Discussions on the elements continued well into dawn, with the new day settling in over the sky outside. With dawn’s departure, businesses were settling down for a midday rest.

Lyun had actually lost track of the passage of the sun there, having a bit of fun trying to teach Axln as she had been. Axln had actually been able to tap into her gift there a bit, she had an instrument that was able to detect such, but she didn’t actually resolve any effect there, no matter how much they tried. Lyun however was starting to suspect that Axln might specifically have an affinity for sand or dust or something, tiny thin stones. The gift was heavily influenced by how people thought, and Axln’s interest in tiny things like nanites was making it seem pretty fitting. Her instruments actually detected tiny measures like that earlier, it was a really good theory at least. However, it was getting late, so maybe they could just worry about such stuff another time. Technically, getting a spark of the gift triggered was the entire goal anyway, so they were doing rather well in that respect.

Such a thought pattern, though, did remind her that the plan originally was to come up with a plan at this point in where to go next. They actually didn’t have any set destination after this. Ezhyrae however couldn’t help them any further, she had her own stuff to attend to, so still with no plan the two girls found themselves back outside once again. Lyun wasn’t inclined to cause Axln extra stress though, she would figure something out. As an act to lend confidence, Lyun simply started off in a direction, as if she knew where to go next. Before she could come to a decision, she found them arriving at a major transit terminal, possibly the last place she might have actually wanted to go. So late in the morning, the place was packed with people trying to go home. However, rather than just back down now, she continued into the terminal. The crowds started to gather around them in high density, Axln doing her best to follow the taller Lyun. Lyun however was rapidly getting uncomfortable, making it even harder to think. They could take transit.. where? Was there anywhere that wasn’t so annoying? At this rate, even the other world was feeling way more comfortable than this.

In the middle of a vast open crowd, hidden under the protective fibres, both ashen hands sparked awake once more. The crowd around them were caught suspended in a state of mild surprise, everything petrified by white ashen all over again, proceeding to then thaw as white ice. The crowd of this holo-filled terminal were as surprised as they were at the sudden white mist of their appearance. Kori knew right away what had happened, and also knew they had to not make a scene about it. Grabbing Rosa, the two of them vanished around the corner and then blended in the crowd, people still uncertain what had even happened. Kori however noticed that they were heading towards the loading bay. There wouldn’t be a choice, to make sure this whole thing didn’t cause problems, Kori would have to pick a destination. The most plausible destination might be the most familiar, she could just head towards her home. After their long dawn, the two of them were sleepy, even despite this then being early for everyone else. At least, at her place, they could get a reasonable nap without much to actually worry about.

The biggest worry she had at that point was with regards to how inconvenient it really was to just swap worlds like that at almost absolute random. That really had not been a good time to switch over, both for where they had left and where they had arrived. If nothing else, they needed to figure out how that whole process seriously worked, so that they could actually avoid messy problems. As it stood, while they had avoided abnormal messes like being questioned for appearing out of nothingness, they had been thrown into the worst of her normal messes. There happened to be a high number of humans going towards the same loading bay as she was, and none of them appeared especially happy to be stuck with a conduit like her. She was at least thankful that this was not rush hour, that would have made everything much worse.

Rosa was quick to notice the problem too, not having been ignorant to the issue. She had even taken an opportunity earlier with Sophie to quickly discuss the hatred of Conduits while picking her outfit. She was also not ignorant of being uncomfortable in a busy transit vehicle. She followed along Kori, a bunch of the process being handled quickly and easily by holo at a small counter. Passing through the gates behind the counter, she found them entering yet another one of those holo elevators, which for some reason had taken them upwards. She quickly discovered the reason for such was the path that ended at the docking bay of an aerospace bus. Flying, of course the city of towers kept thinking vertically. Sure, her world still had a few things in the air too, but underground was considered much more functional.. like the Obsidian Hall. Divesting from that line of thought, she returned to the present as they boarded the bus, Rosa applying her experience to bring them to an isolated back right seat and letting little Kori have the window seat. Yhzia had always done this for her in the past too. Once everyone else was also aboard, the bus finally took off.

The two otherworld travellers just sat in their seats quietly, not wanting to draw any attention. Kori spent the trip staring out the window, her hair trying to drape over her cortex too. Rosa just tried to generally stare at nothing in particular, putting considerable care in not making any eye contact with anyone. Eventually though, people just couldn’t ignore the elephant in the room. One of the human women present made her way to the back, clearly looking irritated. Rosa didn’t like her already. “Yes, can I help you?” “I’m sorry, but there is a no-pet rule here, if you missed the signs. If you must bring your pet with you, at least get her off the seats, she’ll get them all dirty.” “I’m sorry, pet?” “That animal you have sitting beside you, idiot. Hell, you talk like a dimented weasel, you must be an idiot.” “No, that’s just a problem with your ears. I mean, either something crawled up through them, or those creases on your face are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen. My word, could you even get any uglier.” “Oh you bitch.” Rosa found herself dragged to her feet and pinned against the back wall by the annoying human. The woman went in for a blooding punch to the nose, Rosa just tilting her head to the side in the process to leave a fist connecting with the solid holo window. As Rosa was dropped in the woman’s resulting agony, knuckles going red, she just sat down again as if nothing had even happened, turning simply to look out the window along with Kori. The woman in a fury went to simply slap Rosa instead, Rosa easily lifting an arm to intercept the motion.

As the woman’s hand made contact with Rosa's frozen arm, a subtle glint reflected from within. The woman herself screamed with intense pain, her hand going white with frostburn. The flesh itself started to decay off of her body as clumps simply froze in growing layers, splitting more and more fractions of the flesh until the bone of her hand itself was exposed and the white had gone past her elbow. Frozen red flakes fluttered towards the floor as they too turned white. The frostburn continued to the top of the woman’s arm, an icicle of blood wedging into her shoulder to tear the ligaments of her shoulder wide open, her frozen arm falling to the floor. The frost still continued to ever slowly spread through the woman, reaching her neck eventually and snapping it clean off, silencing her. Even despite her death, the frost continued, slicing and spilling skin, flesh, and blood as the cold bones were left bare, her heart and then lungs falling forward to shatter upon the floor. The entire skeleton fell over at that point, itself also shattering into shards that themselves faded into mist, the corpse disappearing. However, that was not the end of it, the frost getting into the floor of their transport in the process, painting the very floor beneath them with a growing white as well.

“Alert, an unfamiliar singularity has been detected erupting from within the vessel.” “Good day everyone, this is Aerospace Command. A problem has been detected within your vessel, so we’re going to have your pilot make an emergency landing in order to investigate. We implore everyone to please remain calm.” Two different voices were broadcasted over the vessel, the second at least seeming to be a person. Unfortunately though, calm was the last thing on everyone’s agenda, panic had overtaken everyone. Panic was not the only thing to quickly rush to overtake everyone, the actual thermal engine having failed due to serious engine freezing, setting everything sharply off balance. Rather than a smooth landing, the entire thing suddenly abruptly cratered into the streets below. The front end of the vessel crumpled on impact, crushing to death anyone who was not in the back. There were only two people in the back for that flight.

The dramatic impact may not have killed them, but it was not as if Kori and Rosa were unharmed, not anything close. The impact had thrown Kori forward, her left arm being absolutely crushed by the vessel on impact, her glasses going missing at the same time. Having taken the aisle seat, Rosa was even less fortunate, her knees having both dislocated and shattered when she fell forward. With the frost gone, the entire thing heated back up into an uncontrolled inferno, threatening to burn them alive. Rosa in her situation could not stand, but Kori was absolutely pinned into the crumpled part of the vessel before her. Kori made a few quick motions before coming to a dreadful realization, there would be no way she could simply pry open this trap over her arm, the material was far too powerful of an alloy for that sort of thing. Even having enough power, there was nothing which could achieve the same process without tearing her own delicate arm apart too. If she was trapped by her arm, she wouldn’t make it. Passing a signal to her nanites, she braced for the immeasurable pain. Forming a quick holo pattern along her arm, the nanites wove the holo straight through it, then turned up the kinetic force. Her arm then tore off in that moment, blood pooling across the floor as bits of flesh collapsed from the open wound, the bone itself showing cleanly in the air. Kori could not endure the magnitude of the pain, and fainted.

Rosa was in shock as she caught on a bit late as to what was even going on. Left with no other recourse but to drag herself by her arms, she pulled herself towards Kori. She still had no idea what she could possibly do in this situation, she was effectively helpless and alone. However, in that moment a small holo prompt appeared before her, a message on screen with some obvious buttons labeled in a language she couldn’t read. By the divine, that didn’t help her at all. She collapsed forwards in frustration, weak from the heat, pain, blood loss, exertion, tiredness… This whole thing was just too much for her.

“Audio response system activated. Rosa, you appear to be in danger along with Kori. You have been authorized instructional privilege to deal with this emergency. What are your commands?” “Huh? What? Oh! Yes, yes, thank you! Kori’s arm is seriously injured and needs whatever you’ve got for healing, at least proper bandages to stop the bleeding and all that. I’m sorry, I don’t actually know how to deal with our health problems.” “Updating conduit and human medical references. Diagnosing appropriate first aid techniques for addressing open wounds. Rosa appears to be also injured, detecting broken legs.” “Yes, I can’t stand up, and this fire is endangering us. The both of us need to be carried to safety.” “Activating two mobile rescue lifts, administering pain relief medication. Please specify a destination for the two wounded.” “Is there anywhere nearby that Kori would frequently visit, a place that would be safe? Hopefully a place where we can find more stuff to help us.” “Kori’s office is nearby and fits most of those parameters. Would that be acceptable?” “Yes, yes, thank you. Oh, and one more thing, we’re going to be in trouble if we’re noticed, please make sure to avoid us being noticed by people.” “Of course. Please be sure to relax, you will be transported with extreme care.” The nanites had come to Rosa’s rescue, letting her speak with them directly. Kori however was unconscious, none of this was her doing. The nanites had actually made their own decision that they would have to depend on Rosa to deal with this situation on Kori’s behalf. They had even learned that she could not read instructions, so had instead switched to verbal communication instead. After all, Kori had trained them very well to adjust to circumstances, to be adaptive to anything that might happen. Rosa let herself relax, but tried to at least remain awake in case she was needed further. Eventually, they passed through a door that opened for them, the lights turning on dimly. The two of them were set down in a soft break room on a couple of lounge chairs, safe at last. With that, Rosa decided that getting a quick nap might do her some good at that point.

Rosa woke up later to complete darkness, the lights turning on slowly and dimly as she awoke. She found Kori nearby, still unconscious but bandaged very well. She herself was also bandaged, though she still could not walk. Some problems might not actually be possible to heal at this point either, Kori might always be without her arm, and Rosa might never be able to walk again. They were, however, still alive. With Kori still out of commission, she turned to her only other available advisor.

“Are you still there?” “Hello Rosa, did you sleep well? Your medical state appears to be stabilized, but you are still receiving pain relief medication in order to address existing pains.” “Thank you. There is much I don’t understand about a lot of things, so I hope you could help me figure things out. Do you think there would be a way we could restore Kori’s arm completely as it used to be? Do you think there might be a way I could walk again?” “Organic restoration would not be possible, but synthetic solutions could achieve most of that goal. If a cybernetic arm is produced for Kori, it could be installed in place of her existing arm and provide much of the same functionality. Running a holo over such could even restore the visual appearance and shape of the original version. Applying cybernetic brackets to your legs could also restore your mobility, allowing your legs to bend properly once again.” “Ah, so like.. a mechanical actuator. And you’re thinking we can actually attach it to a person, to me? My, I like the way you think. Do we have any equipment on hand that could complete this sort of thing?” “Your twin sister’s office was dedicated to engineering projects such as OSIDF construction. Most of the components required for cybernetics are reasonably similar in nature, especially if an OSIDF needs to be installed. If you wish for a holo for each cybernetic part, an OSIDF will be required.” Rosa was surprised to hear such news from the nanites, that her locally established twin did such neat stuff around here. With a bit of coordination and nanite teamwork, she had herself brought over to Fiona’s office, beginning her research right away. She would have to depend on the nanites to know how any of this stuff was made, but she at least had a vision of the sort of product they could simply work towards. She had spent much of her life pursuing novel inventions like this, ones no one had ever found a use for. She could think of two people who could right away love the fruits of her efforts, one even being herself.

Several hours later, Kori woke up as well, still uncertain as to what the situation was. Promptly, the lights slowly turned on while a holo appeared in front of her. It initially gave a comprehensive accident report of the original scene, mostly disclosing the state of the two injured. It dawned on her that such an incident could not explain what might have happened since. The screen went blank for a moment, as if the nanites were questioning how long they could hide the fact. Eventually, she was provided with a history log of overall tasks established during the rescue. Her nanites had opened to Rosa? Wait, where was Rosa anyway? The accident report said her legs were completely broken, she couldn’t have just walked away. Did something else happen to her? What? Rosa had taken authority over the recovery process and was currently invested in the final phases of developing a recovery project. Wait, what was a recovery project? Kori was then provided with the schematics for a couple of cybernetics that were currently in manufacturing and printing. Kori ran to Fiona’s room, finding Rosa sitting in Fiona’s chair, staring at some visual holos in deep consideration. Kori froze, this being exactly like a scene she had frequently walked into in the past. It wasn’t exactly the same though, not even Fiona had ever attempted cybernetics before.

“What are you doing in here?” “What? I’m not allowed to solve problems in your world, I’m only allowed to make them?” “This is Fiona’s room.” “I heard, and I’m sorry for borrowing it. I’m sorry for borrowing your friends too, even though they offered first. Everything is a giant mess suddenly, and somehow I’m the one responsible for all of it. Stupid ashen arm.. well, I guess this one is frozen. Did you see what it did to that girl? It.. I.. tore her apart, piece by agonizing piece. Then I caused us to crash, killing everyone else, costing you your last remaining real arm… Ezhyrae wasn’t joking, this arm is cursed. I would just cut it off if I wasn’t afraid that might then cause even worse problems.” Kori could tell Rosa was very upset, the tears being a big give away. Rosa was then blaming herself for everything, but.. hadn’t she just stood up for Kori when Kori wasn’t even willing to stand up for herself? Kori could even recall planning to insulate their frozen arms in much the same way as they had the ashen variants.. but had instead delayed due to being flustered. Not all of this was Rosa’s fault.. but she was in fact the only one actively doing something about it.

“I’m not blaming you for anything, but you better let me help out. Cybernetic installation is going to be a pretty intensive process. Actually, while you get that worked on, I’m going to request an express delivery. Our clothes are a mess of rips and burns, going to need those either repaired or replaced, and my glasses need to be replaced now too. Meanwhile, we're going to need to have some quality insulated gloves sent to us, something that can work with arms this cold. I’ll probably have a custom print made of gloves that look exactly like the long ones we were already given for this problem. Hopefully they show up in a couple of hours.” Kori ran off to handle her side of the tasks, still not used to working with her left arm. Rosa smiled softly at Kori’s departure, appreciative of all the friendly support. The two of them still made for quite an awkward team, but they were at least getting used to working with each other.

The two of them worked diligently at their own self assigned tasks, determined to reach towards success. However, nothing about this task was simple, it wasn’t about to be accomplished so easily.