Guild of The Future

Rainbow didn’t like being watched, yet Nightingale insisted on hovering over her while she did maintenance on the main computer.

“I just don’t see why you became the one to do maintenance on this,” Nightingale—Lillian more accurately, since she wasn’t transformed—complained, “Aren’t feyries like nature’s children or something?”

Rainbow guided her pixies to continue their checks, then turned to face her critic.

“The plural is Fey, not Feyries. The term nature’s children refers to how we are born, usually from trees.”

“Not you though.”

“You’re right! I was born from glass. My parents were researching what substances could actually form a Feyrie child.”

“That feels messed up.”

“It’s normal for Fey. We’re built to learn.”

“‘We’re built to learn,’” Lillian imitated in her ‘princess’ voice, “You still haven’t explained why you’re handling maintenance.”

“Because I’m smart enough, that’s why.”

“Your humility is always appreciated.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes and returned to her job.

“I’m still not convinced,” Lillian said.

“Too bad, Elva trusts me with this.”

“Because you said you could keep all the data intact, which I’m still not convinced of.”

“Which shows how little you know about computers because it’s not that hard, especially when you have a manual for the specific computer.”

“Right here, if you want to see it,” Caliana finally said from her reading.

“How did you get that?”

Rainbow heard something tearing from the alcove she was working in.

“Did you just rip the manual?”

“Just the cover,” they both assured.

“Rainbow said she might want my help building some of the replacement parts,” Caliana answered to Lillian’s previous question.

“Do you even know anything that book talks about?”

“I feel like you’re under the mistaken assumption computers were exclusively a human invention,” Caliana said, “Many races have an equivalent. Demons, Djinn, and Pan are the notable exceptions, probably because long distance communication is almost universal for all of them.”

“Did you learn that in school, or through personal research?” Lillian asked in her unimpressed tone. “That substance is only found on earth by the way. You have to find a distributor or old items you can strip for it.”

“Which substance?” Rainbow asked.

“Xenobotanicum.”

“The strange flower?” Rainbow translated. That seemed right given her understanding of human languages.

“It’s a plant-based substance whose pollen disrupts superhuman abilities. It also had conductive abilities, which put it in a lot of computers from the era.”

“And they don’t do it anymore?”

“It’s restricted, and nobody has succeeded in replicating it without the original plant, which is even more restricted.”

“Do you know a distributor?” Caliana asked.

“Of course. The thing is there are better substances for processing power. It would only need to be used if—”

Something lightly moved beneath their feet.

“If what?” Caliana asked.

“Did you feel that too?” Lillian asked.

“Ye—”

The computer parts around Rainbow sputtered first, a few sparks hitting her face. She felt a jolt as each of her pixies were electrocuted by the wave. She jumped out of the alcove, trying to grab her staff from next to Caliana, even if she knew it would be too late.

“Do you want to distract Caliana for the sake of everyone’s survival?” Cassandra asked the jokesters. She’d already gathered everyone necessary to remove the bomb, but she needed to make sure Caliana wouldn’t keep her from Rainbow.

“Who the fuck are you?” Alter asked.

“She’s someone trustworthy,” Elva said from behind Cassandra. Puerile shoved his chair away from her.

“And Caliana isn’t?” Stéri asked.

“Not right now.”

“You’re coming along, aren’t you?” Puerile asked.

Elva nodded.

“Okay, I’m in,” Alter said, shoving the poker chips they’d been trapping themself in out of the way.

“I’ve already tracked her. Stéri, I’ll need you to…” Elva began explaining the plan as Cassandra ran to the computer room.

Rainbow Riser was born an experiment. Her parents had formed her within a massive marble of glass, fused in multiple colors. This gave her a marbling of skin-tones, most of them unnatural. Her face had splotches of blue, green, and purple. Her hair and eyes held similar colorful properties.

Luckily for Rainbow, Fey don’t generally respond to oddness in appearance with disgust, though she certainly earned a lot of glances over the years. She discovered that with her kaleidoscopic properties came a skill for manipulating light, and the ability to create more pixies (small helpers fey make from pieces of their own souls), seven instead of the usual one, each a different color. With those abilities, Rainbow set to studying medicine, then the effects of different carrying substances for fey, then dangerous creatures she could watch from a distance with the help of her pixies.

When she heard about the potential of a returned Heroes’ Guild with the sanction of the council of seven worlds, she didn’t much care. Most fey were against the idea, so apathy was enough to gain the assignment. She tried her best to be excited about studying other races up close, but was mostly afraid, sharing the old Fey fear of other races after what mages had done to them.

She made herself vital rather quickly after finding pieces of old writing in the feyrie alphabet that formed multiple protective charms, which she was able to reapply and reactivate with the help of Tetra. She became quick friends with Caliana and the subject of a one-sided rivalry with Nightingale.

Rainbow’s eyes seemed to spin as she worked, the colors shifting from one part to another. Her hair was flaring out, creating a ward everyone avoided. If they touched her, they would get zapped with a nasty amount of electricity, a warning Cassandra had to give from first-hand experience.

As long as most of the pixies weren’t touching metal, Rainbow was able to absorb it, so they could keep working, but it was fairly clear that wasn’t going to work for much longer.

Nobody made a sound. Even their breathing was hushed. Rainbow probably couldn’t hear them—static interference and being mostly inside her Pixies’ minds—but they had to do something, and silence was enough of a challenge to satisfy.

“No!”

Rainbow shot back, hitting the wall, but she was already unconscious.

“She’s still alive,” Void said.

“Fuck,” all of Tetra said to a murmur of agreement.

“The pattern was different this time.”

Cassandra had told Rainbow when the pulses hit last time, but the results stayed the same.

“Chaos,” Vara said, “You cannot expect it to be the same each time.”

“Lillian’s almost as smart as Rainbow,” Void said, “And she’d notice the pulses instead of depending on your report.”

“I’ll find her.”

“Good luck.”

Lillian Woe was from an old family of mystics. At the age of ten she was given free access to the family’s stash of spirit talismans to find if any of them suited her. Untouched for centuries laid the Nightingale talisman, made from the original Nightingale due to her bond with the Tarot of her time and his daughter.

Nightingale offered Lillian the power of control. While bonded, Nightingale has the ability to control their whole self beyond natural levels, granting increases in senses, agility, strength, and a resistance to psychic abilities as they have greater control their own mind. This Nightingale still wore the all white costume of the original, modified to have a much shorter skirt, but with the dark skin and braids of Lillian, though still with a slightly redder tint to the hair. While untransformed, Lillian keeps slightly increased senses and faster reflexes.

Lillian spent a year at the Power School in the same grade as Tetra. The two formed an acquaintance that was enough for Lillian to earn an invitation to the Heroes’ Guild much later. Having been regaled by Nightingale about the era when she lived, something in Lillian leaped at the chance to relive some part of it. A much smarter part of her knew it would be a bad idea, luckily her intelligence had always been guided toward something other than discernment.

Between training sessions with Elva and Tetra, Lillian set herself to fixing up the various unused parts of the Heroes’ Guild headquarters, considering the whole place her baby. She even managed to partially reactivate the computer, which mostly caused trouble for anyone else.

When Rainbow appeared to be cleverer, and better at what Lillian had made her job, a rift formed. Lillian found herself doing whatever she could to get under the Feyrie’s skin, a tough job, especially with Caliana to take Rainbow’s side in most things. Lillian found herself alone, with nothing but a bond with Elva over memories that weren’t her own.

Cassandra was a bit transfixed by Lillian—Nightingale’s—transformed visage. Was this why people were warned about seeing a god’s true form? She didn’t seem to be all there, but more there than anyone else in the room. Like Void, she clearly wasn’t mortal in this moment.

“Bugger,” Nightingale muttered, sounding of two voices.

“What’s wrong?”

“This isn’t built for our fingers. It’s like a game of operation on death mode for everyone around us, but we have to worry about our hand touching the tool at the wrong moment.”

“Wasn’t Nightingale telekinetic?” Spark asked, acting like that solved the problem.

“Yes, but we’re not. Her skill passed on, not her powers, and her skills did not include shrinking one’s fingers to avoid cutting the wrong—fu—”

Everything burned.

Cassandra tried, she really tried, but she needed both of them at this point. She couldn’t replace Nightingale’s senses with foreknowledge, and nobody could replace Rainbow’s detail work. If only they didn’t absolutely hate each other.

“There’s a bomb!” she yelled, hoping to scare them into cooperation, “Tetra, Void, and Vara are getting it accessible, but they can’t defuse it.”

“I’ll handle it,” Rainbow answered, flying out of the hole most of the computer was in, her wings a prism of stained glass.

“We need both of you.”

“No you don’t,” Rainbow replied.

“Maybe she just doesn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Lillian said.

“Last I checked you didn’t notice runes while cleaning this place up.”

“And you didn’t know what sarcasm was.”

“Okay,” Cassandra said. Both of them finally looked at her, “Either you two can work together or we can just explode.”

“Aren’t you the stowaway?” Lillian asked.

“Fugitive, probably.” Rainbow assessed.

“I don’t think so, a fugitive would give a story about how they’re the victim, but she just made a bomb threat.”

“It was not a threat, the bomb is here, and you can defuse it together or not at all. Nightingale cannot get inside the bomb without setting it off, and Rainbow cannot sense what is happening fast enough to keep her pixies alive.”

Rainbow’s pixies flew quickly after her and hid in her hair. She offered her hand for all of them to grab.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“It sets off an electromagnetic pulse once anything gets inside of it. Then it keeps setting off at irregular intervals. Nightingale’s the only one fast enough to catch it.”

“My pixies aren’t made of metal.”

“But they will be touching it.”

They were both still critical. Why did they have to be smart?

“How do you know so much about the bomb?” Rainbow asked.

“Because I’ve lived this day too many time to count. I have watched each of you fail too many times to accept that either of you can do it alone.”

Still scrutiny.

“Not that I think Rainbow can handle the problem on her own,” Lillian said, “But even if I notice the pulses when nobody else does, it’s not like I can let Rainbow know fast enough.”

“That’s where Void comes in.”

“No!” they both put their hands up in refusal.

“Do you think I haven’t tried alternative solutions?”

“Where’s Caliana if you’ve lived through this day so many times?” Rainbow asked, “Seems like her job as a Kronos.”

“It is. We disagree on whether or not you all should live.”

“How dare you.”

Rainbow floated higher, glowing more strongly.

“Cali wouldn’t want us dead.”

“I don’t think she wants it.”

Lillian gasped, disrupting Rainbow’s light-show.

“Remember when Cali said she wasn’t allowed on that rescue when she could have turned every difficulty into a non-issue with her portals?”

“She said it could hurt the stability of the timeline.” Rainbow started coming back down. “She’d accepted their death.”

“Shit.”

“She said she had to resolve a problem. She said I was her favorite person on this world. I didn’t—”

“Bluescreen later,” Lillian grabbed her arm, “Let’s defuse our bomb so we can yell at our friend.”

Cassandra watched as Rainbow was dragged.

“C’mon, Revolve!”

Did she mean Cassandra?

“Yes, I mean you!”

Lillian transformed with a word, that ethereal self ever entrancing. She took Rainbow’s hand. Void pulled Cassandra into the mix.

“What?”

“You’ll catch mistakes better if you’re hived up.”

“But I don’t know about pulses.”

“You know about the wrong wire.”

“What?”

She held Nightingale’s arm, but she also held Rainbow’s and Void’s. She didn’t have three arms.

Wait for Revolve to adjust, a voice said in the back of her mind. Why didn’t the others have to adjust?

Two souls, Nightingale answered.

Pixies, Rainbow answered.

This was very wrong. She had to pull away, but which arms were hers? And why couldn’t she control any of them?

Movement’s restricted to Rainbow and Pixies. It’s better this way.

Help! Help!

She couldn’t speak. No voice was hers. Nobody outside of them could hear this. She screamed, but it didn’t get loud. It stayed an unchanging volume.

Okay, ball up your fist.

She did it. Now she knew which body was hers. She could breathe. If she could see what was happening directly, she would know when they would explode things.

Better? Void asked.

Thank you.

Tell me to give you a fist next time.

That didn’t sound like it would end well.

I’ll get it. Now it’s time for confusion.

That wasn’t confusion?

Seven new lines of sight left her reeling. Cassandra would blink if she had her eyes. The original she could at least pinpoint as Nightingale’s eyes, but then it disappeared.

You only need to see what Rainbow’s doing.

Void must have some experience in this sort of thing, because Cassandra had no idea how you connected three minds this efficiently.

Oh this is a disaster. Next time tell me you only need to see through the pixies.

Maybe he was just using her to refine his abilities.

Dual purposes.

She focused back on Rainbow’s pixies. Each one was a color, but that didn’t actually affect their vision, she just instinctively had a color based name for each line of sight. They provided a closer look than she’d ever had of anything, and faster than she was easily able to adjust to.

Can you give me Rainbow’s thoughts? She’ll know what wires she’s pulling.

Only if you shut up.

I can’t talk.

She felt the psychic equivalent of a meaningful stare.

Oh.

She took deep breaths, removing her thoughts so all she had was observation. Then she heard Rainbow.

She did her best not to question the sudden understanding of what was happening. Rainbow understood, so she understood.

Burning.

No.

The pixies backed away from that particular wire. Cassandra even directed Rainbow toward the best next one instead.

By this time she’d gotten comfortable with the psychic connection. She didn’t really have to explain anything, just give all of her knowledge to Rainbow. Occasionally she’d sense Nightingale’s usually accurate assessments of what they should do next as well.

They were down to the motherboard, which directed the whole thing. Destroying it would set the bomb to blow again, discovered the hard way. It was directly connected to the ignition set-up too, with wires impossible to get at without pulling it off.

All that effort to reach a dead-man’s switch.

Rainbow screamed for only those of shared mind to hear.

Resolve this! she demanded.

I have no idea how.

All of their ideas had failed.

All of the pixies came to bear, placing hands on their quarry. Nightingale guided them to move away but they didn’t listen. Choruses questioning what Rainbow was doing echoed from everyone.

Cassandra fell down as she was ejected from the hivemind, Void and Nightingale not far behind. Rainbow’s hair was standing out again.

“What are you doing?”

“If this won’t work, tell me now.”

“What are you doing?”

Rainbow stared intently at Void, who grabbed the bomb and threw it out the window.

“No!” everyone screamed.

Rainbow flew out with it, and her hands shook as she spread out her fingers.

“Am I the only one that can see it?” Nightingale asked.

Before anyone could ask what she saw, a sudden flash of light made them all step away from the window.

After a moment Cassandra could smell fermentation, and the light, as well as Rainbow’s shaking, faded.

“Nuclear energy is radioactive, and radioactivity is so heavily connected to light,” the ends of Rainbow’s hair were burnt, some of them falling off, "So I hoped I could hold it until the fungal clean-up activated.”

“That feels so fucking wrong, but holy shit!!!” Nightingale pulled Rainbow back inside for a hug.

“So it’s a dud?” Void asked.

“It should be. I’d like to oversee the disposal, maybe remove some of the parts…”

As Rainbow continued to explain, Cassandra felt herself jerked away from the celebration.

“What are you going to do with her?” Void asked.

“Whatever needs to be done,” Caliana answered.