Chapter 12: Synchronization
[Ma...]
[Mast..r.] Seraphina's shouting, her voice muffled and static, not reaching the kai.
The light on Kai's optical sensors was dimming slowly under the ice, while the thoughts in Kai's mind slowly faded. "It feels...cold, why?"
"I thought, I was given the...chance to achieve my....dreams..." his thoughts raced as the cold ice slowly overtook his internal systems, and one last thought came "I miss...dad", the light on his optical sensors completely faded, ceasing with his thoughts.
Then the world swam into focus. A hospital room, bathed in the orange-yellow light from the sunset outside, "Where am I? I was trapped in ice" Kai's voice echoed, a rasp in the silence., confused, in his Xerion form standing in that room (unordinarly fitting) facing the window.
Then a sob, small and heartbroken, snagged his attention. He turned and saw...himself. A younger self, face buried in his hands, beside a hospital bed.
On it lay a frail figure, tubes, and wires snaking across pale skin. His father. "I remember it now," Kai whispered, the pieces falling into place. "This is... earth and The place I tried to forget. The place where it all went downhill."
He moved closer, a silent observer of his past pain. the younger Kai's sobs growing louder., "Why?..sob... Why did you even agree?" he cried, voice thick with anguish. "if you knew...sob..sob.. you'd end up like this? You...sob..sob..you should have refused!"
Kai's mind raced. "I remember this day, those words. The accident, the leukemia..." His father had been a leading scientist, was recruited to work on research for a revolutionary new fuel source. But the research had cost him his life.
Kai had raged and blamed him for chasing dreams instead of family.
His father's lips moved, a faint whisper reaching Kai's ears. "Kai… don't cry." his hand gently stroking young Kai's head.
He strained to hear the rest, "Do you know why, even with the risks, I still agreed?" his father's voice rasped, a ghostly echo. "It was to achieve my dream... to leave my name in history... to invent something to secure the planet for your future."
Tears welled in his father's eyes, Hearing the words he had forgotten. "I can only give you this advice...No matter the danger, the obstacles... if you head straight without giving up, you will achieve your dreams. Try to find your inner... strength."
His father's hand reached out to caress young Kai's cheek, but the boy pulled away and ran from the room.
"Now I know why I couldn't achieve anything in my first life," Kai realized. "I gave up too easily. Blamed my father instead of trying..."
He sank into the chair his younger self had abandoned. "So it seems... I'm dying this time for real."
Suddenly, his father's gaze lifted from the tear-streaked face of young Kai. His eyes, filled with a love that transcended time and space, locked onto Kai's own. A spectral hand reached out, gently cupping his cheek.
"You should go back now..." His father's voice, though a mere whisper, resonated with warmth and strength. "Don't give up this time, Kai. Use your inner strength."
The touch sent a jolt through him, a spark of connection across the divide.
Kai found himself back in his adult form, the hospital room fading. He raised a hand to his cheek, feeling the lingering warmth of his father's touch.
"Yeah," he said, a single word filled with newfound resolve. "Yeah, Dad. I will."
Darkness swallowed him. The sensation of falling, then...
Ice.
Kai is suspended in the icy tomb. His optical sensors flickered to life. A voice echoed:
[Synchronization 5%].
A faint blue light pulsed beneath his chest plating. It spread through his unseen internal network, etching glowing lines across his metallic form below his metallic plating.
The ice trapping him groaned and creaked as hairline fractures spiderwebbed across its surface.
Ice shattered in an explosion of frigid shards as Kai erupted from his frozen tomb. Steam hissed from his metallic frame, the frigid air unable to contain the intense heat radiating from within.
"So this is what he meant," Kai murmured, a blue aura illuminating his body. "Overenergizing my systems with my core... making it too hot, it feels...powerful."
Kai flexed his fingers, each joint crackling with the energy coursing through him. He reached out a finger towards a hovering droplet of cryolumboid fluid, the shimmering colorless substance that had nearly been his undoing.
It made contact with his finger, freezing the metal arm instantly. But then, the ice began to crackle and melt, steam rising as the extreme heat from his core overwhelmed the cryolumboid liquid.
A grim smile tugged at the corners of Kai's lips. "Not this time, I won't give up." He raised his arms, forming a T-shape, and unleashed a torrent of thermal energy.
The icicles hanging from the ceiling groaned and snapped, crashing to the ground in a shower of glittering fragments and floating in zero-g-like stardust. The thick frost coating the walls melted away, revealing the scarred metal beneath.
With each step he took, the ice beneath his feet turned to slush, then to steaming puddles. Moving through the straight path, his eyes scanned for any sign of further damage.
He spotted a series of ruptured pipes, spewing noxious gas into the air. With a flick of his wrist, his plasma cutter ignited, the intense heat sealing the breaches with pinpoint accuracy.
As Kai sealed the final, tiny fissure, reaching the edge of the ice-cavern, the warmth radiating from his body began to subside. He deliberately dialed down the energy output, each metallic joint easing with a gentle hiss of steam clouds vanishing in vaccum.
"Well, that takes care of that," he muttered, the satisfaction in his voice tinged with exhaustion.
"Although it's quite the ability," he mused, "I can feel, even without looking, that it takes a toll on the energy reserves in the core." He paused, the glow beneath his metal plating fading slowly.
"And I don't even know if my body will be fine if I keep going like this," he thought aloud, a flicker of concern crossing his normally stoic expression.
But then, a grin spread across his metallic face. "Still, that was awesome."
Just as the last vestiges of heat dissipated, Seraphina's voice blared through his comms, distorted with static and a surprising note of...sobbing?
[Sob, sob, Master, I told you to be careful!]
Her usually calm and collected demeanor shattered, replaced by an AI's approximation of frantic sobbing.
[You didn't even give me a new form yet!]
Kai, momentarily stunned by the sudden outburst, hovered awkwardly in the air. Seeing Seraphina, or rather, hearing her cry, even if it was just an AI, stirred an uncomfortable feeling within him.
"Uhh, umm, Seraphina," he stammered, trying to regain his composure. "I'm alright. See?" He wiggled his limbs, flexing his fingers to demonstrate his lack of injury. "No harm done."
"Uhh, wait... she can't see me," Kai said to himself, realizing the absurdity of waving his arms to an AI. "But don't worry Seraphina," he said aloud, "I'm alright."
[But I heard you shouting on the comms,]
Seraphina's voice replied, the static-tinged sobs replaced with a hesitant worry.
[And you weren't replying, and your signal went poof for a few minutes, so I thought...]
Kai chuckled, a genuine smile warming his face. The all-knowing, sometimes cryptic AI sounded almost like a child who'd lost sight of her parent. "You're right to be concerned, Seraphina. But I promise, it was just the cold playing tricks on me. I'm fine now."
His gaze then shifted towards the swirling clouds of leaking exotic ion particles, a stark reminder of his mission. "We can continue this when I get back, but first, I have a job to do. So tell me, how..."
He didn't need to finish the sentence. Seraphina, ever efficient, immediately provided him with the optimal route and instructions for containment.
With a burst of power, Kai propelled himself toward the upper area of the thrusters, the asteroid's looming mass growing larger in his vision.
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