It had been some time now since Zexa, Xeza, and Julia had moved into the church and it has honestly not been the easiest experience for them at all. First of all, there was of course the matter of the twins’ mother, who had acted absolutely destroyed at seeing her daughters ‘get taken away from her’ as she had put it. Since then, the twins actually hadn’t spoken to her, although they still occasionally spotted her on the church premises, usually in some disguise, trying to see what they were up to.
Then there was of course the matter of Bridget and Akita. They still had yet to have any sort of normal conversation with either of them. Sure, they had given them lessons in temporal magics, the history of the church as far as they knew it, and of course the teachings of the goddess. However, as soon as these lessons were over, they never lingered in order to talk. On top of that, the twins still had yet to hold their own mass, instead having to help out whenever Lavini held hers.
Lastly, there was the culture shock of living on their own for the first time properly. Before, all of the wishes of the twins were granted by their mother and their servants. Now, they had to do everything themselves, from the laundry to the cleaning of their room. More often than not, Julia had to urge them quite a bit before they were willing to step into action for any of these chores.
Of course, there were also good things. Lavini, for instance, turned out to be a great friend. Not only was she an excellent conversationalist due to her upbringing as a noblewoman, she had retained the ability to remain independent during this conflict and stayed friendly with Bridget and Akita, as well as with the twins. The nun Cassiopeiah tried her best to remain this way as well, though it was very clear that she had a longer history with Bridget and Akita, and thus was a little more hesitant to talk to the twins.
But their greatest new friend was definitely Estella, the adoptive daughter to Lavini and Cassie. Since they were the only humans at this church, Estella and Julia hit it off quite well. Of course, since Julia was with the twins most of the time, that meant that Estella was hanging out with them a lot as well.
Today was no exception.
“... And so… I still have that letter,” Estella explained. “I don’t know what to do with it. I wanna open it but I also don’t and it just makes my head hurt.” She was lying on the twins’ bed as if their room had turned into a psychologist’s office.
“Do you think that,” “you’d be happy if you,” “read its contents?” Zexa and Xeza asked. They had at least gotten used to their new way of speaking, even if it did cause some unusual conflicts to arise between them sometimes.
“I don’t know. I know that my former self said that I didn’t wanna know at all but that only makes me even more curious. Was I a horrible person back then? And if so, well… what does that make me now?” Estella yammered.
“I don’t think who you were defines who you are now,” Julia said wisely.
“Yeah yeah. My moms keep telling me that as well but I have absolutely no clue about whether that is true or not. I only have their word for it…” Estella said, sighing.
“Unfortunately,” “we do not know,” “much more either,” Zexa and Xeza said. Sure, they had been given a rundown of the situation but it was only Cassie, Lavini, Bridget, and Akita who knew the full truth of the matter.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’re just Estella to us and we don’t think you’re some kind of horrible person at all,” Julia said.
Estella smiled meekly. “Thanks, you guys. I-” she said only to be interrupted by a knock on the door.
“I’ll get it,” Julia said. She got up to answer the door and was greeted by a nervous looking Bridget. It was a little surprising to see her here. She had expected Cassie or Lavini to have been the one knocking. “Oh, uh, good afternoon.”
“Hey… uhm…” Bridget stammered, standing there a bit awkwardly.
“Is… everything alright?” Julia asked curiously.
“Yes, yes. Sorry. I… ah, I mean, we wanted to give you something,” Bridget finally said.
“A gift?” “For Julia?” The twins asked curiously, now standing up and joining their lover at the door.
“Well, yes,” Bridget nodded. It was audible from her body that her inner gears twitched uncomfortably and it was visible from the way her skirt was ticking around. Then, from behind her back, she revealed a fairly large, gift wrapped box and handed it over to Julia.
“I… thank you! But to what do I owe this?” Julia asked, carefully taking the box in hand. It was actually quite heavy.
Bridget was already turning awkwardly. “You ended up at the top of the leaderboard for Akita’s Back-alley Brawler Béta, and we’ve prepared a prize for the winner. We’re… sorry it took this long. Akita and I barely had time left to work on it in preparation for the festival itself and so we had to wait until after. We’ve even customized it a little for you,” she explained.
“Wait, what?!” Estella gasped, jumping up from the bed and nudging her way through Julia and the twins into the hallway. “You never told me there was a prize for the winner!”
“E-Estella! Well… it was a surprise, of course, and since you were participating…” Bridget said, grabbing her arm with her hand.
“Damn… and I lost it to YOU!” Estella gasped, pointing at Julia and mocking betrayal, causing the latter to burst out into laughter.
“Don’t worry, Estella. We can’t all be me!” Julia gloated.
In the meantime, Bridget tried to quietly walk off again but the diminishing sound of her ticking body gave her away, even through the general ticking of the church itself. Zexa and Xeza took the opportunity to enter the hallway as well and call after her.
“Thank you for,” “this, Bridget,” they said. Zexa was nervously clutching their staff with Sol shining proudly on top of it while Xeza fiddled around with her dress a little.
Bridget gave them an awkward glance. She opened her mouth to say something but no words would come out at first. “... You’re welcome,” she just said in the end before leaving the scene properly.
“I… think that went rather well!” Estella said, breaking the awkward silence that had befallen them.
“Y-yeah… I agree,” Julia nodded.
Eagerly, Zexa and Xeza turned around, their eyes beaming with joy. “Well?!” “Why don’t you,” “open that box!” they said eagerly.
“Yeah! I’m dying to know what’s inside!” Estella said eagerly.
“Alright alright, I’ll open it,” Julia chuckled. She then placed the box on the bed inside of the room and carefully removed the gift wrapping. What was inside was actually quite surprising. There was a set of two blades as well as what looked to be a small disc of some kind. Julia actually recognized these two blades as one of the many temporal trinkets that were displayed in the display case at the new year’s eve party, only it looked like they had been modified somewhat. Now, there was an image of the moon on one of the blades and an image of the sun on the other. The disc was a clock of some kind, only it was missing its arms and the two blades were far too big for it.
“There’s a note!” Estella pointed out and snatched it out of the box. “These are the blades and shield of the Chronobrawler, specifically tailored for Julia Swift. The two blades can be equipped in each hand while the shield can expand during fights and shrink for easy travel. If you want to try it out, come to the Virtual Reality room,” she read aloud.
“So this is,” “combat-focused equipment?” Zexa and Xeza asked.
“Looks like it… wait, so this disc is a shield? And it can grow in size?” Julia gasped. She was actually really starting to look forward to what this would all look like in action!
“Well, then what are we waiting for! Let’s go!” Estella cheered.
The virtual reality room that had housed the béta was actually still there in the church gardens. At first, it was just going to be a temporary building for the festival but since it was such a huge hassle to put together and take down, they had just kind of left it there. It was also an excuse for Akita to keep experimenting with the technology and there was the occasional magitech enthusiast that would visit the church just for this room.
Julia, Estella, and the twins curiously approached it and they noticed that the door was actually already opened.
“I think you can just go in?” Estella proposed.
“I guess so,” Julia nodded.
“We’ll be watching,” “from the window,” Zexa and Xeza said, nodding.
“Heh, I’d be mad if you didn’t!” Julia said with a chuckle. She then moved on over to the open door and carefully stepped inside, the box with her prize in hand. Then, on its own, the door closed behind her.
“About time you got here, Kilobyte,” came the disembodied voice of Akita who must have been sitting in the control room again.
“Ah… sorry if we’re late?” Julia asked. She had been told of Akita’s curious speech pattern and her tendency to call people various kinds of ‘bytes’, whatever that meant, so she wasn’t too surprised by being called that. Come to think of it, this was probably the first time that Akita and her had actually spoken to each other properly since the new year’s party.
Akita’s voice chuckled. “Nah, don’t worry, you’re not,” she said. “Are you ready to test out your new gear?”
“Well, yeah! But I have no idea how it works yet,” Julia admitted.
Akita giggled a second time. “Don’t worry. I’m going to guide you through the process. First of all, let’s get you to actually wear it. Can’t do much with it if it’s still in that box.”
Julia nodded and got out the individual pieces but she was still quite unsure of how to actually go about and wield it. However, that’s when the pieces actually started activating on their own. The disc started hovering behind her back while the two blades came to hover over her arms as if they were attached to them.
“Wow… neat,” Julia mused to herself.
“Alright, now, time to test out those blades. I’ll give you some targets to practice on,” Akita said. Soon, the white room around Julia gave way for the back alley that she recognized from the béta. And just like back then, the alley was filled with mean-looking thugs that looked ready for a fight.
Julia grinned at these virtual enemies and got into a fighting stance. “Bring it,” she said. Just like that, the fight began and… it was actually a little harder than she was used to at first. She had always been a brawler, fighting with her own two fists. To suddenly have these two weapons at her disposal meant that she had a lot more reach than she was used to. As such, she actually let the enemies get closer to her than was necessary. The fact that her new blades weren’t of equal size didn’t exactly help that either. Eventually, she managed to get through the wave of thugs but she definitely had to practice this a lot more. Though she could not hear them, she knew that Zexa, Xeza, and Estella were outside cheering her on and so she waved and even blew a kiss in the general direction of where she figured the window to the outside must have been.
“Excellent! Good job, Megabyte! I’d say that was a good first trial. Now, let’s put that shield of yours to the test,” Akita said.
“And how do I do that?” Julia asked.
“Well, first of all, you need to activate it. You can do so by, well, willing it. The shield will then expand and you can use your arms to control it as if it was attached. We’ll be going through all the different features one by one,” Akita explained.
“Willing it, huh? Hmm…” Julia mused, looking behind her at the disk floating on her back. She thought about it but she had some trouble getting it to listen to her. It simply wouldn’t budge. However, she remained undeterred and kept on trying it.
“Remember, this is the Chronobrawler’s shield. You are a human and so you cannot let time flow through you, but you CAN let it guide you. You must do so if you wish to wield it properly,” Akita explained.
Of course, that made perfect sense. She had been attending the classes on time together with the twins but Zexa and Xeza were doing a whole lot better in those than she was. Still, she had to at least give it her best shot. She thought about how time flowed. How the twins maintained the flow of time by exchanging Sol and Luna between them in the mornings and evenings. She focused and concentrated and tried her best to let time guide her as it did for everyone else at this church.
Then, just like that, she realized that the pull of the disc on her back was a lot heavier than before. Looking behind her, she saw that it had expanded into a full-on shield that was large enough to protect her entire body! A grin formed on Julia’s face. She had done it.
“Excellent job, Megabyte. Now, try and split it in half,” Akita said.
“Wait… I can do that?!” Julia asked.
“Yep! So you can block yourself from two sides should it be necessary. You can snap them back together again as well just as easily.
“Wow… this is super versatile,” Julia said as she got to work again. It took her a few attempts but sure enough, the shield split in two behind her and both halves came to hover over her arms where the blades attached themselves onto them. Naturally, their positions were indicative of the current time.
“Good job. Now, try and put them back together again,” Akita said.
This was actually surprisingly easy. All she really had to do was put her arms together and the shield easily became one whole again, this time in front of her.
“Practice time,” Akita said with a mischievous chuckle as a new group of thugs appeared before Julia. “Simply hold out for five minutes,” Akita said, after which the thugs started moving and charged forwards.
Julia knew what to do and got into her fighting stance again. She used her new shield to block most of the thugs stupidly charging her from the front but sometimes she had to split the shield to block thugs trying to sneak around. This went on for some time and Julia actually got a little bored of it all until she got an idea.
“What if…” she thought to herself. She then took a few steps back, placed her shield together again, and began charging forwards. This took the virtual thugs by surprise. Like an unstoppable force, she knocked down anyone that stood in her way. Soon enough, Julia once again stood victorious over the thugs. Getting a little cocky, she dusted off her shoulders and then leaned on her shield posing before blowing a kiss to her audience a second time as if it took her no effort at all.
“Nice going, Megabyte! Well then, I think you have all of the basics of your new gear at your disposal. Perhaps you are now ready to finally defeat an old rival of yours,” Akita said excitedly as a familiar looking thug materialized in front of Julia. It was the final boss of the béta.
Julia frowned at the guy that had defeated her weeks ago. “Payback time!” she shouted at him, even though it wasn’t a real person. With that, the fight began anew. The thug fought just as it had done before, throwing forceful punches and kicks at Julia. However, Julia was prepared this time and she was able to block most of these attacks with her new shield. Whenever there was an opening, she dismissed her shield temporarily to lunge forwards with her blades, doing quite some damage to this thug. Even so, it was a hard battle, as the boss was clearly a lot stronger than Julia was.
“I think it’s time to tell you about one of the secret tricks of the Chronobrawler,” came Akita’s voice, momentarily interrupting the battle.
“Secrets?!” Julia called out, only barely dodging out of the way of a leg sweep from the thug.
“You can charge your blades and your shield with the power of time. Simply let time flow into your weapons,” Akita explained.
“Let time flow into my…” Julia repeated but could not finish her words. She was in the middle of combat after all.
“Take your time. Gather it. You’ll know when you’ve done it,” Akita said and she went silent again.
Well, that was all fine and dandy but it was already hard enough to be guided by time like this. Having to coalesce it into her weapons? How was she supposed to do that?
The thug came charging into her with two forceful punches into both halves of her shield. This was enough to force Julia back and knock her off her balance, causing her to fall down. Forget trying to coalesce time into her weapons, she had to make sure she wasn’t going to be knocked out by this thug! Not a second time!
However, the thug took this opportunity not to finish Julia off but to gloat and laugh. Perhaps this could be Julia’s chance! She closed her eyes and tried to visualize time again as she had done earlier. A continuous stream, flowing ever forward… but bendable like a river. What if…
Just like that, Julia felt a new power coarse through her. Her blades as well as her shield started glowing and she knew that she had done it. She had managed to imbue her blades with the power of time.
This took the thug by surprise and he instantly went into action to try and stop Julia from getting back up. However, Julia was surprised to see him moving quite slowly… had she actually slowed down time?
Regardless, she jumped back up and started charging forwards, punching, kicking and bashing the thug with all her might. Her movements were precise. Her blows were swift. Her form was top notch. She was a juggernaut of time. Finally, the enemy thug went down, making Julia the victor.
“YEAH!!!” Julia cheered victoriously. However, just as the villain went down, she herself felt her own strength fail her and she almost fell over herself. The ethereal glow of time left her weapons again and time seemed to be going at a normal rate once more. She just barely managed to hold herself up thanks to the shield.
“Excellently done, Gigabyte! That was amazing to watch!” Akita cheered.
Julia panted heavily and raised her thumb but she didn’t really have much energy left to say anything.
“Eheh, you must be super tired after all of that. Not to worry though. Gear like this can be a little strenuous on the mind but that should improve as you get used to it. Especially that haste effect of course which is why I haven’t gone over the other secret tricks just yet! Be careful that you don’t use its temporal properties for too long, or it can seriously tire you out,” Akita explained.
“R-right…” Julia stammered. She actually hadn’t really given it that much thought but now that Akita had mentioned it, she did indeed feel a little drained mentally. However, to think that there were still some features of this gear that she hadn’t learned of yet was actually quite exciting. Perhaps she would learn about them in due time. As she calmed herself down somewhat, she managed to dismiss the blades, shrink her shield, and place them back into the box.
“Well, I hope you’re happy with this. Bridge and I worked crazy hard on it,” Akita said, audibly beaming with pride.
“Are you kidding? This is fantastic! Thank you so much,” Julia said.
“Good, good. You can poke me whenever you want if you’d like to train some more. I might also be able to put some more challenging enemies in your way but no promises there. There’s too many projects for me to work on,” Akita said.
“Heh… I’d like that,” Julia said as the back-alley made way for the white room once more.
“Sorry if uh… if Bridget and I are still acting distant,” Akita finally said as Julia stumbled on over to the exit.
“Ah… well… I know how hard it must be for you,” Julia nodded in return.
“Heh… you’re not half bad,” Akita said as the door finally opened, where she was instantly greeted by Zexa and Xeza who simply dashed into the room and dove in for tight hugs.
“You were so,” “strong! You were simply,” “amazing!” they cheered.
“Now I’m DEFINITELY jealous of you, Julia!” Estella laughed.
Julia grinned at them all. She actually couldn’t wait to go on a proper adventure now. “It’s great… but right now I just wanna sit down and relax. That was intense!”
Everyone chuckled and they nodded to each-other. “Let’s go find some good food downtown then!” Estella proposed.
“Wait, first. Who,” “were you winking and,” “blowing kisses to earlier?” the twins asked.
“Oh yeah, you had your back turned towards us,” Estella said.
“W-wait… what?” Julia gasped.
“Don’t tell us…” “You’ve not left us,” “have you?” the twins said overly dramatic.
“N-no! I swear! I just didn’t know… I couldn’t see…” Julia tried to explain but the twins were already all over her, pulling on her and dragging her around, with Estella laughing all the way back towards the church.