Wave's Allure
-
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?"
-
Geo sat back and watched as Triese opened up, glancing at the grated floor and back up, taking some time to gather his thoughts.
"I think..." he leaned forward hugging his knees in close, "I think you deserve to have friends and be able to hangout with people, even if you don't have every one of your problems solved," he clutched his knees closer, muttering into them, "Especially if you feel like you don't have your life together..."
"Sheesh..." Omega-Xis grumbled quietly, sensing the rising tension, "You're so young and you're already worried about that? Let me tell ya, folks that have been around for a while like me feel like that all the time. We're basically making it all up as we go."
Geo huffed, but smiled wryly, "Mega, I don't think that's as comforting as you think."
"What!?" Omega-Xis croaked, "I'm just saying that everyone feels like that!"
"Oh, okay," Geo chuckled, loosening up, "You know, I used to think that I didn't deserve good things happening to me until I did something that made me worthy. What that something was, I could never figure out, so I ended up doing nothing, until this guy showed up," he flung his thumb at Omega-Xis, "and cared about me for no reason."
"For no reason??" Omega-Xis guffawed, faking offense, "We're friends cause we're the same and you know that!" and then grappled Geo into a headlock and noogie.
Geo let out a full body laugh, and waved his partner off, "My point being," he quickly settled down, "I wanna be friends with you cause I want to be friends with you, simple as that," he finished extremely matter-of-factually.
-
Triese curled her lip as Geo responded to her, her eyes shimmering a little with emotion. "Ahaha... um, yeah, I guess it sounds kinda obvious when you put it that way, doesn't it?" she couldn't help but awkwardly respond at first, scrunching her hands in her lap. "I guess I've just been feeling a little overwhelmed, lately..."
...Well, it was hard not to be. It had been a few weeks since they'd returned from Netopia, but it was obvious that the specter of all that nonsense was still looming over everyone. Even though she'd gotten exactly what she wanted, she couldn't help but feel inadequate about herself, just because the scope of the tragedy they'd run into felt like it would swallow her whole if she poked at it too hard.
But to Omega-Xis' credit, his advice was a little better than Geo might have expected. "Geez, you sound like my dad," Triese couldn't help but giggle. Geo's offer of friendship earned him a particularly warm smile, and she leaned forward ever so slightly. "M-man... it feels really nice that people can just say that to me. We've barely even met each other, but..." She paused, holding her head toward the sky again, before she snapped right back to smiling at Geo. "I-I mean, of course I'll be friends with you! I love making friends!"
There was one obvious question on her mind, though, and perhaps the fact that she craned her neck toward Omega-Xis would warn Geo what it might be. "Though, um! That reminds me," she began. "You just showed up? I dunno if I get what you mean." She waved her hands pre-emptively. "W-well, I mean, it's obvious why you two are friends! But not every Navi... or, whatever else... just shows up..."
-
And with that, Geo's little world got that tiny bit bigger. These days he really enjoyed meeting new people and learning more about them. Even though his social battery was struggling to keep up, Triese's cheery demeanor kept things lively.
And then she asked, how Geo and Omega-Xis met.
"Uh! Well!!" Geo hesitated, back straightening out swiftly and glancing over at his partner with big, worried eyes.
"He means this is where I was activated," Omega-Xis lied smoothly, much to Geo's relief.
Triese did not need to know about aliens, Wave Changing, or Mega Man. Even though he figured she'd probably get very excited about it, considering her general enthusiasm for pretty much everything here, he was really not feeling up to explaining all that right now. If he was being honest with himself, what he really wanted was to get up and move around.
"How about I go get some snacks before the sun goes down so we can just chill when it hits night?" he asked as he pulled himself up onto his feet, "There's a place close by where I can pick up sandwiches and fried chicken. Stay right there, I'll be right back."
He waved bye to Triese and quickly trotted down the stairs.
"Geo, you're just gonna leave her up there? Some host," Omega-Xis snarked.
"Mega, she'll be fine. Vista Point is nice and quiet, especially at this time of day," Geo dismissed nonchalantly, "I really just needed to step back and recharge though."
"Alright!" Omega-Xis shrugged, "It's on you if 'Lady Triese' gets bored out of her gourd then!"
-
Despite how smoothly Omega-Xis' lie came out, it was pretty evident from Triese's expression that she didn't entirely buy it. In fact, his clarification, if anything, made the lie more obvious. If Omega-Xis was "activated", then why'd you ever accidentally act like he just manifested from nowhere? Well... maybe it wasn't that weird. Maybe she was just overthinking it. It was hard not to try and read into everything someone was saying when you were friends with someone like Lan...
"Weeellll...." Triese began, curling her lip as she eyed Geo suspiciously. But... it'd be pretty rude to question a new friend like that, wouldn't it? Geo wasn't as outwardly... prickly, as Lan was, but did anyone really like being poked and prodded? Lurerre did get on her case for intruding on peoples' privacy a little. "Okay! I guess I haven't really eaten anything all day, huh? Th-thanks!!"
She waved right back at Geo as he scuttled down the stairs, though she couldn't help but feel a little... sad, as he disappeared out of view. Well, the sunset was always kind of an emotional time of day. But now she was alone, with just her bag with her. Now would be the time when she'd talk to Lurerre... but she wasn't here. Of course she wasn't. The only reason she wasn't here right now is because she broke her PET - probably because she was messing around with things she didn't fully understand. Stupid.
Was Geo hiding something from her? Was that why he walked away, and made that weird face at her? It wasn't like she really minded it if he was, but it only made her feel more useless than she already was. All she'd done was cause problems today. Sure, she made a new friend, but... Couldn't she make friends without them having to swoop in and save her? That was what happened with Lan, too. No, no- that was irrational. That was stupid.
Sighing, she leaned back, fishing her Visualizer out of her bag. She slid on the glasses to view the Wave Roads again, if only to soak it all in before she had to go back to her own world. It really was like watching a diorama come to life, wasn't it? A super-lively Internet, except it was floating up above her head. She could only imagine what it was like to stand up there. Float? Most of the beings up there seemed to float. Weren't those Hertzes? She'd seen those before in the chatroom, hadn't she? They were kinda cute, weren't they...
...Stupid.
-
"My, my!" a mysterious voice echoed around Triese from seemingly everywhere, "What a poor little thing!"
With a blue flash that made a sound like a water droplet, a strange creature appeared before Triese. It looked like an imp of sorts with a long fish tail sitting in a shell all made of a shifting ethereal matter. She floated up to the young girl, leaning over with her head propped up on her hands as Triese stared up into the Wave Road above.
"You're a charming little doll aren't ya?" she giggled sickeningly sweetly, "So excited over the most boring of things!"
To Triese's obvious confusion, the mysterious creature spun and pose, holding a little limb to her mouth, "I'd be careful, doll! No one else can hear me right now so let's keep things hush hush, shall we? I bet your little head's swarming with a~all sorts of questions, so let me tackle the most obvious ones first."
"Today is your lucky day~!" she bounced and spun, scattering ethereal wisps all about, "You get to meet me! Siren! I've been watching you for a bit as I was drawn in by the sad, lonely song in your heart," she wiped a non-existent tear, "And I just knew I had to help. For you see, I am a very special Wizard with a particular power. A power than can help you achieve all your dreams~"
Siren's words came out in a rapid fire rhythm, plowing right over any and all things Triese was trying to interject with. But now, Siren had settled down, leaning her head on her little limbs, peering over Triese like she was the most interesting specimen in the menagerie. Emanating from the strange Wizard was a quiet, yet lovely sound that Triese could feel more than she could hear, and all the while Siren peered onward with playful eyes.
-
Well. Triese sure was blankly staring at this mysterious being for an uncomfortably long amount of time. With how fast she was talking, she couldn't help but find herself stunned for a few seconds, stuck unable to think about anything other than the weird tingling feeling on her skin. Wizard? Huh? Wasn't that the kind of... future-programmy thing that Pat and M had...? What was a 'Wizard' doing talking to her like this...?
"Wh-what...?" she couldn't help but mumble as soon as 'Siren' was done talking. She took one step back, reflexively holding one of her arms in front of her chest. "H-hold on... I don't understand. L-lonely song?" She couldn't help but narrow her eyes suspiciously. "...Power...?"
Something about this seemed really off. Was she getting offered power like the start of some TV show? W-well, she did always want something like that- but- no, no, that's stupid! Why was Siren talking to her like that?! Why was this happening so suddenly - and right when Geo left, too?! ...What was that weird hum that she could hear...?
But didn't she have to take this seriously? What if this was normal here, and by questioning it she'd expose herself as a time traveler? Why did Lurerre have to not be here at a time like this...?! "Okay! Wait! So! You've been watching me?! What does that entail?!" she couldn't help but pry. "Wh-what could you even know about my dreams, or whatever? I-I don't want to be suspicious, but, uh, coming in out of nowhere like this is kind of a little suspicious, isn't it?" She paused, a little bit of fear flickering in her eyes as her gaze darted to the side. "Wh-what do you mean, no one else can hear you...?"
-
Siren let out a spirited laugh and clapped her little hands, "I knew there's a reason why I liked you! You're so smart!! Always thinking, aren't you?"
She hummed as she floated around Triese, leaning about to inspect her closely, "I know these things because I've been following you since you hopped on that train leaving Echo Ridge, but I also know these things because we resonate. You can tell, can't you? It's something that can't be expressed with words."
That sound, deep and calming, was more apparent in that moment and all the while, Siren's eyes glittered.
"Power..." she sang, voice dripping with hunger like sickeningly sweet honey, "Is just what allows us to do whatever we want, doll. To break past the things that limit us. You want to see the Wave Roads up close, don't you?"
She unfurled her hand, reaching out with her tiny palm face up, "What do you say, Triese? Don't you want to see all the things the world has to offer?"
Something like music filled the air, whisper quiet but building, slowly. The tempo quickening. And a bass that rumbled deep in the chest.
-
Triese's heart couldn't help but flutter the more Siren talked to her. She couldn't tell if it was just nervousness, or there really was some truth to that resonating thing. If she focused, then... she could feel Siren from where she was standing, couldn't she? She hadn't felt anything like that when she was in Reg's world... Not even when her own Navi manifested in front of her.
For a moment, Triese felt like she had a cork stuck in her throat. "I-I...?" she eventually blubbered, her face flushing out. "I-I don't want anything... I-I mean, I don't really understand what you mean..."
Up close? Was Siren just going to lift her up there? Those kinds of waves... weren't even solid to begin with, were they? The Mettaceans just passed right through her, after all... so what was Siren even talking about? Unless... what she was offering... was... something... like...
No, no, what? No. That was ridiculous. It would be kind of suspicious if someone was randomly offering something like that, though, right? Silver wasn't anything like Siren. "I'm, uh, I think I need to... know more, I think," she began to incoherently babble. She truly had no idea how normal what was happening to her was, and she had a creeping suspicion in the back of her mind, driven by memories of conversations she couldn't fully remember. "I don't... I don't really need power... To be honest, it kind of scares me," she admitted, continuing to keep her distance as her face went red - though she refused to take her eyes off of Siren.
