The celebration reached a crescendo as the 500 survivors lifted their voices in unison—not words, but pure sound, raw emotion given form. It was the sound of parents calling their children's names, of lovers refusing to give up hope, of friends who would walk through hell itself to bring each other home. The Central Core resonated with their joy, harmonics building upon harmonics until the very air seemed to sing.
That's when it happened.
The cysts on the Six began to pulse faster, their alien rhythm syncing with the crescendo of human emotion. Lacey felt hers first—a sudden pressure on her left bicep, as if something was pushing against the membrane from within.
"Something's happening," she said, extending her Clockwork knight frames left arm up. The cyst felt different—warmer, more active, almost eager.
Around her, the others were experiencing the same phenomenon. Bunk's purple-veined growth throbbed in time with his heartbeat. Tumbler's carnival-colored clusters flickered between phase states. Zozo's iridescent cyst shimmered and popped with the same frequencies as her bubble projectiles.
The survivors' celebration grew louder, their voices joining in spontaneous harmony—a wordless anthem of defiance against despair. And as their joy reached its peak, the cysts responded.
Pop!pop!pop
Lacey's burst first, not with pain but with a sensation like champagne bubbles fizzing through her neural network. A cascade of golden light erupted from the ruptured membrane, flowing through her Clockwork Knight systems and illuminating her brass gears with new radiance.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
One by one, the others followed.
Hexi's geometric cyst unfolded like an origami flower, releasing prismatic energy that made her Tesseract plates sing with mathematical harmony.
Pip's story-covered growth opened like a book, pages of light streaming into her empathic sensors. Zozo's twin cysts burst in perfect synchronization, flooding her bubble launchers with new chromatic frequencies.
Bunk's cluster cracked like eggshells, purple light racing along his angular frame's structural supports.
Tumbler's carnival growths popped in sequence, each one releasing a different aspect of his phase-shifting abilities back into his core systems.
The survivors cheered even louder, sensing that something miraculous was happening, though they couldn't quite understand what.
In the aftermath of the bursting, the Six stood transformed—not physically, but systemically. Their Toy Frames hummed with new energy, systems running at efficiencies they hadn't experienced since their first activation. Whatever had been growing within those cysts hadn't been parasitic after all.
It had been potential.
The Six's HUD's suddenly blazed with incoming data streams, their digital heads-up display began to stream system information, new and upgraded analytical systems processing information at unprecedented speeds. Among the cascade of updates, one message stood out in stark blue text:
CORRUPTION LEVEL REDUCED: 12% → 3%
CHROMATIC RESONANCE STABILIZED
HOPE QUOTIENT: OPTIMAL
TOY FRAME LV 1<->2
SYSTEM MESSAGE: JOY PROTOCOLS ONLINE
"Corruption reduced," she read aloud, her voice filled with wonder. "The Toy Frames track the corruption level in the form of Cysts?!? Hexie interjected," Perhaps the cysts are a form of defense, a type of immune response. Whatever the case may be they've dropped significantly. Twelve percentage points to three..." She gestured at the celebrating crowd around them.
"From saving people," Pip breathed, her enhanced empathic sensors now picking up the emotional resonance patterns flowing between the survivors like visible light. "From giving them hope."
Lacey's tactical systems were running new calculations, probability matrices that hadn't existed moments before. She could see it now—faint threads of connection linking every restored crew member to the ship's overall health, chromatic pathways that grew stronger with each act of salvation.
"It's not just about phsyically fighting," she realized, her gears clicking into a new configuration as understanding dawned. "This is about spreading Joy and countering fear. Every person we save, every moment of joy we create—it pushes back against whatever force is trying to consume this ship."
Tumbler flickered through several phase states, his enhanced abilities letting him perceive the dimensional fabric around them. "I can see it," he said, voice filled with awe. "The corruption isn't just absence—it's a wound in reality itself. But the hope, the joy... it's stitching the wound closed."
Bunk flexed his newly empowered systems, his construction protocols now interfacing with the ship's infrastructure in ways that felt almost organic. "So we're not just fighting monsters," he rumbled, satisfaction evident in his mechanical voice. "We're healing the ship itself."
Zozo fired a test bubble, watching as it shimmered with colors she'd never seen before—hues that seemed to carry emotional weight, frequencies that resonated with hope and determination. "Every person we bring home makes us stronger. Makes the ship stronger."
The crowd around them continued to celebrate, but now the Six could see what their joy was accomplishing—threads of light weaving through the ship's superstructure, carried on laughter and tears of relief. Each connection strengthened the vessel's resistance to corruption, creating a network of hope that spread outward from the Central Core.
"The victory condition," Lacey announced, her voice carrying new certainty. "It's not enough to just stop the spread or contain the threat. We have to actively heal what's been damaged. And we do that by saving people—by creating moments of joy and hope that push back against the darkness."
Dagger approached them, her own restored humanity seeming brighter somehow, as if their realization was affecting her as well. "I can feel it," she whispered. "The ship... it's waking up. Not just the systems—the soul of the place. Every person you bring home, every family you reunite... it's like the Meridian's Edge is remembering what it was built for."
The implications were staggering. They weren't just conducting a rescue mission—they were performing surgery on reality itself, using hope as their scalpel and joy as their sutures. Every transformed crew member they restored would not only return to their human form but would actively contribute to the ship's recovery.
"Tomorrow, we don't just hunt bugs," Lacey declared, through her enhanced systems already plotting optimal routes through the ship's corrupted sections. "We harvest hope. We gather joy. And we use them to win this war one smile at a time."
The cheers that erupted from the survivors carried new meaning now—not just celebration of what had been accomplished, but anticipation of what was possible. In the depths of the ship, corruption levels continued to tick downward, one percentage point at a time.
Hope had become a weapon.
And the Six finally understood how to wield it.