Fan Fiction ❯ Ignotum per Ignotius ❯ Calling Your Name ( Chapter 3 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: AmethystGleam 
In which the Elsa takes off to examine Abel's Ark and wherein Canaan confronts chaos...or is it chaos who confronts Canaan?
(Shounen-ai warning, though very mild in this chapter.)
Anime/Manga: Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 03.09.2005 | Updated On: 03.10.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.3K | Visits: 249 | Status: Completed
In which the Elsa takes off to examine Abel's Ark and wherein Canaan confronts chaos...or is it chaos who confronts Canaan?
(Shounen-ai warning, though very mild in this chapter.)
Anime/Manga: Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 03.09.2005 | Updated On: 03.10.2005 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.3K | Visits: 249 | Status: Completed
-------------------------------------------------------------- ---
Ignotum per Ignotius
(A thing unknown by a thing more unknown)
-------------------------------------------------------------- ---
A fanfic by AmethystGleam
Disclaimer: I don’t own Xenosaga or its characters.
Author’s Rant: Do heed the shounen-ai and spoiler warnings from the 1st chapter. This is still the same fic. Rules still apply.
Please enjoy.
---------------------------------------------------------------- -
Chapter 3: Calling Your Name
It happened again.
chaos had shown a power uncharacteristic of human beings. And I hadn’t said anything–I was no better than his friends.
After the awkward encounter, I’d followed chaos to the bridge, where he stood near KOS-MOS, and I leaned against the back wall, eyes locked unto the back of chaos’s head. If he was planning to disappear again, I’d see it. I didn’t particularly care, but the bridge itself, beyond chaos, KOS-MOS, and myself, was in disarray.
Rubedo was yelling up a storm, hands resting uneasily on his guns. Shion and MOMO clutched each other in fear, while the cyborg was cracking his knuckles in deliberation. Mary and Shelly were torn between trying to calm down Rubedo, and calculating the time of impact with the immense structure that had appeared, which chaos helpfully chimed in and called ‘Abel’s Ark.’ I grit my teeth when everyone accepted chaos’s knowledge without question, before chaos glanced over his shoulder at me with the fake smile I was accustomed to. Irregardless of the smile, I kept my eyes on him, lips down-turned.
With a final cry, Rubedo stormed past both chaos and me, heading for the elevator. “I’m boarding an E.S.!” he cried, hands still resting on his guns. I proceeded to drown out the useless conversation that followed, still catching, out of the corner of my eye, the red-haired Rubedo being pulled away from the elevator by the pleading 100-series observational Realian prototype. chaos began to move now, turning to head for the elevator.
“Where are you going?” I inquired; lowering my voice so only he could hear.
“To the Elsa,” he replied, continuing when I gave him a heavy look that stated my obvious need for more information, ”We’ll need to warm it up immediately at this rate, as I don’t think Jr. has quite given up on examining that thing.”
“You know something, don’t you?” I retorted, feeling my jaw set. chaos simply smiled at me and disappeared down the elevator.
“FINE!” the ‘little master’s voice caught my attention after chaos was completely gone. “We’ll all set out on the Elsa to get a closer look!” I rubbed my forehead. This was too much.
------------------------------------------------------------ -----
Within the hour, the Elsa was loaded and set for takeoff. Captain Matthews seemed more than hesitant about setting out, but the immense sum of his debt seemed to inspire him to cooperate. Hammer and Tony had, of course, protested as well, but after a few compliments from chaos, they both agreed to take on the mission. So there I was, on the bridge of the Elsa, standing in my normal spot behind Matthew’s elevated chair. Launch went as smoothly as always, and we headed straight for Abel’s Ark, in oppressive silence. It seemed the crew was alert (and sober) after their recent experiences in the Omega System. After approximately 5 minutes of idle flying passed, the uneventfulness reminded me that I should hook myself up to one of the computers and run a diagnostic check on my damaged sensors and malfunctioning emotional restraints.
The journey to B1, for the aforementioned purpose, was uneventful, but I ran into my former navigator at the entrance to the processing room(1); He was leaning in the doorway, almost as if he had been waiting for me. Seeing the empty room behind him furthered this thought, but I didn’t care to ask where the robots who normally occupied the room had gone.
“I thought you might need some help,” chaos began, shifting what little weight he had in his petite body off the wall and back unto his feet.
“With?” I quirked an eyebrow, not recalling having ever mentioned needing maintenance to the walking enigma in front of me.
“You want to scan your own system, right? You can’t do anything more than auto maintenance aboard the Elsa, but you can find if there’s a problem or not using the scanner here,” chaos’s voice was gentle, as always. The platinum-haired boy took a step backwards, into the room behind himself, and I followed, ignoring the fact that chaos quietly shut and locked the door behind us.
“We don’t have a maintenance table in here, but you’re welcome to lie on the floor if you’d like,” the tone and expression of the young man across from me was nothing but sincerely apologetic.
I debated this for a moment; I was perfectly capable of standing during a checkup, but too many strange things had been happening as of late, and thus I figured I’d be better off lying on the floor than falling to it in a worst-case scenario. chaos waited until I had made myself as comfortable as possible on the cold metal floor before he crossed the room to the access a console. The familiar sound of keystrokes echoed in my mind before the pattern stopped, and chaos hesitated. One more keystroke, I recognized, and my personality layer would be disabled.
“Do you think Jin did something?” chaos asked, suddenly, glancing from the monitor in front of himself, down to me.
“When he was extracting the data from me in Labyrinthos, you mean? There’s a possibility that he might have hit something by accident, but I don’t see how that would cause the effects that are occurring right now,” my answer was unhelpful, I’m sure, as chaos had probably been hoping for a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I felt sorry for not being able to give him a better answer, before letting a loud “tch” of frustration pass through my lips.
“Are you all right?” asked chaos, quickly, moving from his place at the console to come kneel by my side.
My eye twitched involuntarily. ” My emotional inhibitor drive seems to be malfunctioning quite severely,” I explained. “And my sensors have been haywire ever since you pulled your past disappearing act on the Durandal.” Was this anger in my voice? “How can you do that, anyway? Why doesn’t anyone ever ask why you say the things you do? Why doesn’t anyone question your abilities? Just what ARE you, chaos!?” I hadn’t realized I was shouting until I took in the full look of shock on the platinum-haired boy’s face.
“I...I’m terribly sorry,” my apology, was, at best, pathetic, and I was so conflicted that I thought my OS might overload and shut down completely. Uneasy and embarrassed, I suppose--the full range of emotions cascading about in my head like sparks of electricity scattered about when a bolt of lightning splinters apart–I moved to sit up, bringing my hand to my forehead. Before I could get my hand in place, I bumped noses with chaos, who had taken the time of my mental reflection to lean over me in curiosity.
“So this is what you’re really like!” the shock had long since disappeared from chaos’ face, it seemed, and his mood had taken a full 360. As opposed to being serious and concerned, those blue-green eyes were now lit up like a child’s. I felt my face grow warm, and I recoiled, rubbing my lips where chaos’ breath had danced upon them as he’d spoken.
“What are you so happy about!? I’m malfunctioning! Can’t you see that!?”
chaos smiled good-naturedly,” I fail to see the problem, Canaan. I never did understand why they put that emotional restraint on you, when the very act of living as yourself beats wildly against it.” The young man’s eyes closed for a moment,” There’s so much more to existing than following the orders of others. Besides that, sometimes it’s better to watch than interfere… Though, the time for watching seems to be at an end. It’s unfortunate, don’t you think…?” As chaos’s voice trailed off, his blue-green orbs reappeared to the world, and I stared at chaos heavily.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, seriously, eyes narrowing at chaos. This was the most I’d ever heard him say directly from his mind. Chaos’s amused expression faded into something distant, which, now, snapped into an alarmed look.
“Nothing. Never mind,” my former navigator rose to his feet and headed for the door, obviously shocked that he’d let his guard down for a moment, and hence divulged a fragment of a bigger picture, that I wasn’t supposed to know about. Irregardless of his shock, I was not about to let chaos leave me so easily after saying something so mysterious.
Jumping to my feet, I threw myself forward without a second thought. chaos, having heard me rise, turned to me as I rushed towards him. Something amiss about the glow in those blue-green eyes startled me, and I took a bad step, gravity pulling me to the floor, and chaos along with me. After we’d both shared our respective expressions of pain, I noticed that chaos was under me, and reflexively, I leaned my weight up unto my hands; one of which was at the right side of chaos’s head, the other at his left side.
“Are you all right?” I asked him, quietly, seeing no need to yell when we were so close together.
“I-I’m fine,” chaos stammered, before shaking his head, as if to clear it. “And you?”
“I’m fine,” while this was far from the truth, it seemed reflexive to say it was so. After a long moment of silence, I noticed that chaos’s cheeks had begun to gain some red to them; I blinked once, not understanding the embarrassed look that had begun to creep over chaos’s feminine features.
The next thing I knew, the room was bathed in red, and the shrill cry of an alarm reached my ears. Captain Matthew’s voice came to us over the intercom: “We’ve got gnosis jumping in all around us! Everyone report to the bri–HOLY SHIT!”
The transmission’s abrupt end seemed to have rattled chaos and me, both, as we exchanged similar looks of shock and horror. chaos seemed to recover faster than I did, though, and I saw his eyes go wide for a moment in realization; despite his frail appearance, chaos had more than enough strength to push me over, reversing our positions as he shielded me with his body. I felt all my breath knocked away at the sudden action, but before I could ask why chaos had done what he did, a gnosis came in through the floor where we had just been laying.
For a second, I felt dizzy, sensing a wave emission from the direction of the bridge. chaos must’ve realized this, too, as I saw him acknowledge the Hilbert Effect through the look on his face, and he reached forward the grasp the gnosis, before it could grab us.
My eyes widened.
In all due logic, chaos should’ve been undergoing whitening; but…no. Besides looking a little sad, chaos was fine. He pressed his hand harder against the gnosis and it vanished, no doubt defeated. chaos's head dropped immediately down to my shoulder after this display, his body limp on top of mine. I was too shocked from the display I’d just played witness to, that, in my shock, I wasn’t able to check and see if chaos had fainted or not.
My shock was interrupted as I suddenly felt my entire body take chill.
Shuddering once, I soon realized that I was cold because chaos was, and he was lying on top of me, still. As I could feel the chill through chaos’s bodysuit, and my own, I knew something had to be terribly wrong. I embraced chaos, tightly, hoping to give him what little heat my body could offer, and for lack of logic in the face of emotion, I began to cry his name, hoping he would open his eyes once more.
------------------------------------------------------------ -----
Author’s Conclusion: I wrote the first three chapters at all once over the course of a day without lunch. >>; I was out at the time, and had no access to the game or the strategy guide, therefore I blame any misspellings and such on that. <3
processing room(1) – I don’t know a lot of techno babble, and it’s been a few weeks since I did the GS campaign where you restore the memory of one of the robots. This is the room that’s to the right of the elevator with the huge monitor in it. I gave it… other purposes, shall we say, for the purpose of this fic. ^^;
I apologize for the creepyness of chaos during this chapter, and the amusingly OOC antics of Canaan. ^^; Just…remember that his emotion inhibitor drive isn’t working, and we’ll be on good terms, yes? ^^;
Converting /tmp/phpd4sjaf to /dev/stdout
Ignotum per Ignotius
(A thing unknown by a thing more unknown)
-------------------------------------------------------------- ---
A fanfic by AmethystGleam
Disclaimer: I don’t own Xenosaga or its characters.
Author’s Rant: Do heed the shounen-ai and spoiler warnings from the 1st chapter. This is still the same fic. Rules still apply.
Please enjoy.
---------------------------------------------------------------- -
Chapter 3: Calling Your Name
It happened again.
chaos had shown a power uncharacteristic of human beings. And I hadn’t said anything–I was no better than his friends.
After the awkward encounter, I’d followed chaos to the bridge, where he stood near KOS-MOS, and I leaned against the back wall, eyes locked unto the back of chaos’s head. If he was planning to disappear again, I’d see it. I didn’t particularly care, but the bridge itself, beyond chaos, KOS-MOS, and myself, was in disarray.
Rubedo was yelling up a storm, hands resting uneasily on his guns. Shion and MOMO clutched each other in fear, while the cyborg was cracking his knuckles in deliberation. Mary and Shelly were torn between trying to calm down Rubedo, and calculating the time of impact with the immense structure that had appeared, which chaos helpfully chimed in and called ‘Abel’s Ark.’ I grit my teeth when everyone accepted chaos’s knowledge without question, before chaos glanced over his shoulder at me with the fake smile I was accustomed to. Irregardless of the smile, I kept my eyes on him, lips down-turned.
With a final cry, Rubedo stormed past both chaos and me, heading for the elevator. “I’m boarding an E.S.!” he cried, hands still resting on his guns. I proceeded to drown out the useless conversation that followed, still catching, out of the corner of my eye, the red-haired Rubedo being pulled away from the elevator by the pleading 100-series observational Realian prototype. chaos began to move now, turning to head for the elevator.
“Where are you going?” I inquired; lowering my voice so only he could hear.
“To the Elsa,” he replied, continuing when I gave him a heavy look that stated my obvious need for more information, ”We’ll need to warm it up immediately at this rate, as I don’t think Jr. has quite given up on examining that thing.”
“You know something, don’t you?” I retorted, feeling my jaw set. chaos simply smiled at me and disappeared down the elevator.
“FINE!” the ‘little master’s voice caught my attention after chaos was completely gone. “We’ll all set out on the Elsa to get a closer look!” I rubbed my forehead. This was too much.
------------------------------------------------------------ -----
Within the hour, the Elsa was loaded and set for takeoff. Captain Matthews seemed more than hesitant about setting out, but the immense sum of his debt seemed to inspire him to cooperate. Hammer and Tony had, of course, protested as well, but after a few compliments from chaos, they both agreed to take on the mission. So there I was, on the bridge of the Elsa, standing in my normal spot behind Matthew’s elevated chair. Launch went as smoothly as always, and we headed straight for Abel’s Ark, in oppressive silence. It seemed the crew was alert (and sober) after their recent experiences in the Omega System. After approximately 5 minutes of idle flying passed, the uneventfulness reminded me that I should hook myself up to one of the computers and run a diagnostic check on my damaged sensors and malfunctioning emotional restraints.
The journey to B1, for the aforementioned purpose, was uneventful, but I ran into my former navigator at the entrance to the processing room(1); He was leaning in the doorway, almost as if he had been waiting for me. Seeing the empty room behind him furthered this thought, but I didn’t care to ask where the robots who normally occupied the room had gone.
“I thought you might need some help,” chaos began, shifting what little weight he had in his petite body off the wall and back unto his feet.
“With?” I quirked an eyebrow, not recalling having ever mentioned needing maintenance to the walking enigma in front of me.
“You want to scan your own system, right? You can’t do anything more than auto maintenance aboard the Elsa, but you can find if there’s a problem or not using the scanner here,” chaos’s voice was gentle, as always. The platinum-haired boy took a step backwards, into the room behind himself, and I followed, ignoring the fact that chaos quietly shut and locked the door behind us.
“We don’t have a maintenance table in here, but you’re welcome to lie on the floor if you’d like,” the tone and expression of the young man across from me was nothing but sincerely apologetic.
I debated this for a moment; I was perfectly capable of standing during a checkup, but too many strange things had been happening as of late, and thus I figured I’d be better off lying on the floor than falling to it in a worst-case scenario. chaos waited until I had made myself as comfortable as possible on the cold metal floor before he crossed the room to the access a console. The familiar sound of keystrokes echoed in my mind before the pattern stopped, and chaos hesitated. One more keystroke, I recognized, and my personality layer would be disabled.
“Do you think Jin did something?” chaos asked, suddenly, glancing from the monitor in front of himself, down to me.
“When he was extracting the data from me in Labyrinthos, you mean? There’s a possibility that he might have hit something by accident, but I don’t see how that would cause the effects that are occurring right now,” my answer was unhelpful, I’m sure, as chaos had probably been hoping for a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I felt sorry for not being able to give him a better answer, before letting a loud “tch” of frustration pass through my lips.
“Are you all right?” asked chaos, quickly, moving from his place at the console to come kneel by my side.
My eye twitched involuntarily. ” My emotional inhibitor drive seems to be malfunctioning quite severely,” I explained. “And my sensors have been haywire ever since you pulled your past disappearing act on the Durandal.” Was this anger in my voice? “How can you do that, anyway? Why doesn’t anyone ever ask why you say the things you do? Why doesn’t anyone question your abilities? Just what ARE you, chaos!?” I hadn’t realized I was shouting until I took in the full look of shock on the platinum-haired boy’s face.
“I...I’m terribly sorry,” my apology, was, at best, pathetic, and I was so conflicted that I thought my OS might overload and shut down completely. Uneasy and embarrassed, I suppose--the full range of emotions cascading about in my head like sparks of electricity scattered about when a bolt of lightning splinters apart–I moved to sit up, bringing my hand to my forehead. Before I could get my hand in place, I bumped noses with chaos, who had taken the time of my mental reflection to lean over me in curiosity.
“So this is what you’re really like!” the shock had long since disappeared from chaos’ face, it seemed, and his mood had taken a full 360. As opposed to being serious and concerned, those blue-green eyes were now lit up like a child’s. I felt my face grow warm, and I recoiled, rubbing my lips where chaos’ breath had danced upon them as he’d spoken.
“What are you so happy about!? I’m malfunctioning! Can’t you see that!?”
chaos smiled good-naturedly,” I fail to see the problem, Canaan. I never did understand why they put that emotional restraint on you, when the very act of living as yourself beats wildly against it.” The young man’s eyes closed for a moment,” There’s so much more to existing than following the orders of others. Besides that, sometimes it’s better to watch than interfere… Though, the time for watching seems to be at an end. It’s unfortunate, don’t you think…?” As chaos’s voice trailed off, his blue-green orbs reappeared to the world, and I stared at chaos heavily.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, seriously, eyes narrowing at chaos. This was the most I’d ever heard him say directly from his mind. Chaos’s amused expression faded into something distant, which, now, snapped into an alarmed look.
“Nothing. Never mind,” my former navigator rose to his feet and headed for the door, obviously shocked that he’d let his guard down for a moment, and hence divulged a fragment of a bigger picture, that I wasn’t supposed to know about. Irregardless of his shock, I was not about to let chaos leave me so easily after saying something so mysterious.
Jumping to my feet, I threw myself forward without a second thought. chaos, having heard me rise, turned to me as I rushed towards him. Something amiss about the glow in those blue-green eyes startled me, and I took a bad step, gravity pulling me to the floor, and chaos along with me. After we’d both shared our respective expressions of pain, I noticed that chaos was under me, and reflexively, I leaned my weight up unto my hands; one of which was at the right side of chaos’s head, the other at his left side.
“Are you all right?” I asked him, quietly, seeing no need to yell when we were so close together.
“I-I’m fine,” chaos stammered, before shaking his head, as if to clear it. “And you?”
“I’m fine,” while this was far from the truth, it seemed reflexive to say it was so. After a long moment of silence, I noticed that chaos’s cheeks had begun to gain some red to them; I blinked once, not understanding the embarrassed look that had begun to creep over chaos’s feminine features.
The next thing I knew, the room was bathed in red, and the shrill cry of an alarm reached my ears. Captain Matthew’s voice came to us over the intercom: “We’ve got gnosis jumping in all around us! Everyone report to the bri–HOLY SHIT!”
The transmission’s abrupt end seemed to have rattled chaos and me, both, as we exchanged similar looks of shock and horror. chaos seemed to recover faster than I did, though, and I saw his eyes go wide for a moment in realization; despite his frail appearance, chaos had more than enough strength to push me over, reversing our positions as he shielded me with his body. I felt all my breath knocked away at the sudden action, but before I could ask why chaos had done what he did, a gnosis came in through the floor where we had just been laying.
For a second, I felt dizzy, sensing a wave emission from the direction of the bridge. chaos must’ve realized this, too, as I saw him acknowledge the Hilbert Effect through the look on his face, and he reached forward the grasp the gnosis, before it could grab us.
My eyes widened.
In all due logic, chaos should’ve been undergoing whitening; but…no. Besides looking a little sad, chaos was fine. He pressed his hand harder against the gnosis and it vanished, no doubt defeated. chaos's head dropped immediately down to my shoulder after this display, his body limp on top of mine. I was too shocked from the display I’d just played witness to, that, in my shock, I wasn’t able to check and see if chaos had fainted or not.
My shock was interrupted as I suddenly felt my entire body take chill.
Shuddering once, I soon realized that I was cold because chaos was, and he was lying on top of me, still. As I could feel the chill through chaos’s bodysuit, and my own, I knew something had to be terribly wrong. I embraced chaos, tightly, hoping to give him what little heat my body could offer, and for lack of logic in the face of emotion, I began to cry his name, hoping he would open his eyes once more.
------------------------------------------------------------ -----
Author’s Conclusion: I wrote the first three chapters at all once over the course of a day without lunch. >>; I was out at the time, and had no access to the game or the strategy guide, therefore I blame any misspellings and such on that. <3
processing room(1) – I don’t know a lot of techno babble, and it’s been a few weeks since I did the GS campaign where you restore the memory of one of the robots. This is the room that’s to the right of the elevator with the huge monitor in it. I gave it… other purposes, shall we say, for the purpose of this fic. ^^;
I apologize for the creepyness of chaos during this chapter, and the amusingly OOC antics of Canaan. ^^; Just…remember that his emotion inhibitor drive isn’t working, and we’ll be on good terms, yes? ^^;
Converting /tmp/phpd4sjaf to /dev/stdout