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Arc F1.8 | Chapter 26: If Only We Never Had to Move

In a perfect world, Olivier would be able to pull Porsq close and never move. They would be safe where they were—safe to sit and breathe each other in, Olivier whispering a thousand times into the little boy’s skin that he was sorry, he hadn’t wanted to leave him behind, he’d just been trying to keep him safe. Porsq, to the preteen’s credit—or perhaps due to his ability to dip into Olivier’s brain and taste his sincerity—had never doubted his words—had seemed to already know that, in no world, would Olivier have left him behind if he’d thought there a better option.Levi had agreed when Olivier asked if the war-simulator function that had been advising him along the way had been designed by Emilia or Halen—both had contributed to it, apparently.

Gëon had asked. This had resulted in the man summarizing how he’d already met Emilia, if only for about a minute.

Essentially, Emilia had been chasing him after Olivier had first been kidnapped. Eventually, she’d come out at a bakery that Gëon funded, the backroom used as one of his bases of operation, which Emilia got into. When she disabled the trap around the door, Gëon had gone to investigate.

the crime lord—Olivier thought it a good idea to continue reminding himself of that fact, given the man was some mixture of terrifying and charismatic—had added, his eyes shifting towards Levi as though hoping the boy would reveal more information about his friend and where she could have learned to pop traps created by core-abilities—presumably, anyways—so easily.

Interestingly, Olivier was almost positive Levi had lied when he simply said that Emilia was good with skills and functions—the sort of once in a generation spark of inspiration and passion that set the world on fire. The boy—who Olivier now knew to be one of the heirs to the Baxter branch of The Black Knot, a message coming through from the boy formally introducing himself, as he didn’t want Gëon to fully know his connections, along with yet another request that they just use first names going forward—had bounced off into a description of both the skill Emilia had splattered Olivier and Xavier with, as well as her on-the-fly creation of a

Olivier wasn’t convinced the boy wasn’t simply babbling in order to cover up… not Levi’s own lying about thinking Emilia had gotten through Gëon’s trap through her ability with skills and functions alone; instead, it felt like he was concerned either Porsq or Olivier himself might give away the lie?

Porsq, dozing quietly in Olivier’s lap at the time, likely hadn’t even heard the conversation, but if he were a low-dev—which Olivier suspected he was—it was possible he was the minds of those around him, asleep or not. Thus, it was possible his abilities were giving something away—according to another message from Levi, he suspected that Gëon had a form of Dyadism that included Excess Empathy Levels.

Emilia’s childhood friend had noted in the relay, telling him about all the training they’d done with another of their classmates, who was an EEC Dyad.

It was curious, then, that Olivier had still come to suspect the Baxter boy was lying—then again, that was part of what made their family such good lawyers: they were almost like human lie detectors. There had been a few times over the generations of their firm’s existence where someone had suggested the de la Rue family had a genetic inclination towards that allowed them to easily feel lies. As a non-dev, Olivier’s Empathy Levels were Perfect—obviously—but there were other people in his family with perfectly mediocre Empathy Levels who were still excellent lie detectors. Now, combined with the information that Emilia’s class had literally sat in front of an EEC Dyad and learned how to get away with lying to her…

It could be nothing, but Olivier thought that, despite passing mentions that their Empathy Levels were the cause of their superior lie detection abilities, that wasn’t it; instead, something else—something they’d never been able to properly discern—lived within the de la Rue genetic code, giving many of them an innate ability to taste a lie when it rolled off someone’s tongue, when it rippled through their body.

Regardless, Olivier thought Gëon dubious of Levi’s claims that her hacking skills alone were how Emilia had gotten through his defences. Still, the man had continued on with his story, seemingly unperturbed by Levi’s lie or his ability to lie so well—the stalking function had finally loaded up on Olivier’s Censor by this time, so he could see the perfect stability of aspect of the boy’s vitals as he spouted compete and total shit to a man who, based on the rest of Gëon’s story, could quite literally turn people—including corrupt Drinarna officers—into piles of mush.

Rudely, Levi forwarded him photos, provided by Emilia after she fled. Apparently, the room she’d ended up in had been offaether, and her apparent had been the cause of the damage to Levi’s clothing—Valor Hyrat, the softest of the triplets, in Olivier’s opinion, had fallen off the aetherstream at her sudden death, taking several of them with him.

Gëon had finished, just as Olivier was finally deciding that they needed to move—they had to get to Xavier, the only thing keeping him sitting the reality that Emilia was already trying to get to him and that his mind was so wobbly he likely wouldn’t have been able to move far until he rested a bit.

According to the messages coming through from Vtraní—and Olivier had felt his heart seize when he realized they were both okay and now allied with their group—another of Fräthk’s people were also trying to intercept Xavier and the women who had taken him as well. It seemed unlikely that this person—Sireth—would be able to get to him before another of Fräthk’s reached them for a handover, but she would try, and Vtraní had already messaged the woman, letting her know to expect Emilia to potentially beat her there.

There was just… so much going on—so many little details to catch up on, functions to learn how to use, people to worry about. Olivier didn’t want to deal with any of it, but he had to— had to, and there was that, at least. Here he was, with a handful of people far more skilled than he was—and while Olivier still maintained it was insane that Emilia’s class had gone through combat classes, he was now thinking at least combat lessons should be part of the normal Baalphorian curriculum.

Now, as they began to move, Levi happily laughing about Emilia’s sticky fingers—and thankfully, Gëon didn’t seem too concerned with his stolen property—Olivier found himself examining each of the people he had found himself travelling with.

Zavriel… Olivier wasn’t quite sure what to think about. While he knew little about the man, other than that he had been sent by Prince Meridian at Emilia’s request, due to his potential ability to act as a medic—something he was mostly succeeding in, in regards to at least Olivier. The fact that Emilia apparently had the Crisharian prince’s contact information… somehow, that tracked.

As for her Baalphorian classmates—former classmates—both Levi and Mikhail moved through the world as though they hadn’t a single care in the world. Even their vitals were calm, and really, they might as well have been wandering down a sandy beach, enjoying a peaceful vacation for how relaxed they were as they walked through an area that could break into a firefight at any moment, their posture remaining the stereotypical lazy gait of the Penns. They looked like tourists—entitled tourists without a care in the world, no thoughts bobbing around inside their heads despite the fact that Olivier could see them conversing in the relays and both were clearly intelligent, if also a little… distractible.

In comparison, from the way Gëon walked, it was clear he was powerful, each step confident. Yet, a small amount of wariness lingered within his movements—the result of several of Fräthk’s more dangerous people being out and about, looking for Porsq.

Hwris was one of the most dangerous, due to both his irregular deviation and his Expansion Levels, which based on what Gëon knew were Perfect, and although there were rumours they were Excess, such things were considered myth.

There was also a lavender code out and about—one who wouldn't hesitate to code, if necessary.

Porsq noted, now awake and yawning, their hand happily linked with Olivier’s as he glared at the xphern Mikhail had tucked back into his waistband.

If Olivier asked, would the man give it to him, so he could message Emilia directly? Both Mikhail and Halen had let her know he’d been found, but Olivier wanted to tell her himself—wanted to tell her he was okay and would hopefully see her soon, wanted to tell her not to die, wanted to tell her to give Xavier a huge kiss for him because while she might not be confident she’d reach the child via her strange route under the city, Olivier knew she would.

He had no idea he knew it, but he did, a vision of Emilia flashing through his mind. There she was, cradling Xavier in her arms, smiling down at him like he was the most precious thing in the world; then, she was glancing up, smiling at Olivier and—

The other child—the one who seemed to be Gëon’s companion—glanced back at him, their huge eyes peering up at him from under their hood. They blinked long lashes at him, their eyes seeming to shift from a brown-blue into something closer to green, before they looked back in front of them.

Somehow… Olivier thought the child was likely better equipped for this situation than he himself was. In a fight, the child would know what to do—would be brutal, something about them a dark hole of death and destruction and intention. It wasn’t bad, just sad.

In no world should a child be forced to be so heartless—and it wasn’t like Olivier thought the kid a black knot, either. There was something about them that seemed so… harshly loving? Before seeing the love the triplets—and now Byron and Levi—layered over Emilia—as well as a few other people, in Levi’s case—Olivier might have thought the child exhibiting the Considering what had happened with Zachariah Lumos, it was clear that sort of love could exist, but Olivier had come to think of a black knot’s love as something impossibly sweet and kind, and yes, also overwhelming.

Olivier still didn’t think the kid a black knot; instead, they were simply something traumatized and sad and grasping on to an affection for Gëon that was… sweet. They also seemed to like Porsq and Levi, who smiled down at both kids whenever he talked to either of them—mostly answering questions about Emilia, the children seemingly obsessed with the silverstrain.

To his mortification, Olivier found himself thinking that, not only could he not blame them for being interested in her, but that they also had good taste for wanting to hear about her, something that earned him an interested glance from Porsq, a strange look from the other child, and an amused snort from Gëon.

“You okay?” Mikhail asked, glancing back at him. Against his hip, Zavriel’s xphern continued going off. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

Olivier knew that important information was being shared through their group relay as well, the xphern used to make sure Emilia and their few friends in Dion and Seer’ik’tine, as well as Prince Meridian, were getting the same information. If anything was said by Emilia, Olivier knew—knew it to the core of his soul—that Halen would message it to him directly, probably in the three-way relay his Censor had decided to set up for himself, Halen, and Emilia. Within it, Halen was asking a few follow-up questions about the behaviour of his Censor and functions when he’d been subjected to Porsq’s abilities—and like Levi, he had also confirmed that the war-simulation function was a rare collaboration of himself and Emilia.

As Levi had been distracted from the question—not something uncommon, according to Halen—Olivier had never actually learned their collaboration was odd. Of course, he knew from Lan’za that Emilia and Halen’s relationship was a strange thing, a dozen examples of their lingering within his mind. Still, given Halen had only found out about his because Emilia had shared her stalking-enabled version of [[Blissful Silence]] with him, it seemed odd to Olivier that the two of them apparently just… didn’t collaborate, and yet, as Halen explained bits and pieces of his and Emilia’s compulsory-school years relationships to him, Olivier realized everyone was lying.

Emilia and Halen collaborated a lot, it was just that every collaboration had a thousand caveats attached to them—a thousand mutterings of and and and and

Oddly, Olivier wasn’t even sure, as Halen summarized fifteen years of them working together and yet not, that the boy realized how closely he had Emilia had worked over that time. The inability to see the truth, even when laid out so obviously, was always a fascinating thing, Olivier asking more and more follow-up questions, curious as to whether Halen would ever see the truth—if Emilia, once she was able to access the relay, would be able to see it any better.