Initiative

Red. The colour of destruction. This is the colour that wrapped around the android. We are out on some old testing grounds. She changed into a more suitable attire, since we are out and about. She just explained to me that Red is destruction magic. She also informed me that even though users use the same colour, their actual abilities will vary. The use of it is quite similar, but the power can be bent to apply to different situations, depending what they need.

She moved her body into a fighting stance, and one roundhouse kick cut the target dummy in half. My jaw dropped as I saw this amazing mechanical girl just land a killing blow. She landed gracefully on one foot, twisted slightly, and rotated her other foot to the ground, perfectly side by side. It looked like a gymnast was secretly a karate master. I could have sworn she was about to bow to me after that move.

“Red primarily is channeled by aggression, which the reasons why are obvious. Next is Orange. It is creation. Accessing this requires the user to be calm.” She closes her eyes and breathes slowly. Geeze this animatronic even has a breathing animation? Is that for style, or actual use? I’d be embarrassed to ask.

Orange pours out of the pillar and creates another dummy, right next to his broken brother. She opens her eyes and turns around.

She says over her shoulder, “Yellow is mending, sympathy or care activates this power the best.” She bends down to pick up the broken one. When she places it back on its pedestal, the dummy reattaches and remains standing. It doesn’t even look like it was touched.

“Green is sustained damage. Best drawn out by animosity, especially a grudge.” She puts her hands on the dummy’s shoulders, and Green flashes at the touch. She takes her hands off and the dummy starts melting, fastest from the points she laid hands on.

“Light Blue is illusion. Users usually feel sly or cunning when they make the most convincing tricks.” The remaining dummy started dancing before my very eyes. I couldn’t tell it from real life. Looking over at Lucy, however, gave away the trick. Her circuits pulsated the light blue. She saw me notice, and soon enough, those disappeared. I expected the dummy to stop dancing, but it was jigging away.

“Did you trick me into not seeing your colour, as well?” I figured that out pretty quickly. She laughed pleasantly. Let me tell you, you’ve never heard a more perfect laugh than one from an android. I swear it was emulated so flawlessly, and her expression matched it. I was still in awe how realistic she was.

“Now, bright Blue is control. It’s like illusion, but tricking their mind to perform acts. Users who do this are very empathetic, and really have to connect with who or what they are controlling. Otherwise the bond would not hold.” She turns to me and I see bright blue slowly getting brighter, fanning out among her circuitry. Then I watch myself move forward toward her, compelled by her power. “I can even empart emotion on to whomever I control…” she adds on, and I feel a wave of calmness and content.

“Indigo, like the scanner I used, is for sight. Users must be extremely focused for this one, but may find out vital information. Some may even be able to read thoughts or predict actions.” As her bright Blue turned to the deeper Indigo, I felt her control release. Now that I was standing close to her, I could tell how gorgeous her circuitry is. The intricate patterns extend over her metal plates and are tightly packed in important areas, such as the palms of her hands and her fingertips. They carry the colour, letting it flow through the lines in those same pulsating waves I keep noticing. The colour shines through her clothes, I can see her feminine figure as a wire-frame, since her circuit traces travel throughout her entire system.

My fascination with her is interrupted by another observation. She’s blushing again, much more than last time. Oh shoot. Did she mention mind-reading? Now that she is wielding Indigo, I’m absolutely certain she used it to read my thoughts. My face burns with embarrassment, I can feel it all the way to my ears.

“I- uh…” she stammers, caught off guard. Her Indigo fades. My brain is riddled with thoughts. How will she react to what she heard? How much does she know? I don’t even know what to say. The other girls weren’t watching, luckily. They still are in the building. I’m half glad that Lucy took me out to the field alone. The other half of me is overwhelmed.

She seemed to regain her wits or at least is pretending to, “Violet is… It’s void. Users usually need to be good at multitasking, to think in 2 places at once.” Violet starts at her shoulders and the purple extends down her arms, rushing towards her finger tips. The moment it hits her fingers, a dark purple trench opens up. It’s 2 dimensional, plastered to the ground. The remaining dummy, the one that used to be dancing, falls through it. She points her other hand somewhere else and the Violet pulses, ripping open another gap. The dummy falls out of this one, face flat on the ground. The tear is floating in the air, looking out of place from reality. These slide closed as her powers fade away again. She looks a little unsteady on her feet. I recognize this quickly and stretch an arm out. Her eyes blink and before I know it, she’s limply slumped into my arms. I bend down and let her sit on the ground. I call for Tiana, using her real name without thinking. The door to the building opens and I’m reassured to see her step out. She is over before I know it.

Her pink power already surrounds us in a mist, and she puts her hands on Lucy. The pink leaks into Lucy’s circuits. I can’t help but notice how different the pathways are. On Lucy, the power is so precisely guided, so intricately woven in very thin pathways. Tiana’s pathways are much thicker and are evenly distributed over the surface of her skin. I feel the difference in the air, Tiana’s power is much more raw. Lucy always had very formulated, very specific power that she guided. From what I learned today, power relies heavily on emotion. So it makes a lot of sense that a human’s emotion isn’t precise, isn’t targeted as specifically, and isn’t so logical. That is the distinction between the android and the human. Lucy emulates emotion too flawlessly. There isn’t any confusion or imperfections to it. Real humans, they are much more general in their emotions, it’s more like a blob of what they are feeling, not specifically built out of certain things.

Her eyes flutter open, and even though Tiana stops emitting power, the pink aura lingers. The door, still open, has a figure standing in it. I expected it to be Sheila, but when the woman came into view, I realize it was Claire. The nice lady makes it over, and takes a look at Lucy. Tiana stands up and makes way for the older woman, and I copy suit, letting Lucy sit up on her own.

Lucy laughs lightly, with a lot more effort than the other time she laughed. “Well I don’t need to demonstrate the next two powers now, they are both right here. Pink is strength, she can share her strength or exponentially increase her own. Users need to feel strong emotion, any emotion will do. The focus, or subject, of that emotion will receive the effects, whether that is good or bad depends on the user’s intent.” Claire bends down and rubs Lucy’s exterior, a Golden power trickles through her fingers and combines with the metal. It is a lot softer than when Tiana summoned Pink and pulsates as it gets soaked up by Lucy.

“Golden is Technology. It is the colour that communicates the closest with the Grid, and it is the reason why I am able to exist. The list of colours and uses are always growing. We initially weren’t able to access the Golden colour. Users are logical in thinking, very orderly.” She continues her lecture as Claire soothes her overworked mainframe.

“The newest colour, a rare one to achieve, is Blood Orange. It is the combination of Destruction and Creation. It is most closely affiliated with Change. Many of the user's abilities are able to affect the environment in ways that we never could have imagined. With new colours being drawn out and put to use, our society is expanding. Almost every pillar grew the day the first user of Blood Orange used it to change something monumental. They created the first Crusader. In all of our history, no one has been able to survive outside the pillars for long. They could live without a pillar, but could not protect themselves from the enemy. Now Blood Orange users have allowed Crusaders to contain the power and explore outside the normal bounds of our civilization.” The android finishes her explanation, she sits up on her own easily, now that Claire has done her best to help her.

Lucy makes her way to stand up. I take her hand, helping her up. Her smooth metal palm touches mine and she lifts herself up easily. We don’t let go right away, and she thanks me from the close distance that helping her up brought us.

“Thank you for explaining everything to me,” I respond.

She asks me what power does my personality fit, if there is an obvious connection. I ponder that for a bit.

“Maybe illusion or sight, I can’t really see myself being good at any of the others.” I end up admitting. All of these sound cool, but if I have power, we should start with the ones that I am most likely able to master.

“That’s where we shall start, then!” She smiles, I can tell her personality is back to its usual. Tiana and Claire have retreated, seeing that the android is doing much better.

We walked to the area we would test sight out. We stood right next to a pillar, so it would be the easiest to draw power out. This pillar looked new, even though it was big. It was still smaller that the ones around though. I’m sure it was meant for training.

“Alright, now focus on that target way over there.” I looked downrange at a barely perceptible target of red concentric rings. The android stepped close to my side. I wondered what she was doing a split second before I figured it out. She put one of her hands on me and Indigo seeped out of her palms. I could feel the loveliest sensation, it felt as though it was warming my skin and cooling it simultaneously. I remembered that Indigo took a lot of focus to use, so I stared directly at the target and told my inner thoughts to shut up.

The target unfortunately didn’t get any larger, no matter how hard I tried. I assume I was supposed to be able to see it crystal clear from this distance. I guess I can’t wield Indigo.

“For illusion, basic techniques can be distractions. So I’ll have you try to project sound elsewhere. Clap, and try to imagine that sound happening to the right of me instead of on the left.” She did the same thing, light blue lit up my shoulder. It felt like a slightly different sensation, but impossible to explain with words.

I felt silly, clapping multiple times in a row with nothing magical happening. I really felt like I had a shot at that one. But, alas, another one off the list. We tried a few more that I could have been good at, but it was looking more and more like I was just a normal, powerless Gray.