Wave's Allure
-
"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...?"
-
Geo nodded along with Triese's bug talk, mostly getting what she was talking about and confident that all the stuff he wasn't sure on, they were going to the right place to find out more about it. But the mention of black holes made him spring into action.
"Well! We know about black holes because of everything around black holes! We can see their effect on matter and light around them!" he explained eagerly, "So by studying their gravitational effect on other nearby masses, we can learn a lot about them! Ah-" he stopped himself before he went off on a tangent, "So basically what I'm getting at is, a lot of science is observing something you see going on in nature, or in your case, viruses on a computer, and just writing it down. I guess for bugs and viruses it would be... Watching them and seeing where they show up the most? Something like that."
He wasn't positive about that. He was much more of a hardware kind of guy rather than any sort of software expert.
"If there's anyone who knows anything about viruses and bugs they're gonna be at WAZA," he assured, "I don't know of any specific research projects going on about that but... I guess we'll find out when we get there."
The train made it's way into the mountain and through a well lit tunnel, arriving at a station a ways in. The few people getting in and out of the train were all uniformed, but regarded the very informal looking Geo with slight nods and waves. He returned all these gestured and beckoned Triese to follow him out of the gate and into the large open mountain top of Mt. Belanus. And the massive building along it's crater.
"This is Satella Police HQ and WAZA's up there on the top," Geo pointed out with a smile.
-
Triese's expression brightened when Geo went on his diatribe - honestly, it was kind of a helpful way to look at things, wasn't it? "You know what...? You're so right!" she responded gleefully. "I was trying to do things to the bugs, but I guess I need to be looking at all the patterns and stuff instead, right?! I wonder what we could do on that front... I mean, it's a little scary, since I'd probably need to look into the Undernet and stuff and I'm kinda scared of that place, but..."
Her speculation was interrupted by the train finally arriving at its destination. The building was just as impressive as she could've expected from a place with the prestige to be built on top of a mountain!! Though, it did make Triese a little nervous noticing that she and Geo were basically the only people in normal clothes getting off at this spot, and the mention of the Satella Police HQ only worsened that feeling. She knew she wasn't actually in trouble with anyone, but... still...
"Well... I wanna be careful, 'cuz I don't want to make promises I can't keep," she said as she scurried to Geo's side. "But if anyone can help, then I should take the offer, right? Just as long as it doesn't cause anything bad to happen." She paused, gazing at the Satella Police HQ wistfully for a moment, before shaking her head. "A-ah, but that doesn't really matter! Once we get inside, there's gotta be somewhere I can jack my Navi into, right? Since she's still stuck in my PET..." She frowned. "Oh, man, I really hope I didn't lose any data... man."
-
Geo paused as he tried to think of all the equipment Dr. Goodall would have on hand, coming up blank.
"Geo, I bet Aaron's got something. That guy's a tech fanatic," Omega-Xis advised, reading Geo's concern on his face.
"You think so? He's here today isn't he, right?" Geo hummed, resuming his walk over to the massive entrance.
He placed his thumb on a pad next to the door and after a light passed over it, the entrance opened wide to reveal the lobby for the Satella Police HQ. Holographic air displays showed maps and recent news, 'spoilers' for Triese if she was at all curious. Two large stairs led upwards and surrounded a front desk.
A Wizard popped up as Geo approached and directed them towards the right, citing that Dr. Goodall was assisting with WAZA operations today. Once up the stairs, a couple of tough looking officers recognized Geo and greeted him on his way over to the elevator. A couple of officer Wizards stood guard around the elevator and regarded the two teens mildly.
Finally feeling like he'd gotten a chance to breath, Geo sighed and then gave Triese a pleasant smile, "This place is always so lively. WAZA's main room of operations is way up on the 57th floor so the elevator always takes a while to get here."
He wondered for a moment if there was a faster way of travel, much like Wave Changing. It was a crazy idea so he decided to shelve it for now.
"If it turns out the Noise has done some damage to your data, I'm sure Dr. Goodall and Mr. Boreal will be able to do something. I've seen them do some pretty miraculous things," he reassured, then pursed his lips, "Although, it probably won't be fast... And they'll probably need to take your PET from you and they'll have to..." he trailed off as he imagined Dr. Goodall and Mr. Boreal looming over this strange piece of otherworldly ancient technology, "It'll be fine!"
-
Little would Geo know, Triese could hardly consider news from the future 'spoilers' when she didn't even believe that anything here was going to exist in her world to begin with. The scanner Geo used was a lot more intriguing to her, though as soon as they were inside the building, she got a little skittish again. Lots of unfamiliar eyes treating them as if they were supposed to be here, including more of those visible-ish real world sort-of-Navis like Omega-Xis. She kept herself composed as they stepped into the elevator, relaxing her shoulders once they were free of any more watchful eyes.
For a moment, she was stunned by the mention of a 57th floor, and could only wonder what would possibly be on the other 55 floors they weren't going to see. "I-I almost feel out of place here, ahaha, um," she began to mumble. "For reasons other than the obvious. It's all so... official!" She tapped her fingers together. "I don't really do this kind of 'official' stuff, so it's surprising to me..."
But she nodded along with Geo's explanation, seemingly willing to accept literally anything. "Um, well, either way, I'm not that worried," she admitted, though her tone wasn't the most confident. "I'm already here, anyways, so whatever we have to do, I'll, uh, deal with it." She suddenly broke into another smile, twirling on her heel as she shot Geo a thumbs-up. "You can just introduce me as a weirdo who's into modding old technology! I mean, I'm basically a weirdo already, so...!"
-
It surprised Geo how normal this all felt. After all, he was just helping a stranger when you looked past all the dimensional stuff. It helped that she seemed really adaptable to weird and new things happening to her.
"Bah! Don't worry about it Triese!!" Omega-Xis scoffed as he appeared next to both of them in the elevator, "You're among weirdos! This whole building is full of them! Top to bottom and filled to the gills!"
"Yeah and the weirdest of them all glows green and quotes old detective shows," Geo gave his partner a teasing side eye.
"Hey!! They have great writing!! Don't diss the classics just cause they're ancient!!" he shot back, "Just wait til we corner a guy and then walk away cooly like nothing's wrong, and then slowly turn back to face the baddy and go, 'oh just one more thing' and see the guy sweat."
Geo stifled a laugh, "There'd have to be a 'baddy' like that first, Mega."
"Ack-!" Omega-Xis croaked, "I guess it'd be kinda wild for us to come across something exactly like that..."
They arrived at the top floor, exiting out into a large dark room with many monitors and uniformed adults. Their garb was a lot more business than tactical like the ones on the ground floor, but even then, everyone greeted Geo warmly with familiarity.
He led Triese to the back through a large gate into a massive room with a computer that filled the majority of the space. At its keyboard was a couple of uniformed officers, a short older woman, and a large man in a third type of uniform not yet encountered by Triese.
"Oh Geo!" the large man greeted with a wave.
"Mr. Boreal! And Dr. Goodall! Hey!" Geo waved back.
The old woman turned around and smiled brightly upon seeing the visitors, "Geo!! And Meggers! How lovely to see you! And I see you've brought a friend!"
Geo stepped aside and let Triese come forward, "Yep! This is Triese! The girl I messaged you about."
"Oh wonderful! It's so good to meet you. I'm Dr. Goodall, an old friend of Geo's," she reached out and offered her hand to shake, "Now Geo has told me you were having some problems with Noise, could you go ahead and fill me in about what's going on?"
-
Triese wasn't sure how to react to Omega-Xis' response, though she couldn't help but giggle at the banter with his... Operator...? Did they still use that term in the future? Or maybe they didn't use that term in this timeline to begin with? See, that's what Triese really saw in detective shows, the moment the lightbulb appeared above the guy's head and the big plot slowly began to unravel... Dang, if only she could harness that kind of energy!!
The fifty-seventh floor was about as intimidating as Triese expected a fifty-seventh floor to be, though it was hard not to be wowed by the computers surrounding her from all directions. It was almost like something out of a movie, like a command center where some team of scientists had to stop a meteor from hitting the planet... But more importantly!! There were very esteemed-looking scientists in front of her that she had to properly respond to and not expose herself as a time criminal to!!!
After giving the scientists a little bow and awkwardly accepting the handshake from Dr. Goodall, she composed herself. "It's very nice to meet you, Dr. Goodall!! Um, so!" she began, whipping out her PET and holding it toward her with both hands. "I've been, uh, trying to use this old modded PET lately, but it somehow got a bunch of Noise inside of it! And, uh, I don't really have a good way to look into the problem myself, so..."
Being as nonspecific as possible was the play, here, but there was no avoiding having to acknowledge Lurerre. So, Triese went out on a limb, and hoped that whatever she said didn't sound too ridiculous. "I have an old Navi in there, and she's kinda, uh, trapped, so if there's anything we could transfer her to, then that would be, uh, good," she explained nervously. "Ahaha, this is what I get for messing around with old technology, I guess..."
-
Dr. Goodall hummed as she peered into the PET, making tiny nods as she adjusted her glasses. Mr. Boreal leaned over curiously and went wide eyed as he apparently recognized it.
"An old style Progress PET? That's ancient!" he awed.
"You're familiar Aaron?" Dr. Goodall stepped back, impressed.
"Tom's gotten me interested in old PET designs," he admitted sheepishly, for some reason, "He's real passionate about them," he quickly turned his attention to Triese, "I think we have an IR receiver somewhere in one of these drawers around here so you can... What do they call it? When they activate a Navi, but not with a card...?"
"Jacking in, Mr. Boreal," Geo supplied.
"That can't be right..." Mr. Boreal muttered, "There's no physical jack on this model..."
Dr. Goodall walked over with an IR receiver coiled up in her hands, "You can argue semantics some other time, Aaron. I need your help adapting this tech to the Main Computer. This thing is older than I am if you can believe that!"
After finagling with a back panel and finding a hardly used port off on the side, the IR receiver was finally all hooked up. Mr. Boreal gave a big thumbs up that Dr. Goodall acknowledged with a nod, turning to Triese with the receiver held up proudly.
"Go ahead and 'Jack in' your Navi whenever you're ready," she gave Triese a warm smile, "We'll get a wired connection when we're ready to analyze the Noise, but for now, we should get that poor Navi away from all that first."
-
Triese was caught off-guard by the mention of the Progress PET - it was to be expected, since their world was stuck with a bunch of crappy PET models, but that was not the name she was used to. She was more than happy that her little lie seemed to not be completely outlandish. "Y-yeah, I was really surprised when I got it for so cheap," she continued to explain. "It's been cool to keep it in such good condition!"
It was honestly kind of funny to hear 'jacking in' uttered as if it was some sort of forgotten incantation... Well, she supposed it didn't make all that much sense for them to remember it in the future if a Navi(?) could just appear wherever they wanted. Though, with Mr. Boreal's speculation, this was actually something she could explain! ...Should she? Maybe she would expose herself... But it would be really cool to talk about hardware with a scientist from the future...
"A-actually, I think I heard once that the reason it was called 'jacking in' was because the very first PET models did have physical jacks," she explained as she turned to Mr. Boreal, hoping the 'I think I heard' would do some heavy lifting. "But they just kinda kept saying it as an artifact of the times... Funny, right?! Um, anyways!"
Humoring everyone, she swiped her PET forward as she always did... though it probably looked like some kind of ancient samurai technique by now... that was weird to think about. She stayed quiet, a little worried of embarrassing herself with the phrase she'd come up with... but the signal seemed to have gone through, nonetheless. "Oh, thank goodness," Lurerre's disembodied voice said from nowhere. "Lady Triese, are you there?"
"Y-yeah, I am," Triese responded nervously. It was weird to have Lurerre speak in front of strangers, but there was really no avoiding it. "Um, okay! Now you should be fine to... uh... get the Noise out of the PET. I honestly don't know why it would've been there to begin with..."
-
"No kidding...?" Mr. Boreal wondered, giving his head under his hat a little scratch, evidently imagining how that would all work.
He stepped back as Triese did her thing and an unfamiliar voice echoed through the room. Everyone, save for Geo and Dr. Goodall, were surprised to hear a Navi address someone with such personality.
Dr. Goodall, however, chuckled to herself, "Lady Triese," and turned her attention back to the two young teens, "Well Triese, my dear, sounds like your Navi will be safe and secure in our Main Computer here. We'll be able to get to the bottom of the source of your Noise problem once we analyze your PET, but you'll have to let us borrow it for us to do that, will you be ok without a communication device in the meantime, my dear?"
"Oh! She can hang out with me and use my Hunter while you're working on her PET, Dr. Goodall," Geo piped up, nodding to Triese.
"We should at least contact your parents to let them know how to get in contact with you while we're working on your PET," Mr. Boreal suggested.
"Already taken care of Mr. Boreal!" Geo cheered quickly before Triese could say anything.
"Really?" Mr. Boreal replied, adjusting his hat, "That's impressive, you're really on top of things, Geo!"
Geo sheepishly chuckled and gave Triese a light smile while Omega-Xis circled around and held onto Geo's shoulder tightly.
"And don't worry," Omega-Xis barked brightly, "If anything happens, I'll be right here to take care of things!"
"Yeah, since we've got a bodyguard," Geo giggled as Omega-Xis flexed smugly, "Triese, was there any place you'd like to visit while you're... in town?"
-
Triese was endlessly thankful both for Lurerre's safety and for the fact that Geo was helping cover things up with such expertise. Well... it wasn't like her dad didn't know about the chatroom, now... but it'd be really embarrassing if she had to tell him about this, so... uh...
"Yeah! I should be fine! I mean, I'm the one that's putting up with a super-old PET anyways, so!" she responded, putting her hand to her cheek in an overly cutesy manner. "I'll be patient! I'll wait as long as it takes! That's kind of how it is with old technology, isn't it?" She paused, though, as she realized a slight hitch in their plan. "Oh, but... if you needed a module to get Lurerre into that computer, then she probably couldn't hop into the Hunter, huh..."
Lurerre was admittedly nervous about the proposition, but the path of least resistance was simply to pretend that this was an expected hitch. "I'm sure you'll be fine," she said, though she couldn't quite hide all of the trepidation in her voice. "If you need me for anything, then I'm sure that you can contact Dr. Goodall fairly quickly." The second part of that thought that went unsaid was that, unless there was more of that odd virus territory, there wasn't much Lurerre could do for Triese besides just... talk to her. And she already had someone by her side.
Geo's offer surprised Triese quite a bit, but she was more than happy to acquiesce after she spun on her heel gleefully. "Oh! Really? Could we?" she responded, hesitating to figure out what kind of response wouldn't be so incriminating. "Uh, what's your favorite place to go? 'Cuz I bet that'd probably be the most interesting, right?!"
-
"My favorite place...?" Geo pondered, glancing at Omega-Xis and everyone else in the room, "Well, that's gotta be-"
"-Vista Point!" he cheered, stepping aside to show the view from the platform, "It's even got a small telescope so you can both get a cool view of the city and mountains behind Echo Ridge, and space! You get a great view of the night sky here! And this is where I met Mega!"
Omega-Xis nodded along, but added gruffly, "And that's all important, but there really isn't much to do here, Geo."
"Well, sure there is!" he objected hesitantly, holding a hand to his chin as he thought, "Well, most of the cool things happen at night when the stars and the Wave Roads are really visible at the same time."
"Nah, come on! Let's do something!" Omega-Xis countered, "Baseball! Video Games! Something to do while we're waiting, right Triese!?"
Geo pursed his lips and glanced between his partner and Triese. He turned his gaze to look at Echo Ridge below and the sky above as it slowly shifted to evening, then back to Triese, giving her a small smile as he reached up to adjust his Visualizer.
"I think we've had enough action for the day, what do you think, Triese?" he asked, squatting and then sitting down on the cool metal of the observatory platform, "How are you feeling after all... that?"
-
Triese was a lot more immediately enthusiastic about Vista Point than Omega-Xis might've assumed, but to be fair, Triese kind of got excited about absolutely everything here. She felt really weird about getting back on the train and leaving Lurerre at WAZA, but... well... this kind of made it worth it, didn't it?! "W-wow...!! This is a really good view! I don't think there's anything like this where I'm from!" she excitedly observed, bouncing up and down. "Everything's just flat and cloudy where I am... Uh, it's really boring."
Well, it was kinda nice where she was, and really nice where Iris was... but a lot of ACDC Town hadn't been renovated or repainted at all in the past ten years. Something about it was just weirdly grimy to her. Echo Ridge wasn't like that at all... and that kind of gave her hope for the future, because every depiction of the future she'd seen in movies was just this lame grey mess of skyscrapers! But this was cool! And green!
Admittedly, though, her energy was starting to run out. As soon as Geo sat down, she blinked slowly and let out a sigh. "I... well... I'm a little worn out, yeah!" she said, taking a seat right next to him. "It feels weird to have to lie to like, big-name scientists... but I don't want to cause a time paradox or something, so." She frowned. "I hope Lurerre's okay. She can't really just appear like Omega-Xis can, or have some super-special battle skills, she's just... she's just really important to me."
She couldn't help but stare blankly into the sky as she ruminated. "Ah, uh, I just feel silly," she muttered to herself. "I feel like I'm punching above my weight. Like all this is totally out of my league." She leaned on her fist, pressing her cheek to it. "It's like I'm trying to tell myself that I should've, like, solved all my problems before I could enjoy being here with someone like you... which is stupid, isn't it?"
