of confidence, Lurerre was a bit skeptical of the idea that being controlled by some sort of evil Wizard was a normal occurrence. She didn't have of an opportunity to ask, though, as her operator's bubbliness finally began to return. If Triese was happy, then she had nothing to be frustrated about... probably.
"Um! Well! Okay! I think I'm okay now!" Triese decreed, bouncing a little in place before wiping her face off. "I still feel a little weird... and a little scared... but I'm gonna be brave, okay?! Especially 'cuz I trust you when you say I wasn't any trouble...!"
She gave her PET a bright smile. "Um! If my PET is fixed, though, then I should probably be heading home soon, right?" she began, her eyes darting back and forth shiftily. The longer she stayed here, the more the guilt would creep up her back... especially because she still couldn't really remember how she returned here in the first place. Nervously, she put one arm to her shoulder. "I-I don't want to stay in a place like this for much longer if, um... you know..."
-
"You'll be able to leave in just a second, let me do a final scan and you should then be good to go. Do you have a ride back, Triese dear?" Dr. Goodall asked, leaning over to peer at the group.
"I'll be taking her back, Dr. Goodall!" Geo offered, raising his hand like he was in class.
"Ah, very good, well then," Dr. Goodall looked over her shoulder at a pair of snooping WAZA officials who upon being spotted by their senior, suddenly remembered the work they needed to do and hurriedly left everyone in the Main Computer room alone. Dr. Goodall smirked to herself and then walked over to Triese and the others, "Will you need any help getting her back to when she's supposed to be?"
Geo sputtered, "W-Wait! How did you...?"
Dr. Goodall smiled warmly, "The data on her PET gave it away. Though it wasn't hard to suspect something was going on the moment you two walked in -- there's always something like this going on with you, Geo."
Geo chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head and then turned to Triese, "This isn't the first time something like this has happened. A while back I went to the past and met Lan Hikari, don't know if you know of them."
"More time travel...?" Aaron groaned, rubbing his hair under his hat, "The less I think about causality breaking, the better."
"I wouldn't worry about it, Aaron. Stranger things have happened," Omega-Xis huffed.
"Like you?" Geo quipped.
"Yeah like me," his partner agreed and then guffawed heartily.
-
Triese blinked heavily when Dr. Goodall called her out; she was so startled and exhausted that she was completely unable to hold her poker face. "U-uh- um- uh- that's- that's not..." she stammered, looking like a deer in headlights despite Dr. Goodall's good nature. Of course her PET would've given it away! It's not like going through a portal updated the time on it, or anything like that!! How did she not realize the obvious flaw in her plan sooner, after all she'd done to evade detection?!
She clasped her hands together, her eyes immediately shining with desperation. "I-I didn't do it on purpose! It was an accident! P-please don't report me to the time police!!" she begged, before fully processing what Geo said and spinning on her heel to face him. "Huh? Wait, what?"
"...Lady Triese," Lurerre began, after a long sigh. "I believe the existence of 'time police' has been more than disproven by now..."
Triese curled her lip, then shook her head. Don't know if you know of them, huh. There was no way Geo had met the Lan she knew... otherwise, she would've said something. "W-well, better safe than sorry! But! Also!" she responded, turning to Mr. Boreal and folding her hands politely. "Um, I don't think my future has anything to do with this? So it should be fine, I think! It's, um, a long story, so just, uh, trust me on this one!"
"...Stranger things have happened, indeed," Lurerre mumbled to herself, as Triese spun around and waited for the final scans. Finally, the tension was leaving the room. There were some haunted bags under Triese's eyes... but she was doing her best to get things back to normal. Lurerre lowered her head softly, relieved that Triese was still able to handle these stressful situations so well.
-
Aaron deflated, "I know it's probably fine, but as a scientist who uses physics daily, it's always going to worry me every time I hear that time got broken."
"You humans worry too much!" Omega-Xis groused, waving a claw dismissively, "Deal with the problem when it becomes a problem!"
Geo gave Aaron a very "he's got a point you know" sort of look and nod, but that only made the man deflate further with a concerned sigh.
"Aaron, this is what science is all about!" Dr. Goodall proclaimed, "Learning from mistakes so we can get ever closer to describing the true nature of the universe!"
This didn't do much to lighten his mood and instead he turned to Geo and asked, "So, how are you going to send Triese back home?"
"Oh! Um," Geo pulled out his Hunter-VG and the chatroom app, "There's this application that connects a bunch of different dimensions together across time and space and it lets us communicate and travel between them. There's even one that's from 24XX!"
"Geo," Aaron raised a hand, "Anymore and I think I'm gonna pass out."
There was a pregnant pause that then burst into chuckles. Everyone but Aaron seemed unbothered by all this.
Dr. Goodall glanced at the monitor briefly, nodded, and then turned back to the group, "Final scans are done and everything's come back clean. You're free to disconnect your PET now, Triese."
"Ah," Geo popped up brightly with realization, "I guess that means you'll be heading back home soon then. I hope we'll be able to hang out again some time!"
"Yeah!!" Omega-Xis roared, "Bring some friends and we'll all play baseball! We'll cream all of you!"
-
Triese was bewildered at Geo's complete willingness to give up the existence of the chatroom to anyone who didn't already have access. "U-um...! Isn't it... supposed to be...?" she mumbled under her breath, totally drowned out by Omega-Xis. She didn't even want to tell her dad about it - he only found out because Ellen... um, stayed too long. "Well... um... I guess you guys are keeping a bunch of secrets already, so I guess it's not a big deal..."
As soon as Dr. Goodall gave the okay, she jacked Lurerre out of the main computer and immediately began to scroll through her PET to assess the damages. Nothing seemed out of place... no files lost or settings changed... Well, there obviously weren't any more bugs on her home page, but that was to be expected. Anyone other than her would think to get rid of them...
(...All of this, and she hadn't made a lick of progress. Now that she was exposed, she had half a mind to ask the scientists from the future for help on her problems... but she'd caused them enough trouble. And, she was really, really tired. She couldn't help but admonish herself anyways, though. It was because of her failure that she ended up here... and got caught up in something totally unrelated.)
Before Lurerre could say anything, Triese stood up straight and bowed for Dr. Goodall and Mr. Boreal. "Um! Thank you, so much, for helping! I really appreciate it!!" she pleaded, trying her best to sound endlessly polite and professional. Slowly, she turned to Geo, managing a slightly weak but still bright smile. "And... thank you for hosting me, too... Even if things were, um, messy."
"It's all in the past, Lady Triese," Lurerre couldn't help but insist. "If anything, we should value that we've made yet another connection... and are more prepared for potential, erm, nonsense, in the future."
Triese curled her lip. "Yeah... yeah. Keeping my guard up," she mumbled to herself sadly, before shaking her head and refocusing herself. "Um, but, yeah! I should get home, before my dad starts worrying. Since I haven't had my PET and all..." She clapped, facing Omega-Xis with enthusiasm. "But, yeah, I bet we could totally hang out again! And I could bring friends, just to make sure something like this doesn't happen again."
...She wasn't sure if any of her friends would get along with Geo, actually, because Geo reminded her of Reg and Lan didn't really like Reg... but that was a problem for another day. Geo was still really cool...! She was no good at baseball, but... oh, maybe Ellen would get along with him... Ellen would play baseball, right... that was probably a plan, right... right...
No, she was way too tired to think about this right now. "I can, uh, leave with you whenever, Geo," Triese sheepishly suggested. "You're a really nice person... I think. Um! That's not weird to say, is it...?"
(It didn't really matter. She could already imagine Lurerre's reassurance... and she had to be endlessly thankful for the fact that nothing bad had happened to her.
It was her fault. Would she have been able to forgive herself if she'd done something terrible to her Navi...? All for the sake of figuring out what these stupid bugs did...? Why did that sound familiar...?
Should she stop...? She wouldn't forgive herself, if something like that happened. It couldn't be worth hurting Navis, or whatever she'd done when the FM-ian was in her head, just for some kind of weird amateur science. But what was she going to do to help Lan, then...?
...She swallowed to herself quietly. She really had no idea what the future could look like... and that was a little scary.)
-
"Triese, my dear, it was wonderful to meet you!" Dr. Goodall cheered brightly, "You take care of yourself and your Navi, okay? And if you run into any more trouble with Noise feel free to drop by any time and we'll take a look."
"There's a maintenance room off to the side here that you can use to. Time travel," Aaron suggested with a notable pause.
"I think that'll work!" Geo chirped, nodding and smiling to Triese, "Let's get you home!"
They shuffled off into a room to the side, spacious enough for at least the two of them along with the bundles of wires and racks of equipment that lined the walls. Aaron lingered at the entrance, peering in warily.
"Curious about their time travel, Aaron?" Dr. Goodall teased good-naturedly.
He jumped and scrambled away, apologizing shortly afterwards.
Geo chuckled, turned back to Triese, and had her show him how to open a portal through his chatroom app. Shortly after, a portal opened with an obscuring swirl of light preventing anyone from seeing the other side. He emphasized that Triese should message him when she got home safely, just in case something went wrong.
Everyone said their final goodbyes and Triese stepped through the portal. It closed behind her, disappearing in an instant and leaving nothing left. For a quiet couple of seconds they all waited for something to break, but it soon became apparent that things actually turned out alright. The whole room let out a collective sigh of relief once the anxiety passed.
"Good morning everyone," a slow, drowsy voice came from one of Aaron's pockets, "What did I miss?"
Aaron groaned in resignation, "A lot, Ursa. You missed a lot."
That got a chuckle out of everyone, then Omega-Xis leaned down to ask, "Well? Do you still want to stay out of chatroom shenanigans, Geo?"
Geo pondered this, then met his partner's gaze and concluded, "I think there's a lot we're going to have to learn if we want to help anyone in there, but I think it'd be good to do so. To help the past and our future too."
"Now we're talking!!" Omega-Xis roared and pulled Geo into a side hug, "The interdimensional time fugitives are on the case!!"
Geo immediately protested, claiming loudly that they were not in fact 'fugitives' by any sense of the word while the rest of WAZA listened curiously to the pair of heroes making a ruckus. One thing was clear from all of this -- that this was just the beginning of many strange things to come.
