The alarms on the ship grew louder and more frequent. The standard cabin lights were replaced with a deep red hue. The A.I. of the ship was urging Aetherion to deal with the high-density, bright blue energy he was rapidly condensing into a point—right in Jet's face.
Warning!
Warning!
High energy reaction growing stronger!
Please disengage!
Strongly suggesting disengaging!
"Well, I guess we're pissing your ship off. Suppose we had better stop for now."
Just as fast as the energy had been gathered, it was absorbed back, disappearing into the arm of Aetherion.
Bing! Ring! Ring, ring.
"Gotcha! Hahaha!"
Jet had flicked one of his horns, creating a rich ringing sound that mingled with the alarm, adding extra sound effects to their 'prank' on Sylvanthia.
The lights went back to normal and the alarm stopped sounding out.
'Both of you should be ashamed of yourselves for frightening a child like that...'
The mental message channel had been re-opened by Kharusha, hearing the psychics mental message caused Jet to roll his eyes, responding, 'Shut up, goody-six-gloves.'
Jet's eyes flashed for a moment and he left the mind chat again, not giving Kharusha a chance to respond. "Man that guy is annoying... Maybe I should fight him for real some day. It ain't like Magus here wouldn't have opened a teleportation gate to escape with his little weed if we had been serious."
"WEED!?" Sylvanthia immediately got angry.
A green magic formation circle formed on her hand in an instant and she started launching magic-enveloped wood splinters towards Jet, who just stood there laughing. The bright, high velocity projectiles just bounced off Jet's impossibly hard skin, one or two even deflected harmlessly away after hitting his eyeballs.
Now it was Magus's turn to shake his head and roll his eyes, he flicked the back of Sylvanthia's head and said, "You all know I can see into the future using the probabilities of the Akashic Records, combined with forbidden divination... I already knew about this stunt last week, Jet. Sylvanthia, I told you no magic while in a space ship, unless you're performing an enhancement spell or said ship is under attack."
His voice was not high-pitched nor low-pitched, and it carried a magical quality to it, with colorful little wafts of magical energy escaping his mouth with every breath.
Sylvanthia stopped shooting her magical wooden needles at Jet immediately, hugging onto Magus neck and squeezing him. "I'm sorry master, it won't happen again."
"Kweh! Wark!"
From the side, a small, yellow-feathered head poked out of Lira's tightly fitting clothing, the small bird like creature had shrunken itself down to a fraction of its previous size, now treating her upper body like two soft pillows while glaring at the two men at the controls.
"Lucky bird." Norvin interrupted the show suddenly, much to Echo's surprise.
Echo had shifted forms several times while watching the records with Norvin, currently he was changing from Tekkaman Blade into the Red Akibaranger, he snapped his fingers to pause the record, turning his red helmet to look at Norvin with interest.
"Oh? You like what you see?"
Norvin shrugged his shoulders, "She looks kinda like Milla Maxwell from the game 'Tales of Xillia', good style."
Echo pretended to write in the air while mumbling out loud, "Norvin's taste in women, observation one. Into fatally dangerous, Saint level women wearing skimpy outfits."
Norvin smiled back at Echo, not bothered. "What can I say? She's cute. Hey, what's that little yellow bird hanging out in her cleavage? I'm not going to lie, that thing looks like a chocobo. What is 'Saint' level?"
"Saint level is SS Grade. Oh that little guy? That's one of the reasons I pulled you in here. You are looking at the Meta Cosmic Curator, however right now in the Record we are watching it isn't yet a Curator...it's also one of the last of its kind. A 'Great Golden Dragon Phoenix'. That particular one is called Flynn, it's lived with the Elfin Spirit race royalty for thousands of years at this point, and gone through many life, death and re-birth cycles."
Norvin wrinkled his nose for a moment and narrowed his eyes, asking Echo, "So, if it's a phoenix that means it can reincarnate itself? Right?"
"Right."
"Well, then why are there so few of them?"
Echo paused for a moment, while searching the Records for information on the golden-dragon phoenix race. "There were not very many of them to begin with, they started as a mixed bird-and-dragon hybrid, an experiment of the Khand Civilization. These bird-dragon hybrids have a high aptitude towards genetic manipulation and every one has unlocked some sort of Meta power besides the reincarnation ability. The only way to kill one is by completely vaporizing its body and energy. Not an easy task as these creatures usually reach Apex grade levels of strength."
Echo, now appearing as the Guyver bioboosted armor, pointed to the other people frozen on the screen.
"You've now seen not only the future Meta Curator, but also the Armorer Curator, the Pugilist Curator, the Magic Curator and on top of that the future Psychic Curator, your predecessor, whom still needs to make an appearance, he owns the invisible voice that they were all responding to."
"...They kind of seem like goofballs..."
"That may be true, however, what you're looking at is one of the most powerful gatherings of individual power ever. All of the people here are top tier experts as far as supers go, despite their tendency to mess around when in each others company."
"Well, they're all interesting characters, that's for sure, especially that Magus guy, he's got wizard vibes going on. I'm going to assume that he's the Magic Curator, that dude in the cool suit is the Armorer Curator, the bald devil-man is the Pugilist Curator and the psychic has yet to make his appearance? What about the cutie with the booty? I thought she was for sure going to be a Curator...is she an Oracle or something?"
"Not even close." Echo shook his head while turning into a armored type warrior called a 'dragoon', from the Final Fantasy series. Light reflected off the streamlined, blueish-purple armor, the helm resembled a sleek dragons head and you could see some of Echo's exposed, lower face.
The face underneath was clearly the exact same as Norvin's, indicating Echo took on Norvin's appearance under most of the suits.
A long, jet-black lance with eight marble-sized jewels embedded in its shaft appeared in Echo's right hand. The small orbs had several different colors and glowed, just like the other orbs placed in various parts of the dragoon armor, which also shimmered with a mysterious, magical light.
When Norvin had made this entry in the Holodex back on Earth, he had wanted to create a dragoon that could execute magic and summons, so Norvin gave this dragoon entry some of the strongest Materia from Final Fantasy 7, sixteen of them to be exact, split evenly between the armor and the lance.
Materia were more or less little orbs that could transform your energy into magical abilities and spells among other things.
This was one of three custom entries he had created, the second one was a special suit from the shooter game, Call of Duty, where the game studio hosted a Gundam crossover event. Norvin had liked it and added it to the Holodex because it was a human-sized, Gundam lightweight exo-suit armor, complete with a beam saber and beam rifle.
Not only that, he had added a special feature with that entry, a special device from the movie version of the book, 'Ready Player One' that the character 'Daito' received for completing a challenge.
It could allow the user to take on the form of a giant robot but Norvin entered it into the Holodex exclusively as the original Gundam, to compliment the Call of Duty entry.
This version of course was usable more than once, and did not have a time limit. The only limit on usage would be Norvin's power output.
The last one was a custom Hunter setup from another first person shooter game, 'Destiny'. This Hunter had all the good stuff and a full skill tree from the game contained in its entry. Norvin being Norvin, he had made the Hunters armor look like some sort of armored Tokusatsu hero.
Given his love for Kamen Rider, that was no big surprise, as a matter of fact, he had even named the entry as 'Kamen Rider Destiny'.
"Well, okay, you were somewhat close but didn't guess right for half of them, so... " Echo pointed the long dark blade of the lance he was holding towards the still image of the impressive mage and his familiar on the screen in front of them.
Echo's voice grew more serious while he started explaining a little more about the people Norvin had just observed, "Magus of Atlas, insanely powerful grade SS mage, also a scribe—scribes are always high level supers, usually mages and psychics who could interact with the Akashic Records, sort of like a mix between a prophet and someone like you Vin, a Curator. He wielded a totem created by the Records for him, a special wand... no, more like a magical pen that allowed him to inscribe spells directly into reality, normally only forbidden spells can warp the rules of reality with some consequences and prices known, some... not so much. The records could be accessed by this powerful Atlas to an extent, manipulated, and then weaved into the fabric of existence. Magus was the driving force behind the split of the Records, as you're about to find out."
Echo paused for a moment so that Norvin could absorb what he had just said, after a few seconds he added, "Magus actually ended up becoming an Oracle for the Magic Curator, he holds a very special position in the universe."
"What's an Atlas?" Norvin turned his head from the screen to ask Echo a question.
"Hhhmm, excellent question. You know sometimes you've heard the term 'missing link'? Well, the Atlas were the true missing link. They deviated away from normal human trajectory, they had every super gene potential and excelled while normal humans slowly developed beside them. The Atlas became what some of your legends are made of, maybe Atlantis sounds more familiar to you? Nearly every pantheon of gods was just Atlas supers, the humans just like to embellish and add details to fit their needs. Thor? Thunder and lightning-Meta."
"Atlantis? So there's a secret offshoot of humanity with super powers deep in the sea somewhere?"
"Haha, kind of, but it is the sea of stars that the Atlas started to dominate, not the oceans of Earth. Over the course of thousands of years, they advanced fast, secretly left the planet and colonized many systems in the far reaches of space, sometimes alongside or against other races that also traversed the universe...However, after all the genetic modifications the Atlas eventually ran into a problem of low birth rates, so they intermingled the normal humans on occasion, and several hybrid variants were created."
"Created?" Norvin tilted his head, catching the key word.
"Yes, created. Pure blooded Atlas couples could still maintain a small population with a child or two maximum possible. The hybrids, however, spread like crazy over the years, eventually becoming their own civilizations, some had off colored skin with tinges of red, or green, odd hair colors and such but mostly looked human. It was partially due to the Atlas messing with the genes of these hybrids. Adding to the gene pool and then stirring it worked out quite well."
Echo went on to explain a few different races of 'space humans' as they were called. The Atlas, Earth Humans and Space Humans made up the three different branches that originated on Earth, space humans could now be found nearly everywhere, in every realm, making up nearly 60% of the population of sentient beings.
He enlightened Norvin about a few other races, particularly the Elfin, the Oni and the Asura that Norvin had just seen on screen.
Norvin had not seen the Asura yet but Echo did a fairly good job of describing them.
The Asura race were sleek, black metallic-skinned humanoids, their bodies adorned with glowing energy lines that traced along their limbs and torso, matching the shifting colors of the psychic particles that composed their extra arms—from a shimmery silvery to pure white. These four additional arms, made of nearly invisible psychic particles, only revealed their outlines through faint contours and subtle glows.
The particles served as a supportive framework, functioning like a bone structure for the psychic melee constructs the Asura utilized in their unique martial arts. Predominantly composed of energy, these extra limbs acted as both a storage space and a psychic reservoir, always ready with energy for their next move.
Changing shape to suit their needs was second nature to them, forming weapons and utility items before turning back into fists to pummel their enemies. The ability to manifest and utilize these arms was a distinctive trait and talent of the race, a natural mastery that set them apart from any other group of supers. All Asura were born psychics, with many walking down the path of close range martial artists, despite not being real pugilists.
Asuras had not originated on Earth but shared similarities to the way humans look. Not surprisingly, many of the creatures that ancient human civilizations took to be demons, gods or other fictional characters were just space aliens or dimensional visitors that regular humans caught a glimpse of from time to time.
The Atlas allowed certain off world races to have small populations on Earth, provided they keep their contact with the primitive humans and impact to the plant a minimum. The Elfin race was a prime example of this. They're what modern day humans call elves, or children of the forest. Many different legends and stories had been born from these long eared folk, despite having a tiny, well hidden population in a few select forests. They were Elfin that wanted to embrace nature, instead of living the normal life of a galactic citizen.
Echo, now turning into the Orange S.P.D. Power Ranger, brought the conversation back on track, in hopes that he could start playing the record again for Norvin to observe, watching than to explain the 'story thus far', was far less tedious than answering all his questions.
"Anyways, back to your other guesses, like I said, Magus became an Oracle, Lira was a perfect candidate to become the Meta Curator but did not, instead both the phoenix and the green colored nymph became the Meta and the Magic Curators, respectively. Jet and Aetherion are indeed the first Pugilist and Armorer Curators. Pay attention to the screen again. The Asura is about to step onto the bridge of the ship."
The image on the large screen started moving again. The little golden phoenix kept letting Aetherion know how it felt about the chaos the fake feud between him and Jet had caused.
"Wark! Wark! Wark!"
Lira pulled the phoenix out of her chest and placed it on her head, where it stood guard, keeping its squinting eyes trained on the two troublemakers sitting at the controls until it suddenly turned on Lira's head to look at the sliding doors with a look of excitement on its fluffy face.
A couple moments later, the door slid open and Kharusha walked onto the bridge.