I Eywa through the two pale pink eyes of her Avatar gazed down on the very beginning of her expansion, more accurately a very special floating seed she let go, one considered sacred for the Na'vi. What she was currently doing was taking a pivotal step in her long life that would change the future forever.
It was something she wouldn't have done without her mate opening the possibility and giving her the idea of doing so. It was something she never had thought of before, spreading in the cosmos, increasing her biomass by an amount only the future could predict, something so far from what she had been doing for the past billions of years.
The sole memories about expansion were when she was 'young' and she covered the entirety of Pandora but this… This was different on every level, and it was exciting, an emotion she was most alien to experience herself. But one thing was certain: it needed to be done methodically and with patience and care, even if this fiery moon was more of a test run to observe and test more than anything as of now.
The moon was hostile to life but this kind of hostile environment was not new to her, she had her roots within the lithosphere of Pandora, a place as, if not more hostile than here if the Tek Forcefield was off. She was deeply aware of methods to stop and mitigate heat and other hurdles to complex life, most of which involved Psionic to for example alter how atoms interact when they are bathed in it.
She had lived through times when the atmosphere and volcanic activity were alike, adding that she held resources and tools that were impossible to have in her long past. Resources for producing biomass were in untold amounts, space and everything floating in its emptiness was free to use as much as necessary.
It was only a matter of time until this moon was under her 'control', a few centuries to a few millennia at most by Liam's estimation. A very short time for her, the blink of a metaphorical eye really, and this could be accelerated if more resources were put into it but there was no reason to.
Still, it won't be simple, it's an incredibly complex process, for example, volcanism was quite an inconvenience but that wasn't unfixable for the most part. There was her mate who would not hesitate to help if she asked. This moon's only downfall for life was due mostly to its geological activity, it was the source of all the 'problems'.
The seed she let go was that of a Tree of Soul, she was controlling it, making it float down where she released the black gelatinous amoeba she was controlling too, they all were integral parts of her. She was assisting the germination, and creating the most apt condition for successful growth.
This small patch of flora was but the beginning of her anchor upon this moon, the seed with the help of all that she had and will plant will grow into a root network quite like the one in Pandora. It was the first step of her expansion, at the very least to see how it would go.
An hour flew by with Eywa tending to the fledgling part of her body, then she floated back to the Tek Teleporter, the two tetrapterons carrying the now empty box following behind her without much of a sound aside from the near-silent beat of their wings that could be heard thanks to the utter lacks of wind within this safe bubble.
The task needing the intervention of a bipedal creature with hands was done, the rest will be for the most part entirely on her managing the miniature ecosystem she created for it, her, to grow and prosper. There was something quite major to do within the next few days starting in a few hours.
The sole of her clawed feet touched the cold metal, but for it was more than a soulless metal it was the touch of Liam but in one of his other forms as she appreciated this she spoke, her voice calm and soothing, {Child of Metal, We ask of you to bring this Avatar to your Father and Creator, my mate.}
At her words the Child of Metal as she called it was the Scout that had been hovering next to her bobbed in accordance, its lozenge-shaped eye glowing brighter as it followed her directive.
Never would it refuse to heed her words but it was not her the one who led Excursor, only its Creator did and it was by the post-human edicts that the Artificial Emgramic Matrix acted this way. The only exception to that would be if its Creator intervened directly, but in the end, she still held a higher authority clearance than any humans at Hell's Gate.
The Avatar and the tetrapterons world turned completely dark for a short second and what met their eyes was the azure sea and colorful reef far down below, the Tek Teleporter was built on a large platform growing from a cliff giving a picturesque view, particularly at dawn which it currently was but also at sunrise and during eclipses.
This was the Island of the Great Heartsong, this was what the Na'vi had begun to call it after the emergence of the Avatar of the All-Mother on it and it became the island's official name as there was no reason to not make it such.
Liam hadn't even given the island a name until now aside from a set of letters and numbers corresponding to its location and topography. He didn't see the need to name it and kind of stopped thinking about it along the line.
Turning around with movement showing perfect bodily control Eywa saw her mate in but a pair of black boxers. In between his thumb and forefinger was an object the size of a human fist, showing the drastic difference in size compared to what species he physically was similar to.
It was a Cryopod, a Tek item that let the user capture living creatures or anything truly up to a certain size and weight, it placed the captured 'object' in a slip of space where all matter and energy ceased to move and flow as if time had stopped but it wasn't the case it was just a substance with few similarities with ice that created an environment similar yet distinct to that of absolute zero.
The object itself was in the form of a short cylinder with four angles at equal distances and it was glowing brightly as it was used, emitting blue hexagonal particles from its center that was placed ten centimeters away from the head of a crouching great austrapede of size and muscular impossible to see in the wild, and what stood was also that the entirety of its massive frame and each of its extremities as covered in an airtight highly advanced armor of metal and brilliantly blue light.
This was Gladius, the giant bird was in its specifically fitted Tek Armor made by Liam and was currently in the middle of being 'Cryopodded' by the same man. The light from the Cryopod increased for the ten following seconds to the point it engulfed the great austrapede as it emitted a humming sound and then all of it disappeared.
'Now only two more to put into Tek Pokeball…', Liam thought, the Cryopod that contained Gladius vanishing in his inventory. The link with his tame was very much still present but completely silent, it was akin to Gladius being dead yet alive which was quite close to the objective truth.
Turning around he didn't have the time to smile, nevertheless opening his mouth to speak before he got a kiss on his lips from Eywa that lasted for almost half a minute.
"It went well as I can see.", he said with mirth when the kiss ultimately ended, his gaze focused into her eyes as did hers on his silver ones with small hints of purple and blue in the blood vessels, emotions flowing freely like a controlled torrent through their empathetic bond.
"We are pleased with the result, but only time will give the true worth of this endeavor for me to grow beyond.", the All-Mother declared with joy equal to his.
"That is good to hear.", he nodded before walking toward his two tetrapterons, the other two of the quartet already armored and in their respective Cryopod, waiting patiently in their cryo-sleep to be set free.
His implant glowed bright orange and the two small chest plates of supreme craftsmanship that were fitted on the two tetrapterons' chest wavered as blue lines came to life while at the same time, the metals bent and shifted as if it was a swarm of ant or waves upon a large body of water.
And so in an order of seconds two full body armors similar to that of Gladius but adapted to their body type grew over his tames, covering in a way akin to a carapace and a second skin, the light on the armor turning brighter than ever. But that wasn't finished, Liam crouched down and began adding the finishing touch and doing the last checkup on their Tek Armor.
After this Liam took out two Cryopods and simultaneously began the process of storing his tames, a process that was several times shorter than with the much larger and heavier Gladius and as such it ended rather quickly.
With five fully armored beasts trained to their very bones in his inventory, his focus was back on Eywa, in his left hand appeared a thick belt, she grabbed it but not before waving all of her hair into a long braid and taking off the little amount of clothing over herself.
His implant glowed and similarly, an armor came to be over her body from the belt she put on, hexagon plates and articulated metal weaved with blue lines covering her body but it was only the lowermost part of the armor.
'Stay still.', he advised her through the bond and began adding more parts of the armor straight from his inventory.
Those were parts that couldn't be put in any other way than manually, one such was to serve as a connection for the furry tendrils at the end of her queue to let her interact with the armor's many functions, in a way also connecting her to him.
This was a Tek Armor he was putting on her, just like for his tames, one designed for the Avatar she was using to walk among the world. Once he placed the last piece of armor, the Tek Helmet, her angelic face, and pale pink eyes disappeared behind an unfolding visor composed of a hundred small hexagons.
Liam gazed upon his fully armored mate, the sight pleasing even more so when he could feel her entire body. The Tek Armor was intricately woven with the product of his blood, Element and like all that is Tek, it was an extension of what one of his facets truly was.
Her lithe but muscular figure was protected by plates of various shapes and sizes connected by living metal pulsing blue, beating to the rhythm of their synchronized heart, and it covered everything of her body.
From her long tail waving in the air enveloped by a thin but hyper-resistant and hyper-adaptable layer of synthetic esoteric material to her hair and queue held together along her spine, protecting it against all harm the miniature jetpack only provided an additional layer of protection.
This created a hermetic seal for the wearer from the outside world, even more so with several modifications, he did on the original design, such as adding an integrated forcefield generator that would activate for potentially life-threatening emergencies such as a warhead be it manually or by the system's automatic defense response.
There was no reason to limit himself to what was in the game, it would be foolish and suicidal to the highest degree, though such an addition led to the overall armor being extensively more energy consuming when the forcefield is activated, yet when it is on very few things in the universe would be a threat to the wearer.
The energy consumption wasn't much of a problem, Element as a resource was virtually unlimited, and the addition of Tek made it so a greater quantity of it when pure could be handled at once, as much as it was technically part of him he wasn't sure on the means to control it directly. But he was searching for ways to do so, and up to now there were two major options, each coming at potentially at very great cost.
Either way what was happening was a cascading snowball effect of progress, improvement, and development that would only grow in greatness as time went on and all of this was possible thanks to the Tek Replicator.
"My turn.", Liam said and his Tek Armor flickered into reality as it materialized upon his body, there was no interval or wait for him to put the high-tech armor on. One second he was half naked the other he was in a full extremely advanced armor that would lead humanity into the 6th World War and 2nd Sol War to obtain but a part of the set
He flexed his hands, kinetic energy building up to a critical point before dissipating back into the gauntlets, a large grin appeared on his face at this, it was a pure sensation of power, it felt good, no, it felt right to be in such an armor. Which was also partly made of himself.
And so with the two of them now fully armored the Tek Teleporter both were standing on emitted a large blue blast of light and after a second of sensory deprivation they were brought right in front of the Element Nexus, the facility where Element was produced.
The massive temperature, and pressure difference from Pandora to that of Naratskxepay they just were teleported was completely irrelevant to them, they could have been teleported in lava for all that matter and there would have been no difference.
The Tek Armor protects the wearer against those pesky problems via the use of various shields of energy, such as mainly but not only a thermic shield capable of warding kelvin in the tens of thousands if not more in short bursts.
Of course, the expenditure of Element inflated in those conditions to keep the wearer's vital stable, just as all of the Tek Armor functions were, and functions it had many, calling it a power armor would be more apt.
Physical protection against the elements was but a bonus with how much power it granted the wearer, a normal human wearing a regular set would be able to shatter massive boulders, breathe in any environment, see through nearly all surfaces, run on water at transonic speed and fly at the same speed if not faster.
But a normal human wouldn't be able to use such a power armor even if it were linked to the user's mind to a fraction of its potential, it required a processing power and processing speed that was inhuman but also extensive training or something akin to that.
Yet none of his tames met such requirements, as much as they were trained and smart Liam hadn't put cybernetic implants in them, for now, Cupla aside.
But the five Tek Armor here were more on the protection with them all having an emergency forcefield, a small inventory about their weight, and holographic claws that could be turned on and off based on the design of the Tek Claws' Tekgram.
Essentially a power weapon using light that would never run dull because they weren't blades to begin with nor did they cut per the strict definition of the term.
The Element was infused within the hard light of the holograms letting them disrupt most energy in existence, not exempt from this were the energies letting the fundamental particles, even the ones even smaller interact together and form the subatomic particles known as protons, neutrons, and electrons that themselves were the building blocks for atoms. And these were light melee weapons, pretty much a very, very, very 'sharp' pocket knife.
For the more offensive side of their Tek Armors, the only two true differences were that the tetrapterons only got one small turret on their head activatable at will that shot at a rate of ten rounds per second, rounds that were condensed balls of Element-fueled plasma traveling at hypersonic speeds while Gladius held two bigger more powerful ones but with slower fire rate on each side of its head that also held an amplifier for its scream.
"See you at the point of rendez-vous on your map, and preferably not with an uncontrolled landing ending on any solid surface.", Liam said lovingly to Eywa through the voice com remembering her multiple counters while using her Tek Armor.
While he spoke the jetpack behind his Tek Chestplate had lit up and he started hovering a few meters above the ground, the brilliant blue energy intensifying and he was gone. A sonic boom echoed in the entire cave, then another echoed as he broke the sound barrier a second time.
"This is hardly fair competition.", she stated, more exasperated and amused than anything, she knew she couldn't win this, even if she were to be able to fly faster and if she did chance she would end up buried deeply under ice and snow.
With a joyful smile, her own Tek Chestplate jetpack lit up and she gained altitude, her boot leaving the ground, and the next second she as well was the cause of a sonic boom.
*
My Patreon if you want to give me money and have chapters I have finished in advance, between 18 to 23.
patreon.com/user?u=60424165
I Eywa through the two pale pink eyes of her Avatar gazed down on the very beginning of her expansion, more accurately a very special floating seed she let go, one considered sacred for the Na'vi. What she was currently doing was taking a pivotal step in her long life that would change the future forever.
It was something she wouldn't have done without her mate opening the possibility and giving her the idea of doing so. It was something she never had thought of before, spreading in the cosmos, increasing her biomass by an amount only the future could predict, something so far from what she had been doing for the past billions of years.
The sole memories about expansion were when she was 'young' and she covered the entirety of Pandora but this… This was different on every level, and it was exciting, an emotion she was most alien to experience herself. But one thing was certain: it needed to be done methodically and with patience and care, even if this fiery moon was more of a test run to observe and test more than anything as of now.
The moon was hostile to life but this kind of hostile environment was not new to her, she had her roots within the lithosphere of Pandora, a place as, if not more hostile than here if the Tek Forcefield was off. She was deeply aware of methods to stop and mitigate heat and other hurdles to complex life, most of which involved Psionic to for example alter how atoms interact when they are bathed in it.
She had lived through times when the atmosphere and volcanic activity were alike, adding that she held resources and tools that were impossible to have in her long past. Resources for producing biomass were in untold amounts, space and everything floating in its emptiness was free to use as much as necessary.
It was only a matter of time until this moon was under her 'control', a few centuries to a few millennia at most by Liam's estimation. A very short time for her, the blink of a metaphorical eye really, and this could be accelerated if more resources were put into it but there was no reason to.
Still, it won't be simple, it's an incredibly complex process, for example, volcanism was quite an inconvenience but that wasn't unfixable for the most part. There was her mate who would not hesitate to help if she asked. This moon's only downfall for life was due mostly to its geological activity, it was the source of all the 'problems'.
The seed she let go was that of a Tree of Soul, she was controlling it, making it float down where she released the black gelatinous amoeba she was controlling too, they all were integral parts of her. She was assisting the germination, and creating the most apt condition for successful growth.
This small patch of flora was but the beginning of her anchor upon this moon, the seed with the help of all that she had and will plant will grow into a root network quite like the one in Pandora. It was the first step of her expansion, at the very least to see how it would go.
An hour flew by with Eywa tending to the fledgling part of her body, then she floated back to the Tek Teleporter, the two tetrapterons carrying the now empty box following behind her without much of a sound aside from the near-silent beat of their wings that could be heard thanks to the utter lacks of wind within this safe bubble.
The task needing the intervention of a bipedal creature with hands was done, the rest will be for the most part entirely on her managing the miniature ecosystem she created for it, her, to grow and prosper. There was something quite major to do within the next few days starting in a few hours.
The sole of her clawed feet touched the cold metal, but for it was more than a soulless metal it was the touch of Liam but in one of his other forms as she appreciated this she spoke, her voice calm and soothing, {Child of Metal, We ask of you to bring this Avatar to your Father and Creator, my mate.}
At her words the Child of Metal as she called it was the Scout that had been hovering next to her bobbed in accordance, its lozenge-shaped eye glowing brighter as it followed her directive.
Never would it refuse to heed her words but it was not her the one who led Excursor, only its Creator did and it was by the post-human edicts that the Artificial Emgramic Matrix acted this way. The only exception to that would be if its Creator intervened directly, but in the end, she still held a higher authority clearance than any humans at Hell's Gate.
The Avatar and the tetrapterons world turned completely dark for a short second and what met their eyes was the azure sea and colorful reef far down below, the Tek Teleporter was built on a large platform growing from a cliff giving a picturesque view, particularly at dawn which it currently was but also at sunrise and during eclipses.
This was the Island of the Great Heartsong, this was what the Na'vi had begun to call it after the emergence of the Avatar of the All-Mother on it and it became the island's official name as there was no reason to not make it such.
Liam hadn't even given the island a name until now aside from a set of letters and numbers corresponding to its location and topography. He didn't see the need to name it and kind of stopped thinking about it along the line.
Turning around with movement showing perfect bodily control Eywa saw her mate in but a pair of black boxers. In between his thumb and forefinger was an object the size of a human fist, showing the drastic difference in size compared to what species he physically was similar to.
It was a Cryopod, a Tek item that let the user capture living creatures or anything truly up to a certain size and weight, it placed the captured 'object' in a slip of space where all matter and energy ceased to move and flow as if time had stopped but it wasn't the case it was just a substance with few similarities with ice that created an environment similar yet distinct to that of absolute zero.
The object itself was in the form of a short cylinder with four angles at equal distances and it was glowing brightly as it was used, emitting blue hexagonal particles from its center that was placed ten centimeters away from the head of a crouching great austrapede of size and muscular impossible to see in the wild, and what stood was also that the entirety of its massive frame and each of its extremities as covered in an airtight highly advanced armor of metal and brilliantly blue light.
This was Gladius, the giant bird was in its specifically fitted Tek Armor made by Liam and was currently in the middle of being 'Cryopodded' by the same man. The light from the Cryopod increased for the ten following seconds to the point it engulfed the great austrapede as it emitted a humming sound and then all of it disappeared.
'Now only two more to put into Tek Pokeball…', Liam thought, the Cryopod that contained Gladius vanishing in his inventory. The link with his tame was very much still present but completely silent, it was akin to Gladius being dead yet alive which was quite close to the objective truth.
Turning around he didn't have the time to smile, nevertheless opening his mouth to speak before he got a kiss on his lips from Eywa that lasted for almost half a minute.
"It went well as I can see.", he said with mirth when the kiss ultimately ended, his gaze focused into her eyes as did hers on his silver ones with small hints of purple and blue in the blood vessels, emotions flowing freely like a controlled torrent through their empathetic bond.
"We are pleased with the result, but only time will give the true worth of this endeavor for me to grow beyond.", the All-Mother declared with joy equal to his.
"That is good to hear.", he nodded before walking toward his two tetrapterons, the other two of the quartet already armored and in their respective Cryopod, waiting patiently in their cryo-sleep to be set free.
His implant glowed bright orange and the two small chest plates of supreme craftsmanship that were fitted on the two tetrapterons' chest wavered as blue lines came to life while at the same time, the metals bent and shifted as if it was a swarm of ant or waves upon a large body of water.
And so in an order of seconds two full body armors similar to that of Gladius but adapted to their body type grew over his tames, covering in a way akin to a carapace and a second skin, the light on the armor turning brighter than ever. But that wasn't finished, Liam crouched down and began adding the finishing touch and doing the last checkup on their Tek Armor.
After this Liam took out two Cryopods and simultaneously began the process of storing his tames, a process that was several times shorter than with the much larger and heavier Gladius and as such it ended rather quickly.
With five fully armored beasts trained to their very bones in his inventory, his focus was back on Eywa, in his left hand appeared a thick belt, she grabbed it but not before waving all of her hair into a long braid and taking off the little amount of clothing over herself.
His implant glowed and similarly, an armor came to be over her body from the belt she put on, hexagon plates and articulated metal weaved with blue lines covering her body but it was only the lowermost part of the armor.
'Stay still.', he advised her through the bond and began adding more parts of the armor straight from his inventory.
Those were parts that couldn't be put in any other way than manually, one such was to serve as a connection for the furry tendrils at the end of her queue to let her interact with the armor's many functions, in a way also connecting her to him.
This was a Tek Armor he was putting on her, just like for his tames, one designed for the Avatar she was using to walk among the world. Once he placed the last piece of armor, the Tek Helmet, her angelic face, and pale pink eyes disappeared behind an unfolding visor composed of a hundred small hexagons.
Liam gazed upon his fully armored mate, the sight pleasing even more so when he could feel her entire body. The Tek Armor was intricately woven with the product of his blood, Element and like all that is Tek, it was an extension of what one of his facets truly was.
Her lithe but muscular figure was protected by plates of various shapes and sizes connected by living metal pulsing blue, beating to the rhythm of their synchronized heart, and it covered everything of her body.
From her long tail waving in the air enveloped by a thin but hyper-resistant and hyper-adaptable layer of synthetic esoteric material to her hair and queue held together along her spine, protecting it against all harm the miniature jetpack only provided an additional layer of protection.
This created a hermetic seal for the wearer from the outside world, even more so with several modifications, he did on the original design, such as adding an integrated forcefield generator that would activate for potentially life-threatening emergencies such as a warhead be it manually or by the system's automatic defense response.
There was no reason to limit himself to what was in the game, it would be foolish and suicidal to the highest degree, though such an addition led to the overall armor being extensively more energy consuming when the forcefield is activated, yet when it is on very few things in the universe would be a threat to the wearer.
The energy consumption wasn't much of a problem, Element as a resource was virtually unlimited, and the addition of Tek made it so a greater quantity of it when pure could be handled at once, as much as it was technically part of him he wasn't sure on the means to control it directly. But he was searching for ways to do so, and up to now there were two major options, each coming at potentially at very great cost.
Either way what was happening was a cascading snowball effect of progress, improvement, and development that would only grow in greatness as time went on and all of this was possible thanks to the Tek Replicator.
"My turn.", Liam said and his Tek Armor flickered into reality as it materialized upon his body, there was no interval or wait for him to put the high-tech armor on. One second he was half naked the other he was in a full extremely advanced armor that would lead humanity into the 6th World War and 2nd Sol War to obtain but a part of the set
He flexed his hands, kinetic energy building up to a critical point before dissipating back into the gauntlets, a large grin appeared on his face at this, it was a pure sensation of power, it felt good, no, it felt right to be in such an armor. Which was also partly made of himself.
And so with the two of them now fully armored the Tek Teleporter both were standing on emitted a large blue blast of light and after a second of sensory deprivation they were brought right in front of the Element Nexus, the facility where Element was produced.
The massive temperature, and pressure difference from Pandora to that of Naratskxepay they just were teleported was completely irrelevant to them, they could have been teleported in lava for all that matter and there would have been no difference.
The Tek Armor protects the wearer against those pesky problems via the use of various shields of energy, such as mainly but not only a thermic shield capable of warding kelvin in the tens of thousands if not more in short bursts.
Of course, the expenditure of Element inflated in those conditions to keep the wearer's vital stable, just as all of the Tek Armor functions were, and functions it had many, calling it a power armor would be more apt.
Physical protection against the elements was but a bonus with how much power it granted the wearer, a normal human wearing a regular set would be able to shatter massive boulders, breathe in any environment, see through nearly all surfaces, run on water at transonic speed and fly at the same speed if not faster.
But a normal human wouldn't be able to use such a power armor even if it were linked to the user's mind to a fraction of its potential, it required a processing power and processing speed that was inhuman but also extensive training or something akin to that.
Yet none of his tames met such requirements, as much as they were trained and smart Liam hadn't put cybernetic implants in them, for now, Cupla aside.
But the five Tek Armor here were more on the protection with them all having an emergency forcefield, a small inventory about their weight, and holographic claws that could be turned on and off based on the design of the Tek Claws' Tekgram.
Essentially a power weapon using light that would never run dull because they weren't blades to begin with nor did they cut per the strict definition of the term.
The Element was infused within the hard light of the holograms letting them disrupt most energy in existence, not exempt from this were the energies letting the fundamental particles, even the ones even smaller interact together and form the subatomic particles known as protons, neutrons, and electrons that themselves were the building blocks for atoms. And these were light melee weapons, pretty much a very, very, very 'sharp' pocket knife.
For the more offensive side of their Tek Armors, the only two true differences were that the tetrapterons only got one small turret on their head activatable at will that shot at a rate of ten rounds per second, rounds that were condensed balls of Element-fueled plasma traveling at hypersonic speeds while Gladius held two bigger more powerful ones but with slower fire rate on each side of its head that also held an amplifier for its scream.
"See you at the point of rendez-vous on your map, and preferably not with an uncontrolled landing ending on any solid surface.", Liam said lovingly to Eywa through the voice com remembering her multiple counters while using her Tek Armor.
While he spoke the jetpack behind his Tek Chestplate had lit up and he started hovering a few meters above the ground, the brilliant blue energy intensifying and he was gone. A sonic boom echoed in the entire cave, then another echoed as he broke the sound barrier a second time.
"This is hardly fair competition.", she stated, more exasperated and amused than anything, she knew she couldn't win this, even if she were to be able to fly faster and if she did chance she would end up buried deeply under ice and snow.
With a joyful smile, her own Tek Chestplate jetpack lit up and she gained altitude, her boot leaving the ground, and the next second she as well was the cause of a sonic boom.
*
My Patreon if you want to give me money and have chapters I have finished in advance, between 18 to 23.
patreon.com/user?u=60424165
