Ch 1 : The Angel Awakens

::Three years later::

-0659 Hours. Initiating wake-up sequence-

-…-

-Initializing Empyrion OS … initialization complete-

-…-

-0700 Hours. Wake up sequence complete-

-Good morning, Yalda (＾▽＾)-

My head was hurting. My crystal heart was pulsing fast with light. I squeezed tightly onto my stuffed unicorn just to relieve the pain.

“I had a bad dream,” I cried. “Daddy's dead.”

It wouldn’t be the first time I woke up like this and I’m sure it wouldn’t be the last. I can’t even remember a time when I had good dreams.

Quickly, I opened up a status menu on my hotbar. A little line of light was constantly spiking up and down, showing me a healthy heartbeat.

“Oh…” I sighed. “He’s still okay.”

I ran a morning diagnostic on my body just to make sure everything booted up okay, and it looked like everything was good. All systems were green.

Luckily, bad dreams end when you wake up. So otherwise that, nothing was going to drag me down this morning.

My name is Yalda, Yalda Asamo. Today is September 5th, and I turn six years old.

I've probably done more then a few things to make you curious what I am. To put it simply, I'm more or less not what you’d call a 'normal person.' I'm still a person, you see, but with a computer for a brain.

Super cool, right? Actually, my whole body is mechanical. Where normal humans are made of flesh and blood, I’m more like a robot made of rubber and metal. But don’t call me a robot, because that’s not what I am. I’m what daddy calls, a syntax life form.

Oops…I mean synthetic life form. Sometimes I mess up my words.

So anyways, what does a synthetic life form do on her birthday? Well she eats cake, of course! And opens lots of presents.

If only she was that spoiled. The treats are usually kinda’ small, and there's only get one gift handed out per year.

Lucky for me, that one gift was whatever I wanted. So I could ask for something really big and it would be mine, no questions asked! Except for a unicorn. Because apparently we didn't have anywhere to put it.

To be honest, the only thing I wanted this year was to see my daddy again. Nobody knows where he's been the last 3 years, but he's a scientist, and makes really cool inventions that mix magic and science together.

That's how he made me! No mommy and no storks involved!

Until he comes back, and he promised me he would, my uncle is in charge.

Uncle usually greets me in the morning, but he was late. Maybe he was doing some job around the house and got really busy. That meant I had to get dressed alone, which I could do.

"Sssssss…" I heard hissing coming from my desk…

A little purplish brown snake was there, slithering toward me.

"Samael!" I smiled.

My pet snake was named Samael. He slept in the little cup holder on my desk, coiled up over some fluff I stuffed in for him. He’s really sweet, and wouldn’t bite a soul. I know, because he sits on my head all day!

I let him slither up into my white hair and he gave me a ponytail off the left side of my head. I don’t know why he liked being my scrunchy, but I thought it was cute, so I didn't mind.

“Good boy.” I pet him on his little noggin. He liked a good snoot booping from time to time. “Boop!”

"Sssss."

That was how he said thank you, probably.

Anywho, I had to get dressed.

Okay…so I had a few dresses lined up in my closet. Blue…purple…pink? Nah. None of them sounded like fun today.

Ooh! My white dress was perfect! It was like the pajamas of dresses. Comfortable and stylish!

The skirt went really wide and had a puffy trim around the edge.

The top of the dress stopped a little short of my crystal heart; the protruding gem in my chest. I usually didn’t cover my heart up because it looked really cool. And it was blue. I love blue.

I threw the dress up in the air and quickly slid through the center, letting it fall over me.

I reached for the strings in back to tie them together, but something was weird, because they were on the inside, so I couldn’t reach them.

Even after twisting around my bicep swivel, I still couldn’t get them out right. Then it hit me…

I’d put the dress on inside out! How did I even manage that?

“Dang it. Uncles gonna be mad if I ruin this one again.”

I already tore my dress up a few times well playing in the flower fields outside. He started making it more durable because of it.

Bzzz…

“Uh-oh!”

A familiar buzzing noise rang in the hallway. It was getting louder by the second.

"Young Mistress…" that was Uncle! "Good morning, and happy birthday."

A big, yellow, crystal bee flew into my room. He hovered down to be eye level with me and looked at how well I'd dressed myself.

“Uncle!” I smiled, trying to hide my mistake with a thumbs up and a smile. “What a great day for a birthday, right?”

If he noticed my dress was inside out, he’d never trust me to dress myself again! It was big girl time, so I had to lie or die…of embracement.

“It will be when you fix your clothing.” He chuckled.

“Dang it! Nooo!” I fell to my knees, hitting the ground with my clenched fist.

It was all over. Good game. I’d never be able to dress myself again. Just when I thought I was getting old enough to do it on my own!

“I've brought dishonour to myself! I’ll atone for this, I swear! Do not steal my independence away!”

“Relax.” His little bee arms picked me off the ground. “Just fix your dress.” He flew in close to my face, the digital eyes on his front display looked disapproving. “You’ve been playing too many video games again, haven’t you? No wonder you’re acting so dramatic.”

“Well…I…uh…maybe…?”

I was allowed to play video games, but only when Uncle was watching. But, you see, when he goes to bed, I like to sneak out and play some more. Sometimes I play the video games with the big M in the bottom corner. Those are for grownups!

Uncle says that if they were more educational, they'd be okay to play, but he thinks they talk too much about grown up stuff that I wouldn't understand. Probably old people jokes.

"That's what I thought. Regardless, please readjust your clothing."

I started to work on fixing the dress, Uncle helped me out.

“How is the progress on your armour skin this morning?” He asked.

“It's doing okay. The diagnostic said the alloy is hardening properly.” I gave a quick knock on my brownish purple chest piece.

My armour skin was tough enough to protect me, like an exoskeleton. Supposedly, it was only going to get stronger as I got older. Anywhere not covered by that was a rubbery material that was also pretty strong.

Once the dress was fixed, we both made our way to the dining room for breakfast. Outside in the hallways was a gravity lift. We had to take that to get down to the dining level.

A ring of light surrounded me and pressed closely, then I started to descend downward into a tube of thin air.

It always felt so weird inside the gravity field, like when you're swimming with an inner tube on, only the water is like gel, and the current is pulling you up or down. It’s a little tingly too.

~☆☆☆~

We both descended down the gravity lift and slipped out when we made it to the dining room floor. There wasn't any cake. There wasn't any food at all even, just an empty dining table with some silverware set on it.

"Hey, what gives?" I turned to Uncle, gesturing to the empty plates. "How am I supposed to grow all big and strong without food?"

He always made me breakfast in the morning, a big one too. Waffles, pancakes, bacon and eggs…lots of toast too. But this situation was too fishy to ignore…and fish isn't a good breakfast food.

"Hmm…" he hovered over the table, a grid of light scanned around from his eyes. "It would seem that your breakfast has gone missing…curious." He had that voice like he knew where it was, but wasn’t going to tell me.

If someone had stolen all of it, he would have set off the alarm, because no one is supposed to be in here besides us. Maybe he was playing a game? Was I supposed to hunt down the food or something?

-…-

Okay, so I gave it some thought...if he hid food from me, then he would expect me to be able to find it somewhere around the house using my ingenuity.

I put my sleuthing skills to the test and hunted down my meal!

So, I mentioned that I have a computer for a brain and my body is controlled by it. Well, my body has some very useful utility stuff that I can use because of that, among other things.

My first thought was to sniff it out in the air using my super nose, since food always smells pretty strong.

-Activating Advanced Olfactory sensors- Olfactory was a cool word for nose. -Unique scent detected!-

Oh yeah! I was on the scent with a few good sniffs. It smelled kinda’ like bacon.

The smell was easy to track, I followed it all the way into a small room I’d never been in. It was just outside the living room with the big TV. I think it was a storage closet.

In the closet there were three plates on a table, each covered up by a metal bowl with a knob on top. The smell was coming from all three of the covered dishes.

“Excellent work.” Uncle flew up behind me. “You managed to track the smell to this location.”

I jumped for joy! All of those dishes must have had some very tasty food on them.

As I reached to pull the lids off, my hand bounced off a force field and I backhanded my face.

SMACK!

Uncle had summoned a force field to keep me from looking under the plates...

“Ouch! Hey...?”

“Your breakfast awaits you under one of these bowls. But, the other two have nutritional salt rocks under them. I assume they're not very appetizing.”

Yuck! I hated eating salt rocks. They're like these really hard vitamins and they look like misshapen eggs. I could eat them, but I didn’t like them because they tasted like gravel.

At least they were healthy. There was lots of iron, vitamins, and other good stuff for a growing synthetic life form. If Uncle had complete control, he’d have me eating these with every meal.

“So I just need to pick the right one, then I can eat a super delicious breakfast?” I asked.

“That’s correct.”

Once the force field dropped, I got so excited that I leapt toward the dishes once more. How hard could this be?

Each smell was very distinct on a molecular level. One neat trick I could do was actually see the smells in the air.

My whole vision turned grayscale, only highlighting the molecules in the air responsible for the scents. It looked like thin, colourful gasses rising from under the bowls. One was purple, one was yellow, and one was blue. But which one was right?

As advanced as my nose was, it wasn't much upgraded yet. I could tell the smells apart, but they were too similar for my body to analyze what was in each of them.

I'm sure if I knew what molecules I was looking for already, I could probably figure out the right one. But as it was, I didn't know the chemical makeup of bacon.

Well, blue is my favourite colour…

I put my hand around the knob of the bowl with the blue gas, then lifted it up…turns out that wasn’t the right one.

“Oh man,” I snapped my fingers and pouted. Now I had to eat a rock.

“How unfortunate.” He picked up all the other bowls. They were all rocks!

“What the hay!” I gave him a confused look. “You tricked me? No fair!”

“I did. This was a test to prove to you that reality isn't always fair. Even on your birthday, it shows no mercy.”

Rats man, that was a bummer.

Oh well. I shrugged it off, preparing for my fate of eating a rock.

I mean, it’s not all bad. My teeth were made stronger than diamonds, so I could chomp through anything. And if it’s nutritious, why not?

CRUNCH!

Yep…that lovely gravel taste…yuck.

Something was weird about the center…it tasted like eggs and bacon.

Hey, there was eggs and bacon in the center! What a twist, am I right?

“You said reality was unfair.” I held my rock breakfast dumpling up to him.

“But I didn’t say you picked the wrong one.” What counted for a face on him lit up bright green, and a screen where his mouth should have been showed a smiley face made out of symbols. “Blue is your favourite colour, right? I figured you'd pick that one.”

He knew me so well!

To be honest, I wasn’t picky. Even on my B-day I’d eat whatever I had to. As for the matter of cake, however...that I wouldn't compromise on.

I shook up and down with my fists clenched playfully in front of me. My smile was getting bigger by the second.

"Uncle, it's my birthday. I want cake too."

"I…well...that's currently not possible."

My whole body sank along with my hopes and dreams.

"Whhhhy?" I whined.

More disappointment...reality was unfair.

He'd never had trouble making food. He didn't even actually make anything with real ingredients, it was all magically synthesized in the kitchen.

"You see, the ingredients to make the type of dessert you want…"

He was hiding something, something that would make me unhappy.

My favourite type of flavour was called Honey Apple Berry. It came from a very special type of tree, and it can't be synthesized by magic. You had to pick the berries the moment they were ready.

We had one of those little trees here in the garden. It was called the Boni tree.

If we didn't have the ingredients, then something must have been wrong with the tree!

"Oh no!" I ran to the gravity lift and wirelessly interfaced with the controls until it let me go to the ground floor outside.

Once my feet touched the ground of the courtyard, I ran straight north where the garden was. I was shocked to find a withered up little tree sitting at the center.

"Oh no…" I started to tear up.

This was really bad. That tree was supposed to be special. Daddy and I planted it and worked really hard to help it grow.

I fell on my knees and cried really loud. I was heartbroken that it had died and I didn't notice until now. This had to have happened recently, it wasn't like this a few weeks ago.

"I knew she wouldn't take the news well..." Uncle sighed as he approached from behind me. "Young Mistress, I am sorry this happened. It seems the tree has died."

My hands had scanners in them that can diagnose things, so I put my palms up to the tree and activated the scan ability.

A little report showed up in my vision saying that the tree was dried up and not taking in any water. It also was suffering from marcescence too, which means the dead leaves weren’t falling off of it.

"I don't understand, why did this happen? I thought the bees were watering it."

There were other bee workers around, like Uncle, but they all had different jobs. He was actually known as Honey Bee 1. That was his real name.

"Perhaps fate had just decreed it so. Sometimes things happen against our wishes."

"Oh man, is it because I don't pray every night?" I looked up at him. "Maybe God is mad at me that I don’t, and killed my tree."

Uncle snickered. "I personally doubt that, Young Mistress."

Then what could have happened? The soil here is really good for all kinds of plants, and this particular spot was specifically tailored for this tree...I guess it was just fate that it died, like Uncle said.

Uncle had an idea. Although this tree was rare, we could plant a new one here in the garden. We just had to find a sapling or seed to plant.

"Do you think we can find one?" I asked. "Last time, me and dad had to go all the way to Elysium to get it."

"I can take you there, and we can find another tree. I have an idea of where we might get a new one.”

Right before my eyes, Uncle started to glow and he transformed into a human. He looked like a mafia boss with his grey suit and yellow tie. Really cool.

He always had this stone cold, deathly glare in his eyes when in his human form. I'm not sure why he looked so intimidating, but I'm glad he was on my side! He was scary.

Come to think of it, dad was kinda' scary too...they both had that same look. Did that run in the family? I hope I won't end up looking like that.

The best part about Uncle's transformation though was that he felt real. His skin, hair, and clothing all had texture to them. I wondered if the other bees knew how to transform like that.

To cap off his outfit, he spawned a fedora and placed it on his head. Somehow that made him look more intimidating. A smile broke his mean look.

"Uncle, why take your human form?"

"It has its advantages." He grabbed my hand. "For instance, I can hold your hand."

"Oh, that makes sense." Hands are easier to hold than little bee legs.

~☆☆☆~

We stood in the midst of vibrant flowers that coloured the land like an inkblot painting. All the flowers perfectly surrounded the big diamond shaped structure hovering behind us; The Hive, my home.

Among those flowers, big stone circles magically spun midair. These were called Nana gates, used for teleporting, but they weren’t active right now.

If you weren’t like us, you’d need a Banana Crest to use them. Those were like passports that would let you travel through the portals. Dad was the only one who could make them for people.

I don’t know why these had such a silly names, but I think that’s what they were called…

Anyways, the Nana gate was right in front of us now. Uncle used some magic power and little lines of blue light spread across the stone surface.

Suddenly, a small bubble of energy formed at the open part of the stone circle, crackling like white lava. It stretched out to cover the inside. A magical portal was made. The energy radiating off of it was so calming, it felt like a nice cool mist on a sunny day.

“This Nalnara gate should take us to Elysium,” Uncle said. “Please, stay close to me, Young Mistress.”

Oh wait, they're called Nalnara gates, not Nana gates...I always forget that.

You know what? Maybe the Banana Crest also had a different name too.

“I'll stay close, Uncle.” I nodded, holding his right hand a little tighter. “Uncle, is it called a Banana crest, or something else?”

“Manona Crest. Ma-no-na.” he corrected me, enunciating clearly. “How many times do I need to remind you that?”

Shoot, did I ask too often? And why did I keep forgetting…? I stink at words.

On the bright side, this trip was going to be fun. I haven’t been out of the house for a while, especially not to Elysium. It's a real cool place, but I'm not supposed to go on my own. I wonder what we'd find there today.