Nexxa met the train as it pulled into the outpost. They’d left nearly an hour before her and she still ended up waiting for them. Despite its new speed, few things could compete with a Hydra-souled that had such a narrow focused transportation ability as she did. Once she'd needed the storms to cross the continent in a flash. Now it took less than she regenerated passively.
As long as she didn’t get too close to the interference, anyway, the jagged line of monsters that stretched outwards along the south side of the Frigid Peaks. They worried Nexxa more than the monsters raining from above.
It wasn't visible most of the time but she'd gone closer, tried to cut out a hole in the wall growing down there.
Her magic had torn through the outer layers easily enough, but whatever they were doing in the middle sapped her spells. Had nearly torn her out of the air.
It was honestly worrying. She hoped Terra Vista had some sort of team going to deal with it. Felt like one of those things that was just beyond her capacity even as a hydra-souled.
Nexxa floated over the stronghold that represented their deepest push into the Frigid Peaks, gazing south, able to almost make out the edge of that wall even from where she stood. Behind her was the Aegis Beacon they’d installed on the peak. She'd been somewhat bemused when the locals insisted on making a statue of her. Hiding the beacon inside had made it easier to explain why she was installing the new architecture.
“They didn't get the eyes right,” Nexxa mumbled to herself after glancing up at the oversized copy of her. She floated side to side, meeting its gaze. The eyes looked mean. Vicious.
Didn't feel right. Nexxa wasn’t like that.
At least it didn’t have her new hydra-souled features. She’d been working to be at peace with the changes her incorporation had wrought. The wings were appropriately draconic and ephemeral. They’d turned out exactly as she'd hoped.
The tail was… well, she had a damn tail. The influence of the imps meant it was more impish than draconic, like a thing whip of lightning. She was incredibly grateful she could phase it directly into her aura. Most people would assume her tail was part of a spell. Assuming she could get the damn thing under control. On occasion when she was excited it would pop out and start wagging around, the little heart shaped piece on the end crackling.
At least it was lightning.
Her wings had taken on more of the cloud aspect of the storm, along the upper ridge. When they were manifested, it was a bit like having a storm cloud with water and lightning trailing down from them. While it was an impressive effect, she was glad she could fold them away just as easily as her tail.
She was also glad they didn't come out when she was excited.
Nope, just when I want to draw upon their full power,” Nexxa grumbled, staring up at the statue again, the air sparking around her. She was glad Perry’d finished his own integration. They hadn’t had a chance to talk yet, but she’d heard he’d had a few side effects of his own. Something about extra hearts. She was working on her taunts already.
The hissing of the train pulling into the station pulled her attention back. Remarkably noisy things, the new trains, with all that hissing and whistling. Nexxa flitted over to the edge, hovering just over the stone balcony railing.
Sure enough, the train had rolled in below. It was one of the early ones, a wolf-like design.
Nexxa's gaze drifted down once more and she saw Ari disembark. The woman glanced around once before flying up towards her. She appreciated the fact Ari had stepped up. The management of her territory had been going rather smoothly from last time she checked in with Hash. Yes, Ari had delegated it to a number of other people. But they were good people Nexxa could check in with.
Being an Exterminatus had been paying off as well. Between it and her integration, she wouldn't be surprised if she could stand toe-to-toe with a Dragon-souled. Assuming they didn't have some sort of trump card, of course.
Which they would, since Dragon-souled. She was already working on her own trump cards. Nexxa was about to greet Ari when she felt the monster striking the shield.
It wasn't even within sight. It was halfway across Aeternia. Still…
Nexxa called out: “Be right back!” to a startled Ari.
Then she darted nearly all the way back to her, territory finding the monsters as they fell. She scoured them from the sky with her usual efficiency.
Well, almost.
Some of them required lightning that wasn't mana-infused to take down. That was possible, just trickier. She had to generate it using the base principles Bevel used to do the same with her wind magic. It'd been amusing to realize she could learn more about Storm from her brother's adopted daughter than she’d learned from the tutors she’d spent thousands of Thorns on back in Arcadia.
The fight barely took five minutes. Back when she’d first arrived in her new home, it might well have forced her to retreat.
Staring at several of the charred corpses, Nexxa frowned. The nature of the monsters seemed to be changing. The usual hydras and such were thinner. A flick of her finger had one of the more intact corpses float upwards. The strange, malformed, creatures were becoming more common.
Which was a shame because the materials were less useful. Very few of them had anything that resembled an affinity material. That was a task for the cleanup crew, the first of whom she could see flying her way already. With a wave of her hand, and an explosion of light, Nexxa Lightning transited her way back to the outpost
Ari was waiting next to her statue, hand on her chin as she inspected the statue-beacon. “It captures you quite well.”
“You don't think the eyes are wrong?” Nexxa didn’t like the note of desperation that leaked into her voice at her question.
Ari tilted her head to the side a few degrees. Blonde braids trailing across her immaculate dress. “It captures the fury you embody when you're slaying monsters.”
“You're saying I actually look like that when I'm next to a…” gesture upwards towards the sky
“You do. Though, they did take some creative liberties with the size of your… lightning aura.”
Nexxa noted the pause and looked at the statue once more. She didn't see anything that was out of proportion so she wasn't sure what Arizar had been hinting at.
It wasn't important. What was important, was what had brought them out there in the first place. “You think we can use the high road as a stabilization for the Waygates? Maybe make it easier for Perry to get home?”
They moved into a sealed chamber where the crude outline of a Waygate was being erected. It was slower work than when her brother did it. That was partially intentional. Much as her niece had learned a lot about repairing Waygates, this one was the first she was building on her own. Despite lacking an affinity, she was the closest thing they had to an expert with him away.
Her choice of assistants probably wasn’t helping.
“No, no, no! Not like that!” Bevel practically leapt across the chamber, stopping one of her assistants.
Bolly huffed, rolling his eyes instead of listening to her niece. Even if he had a bomb linked to his soul, Nexxa wanted to smack him. He didn’t appreciate the opportunity at all. He’d struck Nexxa as a bit of a tryhard, but apparently that didn’t apply to learning from someone younger than him.
“Like this, right?” the girl, Sezzie if Nexxa was remembering right, asked.
“Yep, that’s great, Sezzie!” Bevel said, looking up to wave at Nexxa and Ari.
“Don't you have other enchanters you could have helping with this?” Nexxa asked Ari while returning her niece’s wave.
“None I want to risk getting close to them There's an unsurprising amount of dislike towards House Forestall.” Ari stepped into the chamber crossing over. “And Bevel insisted on giving them a chance to help.”
Bevel was helping Dethin, the stuttering boy with his own enchantment. Unlike Bolly, he seemed focused on the work.
Thankfully, it seemed Bevel only had them working on non-important pieces. In fact, as Nexxa looked around the room, she realized her niece was somehow doing the real work on the far side of the room.
“How’s it going?” Ari asked as she traced her hand over the work.
Bevel huffed out a loud sigh. “It's not ready.”
“Problems?” Ari turned her back on the work, looking towards Bevel’s assistants.
Bevel skipped over. “Yep. Enchantment keeps overloading.”
“Thought you said you were almost finished, Pipsqueak,” Nexxa said, stepping forward and ruffling her niece’s hair. She understood why her brother did it so often. It was very ruffleable.
Bevel reached up and fixed her hair even as she glared at one of the apprentices. “If Bolly had hadn't decided to improve things it would’ve been fine.”
The young elf looked like he was about to object until Ari and Nexxa both looked towards him then looked towards the enchantment.
“Does that look the same to you as it does to me?” Ari asked, sounding more disappointed than surprised.
“Like deliberate sabotage,” Nexxa replied, doing an excellent job of not instantly incinerating her niece’s assistants. If Bevel hadn’t caught it, it would’ve bisected anyone within a hundred feet when it activated. Of course they couldn't simply sit around and be helpful.
Nexxa traded a glance with Ari before looking back to the apprentices. Bolly and Dethin refused to meet her gaze, the latter doing his best to continue his work, though Nexxa caught him running over the same stretch repeatedly.
Ari shook her head. “Looks like your privileges are being revoked.”
“Gotta agree,” Nexxa grumbled. “Back in the hole?”
“Tender will keep them out of trouble until their great-grandfather gets back.”
“What!?” Bolly protested. “You can't shove us back in the hole with that… that devil.”
“If you're going to be sabotaging instead of learning, that's exactly what I'll do,” Ari said crossing her arms as she glared the boy down.
“You're lucky it's her,” Nexxa said, cracking her knuckles. “If I was the one making the call I'd just throw you outside the end of the borders and let your that little that nasty little bomb you've got tied up inside you take care of things.”
Her words caused Bolly's face to go white. To her surprise, it also earned a not particularly merry chuckle from the girl in the corner “Told you you shouldn't be trying to Make the matriarch happy.”
“Ye-yeah, after all they’ve done f-for us.”
“Don’t you two get it, if we prove we’re worth something, maybe…” Bolly trailed off, his hands balled into fists.
“You… you broke it on purpose?” Bevel asked, her voice low, barely audible. Nexxa hadn’t noticed how quiet she’d gone until then. Bevel was shaking.
Bolly didn’t look at her, choosing to glare at everyone else instead. “You can’t do this. We’re just trying to fix things. When my great-grandfather-”
“Yeah, no,” Nexxa said, snapping her fingers. “You don’t get to play the victim here, kid. That would’ve killed someone if Bevel hadn’t caught it.”
“It was-” His response was swallowed when he met Nexxa’s gaze.
If she’d thought he’d gone pale earlier, now he was like a sheet of high-mountain snow. Nexxa didn’t have time for a kid to be sabotaging their work. She’d let Ari and Bevel figure out what to do with the others.
“Back soon,” Nexxa said, as she flew out the window. Lightning Transit wasn’t pleasant for passengers, but since the kid was at Pegasus, he had a strong enough aura to endure it.
Did leave him throwing up a bit when they arrived, but that was easily cleaned up.
Instead of Tender, Nexxa took the boy to Keeper.
“Ah, the young huntress returns. What morsels do you wish to peruse today?” Keeper asked, its eyes not even flicking towards the boy who was still gagging, who she held up by the collar of his jacket.
“What sorts of oaths do you have that might sort out a kid like this? He’s trying to get himself blown up while sabotaging my niece.”
Keeper's black tongue clicked against the inside of his teeth as he tilted the large horns on his head to the side, finally taking in Bolly. “I'm afraid there are no oaths that can help you, not if he is not interested.”
Nexxa figured there'd be some sort of condition that would keep her from just dealing with the problem the easy way. Still she thought it was worth the-
“No oath but there is potentially a solution.” Keeper said, interrupting her thoughts. “After all, the prison that once held my brother is no longer in use.”
Nexxa nodded. It’d keep the kid from getting in their hair. Easier to kill him though.
“I’ll think about it.” Nexxa said, grabbing Bolly through his protests and hauling him outside. She took him down to Tender's trials, where she dropped him off for the moment. She'd run the idea of using the prison passed to Perry and Arizar first. Wasn't really her specialty. No, her specialty was dealing with all the monsters.
Another ping on her senses alerted her to another attack. Even as she dropped the kid in Tender's tender grasp, she noted Sahevin pushing in from the ocean to test the shields once more.
There was never a dull moment.