The Core: The Dark Enemy

52. The Merge

Calis, Refelen, and Belioc blinked, their motes freezing in sudden confusion.

Refelen spoke first, the mouth of the body she was in finally clicking shut from its wide broadcasting state.

"What just happened?"

"I..." Calis began as his motes swept back and forth through the surroundings, absorbing every detail around them almost instantly.

They were currently inhabiting bodies made from tiny mechanical devices. The original hosts were inactive, their awareness suppressed beneath the Fruits' presence, and the three of them stood within a tiny offshoot branch at the furthest reaches of the Tree.

He remembered coming here. He remembered having a reason to come here, practically a directive from their Father to do something important. But that something would not come to his mind.

Where there should have been something, there was absolutely nothing.

In the distance, Lisx hovered silently beyond the house, her dark presence watching them all without interference.

Calis immediately turned toward his siblings.

"Dump your thoughts. Now."

The command carried enough force that the three Fruits complied instantly, opening portions of their active memory structures to him without argument.

Confusion flooded through the exchange as everyone surveyed what they held on record.

There was only disorientation, fragments of actions, emotions tied to nothing, and intent... lots of intent.

But nowhere within any of it did there exist a reason for why they were here.

None of them understood.

That realization disturbed Calis far more than he allowed himself to outwardly show.

An old female native nearby calmly began placing large printed image books back into a container, her intentions carrying her toward another room where her mate was located.

Calis immediately felt Belioc focus on her existence.

The playful Fruit had already begun preparing a localized loop.

"Stop."

The command cracked through the room sharply enough that Belioc instantly halted his process. Instead, Calis simply froze the woman in place, delaying her movement through time by a fraction.

Only then did he fully turn his attention toward the surrounding damage.

And felt anger spike hot through his motes.

Belioc had damaged the branch!

Reality throughout the structure was scarred with traces of deconstruction and forced reconstruction. Portions of matter still flickered uncertainly between stable states where his sibling's power had been carelessly applied. Walls, furniture, air currents, even sections of dimensional alignment had all been disrupted by reckless misuse. The female's mate was also displaying tears in his reality, damning tears.

Refelen was no better.

The local causality structures around her position looked stretched thin from repeated manipulation and forced influence.

And Calis himself...

His own power still saturated portions of the home and door where reality had been rigidly overridden to obey his will.

The three of them had broken cardinal restrictions governing direct interference within a growing branch of the Tree.

Worse, they had done so openly without containment and seemingly without authorization.