[Quest] Computer Shopping

Altima, meanwhile, wasn't quite as dazzled by the surroundings. The platforms were as simple as they came, being just a mildly staggered variant on a straight line. It was just as basic a course as any other, really, and the water, though odd, wasn't much new to her either. It was simple gravity tech, the type of stuff she used regularly. At least, she would use it regularly if all her functions were still in place. With how much power she'd lost due to recent events, many of them had been shut off completely. Even getting there had been a chore, since two of them had to take some methods of conserving her energy, lest her reserves run dry. If they had, then she'd have to take from him again, and that just wasn't sustainable. To her, it was an issue because she had no other backups if they both ran out. To him, it was probably an issue because death really sucks.

That kind of parallel did well to sum up most of why they were both here. Even she could tell that Alex had other reasons for being here. He had motivation to keep her going, yes, but there was also something else. He was too quick to suggest it the other day, as if it was at the front of his thoughts already, and now he was far too thankful for her 'coming with him'. What kind of wording was that, if they were here to fix her? Still, even if he had some other motive, Altima wasn't too concerned. They both understood the simple fact that, between the two of them, he was much less prepared to fight anything if she wasn't there.

"You're the one who carried me," she countered, deflecting his gratitude like the professional not-a-people-person she was. What followed was a display of just how unprepared he was as he struggled to get onto the first platform. Altima considered the potential solution of crossing the shallow waters and climbing one of the pillars at the opposite end, but it looked like the waters were much deeper near the opposite end. She already knew she couldn't fly in the air, so there was no way she could get through water, so she would have to take the same awkward path as Alex. Thankfully, though, climbing wouldn't be such a challenge for her as it was for him. With just a slight leap, she was able to get a hand near the floating stone, and from there her claws shot closed to dig in, giving her a hold with which to pull herself up in a much more dignified manner than her guide. Doing so gave her some reassurance. Though she hadn't really taken anything directly since the previous night, being free of leaks meant she could at least keep up a bare minimum of her strength. Because of that, she'd come a far way from her chair-ridden state. Maybe she couldn't walk five miles alone, but she could definitely climb a few rocks.

It was a satisfying chance to note, and she smiled with new enthusiasm when it finally registered. "And you've kept the Machine alive," she continued from before, voicing her own appreciation. Ah, to perpetuate the life of a weapon like her- Now, that was something to take pride in.

As one might have already come to expect, Altima didn't have the same trouble ascending the other platforms, even after exerting herself to get over the first. She didn't respond to his rebuttal either, choosing not to refuse or validate it while they were busy covering ground. When they reached the top, she took some time to take in the sight, but it wasn't to admire the view. In truth, it was so she could look over the exterior, quietly mapping out a way up through the outside walkways and estimations of how the entrances and exits may line up. When she was satisfied with her conclusions, she moved to interact with that magic switch, but found that Alex had gotten to it first. She stopped in place, confused, then confused about why she was confused until she reminded herself, once again, that she rarely worked as a team. This really was a strange scenario for her, if someone else flipping a switch could put her off so much. She'd get used to it eventually, but it would still bother her to know that she'd be working with someone who wasn't observant in the same ways she was.

It all came down to aether, didn't it? He had enough mechanical knowledge, judging by his assistance before, but he couldn't see the connections between things like she could. It was a rare talent, unfortunately. While she could make a solid guess of what a crystal ball like that would do after having a short glance at it, a person like him needed to do some experimentation to figure it out, and it was still a coincidence that let him activate it without accidentally doing something wrong. No matter his skill with machines, he'd make a terrible mage by her estimate. Still, progress was progress, and they did have an elevator. So long as he didn't 'experiment' his way off the nearby edge, they'd be fine for now.

After joining him on the elevator and sending it on its way, Altima thought a bit more about what he was saying before. He had this strange fixation on what she was. Whenever she mentioned it (and even when she didn't), he responded as if she was wrong. Even though it wasn't forceful or argumentative, it was stated like fact. "It's a strange point to push," she mused aloud. "to say I'm something different than I am." Of course, she wasn't naive enough to claim she didn't understand any of the reasons. Altima knew how her face looked and how her body was shaped. Such shapes were misleading, it seemed. They tricked people into thinking she was one of them. Maybe that was a part of why the previous staff lost their motivation to advance the Project. She couldn't think of the exact word for it at the time, but she knew what the concept was.

She turned her head to ask him directly, "Why do you think it's worth insisting? I already know I was created with a specific purpose in mind."

Alex was suspiciously quick to drop the subject once she pressed it back. Altima let her curiosity leave just as quickly. If it wasn't relevant to him, then it wasn't relevant to her either. Even if she chose to pursue it, there were other things at hand anyway. Their elevator had found its destination, and soon after that Alex warned her of the incoming party that appeared a moment later. Even if the fort wasn't well defended, its guards were certainly eager to do their job. Whether they did it well was yet to be seen.

Alexander was on his way back behind her when he finished his ironically dramatic order, but Altima was already gone before he'd passed. She only needed the first inkling of a command to put herself in a live-fire mode. Even with her energy levels still relatively low, she was a blur in the air, bounding forward from the seam between the platforms and meeting one of the small floating Heartless in the air. Her claws wrapped around its frail little body just as easily as anything else, and she only paused her advance for the duration of the split second she needed to redirect her momentum, the wings on her back firing hard to turn her downward. The Heartless in her hand was carried along and both of them shot to the ground where she smashed the thing against the pavement tile. What injuries it suffered, whether defeated or otherwise, were all that Altima could hope for as the aether seeped away from its body and soaked into her arm.

Had her mask not been in place, they may have seen the way her mouth curled up into a wild grin. The Powerhold breach had left her with no way to keep in anything she absorbed, no matter how little it was, but now she could really put this sort of energy to use. For the first time since she'd arrived here, the ports in her armor gave a bright glow of life that didn't fade. Alex had doubted her efficiency, but that was because he hadn't seen her in action with working equipment. In truth, hers were devices that could do quite a lot with just a little. With that small bit of fresh power at her disposal, she was ready to sow some real chaos. Her plates shook for a second, then the gaps overflowed with green flames which exploded outward, flooding over the crowd that she'd so recklessly dove to the center of. The flames licked and sapped away, burning energy off of whatever they touched before halting completely, at which point they withdrew. The green fire returned to Altima, the gem in her chest sucking them back in and taking hold of what power they stole.

She stood, rolling her shoulders as she felt the fresh dose of life inside. It hadn't been that long, really, but it had still been far too long since she'd felt that. She left whatever remained of that first Heartless in the crater she'd made from it, turning a palm upward and conjuring a small orb of blue light between her fingers. She didn't consider what magic might have been heading toward her in that moment. Instead, she looked over a shoulder, staring through her mask back at the engineer where he had retreated to observe the encounter from a distance. The Console appeared again in front of Alex, the holographic display lighting up and generating a short text prompt. This far away, he probably wouldn't hear if she asked it aloud, so this was as good a way as any to ask his permission.

Altima didn't need to check the console to know what the response was. She could feel that click as the safeties were shut off, and the aether was suddenly free to flow- Just before she felt a new weight upon herself, and not one of her own. Sure enough, a void of black and violet had formed, trying to force her down. Rather than try to resist, she instead fell aside and rolled with it, her tail using the resulting momentum to swing above and arc over another of the red mages before fully giving in and dropping. With the Heartless between her tail and the ground, it ended up pinned beneath the amplified weight. The orb of aether, meanwhile, had been steadily swelling larger as it floated nearby, loosely following Altima as she went. Any fireballs that came near weren't nearly potent enough to disrupt the flow, and though they certainly stung when they burst against her armor (Follow through as she might, she wasn't mobile enough under the spell to truly evade), they weren't enough to stop her either.

With some effort, she was able to come up to a kneel, putting her hands up to pour the last of the energy she needed into the spell, pushing it closer to its critical mass. At its apex, it flashed white for a moment before a ring of lasers appeared around it, whirling around in the last few seconds that remained. After that, it burst, a mix of green waves and white lasers exploding outwards at the surrounding Heartless. It was definitely overkill. It was excessive beyond measure, and would probably be a tremendous waste of firepower, and she didn't care at all. She could feel the lifestream knocked loose from the force of it, and the Hearts around being rewritten as the Machine reached out alongside the massive spell, taking in whatever energies had been freed by the hammering of Ultima.

When the outward burst finally passed, the whole thing was reduced to a single pillar of light piercing through the ground and up into the sky, which slowly shrank and faded just like the rest. Just before it disappeared, though, something else emerged: Altima, leaping forward at high speed toward what was most likely to remain. Though the Nocturnes were weak in every respect, the Wizard had the advantage in its magic defenses. Altima could feel how it lived between the realms of the physical and the magical, easily disregarding the latter and whatever spells were cast in it. Thus did she use the shock to her advantage, rushing forward and, once again, using the altered gravity to her advantage. She wasn't trying to cast a spell or grapple with the Wizard. Rather, her jump took her back to the ground early, where she rolled again and swung the tail up, over, then down against it. If it would ignore her magic, she just wouldn't use it.

Altima, pausing only for a moment to confirm the Wizard was destroyed under the crushing weight of her tail, withdrew it and staggered to her feet, still dizzy from all the spinning on top of her own hefty spellcasting. All of it should have exhausted, or at least winded her, but on the contrary, she was as energized as ever. A few electrical sparks were whipping about her plates as evidence of how much she still had left to spare thanks to all the casualties she'd caused. Yet, even then, she wasn't satisfied. "Maximum safe output is still limited," she noted, her mask retreating into the helm while she spoke to no one in particular. Alexander's outburst did give her a surge of pride, though, and she turned to boast, "The Machine is still unrealized, you know. Had the previous staff stayed focused, this would be the result at thirty-percent output." Though Altima was proud of the calculations of her own potential, acknowledging the reasons behind the Project's failure still left a sour taste in her mouth. Yeah, she was unrealized. Thirty was a conservative estimate, in her mind, but because they'd hesitated, she almost had to restart the whole Project herself. It was a stroke of luck that she'd ended up partnered with anyone remotely competent in the first place.

She knew brooding on that was pointless. "What's our route?" Altima called back, scanning the area for whatever else may try (and likely fail) to attack them. There was a doorway nearby, but the outer platform ascended the castle from the outside. In fact, entering the building at all would probably be a waste. "If our objective is in an upper chamber, I've enough power to reach a window without the stairs," she informed him, though she wasn't aware of where, exactly, their objective was set in this place. Once she knew what window to aim for, it would be rather easy now that she had the fuel for the trip. Alexander couldn't fly, as far as she was aware, but she was no stranger to carrying things- And besides, it would be a way of paying back her debt after being dragged through two separate journeys now.

So they didn't know where the computers were. Alright. Altima couldn't find it in herself to be disappointed by the lack of preparation when her presence was the only reason he could get to the door in the first place. It would have been difficult to scout out a location without getting inside first. At the very least, having a reason to more thoroughly search the place would be a good opportunity to find more of those Heartless. She was still far below capacity, so any chance to feed and fuel up would be a chance well-worth taking.

Passing Alexander in the doorway, she leapt up and scaled the wall behind them, her claws making quick work of the tile as she made her way upward. Once sufficiently high, she turned around and held on loosely, using her new vantage point to get an overhead view of the lobby. "It looks clear," she called down, though it had already been demonstrated that, in places like this, the Heartless could appear with little warning. As safe as it was now, it probably wouldn't last, so she refused to say anything definitive. 'Looking clear' was the most observation she could give with confidence. "We have two exits," she elaborated, "both on the second floor. Left-side and forward." The one on the far, front end seemed rather grand to her, with a large sigil dominating its design that indicated some ceremonial purpose. The one on the left, meanwhile, was much less so, with generic woodwork and a simple plaque labeling its purpose in words she couldn't read from this distance.