The message Vegis received from Drake didn’t mention that they would visit them during the break. He thought that they would meet again when they went to the northern station. Another reason this surprised Vegis was that they could exist away from the poles where the rifts were. They didn’t seem to have any special equipment on them that would allow for extra mana to be injected into their bodies to handle an away trip so when they got close, Vegis asked them a question. “How are you 2 able to be here right now?” Drake rolled his eyes at this while Doel was giggling at the question. After stopping himself to breathe, Doel answered. “The event that made you 2 cause more permanent rifts to appear, accelerating the rate of mana saturation would happen. Now, this may have some unforeseen effects on the research here but it will also allow for better equipment to be brought over here, along with more of us to come over.”
Mitra only tilted her head at this but Vegis eyes were wide with shock since this was nearly unprecedented. Tear was the umbrella term for any opening in space time without consideration for duration or size. A rift was a colloquial name for any tear that is permanent. If just the formation of Mitra to happen caused a permanent tear in space, Vegis wondered at how strong both of them would become in the coming years. Vegis’s train of thought was interrupted when Drake started to speak. “Okay. so, that reckless fool and I managed to get the elders off of our backs but they are interested in the rapid saturation of the planet and will be sending some of their people over to this world. It is best for you guys to not do anything suspicious or contact us though any way other than in person. If they find out about you guys, you will be locked up in some temple back home to be both vivisected and worshiped.”
Vegis cringed at this possibility but Mitra didn't think anything was wrong about it. This was kinda already happening to her before she underwent the metamorphosis. Did she like it, absolutely not but it was not what one could call the worst either. She was, however, knocked out for most of these operations and she imagined that the elders wouldn't do that to test her more. The longer she mulled over this potential future, the more problems started to arise like how good the food will be and entertainment.
Drake went to the back of the transport and popped the trunk open to grab a briefcase. As he walked over, the 2 of them could hear the slight noise of metals clacking against each other in it. When Drake got near them, Doel asked, “May we go inside?” and Vegis nodded after getting out of the way. All 4 of them went inside and Vegis led them to the table they used to eat on. After they sat down, Drake opened the briefcase and pulled out a metal bottle and a large device. “What is that for?” asked both Vegis and Mitra when Drake loaded the device with the bottle and placed it on the floor. “This is about 10 doses of nanites that we will be using to monitor your health since your changes need to be kept on the down low. 3 will be for the Sunkin and 7 for you and your clones.”
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Vegis nodded at this and went over to the wall that hid the clone pods and had then left them. As he was doing this, Drake instructed Mitra to put her arm into the machine and when she did, a thick pipe came out the side of it and pressed itself close to her skin. After 20 seconds, a loud pop could be heard as the machine used a small spell to analyze the amount of pressure to use and then shot a small jet of nanite filled liquid into her arm, breaching her extraordinarily tough skin and into her flesh. All that was left was a bruise on the injection spot and a small drop of blood. Vegis came over and sat down to get his done. The machine took much less time than when it did Mitra, but that was because he wasn't as resilient as Mitra. It was 10 seconds of the machine to both analyze and build enough pressure to pierce his skin. The clones took less time, each only needing 5 seconds.
Vegis could feel the nanites squirm from the injection spot to his blood stream and all over his body, slowly getting into every crevice of his body. There were only 2 areas it couldn’t get into, which were his heart and his brain. Vegis imagined that it was the same for Mitra but he could feel it was different for the clones. The nanites could get into their hearts and brain so he was curious about why this was the case. Vegis used the link he had with Mitra that he hadn’t used in a while to ask her if that was the case and got a yes in response. After 10 minutes, Vegis could feel the nanites starting to stop squirming and then was asked a question from the 2 across from him. “Are you guys purposely blocking the nanites?” asked Doel but only got a “No” from them.
Drake looked at the information and was puzzled at it too. He muttered to Doel, “It wasn’t like when I did this to the Forest Blooded.” Vegis heard this and asked, “Is there another person like us here?” and Drake nodded. “I was gonna tell you about them when you got to the station but yeah, there is 1 Forest Blooded created at the same time as you guys were. However, unlike y'all who are adults and conscious, it’s roughly middle schooler shaped and hasn’t woken up since it came out of the rift. The only time it was even detected to move was when you 2 got rowdy and fucked up Doel.” Vegis frowned at this but nodded.
“Is that all you need from us?”(Vegis) “No, you will have to leave tomorrow so we can see the reaction of the little scamp”(Drake) “Whyyyyyy? The break is gonna end in only 4 more days.”(Mitra) “Well, that is because there will also be a need to do a bigger renovation of this area if you are planning to live in this spot. The council will need to do a lot of things to keep an important asset here.”(Doel) “Fine. Just make sure I can still have fun.”(Mitra) Doel nodded at this request and then stood up. Drake soon did the same and turned to the door to leave. “Ah, one more thing, if things get hairy, we will make a new identity for you guys but that is a last resort since it's a pain.” Said Doel before he and Drake entered the vehicle and drove off.
