From The Top, With Feeling!

John's re-entry into his new world was a particularly disorienting one, complicated by the fact that just as his senses were acclimating to the sudden change in scenery, Vallya's form was split from his own rather forcefully. John got only an instant's view of his own world, laced with mana through every living fiber of itself, and then Vallya was ejected from his body. His perception slowed, his senses dulled... his anger and frustrations remained the only things crystal-clear.

"Sophia, come here, I'm going to need your strength," John growled loud enough to be heard by the distant harpy, his foot sliding across the grass to shift his weight as his body finished re-orienting itself. "We'll have to be fast too. I'm going to copy Vallya's sight instead of Shishun's jumping ability; if we see those cables coming, we might-"

"Master, calm yourself."

"I'm not going to be calm; did you see those cables? The ease she wielded them with? She even saw your illusions for what they were with just a short exposure, Vallya. We need to reach her, whatever that takes. She can help us stop this war, help us save Moira and the others. If she would just listen-"

"If she would just listen, we wouldn't be here in the first place." Vallya's voice was terse, but restrained, as though she were talking to a child. "John, there's more going on here than we know."

"Like what?" John asked, his voice tinged with skepticism and hope in equal measure.

"If she can sense auras well enough to see past my illusions, and if we're right about her using both magical and physical senses to determine our location even miles away – even through a Barrier – there's good reason to believe she would have recognized someone like Killjoy."

"I mean, sure, it sounded like they knew each other, but Killjoy never explicitly said they were familiar. Besides, it's been decades since then – what makes you think she remembers her that well?"

"I don't know much about this Himiko woman, but I'd wager there's a reason she picked this particular mercenary to lead us here... More importantly, Adantia has yet to attack Killjoy. She only ever attacked us, and that's in spite of the fact that Killjoy was the one who shattered the building."

John opened his mouth in a knee-jerk rebuttal, but he realized before a single sound came forth that Vallya wasn't entirely wrong. The only time that the metallic cables had been anywhere near hurting Killjoy was when she was rescuing John and Layla from the cables, and he had no idea how much danger she was actually in... Killjoy seemed like she was probably in a lot less danger than John had been.

"So, we get Killjoy to talk with her? It could work, and I'm sure if Killjoy really was that familiar with her, she'd have something to say to her... but that doesn't help us now. We have no way of communicating with them from where we are, and the second we return to the old world, Adantia will know we're there. Battle is still our best plan, either to escape or to try talking to her."

"The harder you come at her, the harder she's going to fight back," Vallya insisted, stepping closer. "Master, it's pointless to try to match her strength. If you could stand against her for even a minute, she wouldn't have the power you're looking for!"

"Do not insult our Father," Sophia said as she finally reached them, stepping to John's side in a way that was protective, while remaining deferential. Lerianna and Shishun stood not far behind her, drawn in by the loud voices. "If he believes that his strength is sufficient, then we must have faith in him."

"We have time to prepare," John insisted. "We can make battle plans and come up with a strategy to counter her style of combat. We have to. That woman has the power to end this war, and-"

"And if she wanted to, she could have killed us with a single spell!" Vallya replied tersely, crossing her arms. "You know that, right?"

"She either can't or doesn't want to, or else we'd be dead already," John shot back, grimacing as he looked around. "So what she's capable of is irrelevant, only what she's willing to do matters now. What makes you so sure she's that invincible, anyway?"

"You're not used to using my sight, and I hardly had time to explain it to you in the middle of a fight, but I could see that she was barely using a fraction of her true abilities," Vallya said, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes at John. "I don't know if she could simply make those cables stronger, faster, or if she wasn't even bothering to use a spell... but her aura showed no fluctuations, no signs of variation as she struck at us. She is powerful, John. More than you even know. If she wanted us dead, we'd have never made it here."

"So what, all those attacks were just her playing with us?" John asked, quirking an eyebrow. To his surprise Vallya didn't hesitate to nod.

"Yes. I think she was upset, angry, and reacted with more **** than she intended – her expressions and the way she reacted showed that much. But at the same time, she didn't want to just slaughter us. Perhaps she wants to **** us for information, or maybe she just wants to hold us hostage to use us against Killjoy and Layla. Whatever the case, she doesn't want to kill us."

"But she's still trying to capture us, whether it's to **** us, use us as ransom, or just figure out why we're here. We don't have time to talk our way out of a cell... or whatever else she has in mind for us. I need to be strong enough to-”

“John, even with my strength added to yours, you barely had the time to speak while we were fighting against her – and that in spite of how much I know she must have been holding back,” Vallya said, her voice growing calmer as she stepped forward. Vallya laid her hands over John's and clasped them together, a worried look on her face. “Not every problem needs to be solved with ****, Master. Not every problem can be solved with it. I do not wish to see you suffer.”

“I thought you loved watching people suffer?” John said, only a half-joke.

“Not you, Master.”

The words were raw, and one of the most genuine things that Vallya had ever said to him – there was none of her usual playfulness, no hints of teasing or word play. Just her eyes locked onto his, in a manner so unexpected John actually flinched.

“So... what do you suggest, then?”

“Find another way. Use what we have.”

“What we have? What do we have that doesn't involve going there ourselves?”

The simple and unfortunate fact was that, over the last year, John had utilized his new ability to break items down to reforge most of what they acquired from Dungeons that didn't have an immediate use into materials. He had some raw materials left, even after the construction of Arista's cell, but nothing sprang to mind. Could he leave her a note? Assuming she didn't shred it the second that it arrived – accidentally or on purpose – John still had a nagging feeling that something was off about the woman's eyes, and not in a particularly magical way.

An audio recording? That would require technologies he didn't have access to, not without farming for rare minerals more useful for circuit boards and electronics than the armors and weaponry he'd been forging. Technology advanced enough to at least-

“Tricia's drone!” John abruptly shouted, stepping away from Vallya and Sophia. “Where is it now?”

“I haven't seen it since she first contacted us. I think it may still be in the mountains where you last left it, Father.”

“You probably kinda scared her by sealing it away in solid stone for a year and threatening to destroy it if you ever saw it again. Kinda a harsh line,” Lerianna offered with a half-hearted shrug. “Guessing Moira passed that part on to her. So even though it's free now, she probably didn't move it around much, or at all."

“We need to find it immediately. We have to-”

“Not we, John. You.” Vallya's voice was focused and certain, despite the softness in her eyes. “John, Himiko seems to be many things, but from how you have described her... she is not a fool, and she does not want you to die. She has enough knowledge about the world to be absolutely certain of Adantia's existence, and she seems incredibly certain that going after Adantia is the best path for you to pursue... to the point that she had already prepared her answer to the problem of the Northern Ashes before you even entered her domain.”

“It almost sounds like you trust her, Vallya,” John said, more shocked than accusatory. “Why? Why do you seem so certain of this? You've never even met her.”

“And she has never met us. Which means she doesn't believe in any of us, John – she believes in you.”

John didn't know what to say. His voice faltered and failed him, while only the slightest of stammers escaped his lips. It wasn't that Vallya's words were so shocking, but rather that the truth of them was so striking and yet foreign to John.

The only things anyone had ever really acknowledged about John were the uniqueness of his abilities and the rate that they let him improve. No one had ever really identified him as special – not for any quality that he had acquired on his own, anyway. At best, John was tenacious; at worst, he was a headstrong fool whose efforts had largely been successful due to what life had given him... a thought that would've once been insulting. Yet after the Albidian incident and with a year to reflect on his own failures, John couldn't find anything but honesty in that assessment. So here it was he found himself wondering which was more shocking, the fact that Himiko saw something worthwhile in him even after all those he had let down... or that Vallya had so easily read that assessment from her without ever laying eyes upon the woman herself.

“How can you know that? What if she simply underestimated Adantia?” John mumbled, words uncertain even to himself.

“If you think her judgment so unsound, then her empire is founded on poor foresight, and you have no reason to have faith in Adantia at all,” Vallya countered without hesitation. “No one else in this world of yours seems to believe Adantia could have survived for all this time, even Killjoy. She has the knowledge and information networks to know a great deal about this situation that we do not. She still believes in you, John. And more importantly... so do we.”

“Vallya is being out of line with you, Father... but she's right,” Sophia said, voice more subdued than normal. “We've always believed in you. You should not be surprised that others see the same worth in you that we do.”

“Doesn't mean you shouldn't keep your guard up when you go back, though. You're kind of easy to catch off-guard,” Lerianna added in, the smirk and blush combination on her face making it clear exactly which memory she was recalling.

John remained silent, thinking about the words of his family and his own instincts. Sure, John had always made bold proclamations, but he hadn't always maintained true belief in himself... his family had, but they seemed to be the only ones. Except, for some odd reason, Himiko. What that meant, John wasn't exactly sure, but he didn't see any immediate alternatives to hoping that – somehow – he would find the words to reach Adantia and stop her from skewering him immediately upon his return.

“I'll try it... what other choice do we have? I'll see what I can do,” John finally said, sighing as he turned toward the mountains. They were visible from this distance, but only due to the mostly clear terrain of his world.

“Good luck, Myaster! Come back soon!” Maera called.

“Kittens really miss you! They haven't gone without you for this long!” Mithra added, her voice softer and more concerned.

“I'll be back as soon as I can, everyone. Wish me luck,” John said, offering a smile that he hoped looked more genuine than it felt before he set off across his world, heading for the distant mountains.

Stress kept John's feet moving faster than he intended, bringing the mountains ever closer. He barely knew the woman; Himiko had told him almost nothing, Arista hadn't known much at all, and Killjoy had been intentionally vague about damn near everything she'd said to him, whether it was related to Paix or not.

Despite the distance, John was in the mountains before he knew it, and long before he'd come up with much at all to say to Adantia. He found Tricia's drone not far from where he'd first pulled it out of the rocks, in sleep mode as it so often was, conserving its power. To Tricia's credit the drone had never needed a recharge of his mana, not even after a year of hibernation.

As John fiddled with the drone's screen he managed to find enough functions of the drone to record a message and get it to playback after a set amount of time – he would've preferred activation at a spell's notice, but the interfaces for mana-based programming that John could find made him want to impale himself on his own blade before trying to learn it in the span of a few minutes. He thought about messaging Tricia... but there was a good chance that she'd just waste time trying to talk him out of it. John wasn't sure she'd fail.

“Okay, okay... just gotta...”

John hesitated with his finger over the record button one last time before pressing it with no small amount of trepidation.

“Hi, Adantia, I'm John Newman, and this is- no, I sound like a fucking high schooler.”

John smashed the stop button and erased the recording, shifting his position a little. He lowered the drone closer to the ground and sat on his knees, crossing his hands in his lap, then pushed the button again.

“Greetings, Adantia. I know you don't know who I am, but I know who you are, and I know that- No, fuck, I sound creepy. I don't need to emphasize how much I know about a woman who has been hiding...”

Another erased recording, another change of position, as John stood again.

“Hello, Adantia, I'm John Newman, and I need your help. I know you've been here for a long time, I know that you've been trying to hide away from the world, but there's something really important that... you know nothing about, you went into hiding before the Order even came to America... and I need you to just kind of waste all the time you spent hiding and reveal yourself again and- FUCK!”

Ten more recordings came and went, sounding ridiculous even to John. The worst were the two separate times he accidentally saved the recording and hit the playback. He saw his awkward stance, his dead eyes, his freshman-year-speech-class level of recording. It was like watching a C-list movie speech from an F-list actor.

“Fuck, I just... how do I even relate to her? She's been living in a dead city since before I was born...”

John sat there with his head in his hands, the drone beeping and whirring around him, for a long while. That last thought stuck in his head, echoing around as John considered that, for all the unknowns of Adantia's life, for all the details that Killjoy had steadfastly refused to give him... there was something that even John knew they had in common. Something obvious enough he knew it was surely what Himiko had gleaned from whatever information gathering sources she had... and painful enough that it might just work.

This time his hesitation was longer, this time his finger shook slightly as he finally pressed the record button.

“...Adantia, I don't blame you if you never hear this far in the recording. I would've annihilated this drone before giving it enough time to get past the second syllable. I won't blame you if you do too. But if this is still playing, if you're still listening? I just wanted to say... I really wish I could've seen Paix in its glory days. What you've rebuilt of it is an amazing sight, something beautiful. This is my first time here, but I feel from the way the Paix inside your Barrier looks so pristine and perfect, you really did know it right down to the last stone. I'm very sorry to have intruded here. I wouldn't have done it if I had any other choice, but... I don't expect that to be a good enough reason for you to just forgive me.

“A year ago, I nearly lost my own home, my own little private oasis in the hellscape the Abyss has become. I was very lucky, and had some very good friends to help me, or I'd have lost it all... sometimes I still feel like I did. I lost someone who...”

John swallowed, feeling his throat grow dry and words become more difficult.

“I lost someone who meant the world to me. If someone entered my home now, I'd probably have tried to kill them without a moment's hesitation. That's why I think you're already a better person than me. If the rumors of your power are true, I think you were going easy on me... maybe you were trying to catch me, maybe you were trying to injure me, maybe you were even hoping to scare me away. I don't blame you for any of it. And, Adantia...”

John trailed off, letting out a long sigh, his lips fluttering a little as he tried to imagine what he was supposed to say. He could ask for help, but Adantia had no reason to listen. He could beg, but... what good was that, coming from an intruder? All he'd told Adantia so far was what could easily be a fake sob story about relating to losing a home.

John didn't erase this recording, but he did back it up. He erased the bits about losing his own home and the vague bits about what he'd lost. If he was going to have any chance of reaching Adantia, he needed to not just talk about how he understood her, but actually try to understand her. The only reason John wasn't still locked away in his own private world was because of his own family spending an entire year consoling him, and then Tricia reaching out in a moment of desperation. Adantia didn't have that; for all John knew, he was the first human she'd spoken to since Paix's destruction. She had literal and metaphorical walls she'd spent decades building... and no one to wear away at them.

“Adantia, I don't know much about you... but I'm here to ask for your help, so you deserve to know about me. About why I'm here."