Wave's Allure
-
"Ha! I knew it!" Omega-Xis burst aloud as Geo scrambled to cover up his Hunter's speaker.
"What we mean to say is," he projected as an attempt to cover for his partner, then settled back down with, "We are too, so um, chances are we already know each other! And uh, as for your device I... Have a hunch about it, but maybe we should talk about this someplace not out in the open..."
He quickly scanned the area. Not a lot of people were out walking this time of day, but standing in the middle of the park was making him feel a little exposed so...
"How about by the river?" he asked, pointing over his shoulder to the embankment behind Big Wave, "It should be quiet enough there," he shot out his hand and blinked as he suddenly remembered his manners, "I'm Geo, by the way! AdAstra in the chatroom."
"And I'm Omega-Xis!!" the aforementioned alien roared as he appeared in a pixelated flash beside Geo.
"Gah! Mega!" Geo squeaked and admonished his partner with a hiss, "Don't scare her...!"
"What're you talking about Geo? All I see in front of me is a very brave girl, isn't that right?" he tilted his head smugly and gave the girl before them a reassuring nod.
-
Triese tried her hardest not to yelp and draw even more attention to herself when Omega-Xis appeared in front of her so suddenly. Her awkward stare lasted for entirely too long before she composed herself by rubbing her hands on her cheeks. Well! Well. He didn't even remotely resemble a fairy like the way Silver did, but she had to assume it was something similar...? Right...?
Fortunately, Geo's clarification helped Triese to orient herself quite a bit. "Oh! Oh! Okay! Phew! I was really worried that I was gonna say something I shouldn't, but I think I've seen you around!" she responded, her normal energy slowly returning to her. "I'm the water droplet! AquaNeedleLover! I'm in the chatroom a lot!" With a sigh of relief, she did a little twirl, shying away a little from Omega-Xis' strange... compliment. "Okay, yeah, let's get somewhere quiet so we can, like, actually talk about things!"
Despite being the stranger here, she was first to skip right over to the river, kneeling down and laying her PET on the grass as she waited for Geo to follow. "My PET opened a bunch of portals by itself," she explained. "It's never done that before, so I think something went really wrong with it...? A-and, uh, I don't even know where this is, so that makes this a lot worse?" She scrunched her lips. "I could tell you things about where I'm from, but I dunno if that'd even help if we haven't talked much!"
-
The water droplet... That made sense given her outfit and demeanor when she wasn't worried over being thrown into an unfamiliar world.
"Ah, so that is a PET," Geo noted, taking a seat next to it and her.
Omega-Xis leaned over and hummed pensively at the glowing red display, "Yep, that's definitely Crimson. Boy are you lucky you ran into us! We know a thing or two about this stuff."
Geo sighed. How did a PET accumulate so much noise? The how wasn't that important, not right now.
"Crimson is something that crystalizes when Noise gets way too high in something, it's really dangerous if you don't know how to deal with it. We'll have to bring this over to the Noise experts at WAZA, they've got the specific equipment and know-how to fix this," he scowled in thought, if only he still had the Noise Control Program, then he could probably do something about this right here and now, "Hold on I'll see if I can get in contact with one of them..."
He shot Dr. Goodall a message and went back to staring at the PET, completely engrossed in its retro design and pondered how it was all put together. They were probably going to have to take it apart a little to be able to hook it up to the Crimson analyzing equipment, so it was probably a good idea to figure out what kind of PET this was. Maybe it was because he wasn't as much of an expert on old tech as he thought he was, but this PET looked just a bit different from what he was familiar with. Regardless, he continued to stare at it and break it down in his head as if this was the only thing around for miles.
-
Triese gave Omega-Xis the most unbelievably lost look imaginable, her hands nearly scooping the PET back up out of fear that acknowledging the issue would somehow make things worse. "I-I, uh," she sheepishly admitted, tilting her head at Geo. "I don't know what Noise... is? Or Crimson... or WAZA..."
With another sigh, she shook herself like a dog drying themselves off, then pumped both of her fists. "Okay! We need to get some things straight, don't we? Did I even introduce myself? Oh, man, I'm so sorry, I'm so gonna get lectured later!" she blabbed out, talking about as fast as a tornado spun. "I'm Triese Abysa! I think I might be from the past or something like that, 'cuz I don't really know what you're talking about, and I've only ever seen someone kind of sort of like Omega-Xis once before!" He was definitely a lot scarier than Silver, that was for sure... but that was kind of cool in its own way, wasn't it?!
She stared at the sky, a sparkle in her eyes shining a little. "I'm, uh, I'm from 20XX, if that matters, but don't tell anyone, 'cuz I don't want to get in trouble," she continued. "But I've been to a different 24XX planet thingy before, 'cuz I've got friends there! And I've been to other worlds, too, and stuff, so you don't need to worry about me getting, like, time sickness or something. I just don't really know what you guys are talking about."
-
"Hey Geo, you gonna explain anything, or are you gonna just leave the girl hanging?" Omega-Xis huffed, waving a hand in front of his face.
Geo blinked and remembered himself, "Oh! So you really wouldn't know anything about this would you!" he reeled, "I guess first off, welcome to 22XX!
"And sorry I didn't explain earlier, but basically Noise is something that all electronics make, but it gets to be a problem the more advanced the electronic. I guess that's why I'm a bit confused as to why your PET of all things is having issues with it, but I'm sure Dr. Goodall at WAZA will know something. Uh, WAZA's this agency in charge of space travel and defense that dealt with a big Noise incident a couple years back, so they're kinda the world expert on these things..." he rattled off quickly, "I think that's everything...?"
"Now hold on! What did you mean by 24XX!?" Omega-Xis griped fervently.
"It's true, I think, Mega," Geo commented, "I remember seeing someone in the chatroom mentioning being from that year."
"That's unreal..." he grumbled, folding his arms across his chest.
-
Triese listened intently and pumped her fists as Geo finally willed himself to explain everything. "All electronics...?" she wondered. "W-well... it doesn't seem like this is normal for a PET, yeah! I kinda wonder if it exists where I'm from, if it's every electronic device, but since I haven't heard of it..." She curled her lip. "Oh! Okay, it's the space agency! I get it, now!"
She bounced in place and grinned at Omega-Xis' expression of disbelief. Unrelatedly, she couldn't help but wonder about the Mega nickname... She guessed that his name did shorten to that, huh?! What a weird coincidence. "It's true! My friend Reg's from there! It's a little sad there, but I think it's sad in most places, just in different ways," she said, before a lightbulb went off in her head, and she began to dig in her purse. (She was lucky it was also scooped up by the portal...) "Actually, I've kinda got time-contraband already... These glasses thingies! I think they're called a Visualizer? I had to use them to see these viruses that were-"
She stopped herself when she held the glasses just a little too close to her face, spotting something weird in the corner of their lenses. Narrowing her eyes, she held the Visualizer closer to her face, and realized what she saw was a road literally floating in the sky. Her train of thought entirely derailed, she stood at the sky for a moment, mesmerized by there suddenly being a floating maze above her head. "W-woah," she mumbled. "What. What. What?"
-
"V-Visualizer??" Geo sputtered incredulously, taken aback for a solid couple of seconds.
He almost didn't believe her until it was clear she was seeing something with it. Was this just... what happens when people get access to an interdimensional program?? People from 200 years in the past getting technology so rare in his time that he hardly ever even heard of someone else using it? It left a queasy feeling in his stomach.
Omega-Xis, however, was getting a kick out of Triese's enthusiasm. He shifted his wavelength and came into her view with a cheeky peace sign, ensuring he appeared as a mysterious ghost invisible to her peripheral vision.
"Yo," he chuffed smugly, "This your first time seeing a Wave Road?"
-
When Triese noticed Omega-Xis' body cutting off out of the corner of her eye, she repeatedly lifted the Visualizer to make sure she wasn't losing her mind. "Y-you... wow, you really are just like Silver," she couldn't help but mumble to herself. She gazed back at the Wave Roads one more time, her eyes shining with glee. "A-and... yeah, it is! I haven't even heard of them- where did these even come from...?!"
She bounced in place, a thousand ideas running through her head. "They're kind of like Cyberworld roads, aren't they? But in the sky," she thought to herself. "I wonder why the future I went to doesn't have these? But I guess every future planet isn't really the same as the other, right?" She continued nodding along to herself, stopping briefly to gaze at a random Mr. Hertz; she had seen a picture of one at some point, hadn't she?! "The world I'm from, the Net's all messed up, so I think we've all got super-different planet future histories!"
Her enthusiasm drained when she lingered on her PET for a little too long, though. "B-but! Um! We should get a move on! My Navi's still in there, I think, so I'm really worried!" she realized. "I hope that it's just a problem with the PET and that she's not in trouble because I've been standing around blabbing like an idiot-"
"-f-f----n-e, L-a--y--- T---s--e," a distorted voice came from her PET. "-ayi-- aw--a--y--- Cri----"
-
"What's Silver...?" Omega-Xis grumbled mostly to himself as Triese bounced along to wherever her whims were taking her.
Everything else that Triese was describing greatly unnerved Geo. Something about the future not having Wave Roads? And her own Net being messed up? Although, if he recalled correctly, there was also someone in the chatroom who had mentioned that their whole world was under the influence of some dark apocalyptic force, so maybe that program just brought together hurt and broken worlds...
He was shaken from his thoughts as the strange cracking sound scratched at his eardrums.
"Let's talk about this on our way to WAZA, ok?" Geo suggested, beckoning her over to the wicket on the other side of the river, "It sounds like your Navi is still working. So that's good at least."
Working was a generous way of putting it, Geo knew, but it was actually kind of impressive that the PET was holding up so well to the Noise. Crimson, however, was weird and stable and also a ticking time bomb, and memories of how volatile the stuff could be quickly came to mind. Thankfully a train for WAZA would be arriving soon, but for Geo, it would not arrive fast enough to calm his building nerves.
Omega-Xis picked up on this and deftly intervened with a conversational topic of his own, "Triese! Why don't you tell us all about these strange 'planets' you've visited. Me and Geo here haven't done much traveling around any futures or whatever, so clue us in on things! How're things going out there in the extended chatroomiverse!"
-
Triese was quick to follow Geo across the river, though she was sticking awfully close to him now that they were a little more exposed. She smiled brightly at Omega-Xis' question, but felt it was probably best to keep her voice down for now... They'd never know what kind of people could be eavesdropping at any moment!
"Yeah! Yeah! Sure! I mean, I'm gonna keep it on the down-low, since," she began, pausing as her eyes shifted around. "I don't wanna get caught. But, uh, don't worry, I'm thinking of cover stories already!" She had already posed herself as a kind of amateur historian at the gala, which would probably work just fine here, too, given she was about to present a PET to someone from the future... It helped that there was a bit of truth to the cover story, too. She did like history! It's just that, also... On these alien planets, the stuff she liked... was the history... or something like that... (Was she history...?)
"It's a little hard to describe what goes on in the chatroom, but I've been to a couple places! I think my friend's been to a lot more than me, buuuuuut," Triese began, tapping her chin as she ran through the past few months' events in her head. "I've been to a 24XX place a couple of times! They've got holograms and viruses that make weird ground to live on and stuff! I also went to a beach party once, in a world where we had to wear this metal stuff so we wouldn't become evil or something like that? I didn't really understand it! And there's a couple other worlds that are sort of like mine, but a little further ahead, 'cuz they didn't have an Internet breakdown like we did..." She curled her lip. "Now that I think about it, I haven't been to that many places! I should explore around a little more... Y'know, as long as the time police aren't real and aren't going to get me..."
-
The train arrived promptly and Geo quickly spotted a pair of seats far enough away from anyone else. Omega-Xis, seeing as his job of conversation starter was successful, went back into the Hunter for now.
It was hard to imagine at first, but now that there was a real actual person in front of him from the chatroom, it really cemented the whole thing. This wasn't just some text on a screen, these were real people from real worlds.
But from what it sounded like, all these other worlds seemed as variable and different as the people that came from them. Maybe he should visit some one of these days, explore a bit himself!
"Time police aren't real, or at least, I haven't encountered any," Geo mused.
"I feel like if there were any we'd have heard of them by now," Omega-Xis griped from the Hunter, "Considering..."
Geo peered down at him, taking a moment to remember Clockman and all that, then gave him a nod as it all came back to him. He wondered if that Lan would show up in the chatroom at some point...
"You know, if the time police aren't real," Geo pondered, tilting his head, "There's probably nothing stopping us from sharing technology and information across time and space. That must be how you got your visualizer right?"
"What're you thinking, Geo? You wanna give her spoilers for what happens?" Omega-Xis asked.
"Well, I mean..." he hummed, thinking a bit, "If it can help someone, then sure, why not?"
-
Triese took a moment to stare in wonder at how the bus seemingly glided through thin air with the help of some holographic tracks - it really was the definition of futuristic, wasn't it?! But! She had to act like this was normal! She was in the future again! She was definitely from here and knew everything and nothing was going to out her as being a time criminal!!
She couldn't help but lean in a little as Omega-Xis' voice trailed off, but Geo's follow-up question instantly encouraged her into going on a tangent. "Well! Okay! So, like, here's the thing! Here's how I think about it!" she began, keeping her voice down just in case. "So, think of it like a school of fish, right? If a fish breaks off from the school and starts swimming at an angle two degrees differently from everyone else, and it keeps swimming straight forward, eventually it's going to veer way off-course, right? It's like, um, it's like the butterfly thing! If all our worlds are different, then that means our futures are probably even more different! So it doesn't matter if we share time travel info stuff, because we're not even going to have that future!"
Pausing briefly, she fiddled with her Visualizer again. "Um, with that being said, 'tho..." she muttered. "I don't really know a lot about my friend's future? They had to do this thing called the Net Reset, and I don't remember why, so they don't really have Navis anymore. There's holograms... and the viruses are in the real world... and, uh." Her lip twitched. "Well, there's some other stuff, but I dunno how much that has to do with it being the future! That's more just the other worlds having all this cool tech stuff, like, um." She tapped her chin as she recalled Ellen's infodump at the beach party. "Like that Cross Fusion stuff, and I think there was something like it called a EM-Wave-something."
-
"Butterfly thing...?" Omega-Xis piqued with a grumble.
"Probably the 'Butterfly effect'," Geo clarified, "It's the idea that something small can cause massive effects down the road, like a butterfly's flap causing a typhoon overseas."
"Well that's stupid," he griped.
"What's way more concerning is this future you keep talking about... That doesn't sound good, I wonder what caused all that," Geo hummed, holding his chin.
"You thinking you could do something to stop that? Won't that cause a paradox?" Omega-Xis pressed.
"Not necessarily," Geo shook his head, "Since we're obviously dealing with the many worlds hypothesis, which I guess isn't really a hypothesis anymore, anything we do isn't going to effect their future, but we can learn how they arrived at that future and avoid anything that causes that. It'll probably be pretty hard, I'm just one kid, but there's gotta be something I can at least do, right?"
Omega-Xis huffed and chuckled in the Hunter, "We'll have to track one of them down, pretty sure that lightning bolt kid in the chatroom is one of those future kids."
"Maybe, but we can do that later," Geo shifted in his seat to better face Triese, "What's Cross Fusion?"
As the train hovered across the ground on a growing and shrinking rail made of light, it passed through futuristic suburbs and then into forests, heading towards a mountain range in the distance. The trees were too dense to really get a good view of it all, but once they broke through the forest, the view opened up showing far off cities of towering buildings shining in the daylight.
-
Triese was indignant at the idea that a very smart and reasonable conclusion for why all the worlds were so weird could be dismissed so easily, but at least Geo was showing the right amount of sympathy. "Oh! Yeah! The lightning bolt person! They're my friend, too!" she enthusiastically admitted. "Well, um, to be honest, I don't really fully understand why things ended up the way they did, but that's just kind of how things are sometimes, right?"
She paused, looking a little sad as she scratched her chin. "Like, with all the bad stuff that happened in my world, I guess. Sometimes it's just random. You can't really stop a... weird bug, or whatever," she speculated. "But you're right! There's always something we can do, to make sure the future's better!" She gave Geo a bright smile, before souring and glancing at her bag, as if to mourn the current state of her PET. "I guess I was trying to do something useful like that earlier, but whatever this Noise stuff is is interrupting it..."
Any disappointment she felt instantly evaporated as soon as their view changed to overlook the mountain range. She really was easy to please... but what was she going to do, not marvel at the spectacle of big futuristic cities?! It was cool the first time, and cooler the second time, and... oh, oh!
Sneaking the Visualizer closer to her face, she spotted the distant mazes of Wave Roads that covered the city. She didn't verbally react, worried that finding this too cool would draw too much attention to her, but her mouth popped open nonetheless... and that enthusiasm immediately carried over once Geo asked her the question of the hour. "Th-this is so cool, wow, wow, it's like a movie or something, but- um, um!" she excitedly rambled as she composed herself. "Wow, I'm surprised that all the future places don't have it! Although I guess it's a secret... I think...? But, um, anyways, it's when an Operator and a Navi can fuse together with this thing called a Synchro Chip!" Her fists were clenched with excitement as she explained. "I-it's not a thing where I'm from, but it's apparently real in other places, and I really want my friend to try it! But she doesn't want to..." She puffed her cheeks, feigning annoyance. "It's weird, right? I mean, if they could do it, who wouldn't want to do a cool transforming thing...?!"
-
"Yeah Geo, who wouldn't?" Omega-Xis ribbed.
Geo made an off-kilter smile, coughed, and quickly regained composure, "That sounds really cool! I can't believe they had such a technology in 20XX, even if it was a different 20XX than the one I'm familiar with. Combining with a Navi, huh?"
He smiled pleasantly, he could easily imagine someone with a bond like Lan and Megaman doing something like that.
"Yeah, normally you'd need an alien," Omega-Xis guffawed.
"Mega...!" Geo hissed, raising his arm up to grimace at him.
Omega-Xis threw back his head in a roaring laugh for way too long before gathering himself for half a second and then said assuredly, "Aliens aren't real, everyone knows that."
Geo let out a sigh, then glanced over at Triese with a light-hearted smile. Surely she could tell that was a joke, right? Even if it was extremely, very much true.
-
Triese gave the Hunter-VG a very confused glance as Omega-Xis tried to backpedal. "Um, but they are, though?" she said, with an almost painful level of sincerity. "I mean, you guys are basically aliens, because you're from another planet, right? And I've met other aliens like that before, so!" Perhaps Geo would feel a rising tension for a fraction of a second, before the rest of Triese's thought proved that she had no idea what she was talking about.
She blinked as the pure and innocent gears continued to turn in her head. "Uh, but that doesn't really make any sense, though, 'cuz what does an alien mean in this case? Because humans can be aliens, and you can't fuse two humans together, right? I mean, I hope you couldn't, that'd be weird," she continued to ramble. "Anyways! It's cool, right? Where I come from's kinda boring, so I always think it's super cool whenever I get to see different technology."
Her eyes shined as she cradled her bag. "W-well, it's not like I hate where I'm from or anything, but it's like..." she clarified. "It's like being able to travel the world and see other cool landmarks and people and stuff! Except instead of 'a' world, it's a bunch of planets, through weird portals and stuff." She scrunched her lip bitterly. "Willingly or unwillingly..."
-
Geo... stared. Blank faced. Mouth slightly agape.
Triese was certainly something! He didn't think that considering a human as an alien would be even remotely feasible! Did she really think everyone from other dimensions was an alien? She did keep calling these other worlds 'planets' so. Maybe...?
Triese was... Odd. Wasn't she?
Omega-Xis grumbled to Geo quietly, "I wonder what she'd call an alien alien? Like little green guys with the big eyes and all that..."
Geo ignored that question for now and instead focused on what Triese was talking about.
"I think it'd be fun to explore a bunch of different worlds. It's my dream to become an astronaut!" Geo smiled (Triese didn't have to know that he basically already was one), "Seeing other planets, learning about the universe, it all helps us understand Earth more! And I just think it's neat! So I definitely get it."
As the train rose to higher elevation, the vegetation became more sparse and the terrain more rocky. The cities that seemed so close before were only noticeable by the wave roads shining above them. Thin and few roads hung over the area they were traveling through with the only solid one leading towards the peak of the mountain range, a place that the train seemed to be headed directly towards.
-
Triese was overjoyed by Geo's admission. "A-an astronaut?! Wow!" she exclaimed gleefully. "That's really cool! You should be proud of having a big dream like that!" She clasped her hands together, her eyes shining as she invaded Geo's personal space a little. "I-if you ever want a tour guide, or something like that, then I can help you! Though, my friend's been to more worlds than I have, but, uh." Pause. "I don't think she'd be a tour guide. Ever."
Now that the train was rising higher, she took a moment to stare out the window again. Was this WAZA place really on top of a mountain or something?! It was almost dizzying to take note of how high up they were - in her world, she probably wouldn't even have service anymore if they were at an elevation like this! (Though it wasn't like she could check, given her PET was unusable...)
She kept staring out the window as she began talking, lightly tapping her fingers on her seat. "I wish that I had something I could really confidently say I wanted to be," she couldn't help but mutter to herself. "I mean, I know what I like, I know what I'd want to do, but I can't really put words to what I want, you know? Because any words I can think of don't really feel... real."
Her hand tensed ever so slightly. "I feel like I want to be a scientist... but I don't know what I'd do to get there. Especially if I can't even help my friend without messing up my PET," she murmured. "All these other people I know, they've already got something they're good at, or something they've gotta protect by fighting for it, you know? But I'm not really a fighter. So, I don't know..."
-
Geo scooched back, deftly dodging Triese's powerful attack and chuckling apprehensively, "A space tour guide...?"
But as her mood began to fall, he grew concerned and carefully thought about his own experiences and what led him here.
"I don't think you have to have everything figured out right now..." he consoled gently, "I think I'm lucky, I have my dad as a role model. He's an astronaut too," oops he said too, moving on, "so growing up, I had him to look up to. Someone to aspire to be..."
He got a quiet, distant look to his eyes suddenly, then gave a quick smile.
"I think that's a way to do it! Find someone who is doing what you want to do and figure out how they did it!" he finished brightly.
"That's all well and good, but what if what she wants is something bigger and crazier than anyone has ever done it!" Omega-Xis boomed, "What she really needs is to keep doing whatever she wants to be doing and keep getting better and better at it until she's the world expert and THEN everyone in the world will come to her for her expertise! Don't just do whatever everyone else is doing!! Forge your own path!!" he gave a roaring cheer.
Geo sheepishly smiled and added, "I think maybe the right answer... is somewhere in the middle? What particular science subject interests you?"
-
It seemed that Triese was a never-ending ramp of energy, considering that she immediately popped back to her excitement when Geo talked about his dad. "W-wait, really?! That's so cool! No, that's really cool, that you can look up to him like that!!" she exclaimed. "W-well, it's not like I can't, with my dad, but I don't want to just copy what he does, either, because that would make me feel kinda bad..."
Omega-Xis' suggestion did throw her off, though Geo made her rebound right back. Somewhere in the middle, for sure. "Umm...! Well... uh, lately, I've been trying to figure out bugs... Bug fragments, I mean... if you know what I'm talking about," she explained tentatively. "Actually, I really like studying viruses! We have a whole enclosure on my PC to take care of them! And bugs are important 'cuz viruses like eating them."
She lowered her eyes. "It's not really... just about viruses, right now, though," she said. "My friend's been having problems with these bugs, lately, and I just want to help get some answers for her. But studying bugs is kind of like... trying to study a black hole. It's like, where do you even start?" Precociously, she blinked at Geo. "Maybe this is cheating, but you wouldn't happen to know if there's any more research on bugs in a future-place like this, would you...?"
