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For a single moment, you hesitate. Above you, 2 fires its full array of æthereal weapons. A storm of prismatic glass shards plunge into your shield, trapped in its water, each penetrating deeper than the last. Akiko’s shield surrounds you, softening the impact. Zeta’s fills in the layer below. Larger projectiles fly from the mech’s mounted missile launchers--they burst into shockwaves of light on the edge of your combined shield, fading blue to pink as they spread.

You feel the intense pressure of every impact. You dispel the weapon from your hand to focus entirely on your shield--guard your mind. The æther around you vibrates in resonance with the violent bursts, torn by the shards ripping through its fabric.

2254-12-10 14:14:21 Protogen > this pressure! my focus is breaking!

2254-12-10 14:14:24 暁 > hold on! give it everything you have! she can’t keep this up for long!

Through the illusion of shockwaves and crystal rays, you see 7 take a step toward you, clinging to the floor by her magnets. Her aura flares bright in pale green, and her magenta eyes stare past you into the ætherglow.

“7!” you cry out as she approaches the edge of your triple-barrier. Above, you feel a bright flash in the æther--a larger projectile launches. It strikes your weakened shield and unleashes its attack, pressing on every weak point at once. The pressure crushes your mind as your shield contracts inward, collapsing.

A final flurry of shots rains down, tearing through your avatar, through Akiko and Zeta.

WARNING: AVATAR DAMAGE

7’s hand glows bright as she reaches through the floating fragments of your defenses and grasps the form of your avatar, along with the fabric of your dress.

“7! Stop! You don’t have to do this!” Faint, with a tunnel of light forming around your eyes, you force words out, not even sure if you’re saying them surfaceside or ætherside.

2254-12-10 14:14:33 暁 > she can’t hear you! she’s in a state of ego death, fully suppressed, moving her body as a puppet from the æther!

Akiko stumbles forward and gets her hands on 7’s, trying to pull her off of you. But 2 lands behind her, shaking the æther with its massless weight. Its robotic hands of glass grasp her weakened avatar. You try to reach out to her. It’s irrelevant--the tunnel of light closes in. The last thing you see is 7’s avatar arms separating from her physical body, pulling you down, dragging you forcibly under.

✴

All you see is bright smoke, dust of tiny fragments of glass--abrasive particles wearing down the edges of your avatar--and 7 in æthereal form, a body of liquid glass, a texture of cold metal against your half-formed avatar.

“Activated for duty. Stop Aydan of Luna. Do not let her pass. Use any force necessary.” Her voice repeats her orders, carrying no emotion, only a cold certainty. She pushes you down, releases your avatar, and manifests a construct in her hand--a gun, metal and glass, a light growing brighter in its barrel. You try to repair your shield, refocus yourself. You’re too slow.

As she readies her final attack, her arm shakes, disrupting her aim. She tries to stabilize her avatar. A black outline erupts around her aura, swallowing the light in her weapon, dissolving the weapon itself. It spreads outward, tendrils shifting abruptly in glitched patterns.

“Why!” she says, as another avatar takes shape, between you and her. It forms from glass and metal, the same size as 7, a familiar form--5. The black aura fully surrounds her. You can’t so much as raise your shield--5’s aura of negation shuts down any command you even try to form.

“5...why...we have orders!” 7’s aura pushes back against the black void surrounding her best friend. You feel a surge of emotion as her suppression breaks down. “Why?!”

5 extends her arm, shielding you from her creator.

“I see...it seems...Aydan helped you once...our mid-term exam. You felt...you owed her,” 7 says. The dust all starts to fall past you, glimmering shards of light. “I really can’t...predict your behavior...5. You’re truly...my greatest creation...”

5’s black aura continues flaring outward, spreading in black veins through the æther.

“5, this technopathy! What are you doing?!” 7 says.

“It’s just like in our exam,” you say, pulling yourself together. “I calmed her down before it got this far. But now...”

You see no trace of 5’s green aura under the black veil around her.

“It’s over, 5! Stand down! Return to me! Dismiss!” Every command 7 tries to execute vanishes before she can send it.

“It’s some kind of total anti-technopathy zone. We should surface before we end up ætherlocked!” you say.

“I’m not leaving 5 like this! There has to be something I can do!” 7 says.

“I don’t know what could happen to us if we stay down here!” you say. Cracks form on the walls of the server around you, leaking a complete absence of information--a void of pure dissociation.