[ChicletPrime]

Voyage of the Outcast: 9

• yeah, no, i have to finish this. i can't wait until tomorrow to find out the denouement.
  
• i'm fine, i'm pretty sure i'm fine. how.. how are you?
  
• those are microexpressions i have never seen on Xavier's face before.
  
• "An aether core's power isn't something anyone should mess with. If you use it carelessly... the protofield would have devoured you. What then?"
  
• then i guess i return to starlight and you mourn forever?
  
• sorry, i mask fear with humor.  would anything less have saved you?
  
• "You didn't answer the *question*. What will happen then?"
  
• just.. his face.
  
• "You always have so many reasons.. but you never listen to me." i do. but maybe not as well as i ought. but i'd do it again and again, i'm not going to say sorry, Xavier.
  
• but.. your fireflies are coming back.  and i am so glad to see them. and you.  don't scare me like that again, i have a weak heart you know.
  
• yeah, gotta get outta here, find Soren and..  I am not even sure what after that. break the machine?
  
• good point, girlfriend. since when do Wanderers invade your mind and make dreamworlds based on memories anyways? something to do with the aether core it has?
  
• ... are all aether cores linked? sort of like assembling the infinity stones? is that why Sylus says we're kindred spirits, each possessing a power that longs to be whole again?
  
• so Soren was your friend, but then your enemy who hid himself and his evol while he hunted you? oh. from right at the beginning? and then again, in the square with the police robots?
  
• sings softly: .. and the ones that can know you so well... are the ones that can swallow you whole...
  
• yes, this forest trap is carefully cultivated just for you, boyfriend. he knows just where you hurt.
  
• "Rather than what's already happened, I'm more afraid of what might come in the future. But right now, you terrify me the most. You used the power of the aether core this time. I'm worried about what you'll do next."
  
• i... don't know what more you think i'm capable of. two aether cores? three? i eat my boyfriends hearts and ascend the throne of the world?
  
• Girlfriend: "Why don't you tell me what you did in the past?"
  
• Xaver:  oh look, we're here.
  
• FINE
  

Voyage of the Outcast: 10

• I KNOW THIS BACKGROUND.
  
• that's the smashed up looking machine that was in the cutscene at the end of the first main story chunk. only it was overgrown in a forest, in ruins, with Xavier operating a terminal or something in his fancy hunter outfit.
  
• is this the other end of the Deepspace Tunnel? the machine that opened this side of it?
  
• oh, its a spaceship? it looks too small to be a spaceship. but what do i know. i watched Dune, if its not as big as half a planet, can you really call it anything?
  
• the spaceship before it crashed on the other side, i guess.
  
• apparently we ARE planning to use this dreamscape spaceship to take us out of the protofield, since it was designed to break through the most chaotic gravitational energy fluxes. a protofield should be peanuts.
  
• "Traceback II, Philos 1101-PLS is now online..."
  
• LOVE IT
  
• "Philos.. that name sounds so familiar..."  We really did get knocked on our head as a child. So Hard.
  
• the name resounds in my heart. my reverberating echo chamber of a heart.
  
• oh, Xavier was the captain of the ship? i don't even know why i'm surprised.
  
• we're saving the questions for later. we are so nice about this.
  
• hah! "once we're out of this mess, you're going to tell me everything. slowly. and in. great. detail."
  
• oops i hit a button by mistake.
  
• PERSONAL LOG: STARDATE 157-01: Commence Poetry Reading:
  
• O celestial body of mine, slumbering adrift in darkness, which never heeds the whispers of life.. Xavier, get your hands off my ears!
  
• RED ALERT RED ALERT
  
• oh... we can't "launch" because the energy reserves are too low and it needs... protocores.
  
• aaaand my heart flinches hard.
  
• this is a very accomodating ship. on the captain's say so, we're launching without energy in the reserve cells.
  
• what ELSE are we going to fuel it with, captain? does it.. does it drink blood?
  
• don't like this, boyfriend. what did you just tie to yourself? and you need my hand on your chest for whyyyy?
  
• you're going to feed it your evol? can you even DO that???
  
• its not a big deal MY ASS
  
• "Trust me."  argh. "Your power will keep me safe."  ARGH.
  
• something is suppressing his evol, preventing a complete resonance. oh, i don't THINK so.
  

CHALLENGE FIGHT!

Voyage of the Outcast: 12

• i am not.. not struggling to find you. i wasn't worried at all.
  
• a bright red light at his neck flickers a few times before settling down. oh crap, choke collar. what IS that damn thing anyways?
  
• oh. he took the aether core fragment from the Wanderer. good job, partner!
  
• we need to... apparently, we need to sit down against the wall. and.. listen to music for a bit?
  
• oh, man. jeez. "there's just enough time for one song. then we'll be in a hurry again."
  
• "you should've offered me wired earbuds. that way, we'd be close enough that we couldn't drift apart."  wow, i am smoooth with the lines. i am proud of me.
  
• "i'm too tired to drift into a place that's far away from you. and i wouldn't, even if i could."  oh, my poor little heart crystals are all shimmering against each other.
  
• and Xavier crashes at his place, i fill out the reports and do the debriefing like a good partner, i bring him some food.
  
• "how do you know i haven't been waiting long... it felt like forever."
  
• Soren's missing. kinda figured that. he probably scuttled back to Xander or Ever or whoever is currently funding his bills.
  
• ah, they found one of those resonance chips in the lab, the one we also found on the other two side quests. nicely woven in, devs.
  
• so the button can't overlap realities, but the knowledge of how rests with the people of Philos, so... that's a thing that's going to start happening more.
  
• it always goes back to Ever.
  

the burning question i have right now is... what was Traceback II for? and when they (crashed?) here on their journey and for some reason couldn't leave again, why did the crew split apart into factions?