Tales From The Kronos

The two girls enter the lab. Emely was overexcited while Silva seemed disgusted by the heavy smell of the room.

"What have you been doing here? Is it one of your kinks?"

"Why do you say that? Yeah, it smells a bit but not that bad."

"It smells like you killed someone in this room!"

"Quite the opposite, I'm giving life!"

Silva made her way to where Emely was, trying her best to avoid the oil and the scraps on the floor.

"Giving life? Are you talking about the robot?"

"Yeah! She's right here!"

Emely took Silva's hand but immediately let it go in embarrassment.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sure you can touch her by yourself, I didn't mean to infantilize you."

"Infantilize me... Because you took my hand?"

"I just mean that you're a strong woman. I don't want to make it feel like your blindness is a problem to you, I know you can do it by yourself."

Silva looked incredibly confused and slapped Emely after a few seconds.

"Seriously, this smell is getting to you. Just go outside, I can accompany you if you need fresh air."

"Oh, you'd come with me?" Emely asked with a shy smile.

"I'm just trying to say that you act weird. Are you taking drugs? Where do you even get drugs? Did Gwyn make some?"

"Why are you saying that? I'm not acting that weird."

"You are, you treat me differently lately. It's the first time in years I ever heard someone talk about my blindness. You never cared before that I was blind, so why did it change now?"

Emely felt incredibly bad after hearing Silva's words. She told them with an offended voice, almost feeling hurt.

"I'm sorry... I just think it's normal that I pay attention to your disability."

"By treating me differently? That's just going to make it worse. Treat me like you always did and stop acting like you're walking on eggshells all of a sudden."

"But... I don't want to hurt you..."

Silva let out a tired sigh, visibly annoyed by Emely's behavior.

"Insult me."

"What?" Emely looked around the room, desperately trying to find an out "So anyway, the robot here is-"

"Insult me. That's what I want. I want you to treat me like you always did, treat me like your friend and not like a baby."

"Well... You are... A dumb bat."

"Come on, where's the 'useless painter that can't even see how dumb she looks."? Did your brain fill with useless mathematical formulas since last time?"

"But..."

"No but! Come on, you get a free insult! You would have killed for that before."

"I don't want to hurt you..."

"I know you don't want to hurt me, that's why it won't. I want you to treat me like you always did, you always made me feel better about myself."

"I... Did?"

"Of course! All the things you said to me before... I already told them to myself. You'll never find an insult I didn't think of. But when it's you, I don't want to accept it, I want to annoy you back. So now insult me, you idiotic engineer."

Emely braced herself, trying her best to find the best thing she could.

"Your perverse small bat! You can't even accept when someone's trying to be nice to you!"

"I don't want to accept because you're not being nice, you're being a dumbass."

"You're the dumbass! Just accept that you suck at painting!"

"You're not as great as before for that but it's alright." Silva took Emely's hand and forced her to grab her wrist "Now you're going to guide my hand to your sentient microwave! Not because I'm blind, but because I'm your friend!"

"Yeah! I'm sure your limited mind can't comprehend what I made!"

Silva finally smiled, happy to hear her friend's words.

"I don't know what happened to you but don't treat me differently. I prefer when you say what you think and don't act like you'll hurt me."

"Yes, I'm sorry for being weird."

"Don't apologize or I'm slapping you again."

Emely chuckled before putting Silva's hand on the cold body of the robot. Silva touched all the parts of the metallic body, softly drawing its shape in her mind.

"Why is it so tall? I can barely reach the top of the head."

"It's 175 centimeters, you're just small. I figured if she needed to fight, she could use more height and weight."

"Are you sure you don't have a tall woman kink?"

"S-Stop trying to find my kinks!"

"Can I talk to her?" Silva asked, ignoring her friend's embarrassment.

"That's the reason I wanted your help. I'm only lacking one thing, a soul."

"A soul?" Said Silva with her eyes half closed "That's your five-minute errand, a fricking soul?"

"I know the world it's in. It's not that complex to get, I just can't create that and it's the only thing left for Remiel to work."

"Remiel?"

"Oh, I didn't tell you! That's her name! Remarkable and Elegant Module-1 Esper Lambda! I tried to keep Uriel's name partly while still making her different. I didn't really know what color Uriel was so I made Remiel in orange and black, like our uniforms."

"Black? I thought it wasn't a color."

"It's complicated. It's a lack of color but we can see it's different than other colors."

"You can see... The lack of colors..." Silva appeared deeply confused at the sentence before suddenly panicking "Wait! So if I don't use black paint, do you see black still?"

"No, your canvas is white. Wait, is it the reason all your night skies are white?"

"Yeah, no one told me that- Wait, how do you know what my paintings look like? I barely show you any."

Emely looked away trying to dodge the question.

"Anyway! If you want we can find a third interested member and go search for the soul, what do you think?"

"You gave me a copy of Neige's room's key. Do you have a copy of mine?"

"M-Maybe Shiro is available!"

"Have you seen my hentai?"

"Or Gwyn! She could... Hentai? What is it?"

"Oh... You didn't see them." Silva looked disappointed for some reason. Emely figured that she should probably interest herself in that later "Just snoop around harder next time if you enter my room, okay?"

"Why would I? Are you trying to make me go on a treasure hunt?"

"Maybe, but for now we should search for a third person to go with us. Last time we went with Gwyn and it was alright."

"Isn't she busy? She's always working on something."

"I'm sure we can convince her, come on let's go!"

Silva ran outside of the lab. Her friend quickly followed her, trying to not lose her in the hallway of the ship.

The two friends searched around the ship as much as they could. It took them a few minutes of running around to find Gwyn, taking a break next to the coffee machine.

"Gwyn! We were searching for you."

The doctor let out a tired sigh at the sight of the two girls. She finished drinking her coffee and threw away the plastic cup in the bin before walking away from them. Silva blocked her path, forcing Gwyn to ask the question she was trying to avoid.

"Why do you need me?.."

"We made a great team last time, right?"

"No, Silva, we didn't. It was fun but I got kidnapped by a giant sugar turtle and you fell in a caramel lake..." Feeling the gaze of the pleading girls on her, the woman felt forced to ask again "What is it?"

Silva was about to answer but forgot most of the details, forcing Emely to answer instead.

"I need something from a world. Neige and Sepide are busy but we need a third member. I know you don't want but..."

"Okay, I'll come. Just give me time to prepare."

Silva and Emely were both surprised to see her agree so easily. They let Gwyn go for now, leaving them time to plan their visit to the world.

"So, what kind of world is it?" Silva asked while preparing herself.

"It's a great and colorful world! It's a bit dangerous, but we'll find our goal in no time!"

"I hope so, I want to see the robot work."

"Really!?" Emely asked with stars in her eyes "I'm glad you're as interested as I am!"

"Yeah, I hope we can give it a rocket launcher or something."

"A rocket launcher? But why?"

"I dunno. Looks cool."

Emely chuckled at Silva's words. Her hand reached for a paper in her pocket, she read the content of the note to Silva with a clear voice.

"World 18032002: Wonderland. That's where we're going so I hope you're ready!