Reawakening

"…And that's how I got here."

Sunny explained to Clara his purpose in being in the Robot Settlement. He told her about their need to talk to Svarog, as well the Stellaron that was the source of the Eternal Freeze. The things he described sounded ridiculous when the target of his explanations was a child, but she seemed to grasp the strange concepts he talked about with relative ease.

Once again, Clara displayed a strange maturity and intelligence — one that didn't suit a child her age. Although he wanted to simply dismiss it as a result of her life up until this point, it wouldn't have made much sense. Despite his upbringing, Sunny wasn't even remotely close to her on that front when he was her age. Even now, he admitted that he still retained quite a bit of childishness — hidden behind his cynical and cautious attitude.

Her behavior was an abnormality that stood out to him. It wasn't that Clara wasn't a child whatsoever, as shown by her reaction when Sunny caught her off guard. Instead, she seemed to have a switch that is turned on during certain situations. A self-defense mechanism of sorts.

At least, that was what he deduced from what he has seen of her. Sunny didn't know Clara well enough that he would understand the specifics of how her mind worked.

Once he was done explaining everything, he eyed the Ascended Soul Shards that she clutched to her chest. He didn't bother asking if she was the one who enhanced the automatons or not, since it was quite clear to him.

As a Transcendent, her Aspect was able to do things that were incomparable to an Awakened or Ascended version of her. Based on what he had seen while fighting the large automaton back in the mine, he could deduce at least two of her abilities.

The first of her known Aspect Abilities allowed her to use Soul Shards as fuel to augment automatons. It was arguable whether or not this was simply the manner in which she decided to use her Aspect, or if it was intrinsically linked to machinery. If it was the former, then that meant that there was more versatility when it came to her use of Soul Shards.

This Ability required an excess of preparation, which immediately denoted her Aspect as one that required planning to use. She would need to collect Soul Shards before she could augment anything, and she would need to have robots to enhance — if this Ability applied to other things, then the same rules would apply.

He wondered what the limitations of the Ability was. Previously, the robot contained five Ascended Soul Shards. Was Clara only able to make use of Soul Shards that were equivalent to her Rank or below, or would a Supreme Soul Shard be usable? There didn't seem to be any limit on the amount of Soul Shards… at least, she should be able to use seven to match up to a Titan.

Her second known Ability was that she could repair the structure of the robots. The speed in which this occurred was overwhelming, and meant that fights would be extended unless a decisive attack was able to be inflicted. Dan Heng had been able to shut one down though the use of electricity, which revealed a loophole in their regeneration. They could be defeated through short-circuiting.

Essentially, they would stop working when without a power source, whether it was Soul Shards or electricity.

In general, Sunny was leaning towards the fact that her Aspect was specifically oriented towards robots and the like. The effects seemed too specific to be something that applied to various kinds of objects.

Standing up from his seated position, Sunny could only sigh. He had thought that he would learn about the method of becoming an Ascended or Transcendent without the Nightmare Spell; which he didn't. He also thought that he might have been able to make use of her mysterious background to get a big-shot like her to help him out. In exchange for helping her search for clues about her past, he might be able to call on her to deal with foes that would be inconvenient for him.

'Unfortunately, my luck would go like this: meet a Saint who happened to be a child — one that became a Transcendent without the Nightmare Spell — but she just happened to forget how she became one!'

Sunny weakly smiled at his misfortune.

"If you're done here, do you want to return so we could talk with Svarog? I could tell you some stories along the way."

Even though he lost the corresponding memories to most of his Awakened career, he happened to have been in some tight situations recently, granting him a fine choice of lore he could impart on her.

Clara paused for a moment. She tilted her head.

"What kind of stories?"

Hook. Line. Sinker.

Sunny grinned at her obvious interest. Of course, who wouldn't be interested in the tales that he had to regale?

"Ah, well, there is this especially riveting one. Once upon a time, a princess, a butterfly, and the shadow of a dead god entered an orphanage, completely unaware that it was haunted by the ghost of a fallen queen — one that didn't appreciate the visit…"

***

"…Where did that guy go?"

Seele grumbled under her breath as the group of six… five now, searched through the Robot Settlement for a certain somebody. They had been distracted by a seemingly violent commotion behind a stone outcrop, but there was nothing there. The next second, a short, annoying, stupidly insane idiot decided to go missing.

'What is he doing, fighting an Aeon?'

Seele froze for a second. She was afraid that she may have jinxed it, forever sealing his fate.

…She shrugged.

'Not my problem.'

After a few minutes of searching, she looked over at Bronya. The princess had been asking around with a very… interesting description:

'Have you seen a boy named Sunless? He's around this tall, with gray hair and golden eyes. He looks like a porcelain doll with exquisite androgynous features, so it shouldn't be very difficult to distinguish him from others. He doesn't tend to directly look at people unless he is speaking to them, and has a habit of smiling when uncomfortable. Whenever he eats food that he likes, he starts to ignore outside influences as he focuses solely on savoring it. He doesn't usually speak out his thoughts, but when he does, they tend to be very rude and blunt. Also, he is very susceptible to praise. He has one hundred thousand, seven hundred and seventy seven strands of hair on his head… Too much information? What do you mean, Seele?'

She would have laughed if she hadn't been so annoyed by the situation. One person decided to disappear, while the other thought that it was a good time to catch up on beauty sleep.

[What was that?]

Seele almost tripped over herself. A voice spoke out in her mind, one that sounded like her own, yet also different — both in tone, and a certain other quality she couldn't describe.

After a moment to get her bearings, Seele sighed.

'…I'm too old for this. Why don't you go back to sleep?'

There was a long pause.

[H—huh?! Have I… really been gone for so long? You're an old hag now?!]

Seele hadn't expected for Veliona to take her remark seriously. She knew that her Flaw was a little gullible, but this was kind of a stretch…

She kicked a pebble that protruded from the snow-covered floor.

'No, I'm not a hag. You've only been napping for… half-a-day?'

That was what Seele assumed, at least. She didn't have one of those phones like Sunny and Bronya, so she couldn't whip it out to check the time. Instead, she could only use her intuition to figure it out.

[Yeah, I know. I can read your mind after all. Your memories too.]

…Seele resisted the urge to enter her Soul Sea so she could strangle Veliona.

'Why were you sleeping anyways? You were wrapped in chains and stuff…'

She heard a laugh.

[Oh, that? I was just spending my time acclimating, that's all. I was also having quite the conversation…]

Seele tilted her head.

'Conversation? With who?'

She could practically hear Veliona shrug.

[Just a chat with our sponsor. You know, you could try to be nicer. A bit more ladylike too.]

Seele frowned in annoyance. Why was she being so cryptic?

'What does that even have to do with anything…? Nevermind. Do you know what our Aspect Legacy does?'

[…You just have to enter that state again. It's not something you can do manually, so you just have to wait for it to happen on it's own. Ah, you probably don't remember...]

Seele blinked.

'What state?'

[…Don't worry about it. It has certain conditions before you can enter it. As for the way to unlock everything else… who knows?]

Seele deadpanned.

'Right. I totally understood a whole lot of nothing…'