GxG 13
[15 Years Old]
It was NOT simple.
"Starting Rainbow Lotus: Sun and Moon series, revision 427. This time with smaller negativity filters and an adjusted positivity matrix. 426 could not handle the improved filters as is and collapsed." I stated into my recorder.
Even with a perfect memory I like to keep physical notes, I find it helps me stay organized. Plus having distinct recordings could possibly help me find any discrepancies if I ever get mind whammied.
It's been 5 years since I started my artificial Sage project, and much has changed.
My first few attempts were simple variations of some Emotion and Flow formations on a wooden board, but I quickly realized how much work my idea was actually going to take.
That did not deter me.
The first few years were just spent trying out different formations and different living plants, as early testing had given the best results in that direction.
Flowers in particular were the most receptive.
I decided to focus on the lotus flower to lean heavily into its symbolism, such as purity, enlightenment and rebirth.
I didn't really bother with the other aspects of its symbolism, such as spiritual awakening.
My first major roadblock was when I realized that mundane plants are simply never going to have the oomph that is needed to survive even a fraction of what I am going to put them through.
With my limited access to the wider supernatural community, my only option was to make my own.
Thankfully Biology, Botany, Senjutsu, and Genetics came in clutch.
I had gathered a decent amount of pocket money working as a gardener during the summers. Using senjutsu to zap all the weeds made me very popular in the neighborhood.
Most of that money went into my experiments as ordering exotic seeds and other materials was not cheap.
Using senjutsu to boost the plant growth made it so I could selectively breed hundreds of generations in the time it would take for one generation to grow naturally.
After months of trial and error I finally managed a breakthrough, my first generation Rainbow Lotus.
It was a marvel of creation. Stronger, larger, healthier were just the start.
The whole flower was extremely receptive to formations, which was a major pain to breed into the line.
Of course by this point, my formations were getting extremely complex and thus large, which required me to study methods of downsizing.
Once they were downsized I had to figure out how to actually transcribe them onto flower petals. Just that step took months.
The second major breakthrough was the Sun and Moon series.
As my formations grew more powerful, precise, and potent I realized my standard Rainbow Lotus was also never going to handle the strain.
At that point I was too invested to start over, so I looked into new methods of enhancing the lotus line.
After a few failed attempts, I found out that doubling down on symbology was the best bet.
Of course, adding in entirely new concepts could murder the whole spiritual balance thing I had going on with the Rainbow Lotus, so I had to be careful.
Scouring the internet and local library for ideas didn't really help, so I kept it simple.
What are common symbols of purity and power?
The sun and the moon!
My first attempts in that direction didn't have much success, they were basically me adding a Sun and Moon formation to 2 petals, but that did not give nearly the effect I needed.
Until I had a slightly insane idea.
Have you ever made rock candy by boiling water and adding sugar?
In a fit of frustration I tried that, but instead of water and sugar, I used natural energy and powdered gold and silver.
Everyone knows gold and silver represent the sun and the moon.
After covering two petals in dust, one petal in gold dust and one petal in silver dust, I saturated the lotus in natural energy.
I kept special focus on the two petals, and it worked!
The dust melded with the petals and I was left with a Rainbow Lotus with two metallic petals.
Being the good scientist that I am, I also tried to repeat the process but no matter what I tried I could not get it to work again.
Eventually it became too expensive to continue, so I shelved that question.
Luckily, the seeds produced by the metallic lotus grew into new Rainbow Lotuses with two metallic petals.
Thus was the creation of the Rainbow Lotus: Sun and Moon series.
The two modified petals worked wonders for my faux-Sage formations.
I was able to rework the formation designs to use the two metallic petals as the eyes of a Taijitu diagram, adding the symbolism of Yin and Yang to the ever changing diagram I was inscribing onto my lotuses.
Using the Sun formation on the Gold petal to 'incinerate' the negativity and the Moon formation on the silver petal to 'cleanse' the formation of leftover emotions made the entire thing run so much smoother.
I could tell deep in my bones that this was the direction that would lead me to success. All I needed to do was figure out the perfect balance, and I would succeed.
"Gregory, could you push that blue box over? I want to see how much lotus 426 has degraded since it failed but I am kinda busy here."
"Mrow." I swear that cat was getting smarter by the day at this point, but he just grumbled and used his frankly horrendously strong body to nudge the box over. I'm pretty sure he crested Low-Class a few months ago.
"Thanks bud. Now lets see, the main failure here was the new negativity filter being too strong for the rest of the formation to handle, but the positivity matrix was the first spot to fail."
My first few iterations of the faux-Sage formation just stripped the natural energy of all negativity. It worked in theory, but in practice that caused the stripped negativity to clog everything up.
I think I almost made a ghost or something until I just blasted that whole area with senjutsu.
Eventually I figured out that using positive emotion formations to balance it worked much better, but even that had its own issues.
Too much of one specific emotion? Formation collapses.
Too little positive emotions? Formation collapses.
Too sudden of an emotional shift from negative to positive? Formation collapses.
The solution was to spread out the emotions as much as possible across both the positive and negative spectrums.
The formation had a massive boost in efficiency when I linked the positive parts of the formation to the warmer colours on the Rainbow Lotus, and the negative parts on cooler colours.
Symbolism combined with Formations is really bullshit sometimes.
Pushing aside unneeded thoughts, I focused on the Rainbow Lotus in front of me.
Over the years the faux-Sage formation has grown to thousands of individual formations linked together into tight matrices, with every formation needing to be drawn perfectly with the matching intent projected during creation.
Filters, emotional matrices for every petal, delicate flow controllers on the stem, central control formation matrix on the stamen. The list goes on and on, each part iterated hundreds, thousands of times to reach where I am now.
"Smaller 426 negativity filters applied, new positivity matrix holding steady. All that's left is the raw emotional energy disposal unit and then 427 is do- what the hell?"
Two upper Mid-Class entities just entered my town wards are heading straight to Jophiel's house.
He left town earlier too, so it's just his wife and kids at home right now.
They are not strong enough to deal with two Mid-Classes, I better go help.
My first meeting with Jophiel was almost a disaster.
While I was doing my gardening to earn pocket money his wife hired me while he was out for work, and he came back to see some random Mid-Class senjutsu user at his house.
It almost devolved into a fight, but we managed to de-escalate when his wife spoke up for me. Apparently she vaguely knew my mom, which is why she hired me in the first place.
Anyways, since then we have had a decent professional relationship. He's not actually that bad of a guy, once you get past his Fallen aura.
We have talked a bit, and I do some extra work giving them senjutsu enhanced fruits and vegetables for their kids which went a long way to pay for my experiments.
Jophiel translated to something like "God's watchman", and he freely admitted he fell because he wanted to act more than just watch.
It's basically his hobby to take a wife every few decades and train up his kids as strong as he can.
It would not be wrong to say he has directed his Fallen madness towards the healthy raising of his kids. If something happened to them like this, lots of people are going to die.
Sighing, I turned to Gregory as he was relaxing and just watching me.
"Hey bud, I got to step out for a bit. This lotus didn't get finished, but don't throw it away. I'll use it for some destructive testing when I get back. Watch the base for me, yeah?"
"Meow." was his response as he trotted outside and jumped onto the roof for a better viewing location.
"Thanks, I'll be back soon."
With my lotus and my mood ruined, I flash stepped towards town.
[LINE BREAK]
I arrived at Jophiel's house to see two 4 winged Fallen attacking the barrier that surrounds his house with handheld light spears.
It doesn't cover his yard, which is why I could get so close to garden when I first visited.
"Come out woman, we just want the kids" said the larger of the two men.
"Go away! My husband won't let you get away with this!" cried Marge, Jophiel's wife.
"Your husband? Hah! Do you mean the husband who just got an 'emergency callback' from Grigori headquarters?" Sneered the smaller man.
"By the time he realizes something is wrong we will already be long gone, while you're in the embrace of the lord." The larger joked.
"Why are you doing this! We haven't done anything wrong." Marge pleaded.
"Mama, what's going on?" The older of the two half-Fallen asked.
"Kids, go into the basement for me, ok?"
"Okay mama." Said the younger one before they scurried out of sight.
I figured now was the time to step in, as the barrier was starting to flicker a bit.
"Alright boys, let's break it up"
"Wha- who are you?" The larger one asked while scrambling to point his light spear at me.
"Yeah, don't you know you are interfering with official Grigori business?" Said the smaller one after getting into a half-assed spear stance.
"Do you mean the Grigori business you just alluded to forging orders for?"
I was losing brain cells by second listening to these goons talk.
"Bah. What do you know kid. This is how the Real world works." What the hell is he talking about?
"So what was your goal here? Kidnap the kids, sure, but why murder sweet old Marge? She pays good money for gardening, y'know. I'd be sad to see her die." I want to see how much I can get these morons to spill.
"You might not know this, but while Jophiel is not one of our heavy hitters or anything, he is one of our best combat instructors. Problem is, when he runs off to play house he is not teaching us." said shorty.
"We figured, if we grab his kids for more manpower and kill his wife as punishment for wasting our time, our boss will reward us!" The bigger one finished excitedly.
Marge and I just stared at them. Neither of us said a word but we were thinking the exact same thing.
"You guys are morons, you know that?" These guys are how old and THIS is their plan? No wonder people say the Fallen are all insane.
"Ok kid, that is enough out of you. No witnesses, and all that." These guys don't know how strong I am, do they?
"Nathan, run away! I know you are fast and have decent senjutsu, but these are two 4 winged Fallen, firmly Mid-Class. At least you can tell my husband who did this." Oh, Marge doesn't know how strong I am either.
Whoops?
It is not like I go around advertising I'm High-Class in multiple subjects. I could clap these clowns using only senjutsu, or touki, or even pure martial arts.
"You might be fast, but are you faster than a light spear?" Maybe the bigger one did have some brains?
He then threw his spear at me, but it was so telegraphed that I was out of the way before it even left his hand, sailing into the distance.
"Hey! You aren't supposed to dodge those!" Ok no, he is stupid.
"Oh I am terribly sorry. Would you like to try again?" I responded with a fake posh accent, adding a little flourish to really sell it.
"Yeah, and don't move this time either!" I would honestly feel bad for what I'm about to do to these two, if they weren't trying to murder and kidnap. I think they might be actually medically stupid.
I was getting a bit bored at this point, so when he threw his second spear I shattered it with a healthy serving of touki knuckle sandwich.
Seeing the shocked look in the tall Fallen's eyes felt like kicking a puppy.
That has rabies.
And is trying to bite a paying customer.
"How can you just shatter my spear? I got 4 wings, I'm basically a god to you filthy humans!" Ok, wow.
"How can you be dumb AND racist? Pick one." I dryly pointed out to him.
I have an idea that I REALLY want to try out as well.
"Wow, look over there!" I said while pointing behind the Tall Fallen.
Still doesn't deserve a name.
Somehow it worked and the idiot whipped his whole body around to look, at which point I flash stepped behind him and knocked him out.
His wings splayed out everywhere, making it hard to find somewhere to stand honestly.
Meanwhile, his shorter friend had taken out a pendant at some point and was... holding it threateningly?
"Don't move a muscle. I just have to break this and my boss will teleport straight here." That might be the first intelligent thing I've heard this entire time.
I don't know who or how strong their boss is, and I have no intention of finding out.
"There is your boss right there!" I shouted 'surprised' pointing at the barrier the shorter fallen had his back to.
Somehow he ALSO whipped around.
Flash step.
Grab.
Skull into the barrier for the knockout.
Standing there holding the unconscious Fallen by the back of the head, I shared a look with Marge who looked as put off as I felt.
"It was that easy?" she asked.
"I guess so."
"They had 4 wings though. My husband only has 4 wings."
"Yeah. Can you call your husband now? They are going to be out for a few hours."
"I'm... going to do that. Thank you Nathan. Would you like some snacks while we wait? You know the kids love it when you come over, you're the only one they are allowed to use their wings around."
"That sounds lovely, Marge. Stupid oafs made me waste some experimental material rushing over here." While I make most of my materials, it still takes time to grow.
Making me waste a lotus like that, bastards.
And thus after securing moron One and Two we had some snacks with her two kids while we waited.
[LINE BREAK]
[Elsewhere]
The Mother hummed as she tended to her Garden.
New life.
Exciting life.
Nobody made life with love anymore.
It was always 'weapon this' and 'abomination that'.
Even those gods who once enamored her so, have stopped creating.
Stagnant.
Unmoving.
They made The Mother sad.
Though there was that small child who recently piqued her interest, making such beautiful lotus flowers with gold and silver accents she just adored.
She may have helped with the metallic portions, but he was so cute trying so hard.
No hate, no ugly ambition.
It was a small creation.
It was a pure creation.
The Mother wondered what he was doing right now, casting her sight out from her domain.
Oh?
Well well well well well.
The boy does not know what he has made!
He thinks this one unfinished?
Of course it is!
Doesn't he know?
The Mother gathered some essence in her hand.
That when making life
The Mother brought her hand up to her face.
all you need is a little
The Mother gently and lovingly blew her hand.
Spark
[LINE BREAK]
I was just finishing up talking with Jophiel when my wards pinged.
The wards in my base. That nobody should know about.
Someone was there.
"Hey, I have to go now. We will talk later?" I hope my anxiety did not slip into my voice.
"Yeah sure, sounds good. Anything wrong?"
"Nah, it is just getting late. I have to be home for dinner soon."
"Ok, see you later then. I'll ship these losers off to Grigori and I'll keep you updated." He offered.
"Sounds good, bye."
Flash step straight to my base.
Only reason I did not rush as fast as I can is that Gregory hasn't sent a manual or automatic distress.
I arrived at my base to see Gregory staring transfixed at my lab.
If I didn't know better I would say he was horrified.
"Hey bud? What's going on?"
He didn't respond, staring straight at my lab door.
Did something go wrong with the flower I didn't finish?
The only thing I did not add was the matrix to dump all the neutral.. emotional... energy.
Did something happen once too much built up? Damn it.
Bracing myself, I opened the door preparing for the worst.
I was not prepared enough.
I stood there frozen in shock.
Staring straight back at me was a baby where I had left my Rainbow Lotus.
A baby with rainbow hair.
A baby with rainbow hair and gold and silver eyes.
A baby with rainbow hair and gold and silver eyes wearing a lotus leaf dress.
I was smart enough to have pattern recognition skills.
"Bah." said the baby.
"Fuuuuuuuuck." Said the teenaged boy.
Well, I've been wondering how to introduce my parents to the supernatural.
Teen fatherhood seems as good a way as any.