271 After Effects 2

"I'm sorry, could you please repeat that? I think I must have misheard."

"But you didn't, like I said we're going to fight with you from now on so just deal with it!"

Acting strangely bashful and prideful at the same time, Lilly somehow managed to make an impression on Dax, although it had more to do with her wearing her hooded pyjamas with fake cat ears on top of it than anything else.

"Yeah no, I'm not letting you 3 do something that dangerous, normal conflicts aside, the elders are seriously dangerous opponents. Although I don't want to boast or demean you girls in any way or shape when I say we're on a completely different level. That isn't due to personal skill or anything like that but live combat experience."

Even if he sounded outright pretentious, Dax was right about the elders, after all, every time he had faced an irregular elder so far had been a tough match, in fact, it wasn't too far off to say that he had come closer to death than ever before. Comparing Alice, Solaris and Lilly to his fellow executive Hellwalkers Lux and Phillipa, or even the immortal demon Ifrit wouldn't even make for a competition, the difference in fighting experience and personal power was simply too great.

"Ugh-"

In response to Dax's harsh rejection to her proposal, Lilly slightly stuttered, but it was only temporary as she quickly regained her composure and confidence.

"But that is not true anymore, we all have live combat experience, and against an irregular elder no less!"

Boasting about her recent achievement, Lilly expected that Dax would at least be surprised, or show any emotion for that matter, but instead, he just went quiet while looking into the air.

"... Dax?"

"Sorry, I have a sudden need to slaughter some subordinates so I'll be right back."

"DAX!?"

While turning quiet Dax had accessed all the recent combat logs, from there he had quickly found inconsistencies in the individual after action reports and instantly singled out the culprit.

Needless to say, Dax was less than pleased when he found out that not only Phillipa but also Lux of all people had gone behind his back and against his direct orders while straight up lying to his face all the while.

"This is something we requested of them, not the other way around. Besides, we've been working hard to get stronger ever since we entered this relationship, strong enough to support you, and that has finally happened."

Stepping in between Dax and the exit, Solaris attempted to keep calm as she explained their reasoning to him the best she could.

'Attempting' to keep calm being the keyword, as her tone got increasingly more loaded as emotions she had kept suppressing for a while bubbled to the surface. In response to such clear cut emotions, Dax went quiet as he became aware of her frustrations and fears, if he was on the other side of his behaviour he would share their concerns.

"Okay then, I won't keep anyone one of you from following me. Seeing that Lux has approved this, although, behind my back, there's really nothing I can, need or want to do about it."

Giving in to the girl's request, Dax still wasn't entirely okay about it, more than anything he realized that he needed to trust them instead. Besides, if the girls ever got into danger there was no better place for them to do that than next to him, as there was no way in hell Dax would allow any of them to be hurt.

-

"Whenever you're ready."

"Okay… Here goes."

Standing in the middle of a mostly empty field surrounded by all sorts of monitoring equipment Terra was just a little scared when she heard the overly excited voice of Dax's supposed older sister Ra. Stretching out her hand towards a target dummy, Terra reached into the depths of her mind as she closed her concentrate. Ever since she woke up in that room having beaten that curse Terra felt like there was someone or something else inside her head, while that might sound off putting to some, Terra herself felt oddly calm about it, like there was some sort of power resting inside her, ready to respond to her every command.

(Target acquired.)

Having focused her mind, Terra clenched her outstretched hand into a fist as the mana in the area ruched towards her, collecting right in front of her fist together with a large amount of air which was violently compressed and heated up at the same time. With the power of the irregular and rule breaking power of magic a hole was instantly melted in the target dummy as a beam of highly compressed plasma forced its way through it, the only difference between this and a normal spell being the scary level of efficiency compared to even what an expert could muster. This is how it had been for Terra since she woke up in that room, this strange power would respond to her every want and need, she simply just needed to will the destruction of something and it would happen automatically.

If that power wasn't outrageous enough in itself Terra's senses had also sharpened considerably along with her reflexes, bringing her almost to Lux's level in terms of instincts.

"So did you figure out what's happening?"

Having also just witnessed the test, Dax immediately asked for Ra's opinion while she was tapping away at a tablet.

"Hmm, not exactly… Although I do have a hypophysis."

Continuing to work through the data she had just collected even as Terra joined them with expectations clearly visible on her face, Ra voiced her thoughts without worrying that she even made sense.

"From what you and Terra told me, I would wager that the 'curse' afflicting Terra was some sort of formatting program, that would explain the elder's 'organic processors' and why they increase their output to such a degree, although it appears that it has somehow malfunctioned in Terra's case due to some unknown reason. Working off of that assumption, the word 'curse' might also be incorrect, the closest thing I can compare it to would be an ICI interface/processor like the one in your back Dax, working to increase processing speed and improve combat effectiveness."

"You don't sound too sure about this."

Listening to Ra's explanation that much was obvious to Dax, but more surprising than anything was Ra didn't even try to defend herself.

"That's because I'm not. If anything, this does definitely qualify as precursor technology, so the only thing I can say with some amount of certainty is that it doesn't outright pose a threat to Terra herself."