Chương 49: Chapter 46: Luminate

The gentle hammering of his opaque ghostly tool focused intensely on certain parts of the cracking webs, and though it made no sense to Aaron at first, it appeared at least somewhat intuitive, as very soon, he started to make heads and tails of it.

It might've been that it wasn't moving as much and so was easier to see, but there were countless thin, hairline cracks extending from both patterns within the case and feather; when he'd focus on these, he found echoes of something else- emotions, impressions resounding through his mind, a history just slightly out of reach, that was still remembered, but not by him. And the longer he saw which pieces Ketzi focused on of the two, the more Aaron understood.

The histories between the Mushki feather and his glasses case were not entirely independent, both having been with him for a long time, and there were many hairline cracks that "Overlapped" in purview, carrying the same memories within. It was these that Ketzi tapped, folding together and entwining, the two merging easily.

Aaron quickly noticed that when he did, the memories would become jumbled for a moment, like two people talking over each other, yet saying the same thing slightly faster or slower than each other. Then, Ketzi would tap again, and only one voice would be left- the case. Aaron watched as, in every instance, Ketzi chose the case as the dominant force; but somehow, he didn't believe it would be that simple.

As time passed and he got a better idea of the "Feel" of the entire process, he realized that there were blank spots in both- history that didn't match, but would need to be reconciled. His case's time on Earth and Mushki's time on Ishtar; this wasn't insignificant history either, but the majority of it. Yes, the time in the Underworld carried more weight than usual, but it was still a blip compared to the full lifespan of both.

Ketzi was handling the easier parts first, merging them and giving his case a dominant hand for the part yet to come. Aaron also saw how the shape… relaxed slightly, becoming more malleable as Ketzi worked, easing its transition into the new item, but accelerating the process as they began to merge on their own, recognizing their "Whole" shape as the true shape, and sinking into one another to form its complete history.

It started with the overlapping history, the shared fractures leaning into one another, and soon, Ketzi was only performing maintenance on them rather than pushing the two objects into one another. He didn't seem stressed, and just kept designating his case as the dominant one, for as long as he could keep up. Despite the relaxed-yet-focused expression on Ketzi's expression though, Aaron frowned as the Mushki feather started to act oddly. Ketzi focused on the handle, where his case was gradually…

melting, coating the base of the Mushki feather, and spreading out with more mass than he believed it even held. Yet at the blade of the Mushki feather, Aaron started to notice a concerted movement of the cracks, and slowly, silently walked forward. Aliata watched him with wide eyes and a shake of her head, but he absently waved her off, approaching Ketzi from behind so as not to disturb him if his suspicion was correct.

The Mushki's blade pattern wriggled as its rigid bindings softened, and he noticed many of them interlinking in a chain down length of it, forming an overlapping, chitinous structure. The structure paused, a piece of it nudging slightly. The blade twitched. Aaron darted forward, Muscle Crusher passing by Ketzi's chest right as the blade of the Mushki feather curved like a scorpion's tail, nearly beheading the smith, but instead meeting his replacement sword with a grinding sound and an explosion of sparks.

Muscle Crusher took damage to its underlying structure, and the blood red coloration that'd completely stalled was now pushed back as the blade weakened, but frankly, that was the last of his problems. The entire web of cracks within the Mushki feather went berserk, thrashing in places and no longer assuming the "Inert" identity they'd donned before. Ketzi's eyes widened as he realized both how close he came to death, and that the process was now failing. He locked up, stepping back.

"Wh-what?"

"Mushki feathers are opposable," Aaron said, remembering Nothing's words.

"This one has a history of moving. It can do so now."

"How…"

"Later!" He said, seeing the process break down, both items slowly taking damage as they fought, no longer anything resembling harmonic.

"Fix it!"

"I can't!" Aaron could see they didn't have time for back and forth.

"You will, or I'm going to cut you down before you make it out of the room! Finish the process!" Enraged, Ketzi's face contorted, and he actually raised his hammer, preferring to fight Aaron to the death rather than just work. Aaron tsk'd his tongue.

"Nevermind Ketzi, go away. Onward, switch." Aaron's body exploded into leaves, and he didn't hesitate to fully cut almost all senses away except for Sensitivity, leaving only the Memorabilia in sight. With Onward Evermore keeping watch of his body, he could work without stress. He dove right in. Though Ketzi used a hammer to influence it, Aaron already knew that it was little more than a manifestation of Ketzi's will, an Imprint or something else.

He'd seen the way the energy congregated, forming its shape, and thought he could do something similar. Unlike Ketzi's energy though, his wasn't as sturdy, taking on all the durability of a plant stalk. Instead of doing it exactly as Ketzi had, he formed a root-like structure that slowly wrapped around the fighting cracks of the Memorabilia, pressing them together as Ketzi had, and with a nudge of his will, he was also able to put the glasses case in a dominant position, proving the validity of his theory…

though his was a lot slower, requiring him to form each of the roots with his energy manually, and could not easily be removed. The result was a third magical structure on top of both the case and feather, starting from the handle of his blade and expanding out. The entire time, he could tell that the blade of the feather tried cutting through him as he was, apparently, now standing atop the anvil to get easier access to the Memorabilia.

Onward Evermore blocked its cutting attempts, and he knew more was happening, but he couldn't distract himself. His case continued to spread through the Mushki feather, carried along by Aaron's own power to merge with the Mushki's structure.

His hand, though, was not nearly as deft as Ketzi's own, and he missed many spots, the Mushki feather and his case fighting and deciding the victor independently- which was truly a 50/50 toss up; other times, they'd fail to merge completely cracking as the pieces were scattered about the structure. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

When either happened, he'd be forced to back track, taking advantage of the malleable nature of the Memorabilia to undo and fix the damage, or pull the pieces back together, repairing them and deciding the victor himself. He saw now that, if left alone, it would have still made a Memorabilia, but it would have ended up sub-par, empty in a way, and lifeless. Yes, stronger than before, but not to the heights it could have been. But he struggled. By God did he struggle.

It wasn't nearly as easy as Ketzi made it, and for every step Aaron took forward, it felt like he was forced to take two back. He simply didn't have the instincts required to do it properly… yet. But as he forced the process to continue, as he refused to let the structure settle into something more rigid, and it became even livelier, even easier to work with, he also became more skilled. Learning on the fly, his skills honed with every passing minute into something even finer tuned.

Hours, or even days passed as Aaron's energy production ramped up to the point that it was blindingly hindering him, getting in the way, and he ended up sending all of the excess to Bwurzix, perhaps to offset the hunger he couldn't satiate right now. The only things left in his silent world were the Memorabilia and his spreading influence, the dandelion structure correcting everything inside the Memorabilia.

But he did not give up, and eventually, he found the last corrective adjustment made- and his case had completely overtaken the Mushki feather. Looking back over his work, seeing that its structure still hadn't settled he… Wasn't happy with it at all! He'd clearly overdone it. Nothing was left of the Mushki feather, and if he left it as it was, the feather would be completely destroyed, consumed by his own artifact.

Despite how hard it'd been the first time, he didn't hesitate to pull back the case, finding that it also struggled against him now, not wishing to give up its ground, and he wanted to groan as he found that simply utilizing his existing roots again wasn't enough; it was the act of spreading through the structure that gave him the ability to influence it. So, he pulled all the energy back into himself, a gargantuan surge of it filling him and being shunted off into Bwurzix.

Starting over, he peeled his case back, revealing the still-thrashing Mushki feather beneath- this alone took a while, but he still did. Then, again, he pulled the roots back, and again, he began to work to synchronize the two. With his new experience, it went by more smoothly and much faster, but still must have taken many hours, and by the end… it was a perfect 50/50 split, both with distinct parts. Rather than merge seamlessly, it was like they were just two Burgeoning Memorabilia stuck together.

'Dammit! Why is this shit so hard!?' He quickly checked on Bwurzix, willing to settle for this as a result if he had to, but found the planty mass completely fine- healthy, even.

'The web of dandelions are likely enough to support it.' So, reluctantly, he again pulled back, peeled away his efforts, and started over, finding that he actually had to slow down for different reasons. Its malleability had continued to increase at a logarithmic rate, going to a particular amount them slowing drastically, but still becoming softer over time, and here is where the "Permanent" nature of his roots started to shine.

Softened beyond anything what could be considered stable, his roots gave it the structure it needed to stay in shape. But, knowing this was likely going to be the last attempt he had before it completely melted, he worked slowly, and cautiously. Not so slow that it would melt before he finished, but with a deft, delicate care. Throughout the process, he'd come to learn about both artifacts intimately, and knew he could do it well this time.

He emphasized their shared history together to ease them into the process of merging, not making one or the other dominant like he'd initially wanted, and instead making them… one. He ensured that his case was visible, specifically so he could reminisce over it later, but not more important than the Mushki feather. He'd seen Ketzi's attempts, choosing one over the other, but he didn't do that this time; he'd seen how such a path ended, and it wasn't the greatest it could be.

Instead, as the two spoke out of synch, he didn't cut one off, but brought them into alignment, meeting somewhere in the middle. They eventually resonated, and doing so to the rest of the memories was easy- until he came upon the opposed histories, but he had the practiced required too. Were they both truly separate histories? They were differing in space occupied, and even galaxies in the universe, but both existed in the Underworld at the time.

Though the feather may have been older in its form, the case had always existed, though as simple materials. One could say it was as old as they wanted, as its molecules always existed. Despite that, he felt that the further back he went, the harder it was to accurately match their histories at the time before his case had become whole. Having belonged to him for two years, and existed another year before that, he would estimate he read into its history for perhaps another eight years before he could do no more.

The Mushki feather was far older than that; having shed its diamond coating over and over, it was something over thirty years old, perhaps more, meaning that Aaron couldn't perfectly synchronize their history. But, he tried, and in doing so, he brought it to new heights. By the time he was done, the two had fully become one. Greater than the sum of its parts, it gave off a powerful aura, and finally, he was satisfied, knowing it was at the peak of his current abilities, the absolute best he could have done.

Relaxing, he asked Bwurzix how many nights it had been. ONE (Single night, not over, currently night time).

"WHAT?! Not even a single night has passed? That felt like I'd been in there for a week!" He could only sigh, slowly reconnecting himself to his other senses and asking Onward Evermore if he could have control over his body again. Expecting resistance, he was happy to draw on the massive wellspring of energy he'd earned, when Onward shockingly just handed it over. All it conveyed was the idea of "Passing on the problem" to someone else.

'Aww man what did it do.' The leaves receded from him of their own volition, being dragged down along with Onward Evermore as the Primary left willingly, giving Aaron a clear view of the room before him. Still standing atop the anvil, three figures blocked him off from a group of five armed four-armed aliens.

Aliata, Ketzi, were locked in a screaming match with the soldiers, demanding that they back up and give Aaron space as the five soldiers wielded various weapons, pointing them at the three and asking aggressively to be let past. When Aaron came to, the five shut their mouths, staring at him, eyes widening. The three that were on his side paused, turning around- even as Ketzi still appeared absolutely pissed at him.

"What?" he asked, not really sure what else to say.

"YOU!" Ketzi said, pointing a finger at him.

"You threatened me in my own shop!" Aaron glared back, "It was an empty threat, of course, I was just trying to get you to stop standing around like an idiot while my Memorabilia broke apart in front of you! But noooo! You'd rather fight me than the sword! You promised that they wouldn't be destroyed, then stood around and watched as they cracked apart!"

The brightsmith was red in the face, either enraged or embarrassed Aaron couldn't tell, but while they gathered their bearings, he looked down, taking in his new weapon. Starting with the handle, it looked to be metal of the same material as his case, the grip now wrapped with the black felt that'd previously been inside the case. Cracks and dings now coated the entire handle, anywhere there was metal, but now it was symmetrical, giving it an even, mirrored appearance.

Lifting it up gingerly, he saw the decorated stylistic liberties taken. The pommel at the bottom being a strange, circular eye, he saw the eerie purple glow of the Abyss emanate from within. The crossguard, he could tell were two Mushki wings, opened wide and elegantly detailed The entire central shaft of the feather was now composed of metal, but the blades on either side still glistened with their diamond-tipped leathery feathered appearance.

The fractal of overlapping shapes that were its original owner's natural pattern were more pronounced now, lined with a thin, purple coloration, casting the entire weapon in a deeply unsettling light. {Memorabilia - End The first step towards entropic disexistence, End harkens the conclusion of all things, a vicious upsetting of the order, a harbinger of completion or destruction.}