Act 75: The Making of a Pack
Ranii is wide awake, sitting upright in bed. It looks as if she had just woken up.
"Oh, hey Luca." She yawns as she stretches her wings. "I'm glad to see the healing worked. I was quite worried there yo-"
She stops mid sentence when she notices the look in Luca's eye, and the dried tears. It is at this point that she gets out of bed, and comes over to him.
"Hey... what's wrong?" She asks.
"Was about to ask the same." Pixie, who is also there with her, also adds on.
He was a little caught up in his feelings, so the fact that she noticed that he cried so much caught him by surprise for a moment. "Oh, you two noticed already huh?" He said as he rubbed one his eyes with a paw. "I don't want to leave you hanging on this but it's not something we can talk about here. We would have to go up there, you know...to your 'place'." He means her ship of course.
"Oh, well..." She gets up off the bed. "Of course."
"Don't we need to be outside for... that?" Pixie asks.
"Right. I was just about to take us there."
"Yeah, let's go..." Luca replies.
She soon leads them out of the mansion-turned-capitol building, it's many winding halls, taking but a small moment to pause by the room where the mansion's former occupants, the now-deceased Gaben, held his 'stash', a group of eeveelutions in all but name, in silent reembrace. Before Pixie can ask what is up, she continues on, and before long, they are outside, in the courtyard.
With a few buttons clicked on her on-board hud, she, Pixie, and Luca are enveloped in light, and a few moments later, they are aboard the Avali's dome-world ship.
"Ahhh!" The vulpix sighs happily after a long huff of the cold air aboard the ship. "I know it's not my first time up here Ran-Ran, but each time it still feels as refreshing and wondrous as the last. This air... it almost reminds me of the Snows, but without the biting wind to ruin everything."
"Yeah." Ranii adds on. "I still remember the look on your face the first time I brought you above to look down upon the planet."
"Heh." The Vulpix says in return. "What can I say? It's an impressive view."
"Anyway..." Ranii turns back to Luca. "Now that we're up here, I believe you had something you wanted to say?"
"Ranii..." Lucan started speaking but he momentarily paused for a moment. "Do you remember that time we talked about forming a pack? And the things that it entails?"
"Of course I do." Ranii replies. "I also remember your reply to it."
It is at this point that Pixie shifts her attention back to the pair of them and listens in.
"The more time passed the more I was scared of you going away without me so...i didn't want to risk losing you because of my indecisiveness." He says, looking away a little. "I know I said that I would go with you only when we fixed my world but...maybe I was asking for a little bit too much. It would take a lot of time for us to get to that point right? So I had a talk with Stic, a long one...and I made my decision to get the 'nanite' things and join the Avali Illuminate. I thought he would be...disappointed me but he said it was alright."
Ranii is taken aback, she doesn't say anything at first. Then, finally, she asks,
"Are you sure about this, Luca? You know if you do this there's no going back."
"Yeah I know..." He gives her a nod. "At first I thought leaving Stic behind like this wouldn't really be the right thing to do, that I would be betraying him. But now, I know that it's not like that..." He paused for a moment to remember that conversation with his father figure once more. "He wants me to live the life that I want, and well...I want to go with you, Ranii."
Ranii responds by giving him a massive, tight hug.
"I... I was beginning to think you never would." She gives a small cry. "I was starting to fear I'd lose you before the day ever came."
"So uh... what exactly are we talking about here?" Pixie suddenly asks out of the blue.
"Oh!" Ranii looks back to her. "Well... you see..."
Ranii briefly explains to Pixie about Avali, Packs, etc.
"And you remember when I told you that I was raised by Alpaca?"
"Yeah, I remember. " Pixie recalls. "So, wait, are you saying that you're getting mated? "
"Yeah... something like that." Ranii replies a bit awkwardly.
"Well, congratulations!" She chirps back in her usual cheerful self, though there is a little hint of sadness that the Avali doesn't pick up on immediately. "So uh... do you plan on inviting me on this, or?"
"Well... uh..." Truth be told, Ranii had thought of it every now and then, and while she did like Pixie, she wasn't sure whether she was ready to invite her to the pack just yet. When she'd dropped the question of packship to Luca, she'd known him much longer than she'd known Pixie. And forming a pack is not something one does on a whim.
"It is quite a big decision to make, Pix." Luca says to her. "It took a lot of time for me to figure out if I would accept it or not."
"Well, uh..." Ranii replies to Pixie's query embarrassingly. "I mean I was going to ask you at some point. It's just that... well...."
She rubs the back of her ears in embarrassment.
"It's just that I've known Luca for so long. And, you... well... no offense, as so far you've been pretty good in our eyes"
"And in your bed, too." Pixie pipes up.
"Yeah... that too." Ranii is even more embarrassed now. "But still, we haven't really known you for that long. Plus... well, after Luca turned me down, I wasn't sure whether you had anything you wanted to stay here for."
"Ran-Ran..." Pixie says with a hint of sadness. "I'm a freelancer, unlike Lulu here. Up until I met you two, I just sort of wandered from place to place, doing my own thing, figuratively and literally, for better or for worse. I'm really not tied down here, if that's what you're asking."
"That would certainly make things easier, but would you be absolutely sure though? Ranii was pretty serious when she told me what would happen when the time comes for us to depart. We won't be coming back for a very very long time..." Luca says to her. It was a difficult decision to make, leaving one's world behind proved to be hard so he wants to be sure that choosing to go with them won't leave the Vulpix with heavy regret on her mind. Though there is also the fact that Ranii seems unsure, which he notices.
"He's right you know. We would not be coming back here for a long time-" Ranii reinforces what he says, only to be interrupted.
"Heh, you say that like it's a bad thing." Pixie sticks her tongue out playfully at that notion. "It's like I said, I'm a wanderer. Going from place to place, doing every little job. Until more recently that is. This would just be more of the same of what I'm already used to, but with the three of us. And well..." She narrows her eyes at the two of them, a smirk clearly showing on her face. "I've grown quite attached to you two. This would just make it official."
"Well... Alright." Ranii says. "If you're absolutely sure about this-"
"I am."
"I was going to ask you sooner or later anyway I think. But since you're so eager, I suppose we'll do this together. Besides, A pack needs more than just two." Ranii sighs with acceptance.
Luca smiles and pats Pix's head. "You really feel like you wanna stick with us huh? Alright then." He turns to Ranii now. "So how are these 'nanites' like? What do we have to do to 'get' them?" He knows practically nothing about nano technology after all.
"Well, the Nanites do a bunch of different things. I'll tell you a brief version of the important parts. They're basically tiny little robots that exist in you, rework your insides, and by doing that, do a lot of things, including but definitely not limited to..." Ranii takes a deep breath. "Preventing diseases, preventing poisoning," She gives Luca a little smirk, "Not that you need that." She quips at that bit, before continuing, "increasing your lifespan by repairing age damage, enable life support on hostile worlds, IE making your blood not evaporate on hot worlds like this one, prevent unwanted mutations, enable a heads-up display to send messages and other things, install tech slots onto your body, install a neural jack to operate Avali machinery and computers, allows Nexus access..." After she finishes that she's out of breath so she sucks in another one. "As I said, too much to list off the top of my head. As for how you get them, well, I simply inject them into you and let them do their thing. Easy-Peasy."
He almost gave her a weird look when she mentioned his world is a 'hostile world' but he remembered a bit about what she told him about Avali really not liking heat. He understood most of the first half of the explanation there. "Hhhmm, alright I see. I guess I am ready to get them then?"
That did hurt a little bit, but it wasn't hard for Luca to stoically soldier on through something this minor. He watched as the syringes contents were drained into his arm. "Hhhmmm...i'm not sure i feel any different yet."
"Give it a moment." Ranii replies as she tosses the syringe into a nearby bin, and then approaches Pixie with the other one...
The Luca remains there for a moment waiting, and then something appears in his field of view...are these, letters? Even when he blinks he can still see them. "What...?!"
GUARDIAN NANITES:
INSTALLED NEURAL JACK:
INSTALLING, which quickly changes to NEURAL JACK: INSTALLED
NEURAL HUD: ONLINE
PATHOGENIC DIAGNOSIS: GREEN NO BODILY OR GENETIC ANOMALIES FOUND
LEG TECH SLOT: INSTALLED
CHEST TECH SLOT: INSTALLED
HEAD TECH SLOT: INSTALLED
HAZARDOUS ENVIRONEMENTAL PROTECTION SLOT: ONLINE
NEXUS CONNECTION: ESTABLISHED
REGISTERING NEXUS USER: 'LUCA'
NAME: LUCA SPECIES: 'LUCARIO'. SPECIES UNIDENTIFIED REGISTERING NEW SPECIES.
PACK: RANII'S PACK
UNIT REGISTERY: 481TH RESERVERS
CREWMEMBER ROLE: INITIATE
USER REGISTRATION COMPLETE. AEF LEVEL 1 ACCESS GRANTED
WELCOME TO THE REBORN ILLUMINATE
BOOTING: COMPLETE
The letters fade, and the nanites installation is completed. Luca blinks a few more times, his eyes moving around wondering where those letters might have gone to. "That felt...odd. I'm gonna have to get used to that, ain't i?"
"It'll come up as needed or on command. And I'll walk you through it as we go." She's about to insert the syringe into the Vulpix's arm when she pulls back.
"Wait." Ranii says. "I almost forgot. Pixie... do you have any additional evolutions or anything? I... Shouldn't give this to you yet. Or so I'm told."
"Welll..." Pixie rubs her arm. "Yes and no. I mean, I heard in theory there is one for my kind. A Ninetails. I've never seen one though. It requires a 'fire stone' to make me one, as unlike Lulu here it just doesn't happen one day out of the blue. Though... good luck getting ahold of one of them." She says with a sigh. "Evolution stones of any kind are incredibly rare, and only nobles or very very very rich citizens have them. I've been traveling around for quite a few years and I've never even seen a fire stone, let alone could ever get my paws on one. Besides, I kinda like my form as it is. So... just go ahead with this."
"Well, as long as nothing bad happens, right?" Luca commented. "Just don't freak out too much when you see things appearing in your vision for a moment there."
"Well, alright." Ranii shrugs and slowly sticks the needle into her arm, and injects the nanites into her friend-turned-packie's body.
The same letters flash before Pixie's eyes.
"Reserves?" Pixie asks. "We're a 'reserve' unit?"
"Well... yes but actually no." Ranii replies . "I'm actually more of an 'agent', but they had to attach me to some unit. So they just slapped me onto some reserve units for the sake of filling in a line."
"So, bureaucracy basically." Pixie replies flatly.
"Yeah, that's about it."
"Hmm... 'Ranii's Pack'?" She asks.
"Well, as I said, I never had a pack, so I didn't really feel the need to come up with a better name... Until now."
"Oh, so it's us to that get to choose the name?" Luca says. "Hhhmmmm...wonder how are we going to go about naming it..." It doesn't feel like it's going to be easy, that's for sure.
