Ragnarok

Chapter 32 - Upgrades

Rei seemed to come back to herself, and shook her head from side to side, as if negating everything around her. She gave Micah a small smile, as if to reassure him, then quickly moved out from between him and Smith. Micah looked askance at his other version, but Smith's expression gave nothing away as he shrugged. Smith seemed as baffled by Rei's actions as Micah was.

Rei went over to Mia, and the two exchanged a few words. Most of Mia's attention was clearly still on her translation work, and Micah noted that she was still looking at the ideographs around the arena structure. He wondered if the icons told a story, or if they were simply a list of monsters the allosaurs had fought at various times in their arena. Maybe the name of their greatest champion was spelled out in some alien tongue, surrounded by the many kills he had made. He noticed some odd symbols next to some of the depictions; perhaps that was how many their champion had slain within the arena.

Micah felt a bit like a third wheel, and Rei confirmed that feeling when she walked back over to him. "Master, it's going to be several hours before we start the landing approach, and the Overminds have asked all non-essential personnel to exit the simulation. I'll be recording any observations of interest; perhaps by the time we land, we'll have a working translation of the more ambiguous hieroglyphs."

"Yeah, I was getting kinda bored anyway," Micah replied, though in truth he had no desire whatsoever to leave the Sephirot. This was one of the most momentous occasions in mankind's history, their first landing upon an alien exoplanet, and he was being shuffled off to clear RAM space. He walked over to Mia, and the two briefly said their goodbyes to each other, their lips touching in a virtual kiss.

"Alright, I guess I'll head back to Valhalla, then," Micah said to Rei, still feeling a bit awkward around Smith and his expressionless face. "If the assault on Asgard was any indication, we won't be able to rely upon our free upgrades. Get ahold of Tony and Gunnar, see if they'd like to join in. Maybe we can run one of their new elite dungeons, pick up some new gear."

"Have fun, Master," Rei replied with a smile, giving her head a sharp nod. As her chin dipped towards her breasts and then back up, the Sephirot faded around him, and with a rainbow-tinted flash of light, he was standing upon a snowy hill covered in icy permafrost.

He grunted with the sudden chill, but Thorin was made of sterner stuff. He faced into the biting northern wind, breathing deep of the cold, clear air, and smiled. He was up in the mountains, where nights could sometimes last for months during the dead of winter, and above him was the spectacular light show of the Aurora Borealis. Looking up at the shifting curtains of green light had a calming effect on him, helping distract him from worrying over what was going on with Rei.

She had been acting a bit oddly lately, ever since he'd run her off on Valentine's Day. He'd asked her about it afterwards, and she had just smiled mysteriously and said she'd been doing some independent study on the mythology behind Mars' Olympus Mons. But as near as he could tell, it was just some Martian holy site, like Tibet had been before the 20th century, and it was constantly obscured by chaotic electromagnetic storms. There seemed little point to it, but Rei never slept, so he supposed she needed a hobby to keep herself occupied.

There was a crash of thunder as a bolt of lightning shot down next to him, and in the blink of an eye, his fellow warriors had joined him. Gosta and Lilith were there, as were Tyrion and Tempest. To his surprise, Hiro and Kitara were with them as well, the Chinese-Japanese hybrid hiding his expression beneath the shadows cast by his kabuto. He nodded to Thorin silently, then turned his own face into the polar wind, breathing deeply.

"Astronauts needed the RAM space, huh?" Tyrion said with a smirk, giving his shoulder a firm punch. "Don't fret about it too much, you're still gonna be getting closer to that planet than any of the rest of us are. We'll be lucky to get the guided tour once Ragnarok's passed through the other side of the System."