Luciel quietly thanked himself for reading a mountain of books during his journey with Bambi. It had turned him from an Outland rat into a reasonably sophisticated young man. His old self would never been unable to read a letter, let alone made conjectures.
His train of thought derailed when the lights flickered, followed by a filtered voice from the intercom.
[Attention all personnel. Kindly secure your positions. We are dimensional-jumping in T-minus two minutes. I repeat — all personnel, please secure your positions. Thank you.]
Luciel took in a deep breath when Bambi stirred below him.
"Here we go," she muttered, half-asleep.
He leaned over the rails and looked down at Bambi.
"Can we just be in bed like this?"
Bambi nodded.
"Yeah. Dimensional ships are built to be as stable as possible during a jump. Gleipnir is one of the best out there."
She tilted her head and looked up at him.
"Come down here."
"No thanks."
She shot him a glare sharp enough to cut through metal.
"Okay, okay."
Luciel slowly put his feet down, one step at a time. He landed gracefully, went to the mini fridge for two water bottles, then climbed into the bottom bunk and handed one to Bambi.
"Thanks!"
She opened the bottle and gulped it down.
"Aaaah! Cold water tastes the best!"
Luciel sat in silence while looking at her shenanigans. He could never really know what the Elf was thinking. She had many faces, and she could change them at will when needed — playful, then serious; clumsy, then meticulous; ignorant, then knowledgeable.
Because he was so monotone, he couldn't understand how someone could hold so much personality all in one person. Was it all her real self, or just illusions?
Either way, he was just glad Bambi revealed every side of her to him.
He opened his bottle of water and chugged it down.
"Woah. Slow down. You might choke on it."
He set it down after finishing half the bottle.
"It's been a crazy day."
"Sure is."
Bambi opened her mouth to say something else, then closed it. After a moment, she spoke again:
"Sorry."
Luciel blinked.
"Why?"
She dangled the bottle from side to side.
"…I didn't tell you anything about Golden Flower. It wasn't that I didn't trust you. I just didn't want to think about the past."
He shifted slightly, his gaze softened.
Bambi's apology showed how heavily the matter weighed on her, and it meant she truly treasured this relationship. It was rare to see her not deflect.
"Then aren't we in the same boat? I never talk about my past with you, do I? I don't like to think about it either."
She smiled softly. He rarely saw her wear that expression.
"…I promise I'll tell you someday."
Luciel leaned back against the wall beside the bed. Once someone had made up their mind, it was rude to deny their will.
"Okay. Take it easy."
Bambi let out a breath, as though a weight she'd been carrying had finally been lifted off. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes.
A comfortable silence settled between them. Soon enough, the intercom cut through.
[Attention, everyone. We are now initiating the jump. Please stay seated until we reach the Grey Space.]
The ship trembled once, then everything went still. Somewhere in that stillness, Bambi's shoulder pressed against his.
The revving engines beneath the floor grew louder as the ship readied itself for takeoff. A rhythmic beeping filled the room with its steady and mechanical frequency, like the warning tone before turbulence on an old commercial flight, except much more dramatic.
The strips of light along the conduits snapped from blue to a gradient of orange and red. The colors pulsed between the two — red creeping forward, then retreating to orange, then pushing back again. The room looked like it had been dipped in a glorious sunset ice cream flavor.
Then, the beeping stopped. The humming of engines also halted. Everything went silent. The silence somehow felt… suffocating. Luciel expected a dimensional jump to be… well, more than that — shaky, loud, nauseating, things of that nature. He never thought it would be this smooth, until he got it all wrong.
"Holy sh—!"
A sudden gravitational pull struck him like a sledgehammer, but it wasn't physical the way it had been during descent. It felt like an invisible, incorporeal hand reached past his skin, bones, and organs, seized his metaphysical self, and yanked it sideways through a direction that didn't exist on the three-dimensional plane.
His sense of direction, time, and space vanished completely, and his vision smeared. Pulsing orange and red lights streaked across his vision, blending into a chaotic smear of a room that stretched impossibly long, its walls bending inward.
Luciel could only close his eyes and hold in the urge to vomit, hoping this bizarre sensation would end soon. He would rather burn himself alive than be stuck in this loop of his entire being getting pulled in and out, down and up, or whatever direction this space was dragging him.
After some unknown period of hell on earth, the light switched back to blue. Everything finally went back to normal.
Luciel sank into the mattress and exhaled heavily like he had been holding it for hours.
'Worst experience of my life.'
He looked at Bambi and widened his eyes.
'She looks completely normal!'
She looked down at what used to be Luciel — now a jelly.
"First time is always horrible. Your body will get used to it. Trust me!"
"How was your first time then?"
Bambi titled her head.
"I fucking vomited."
He chuckled, still sinking.
"Sounds about right."
Bambi then flicked his forehead.
"Ow!"
Luciel flinched, hand shooting to the spot.
"What was that for?"
Bambi scoffed.
"You deserve a thousand more! Don't complain."
He glared at Bambi before deciding to let go. He didn't have the energy to banter with her. During this fifteen minutes of dimension travel, instead of indulging in nonsense, he figured it was the perfect time to obtain some useful information from her.
"I want to ask you some questions."
"Mhm. Shoot away."
Luciel thought about what to ask first, then said:
"Who's Josephine?"
Bambi slithered down from the wall and lay down beside him.
"She's the adoptive daughter of Joanne. We didn't interact much, but I can tell she's an impressive young woman."
'Really? Daughter, huh.'
So it wasn't just a relative, but Joanne's daughter. Moreover, Luciel had thought they were quite close from how Bambi reacted to the news, but maybe it was just how normal people would react. He didn't want to sound callous by raising that up, so he moved on.
"Tell me more about Belynda."
Bambi glanced at him and smiled.
"What do you want to know?"
He shrugged.
"Anything of value."
She hummed, eyes drifting to the bunk's stairs.
"She leads the Gleipnir Squad, as you already know. It's the most elite squad in Golden Flower, which makes them one of the most elite PNA squad."
'As I expected.'
There was no way a person with such intense presence like her could be just another run-of-the-mill squad captain.
"What's her rank?"
"Last I remember… she was a Gimel-Harbinger."
'By Tellus…'
He had expected Belynda to be within Harbinger Rank, or at least Aleph-Guardian, but she was an entire rank and letter above Bambi. That meant she could single-handedly take out a Class 4 Discordant if the situation favored her.
Luciel then threw out another question he wanted to know.
"What about Joanne?"
Bambi's eyebrows furrowed.
"That old woman doesn't disclose her rank."
Hearing her answer, he was a bit bummed. It was the CEO of Golden Flower, after all, so he was itching to hear something impressive.
"But she's definitely…"
Luciel perked his ears.
Then, suddenly…
[Warning. Warning. An unidentified fracture detected. Warning. Warning. An unidentified fracture detected.]
An automated voice relaying danger was rather ominous. Not to mention the lights turned red again. Then, the comms came through.
[Attention all personnel. This is an emergency. Please gather in the command deck immediately.]
'What's going on?'
Luciel sat up slowly and turned to Bambi, confused as to what was going on.
"Bambi, do you know—"
'What the?'
He stiffened momentarily. Bambi had this dark look in her face that he couldn't describe. It wasn't shock or horror — he knew she wouldn't be scared of some turbulence.
He reached out his hand to her shoulder.
"Bambi."
She snapped her head around immediately.
"Y-Yeah?"
"You alright?"
Bambi sprung to her feet in an instant.
"No, yeah. I'm fine!"
That dark expression was gone, replaced by her usual carefree smile, as if the last few seconds hadn't happened at all.
"You're not."
There was one thing he and Bambi had in common: their bluntness on certain topics, saying everything as-is. When something bothered one of them, the other wouldn't just sweep it under the rug.
She looked at him for a moment, then let out a quiet laugh.
"You're annoyingly perceptive, you know that?"
"Learned from the best. And from you."
Bambi raised an eyebrow.
"Who's the best?"
"Outlands."
She nodded sheepishly.
"Right."
Luciel jumped off the bed. He decided not to press further. Acknowledging the problem was enough.
"Alright, let's go."