Toxic Insects [Job-Luceam]

Luna's present appearance:

Through the lens of her Smart knew Holographic glasses, Luna studied the information she had mailed to her through the Lacrima Net as it came in an audio form reading out the file describing the situation as she held a loose grip of the reigns of the saddle on the dark mustang. It was not uncommon for certain wizards to be called onto a job, usually due to their reputation or good standing with many individuals. In Luna's experience there were typically three main reasons for this, first of all is if the job is urgent and needs to be taken care of swiftly and can't afford to wait for a mage to take the job. Second is sometimes a job requires a specific specialty and calling out known mages with that skill set can save a lot of time, and in rare times the price. Thirdly and what Luna is suspecting the case, when a job is dangerous but initially taken on by someone that is lowly estimated and the clients want assurance that the job will be taken care of properly. Luna came to this conclusion after she read the information she had available regarding a demon enhancing and mutating various insects posing a threat.

Meanwhile Amelia was riding in the buggy the horse was pulling laying with her crossed arms behind her head and her feet up on the side railing. "So what, are we on babysitting duty or are we responding to a actual threat?" the artificial life form said before letting out a yawn. Luna shrugged as she had no clue. "Well the file says a name but not someone we've heard of, and the affluent locals did ask for me and the Rune Knights didn't object. But no one dismissed either motif as the bugs are a real threat regardless." Luna said as she did not want to take any stance so soon. "Well, you'd think they'd call a demon slayer instead of a god slayer." Luna groaned at the implication, while there was no one around to listen she did not want the news to be made public so soon yet. Amelia shrugged off Luna's reaction and kept on with her thought. "Either way, hope he doesn't take it hard, you never know with these military types. There are a few that see legal guild mages as undisciplined liabilities."

Luna sighed as she was getting annoyed with the Gynoid's theory or take on the matter. "That's a bit overdramatic. Besides officially the Rune Knights are similar to legal guilds. But let's not count this guy out, perhaps the reason I was called was just cause I was in the neighborhood." She said as she recalled the earlier business she had in Beanstalk village. "Right, you're brother's girl's parents wanted to meet his family, but that is a bleeding mess so started with you."  Amelia put bluntly as silence greeted her in response as the horse continued on the path.

Luna thought on the scenario and how things were incredibly awkward at first given that her directly younger brother Leon wasn't always in contact since he left River Village. "Well the meeting should've been postponed, Leon barely has had any time to process that our mother is alive, a fairy, and we have another sister, and the change in relationship. Don't get me wrong I like Ema, she's a good woman for Leon, but she shouldn't have let her parents force Leon into something like this. I'm just glad they are at least decent people and understanding once I explained the whole thing."

Luna said as she remembered her her brother's timid nature. Leon had social anxiety that was incredibly unpredictable, sometimes he was able to barely hold a conversation on his best day, and sometimes he could barely say three words at a time on his worst, he always used his various art forms as a means of releasing the anxiety and often as a way to commune with others. Luna remembered doing all she could in the past to try and help him be comfortable with socializing and expressing himself.

Midway into the meeting she got the call that she was wanted on this particular job to work with the upcoming Rune Knight. All she knew from the official was that his character was not in question, but rather given the urgency and dangers did warrant the official wanting some reassurance.

Eventually Luna saw on the map in the corner of the HUD that she was approaching the meetup point with the Rune Knight, and as she closed in she began to see the individual. The horse slowed down as it got closer to the man before coming to a stop. 

Luna removed her smart glasses, folding them and hanging the frame off the collar of her blouse as she softly smiled towards Aiden. "Aiden Ainsley? I'm Luna Mira, a Sabertooth mage called to assist you on this job." Luna lifted one leg over before slowly getting off the horse before unclipping her purse from the side. Meanwhile the artificial life form lazily fell out of the buggy and merely dusted the dirt off herself as she stood up. "I'm Amelia Thorn, Luna's platonic life companion and work wife. Not associated with any guild personally."

Luna sighed as she knew Amelia was doing, trying to avoid making it look like Luna's enslaving another sentient being by addressing herself as a gynoid immediately but she did not want to pick up that same old argument at the moment. Luna reached inside her purse and pulled out a carrot offering it to the horse who graciously accepted as Luna followed it by pulling out a small wad of bills. "Thanks for the sudden service Gus, here's for my tab and keep change as a tip." Luna said before sliding the wad into a pouch on the saddle. The horse happily neighed before telepathically communing to Luna "Always a pleasure miss, regular customers like you give this business a good vibe." before the horse turned around slowly, waiting until the buggy was all the way around before bolting off at high speed.

Luna turned around back to face the tall knight she was tasked to work with. "Forgive my unprofessional appearance, my more appropriate attire is at the tailors or seamstress and I was not expecting to be called in, and I wouldn't even have the time to get ready considering I was called last night and I was barely in the area." Luna said before she opened her senses towards the mountain range. "But this shouldn't be a hard task, should be out in time for supper."

Amelia rolled her eyes. "Doesn't that watch thing you got from Magnolia give you the ability to go to a space station and return at the same time you left?" She said gesturing towards the Infinite Improbability Chronometer. Luna bit her lip as she was starting to get annoyed by Amelia at times. "Again, aside from my gear and tools not on my person, which at the moment is just Zygmunt, nothing there to grab." Amelia threw her hands up ready to start another argument but she gave up. "Just saying, if you can stop time to go to a space station, you can't say you don't have time to change clothes."

Luna dismissed the argument of the gynoid as she returned her focus to the task at hand. "Anyways, Aiden, I'm aware of the task and the stakes. Ready to go when you are." She said with graceful confidence.

WC 1263
PWC 1263
TWC 1564

"Wow. Never before have I seen such a conundrum. This guy really doesn't inspire confidence does he, no wonder we were called." Amelia said as she read the behavior of the Rune Knight. Luna mentally grunted in response as she wanted to disagree with him but she herself studied the body language the man exuded almost no presence of himself. "Amelia you're being too hard on the guy." Luna communed sympathetically regarding the man, trying not to judge him so soon. She knew that even for a telepath, it takes more then two minutes to really sum up a person for all their qualities. "You're probably right, let's see him in the face of danger. Clearly he had to be worth his salt if he wears the Rune Knight uniform. Probably just shy around the ladies."

Luna remained calm on the outside as the man explained himself and why he was wearing the uniform and informing that this was slightly outside the normal standard of partnership for him. "Well, I see. Normally I am not called for jobs unless someone is expecting dire injuries. I'm a healing specialist by nature, while this form appears human, I'm actually only about, maybe two point five percent human. I'm actually a Nature Fairy."

As the group carried down the path Luna and Amelia stayed a few steps behind the Rune Knight, carefully monitoring their pace as they remained cautious of the situation around the group. Luna had a feeling that they were being watched, but the slayer's senses of hearing, magic, and even the corrupted life force of the three massive bugs were alerted well before they got close. Luna was about to say something but Amelia quickly and silently covered Luna's mouth with her left hand and wrapped her arm around Luna's side. "What are you doing?! My senses-" She tried to commune before Amelia quickly communed louder. "Are sharper then his, look, he doesn't know yet!"

Amelia jumped back and to the side into the trees silently as the bugs got closer, Luna watched as something she caught onto seven seconds prior just reached the attention of the Rune Knight as the three bugs descended towards him. Luna could see what Amelia was doing at this point as she was testing Aiden's reaction, speed, and power. "So he's a fire and energy based mage. Luna however kept her eyes open as she watched Aiden's fire whips hit the bug creatures but more importantly she watched as he closed his eyes. "Oh Shirain." She thought as she the spell was being cast. "His eyes! Does he want to die?!".

Luna carefully watched the bodies of the insects, specifically the diaphragms and as Aiden's spell was being cast Luna recognized the movements of the creatures and sensing their intent, Luna knew they were about to spew, and whatever it was, poison or acid, would prove to be painful for the Rune Knight. Feeling like she had no other option Luna shrugged off Amelia and dashed forward as Aiden opened his eyes, and all three insects released a dark green liquid from their mouth at Aiden.  Luna pointed her hand forward as a purple seed shot out from between her left middle and ring finger knuckles and into the ground, burrowing itself before quickly sprouting into a pumpkin vine. As the plant was halfway through the maturity, all the acid seemed to stop mid air before got absorbed into the plant before it fully grew into a dark purple pumpkin.

"Aiden get back! It's gonna blow!" Luna said as the purple pumpkin was pulsating, four seconds later almost cracking until it exploded releasing a wave of a black boiling liquid out at the three insects. The boiling venom fused with the unholy element of God Slayer magic washed over the insects, there was the sound of their clicking getting intense for a moment as they suffered intense pain before one by one the movement slowed until it ultimately ceased, their bodies melting and deforming as they became grotesque sights that were far from recognizable. "Well, a few faces not even a insect queen could love, also not to doubt your abilities with reviving the dead, but I don't think you can work with this mess Luna. Kudos on turning their venom into a worse poison." Amelia said as she walked out of the woods, looking down and even the artificial senses were repulsed by the scent. "I wish my makers didn't give me such a good sense of smell, or at least gave me the off switch." She complained out loud, Luna sighed and rolled her eyes. "You say that about everything, but you know that most of your systems are intertwined and if you shut down one subroutine you gotta shut down them all. Artificial Lifeforms, they always have something to complain about their makers."

Amelia sighed before she looked back at Aiden, approaching him with a disappointed stare. "You got a death wish, or are you just plain ignorant?" Luna bit her lip as she gave Amelia a stare of annoyance to which Amelia brushed off the statemnt Luna wanted to make before she spoke aloud. "Oh don't give me that stare Luna, he left himself literally blind to an attack so he could attack in vein." Amelia sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she tried to figure out how to address the man. "An energy elemental mage that closes their eyes to strike is a fool. In that instant Luna saw them preparing to use their venom to poison you, and had she not been in the nick of time who knows what you'd be suffering by now, becoming a liability"

Luna looked at the venom that coated the three shriveled bodies and the ground as she clenched her fist, focusing on the earth as the dirt and rocks shook before splitting into two, moving aside all the venom soaked earth and the bodies clearing the path. "Probably burning sensation and dizziness, maybe vomiting and nausea." Luna explained. Amelia sighed in response as she was being rhetorical earlier. "Anyways. You need to learn to cast with your eyes open, or give up on living." Amelia said before she started to keep on walking, Luna sighed. "Sorry about Amelia, she's just, set in her ways of tough love." Hearing Luna's words, Amelia responded. "We're here to help not hold his hand! If he can't do the most basic thing about fire casting, he's already dead."

Luna grunted as she stared at the gynoid. Amelia, way too harsh! He's not that bad and you don't need to insult him like that!" Luna projected through the Archive Link. "He needs to learn that a screw up means death somehow."

WC 1127
PWC 2390
TWC 3201

Luna was at the very least relieved that Aiden didn't break or at the very leash end up having a more volatile reaction to Amelia's criticism. She knew that the gynoid was not wrong, however she heavily disagreed with the approach to directly and aggressively point out the errors Aiden made. 

After years of handling Luna's directly younger brother Leon, Luna was used to interacting with shy individuals, and she had a feeling that if Aiden were to be repeatedly subjected to the harsh tones, he might become more withdrawn. Luna silently reminded herself to keep some form of dialogue between her and the man as to avoid any communication breakdown. Amelia however was much indifferent on the matter as the young man was not able to perform the most basic feet of a fire caster. Luna would soon wish she never reminded herself as Aiden started to come out of his shell and ask the one question she was hoping to avoid discussing with any Rune Knight, how did the Nature Fairy meet the artificial woman.

Luna took a moment to formulate a correct answer as there was no way to easily explain the situation without saying the man works for something that he is sworn to fight against. "That's a complicated story that you may not want to hear." Luna said, she was not wrong in her opinion as she genuinely believed that no Rune Knight enjoys hearing that someone that worked so closely with the magic council was corrupt. Amelia on the other hand had no such mercy when it comes to preserving the illusion of the magic council. "Abridged version is Luna and are are former guild masters of two different guilds that have been since disbanded under sketchy circumstances by the Magic Council. There's a group under the magic council that repeatedly surveys legal guilds and makes sure everything's in order, checks for law abiding and proper accounting, one of their few workers was a man named  John Seamoor."

Amelia's voice seemed to grow tense as she spoke of the man that nearly took away everything she fought for. Her electronic breathing was tense as she continued on the story."Every half to nearly a year he'd find some guild with average issues, and exaggerate the hell out of them so much that the guild is forced to disband. What he does after is he personally oversaw the claiming of funds, and anything 'unaccountable' he'd sneak away smuggling the cash out through his uncles charity facade as a donation, when that charity was really a tax write off and bypass to add the money right to their pockets. They never even needed it to live, just for luxury. They brought down Thunder Arrow just for a bowl of gems, that was worth wrecking thirty lives for. A bowl of rocks that no one ever sees. I contested the charges the moment I saw them, and I came close to proving the Seamoors, but they weren't willing to go to jail, so they paid a dark wizard that left me in essentially a waking coma for six months."

Amelia's aura seemed to be tense as she recalled what happened, the sneak attack that struck with such precision that severed her nerve like lacrimas without altering the flow, in effect leaving her conscious but her body unable to move. Naturally with her sentience and free will already being questionable, she hated the prospect of being powerless. "Five months after Amelia's attempt had failed, I was the next victim. I was worse off as Aurora wasn't exactly stable at the time I can admit, I was only handed the title of master about two months before. Hell I don't even remember the exact investigation as I don't even believe they conducted one. John Seamoor attacked me politically, saying that due to my religion's belief against strict authoritarianism and over exaggerated my family's criminal background. Basically just boils down to a bit of public nuisance and arson charges, and trumped up some added stuff essentially throwing me in the light as the incompetent potential criminal, and after the masters before me vanishing mysteriously, it was easy to make the magic council have just about enough and disband the guild." Luna sighed, the memory of leaving timbermere in disgrace, she remembered the looks of pity as rumors were spread about the fallen fairy.

"But I had a feeling in my gut and did my research, after Amelia they were good at hiding their evidence. But I found the trail that loosely connected, and at the end of that thread is where I found Amelia in the hospital. I managed to find what everyone missed, a cut so incredibly small in one of her critical pathways." Luna almost pinched her finger and thumb for a demonstration. "A cut nine microns across. It didn't go all the way through so Amelia was still conscious and connected to her body but her Archive core couldn't send signals to the rest of the body. Longer story short I found a shortcut in fixing up Amelia, and she went to the Rune Knights with the evidence she kept hidden while I went to the Seamoor residence to make sure, they didn't have a 'spontaneous vacation' when they heard about Amelia. When I got there the place was already up in smokes, some figure that they tried to burn the evidence." Luna shrugged as she managed to lie through her teeth about the fire, truth be told she was the one that set the place ablaze.

Amelia growled under her breath as she remembered the mess that came right after that. "As you can imagine the two guilty ones, John and his uncle, despite having friends in high places from working so close under the magic council didn't have enough to evade punishment. However the real suffering was that of their victims, as the Magic Council prevented the situation from going public and silently prosecuted the two, no apologies made out to those that were afflicted as it was the best option for them." Amelia said, scoffing at the notion that the law was just. "You see, seven guilds destroyed for illegal profit, and countless respectable mages had their lives ruined, some even imprisoned on false charges. You can say whatever you want on how it went down; that it was the work of two evil men, but they were acting under the authority of the Magic Council. If the Magic Council went on record admitting that this happened under their nose, it would undermine their authority, make them liable for billions if not trillions in civil court, and be a PR nightmare for foreign parties.

Luna sighed as she understood the reasoning for not wanting to go public, courts in Era and probably even Crocus would be overrun with civil cases if word ever got out about it. All they did was release anyone in prison and take away a few 'misplaced legal restrictions'. At the very least the reputations of countless mages were restored in their eyes. Even though it's just in their eyes."

Amelia sighed as the story was just frustrating, and since Luna joined Sabertooth she got more and more cautious about going to war with the Magic Council's need to hide the matter much to Amelia's chagrin. "But yeah, Luna and I still had broken reputations and the last person I was connected to had died six months prior, and as a intentional design flaw I need to be connected to a living sentient being who carries around my master control to be able to use magic. Then once Luna adopted another stray into her life she went and joined Sabertooth. That's pretty much it." Amelia said casually. "Although the only interesting story is how you have fire magic but never trained your eyes to be resistant to light. No, not solely fire, there's some added energy in there too isn't there? Plasma perhaps?"

WC 1332
PWC 3722
TWC 4985

"Well, don't feel bad about not being a complete master of your slayer magic. Mine also comes from a Lacrima, but I had to do some grueling striking training to adjust my body to the earth portions." Luna explained sympathetically to the man. She didn't want it to appear as though he was behind in any regard. "After all no skill is perfect. When the goddess bestowed the lacrima onto me, it took about two days of constant training and conditioning."

Amelia recalled the training Luna underwent, if it could be called training. It was closer to torture as she recalled Luna barely standing up even after getting healed by her own magic at times. She never really understood why Slayer Magic seemed to be a painful process for second generation slayers. "True, I was there so I can say that it was brutal, even a few broken bones but Luna didn't quit during the infusion process and allowed her body to be more receptive." She chimed in however something else was bothering her, mostly about the man's comments about the role of legal mages. "Also making the world a better place is subjective, you're thinking with human interests. You see if an action helps someething, it hurts something else. Like if you cut down a tree, a squirrel losses their home and you gain a bench. The same happens when you try to bring order to a place where the chaos of nature should rule has the same consequence."

Luna sighed as she knew where Amelia was getting at. "Not this anti-human stuff again. Can we at least not do this in front of a human?" Luna asked but her pleas seemed to fall on deaf ears. Luna was not one to dismiss opinions, but Luna was slightly worried about how Amelia would express herself  given the situation. "Well, humans are the race that enforce their twisted version of the natural order and do more harm then good. In some respects bringing order to chaos will hurt more people whether she sees it or not."

Luna shrugged off her companions rant. "Anyways. Amelia, think short term self serving interests then, we've been called here to deal with a threat and are being paid for it. No need to delve into cosmic nihilism." She turned back towards Aiden. "But Amelia isn't wrong, humans do have a way of destroying the order of chaos by introducing the chaos of order into the natural chaos with order."

WC 415
PWC 4137
TWC 6184