[IC] Eternal Galaxy: Shards of Starlight - Part I

[SUSTIC]

Helios System
Zephyr-Old Continents-Unknown Cave

Hajime just rolled his eyes at the man's response. "Whatever... I can't even comprehend what you are telling me anymore." He said as he continued down the path. As they did Hajime began to notice that the cave didn't begin to look like a cave anymore... rather... like a large corridor to an old building. "Are these some kind of ruins?" He thought as he examined some of the walls. There was very faint, scratched out writing on the walls of what appears to be calculations and such. "These must be some sort of ruins... I can see faint writing... almost like hieroglyphics... whatever these are I feel like I'm... supposed to be here..."

[Koishi]

Sol Incineron
Videc

---

Deimos's ship entered the orbit of the hellish planet of Videc, where lava churned below and the miniscule islands that dotted the planet were dwarfed by what most would consider the fires of Hell themselves. Deimos, due to being an Anodyne though, wasn't perturbed in the least. He actually considered this excursion to almost be like going back home, though without the tyranny of the Elders or the annoyances of his fellow race. He never got along with people of his own kind, to say the least. I guess it was one of the issues with essentially being made of a sun.

After the ship scanned the planet for a suitable island with a temple or some other ruin on it, it gave 4 different islands, Deimos chose one and the ship began to descend. It would be a simple little expedition. Find something? Maybe. Didn't really matter. Just a little vacation to pass a little bit of time.

Eventually, the ship landed on the island, and Deimos stepped out of the ship. The blazing hot air would usually burn most without protection, but for Deimos, it was quite comfortable. He held onto his hat until he entered the far less windy entrance of the temple. Fire retardent brick lined the walls, covered partially by soot. It always amazed him how they made temples like this. They definately had the ingenuity to make such things.

---

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur

---

"Well, the ship in general is quite nice, and fancy." Mima said. "That's all I can really think of to say, though."

[Kristia]

Helios System Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

"It is a potent feeling indeed and with time your body gets usef to the different kinds of reactions" Mara said as she looked throughout the windows

"There are also the reactions related to your emotions, they can vary from nausea with disgust or arousal with love and so on. Your body is an extension of your soul Cortana, even the smallest twitch comes from your emotions and you should be grateful for that. There are others who can't do it like your partner, he has lost most of his humanity and you are what keeps him on this world" the bioroid finished

[S121]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

Cortana thought about Mara had said about John. It was true, John sometimes made her wonder which one of them was the machine. He seemed to simply throw away what Cortana would give almost anything for; the human condition, his humanity. It wasn't exactly his fault that he was like that, it was because of what ONI did to him. They indoctrinated him and made him the perfect soldier, but at the cost of his family, his childhood, his future, and his humanity. He did show some traces of who he originally was, like when he cracked jokes and remarks, but other than that, he was incredibly stoic and taciturn. To an extent, his training became the basis for his personality. It was even more saddening for her to know that at the very moment he was chosen to become a Spartan, he was condemned to a life of constant war that would ultimately lead to him dying alone at the hands of countless adversaries.

"You know, it's not really his fault that he's like that.", Cortana said to Mara in a calm, yet almost sorrowful tone, as if she felt guilt over John's mental state.

It was obvious that Cortana cared a lot about John, her Spartan. She felt sympathetic and guilty over what he had been put through. Perhaps her guilt stemmed from Dr. Halsey's guilt. She was cloned from the doctor's brain, and shared some of her characteristics and opinions on certain topics. Perhaps Dr. Halsey's guilt for the SPARTAN Program transferred over to Cortana, or perhaps it was because Cortana knew that John was still human, only that he refused to show it to anyone else except for her. All Cortana knew was that despite him sometimes being cold to those around him, she still cared about him.

[Kristia]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

Mara kept looking through the window "He is a soldier, most of them lose their humanity to protect the faction they are fighting for. Just by looking at him and his armor, I know he went for a traumatic experience to become the human tank he is, engineering with a human is highly risky already, but making someone to what he became is something almost no one survive" she said only

[S121]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

"You won't believe how right you are. Only 33 out of the 75 conscripted children survived the augmentation procedure without being either horribly disfigured, or killed by the excruciating pain. He was one of those lucky few that managed to survive with no disfigurations.", Cortana said to Mara.

"That's the thing. Normal soldiers still have their humanity. At the end of the day, they're people. I think that's what John fails to realize. He thinks that soldiers and Humanity are two different things, that he's just a machine. He fails to realize that he's a person as well. John still has emotions. All Spartans do, it's just that they have been taught since they were children to suppress them. I know that he still has something inside of him, I've seen a side to him that no one else has ever seen. He acts more relaxed around me, he makes jokes, he talks... he even ran through a city infested by Flood to save me, and searched three entire planets to find me when I was dormant. He still has something inside of him, but his training has made him shun those emotions and those small traces of humanity.", Cortana said.

After a pause, Cortana looked at Mara and gave a light sigh.

"Here I am, talking your ears off. We should continue with the simulation. Sorry for ranting.", Cortana said to Mara as she gave a slightly embarrassed smile.

It had been a very long time since she had been able to talk with someone and blow off some steam, so after she spoke, Cortana felt as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

[Kristia]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

"Well, we are here to test everything in both physical and emotional areas, he will have to meet his own demons to realize what humanity is left from him" Mara said now ready to continue on the tests

"Ok then, where do you want to start with?" the bioroid asked to the AI

[S121]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

"Right. I customized the next room so that we would be able to test strength, reaction time, cardiovascular efficiency, and hand-to-eye coordination. Knowing the kinds of things John and I get into, it would help to know my limits. I also added a duplicate of each machine, so that we would be able to test together.", Cortana said to Mara as she walked to the next room.

[Kristia]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

"So you are speaking of a gym? alright then" Mara nodded to Cortana´s next task and followed her to the next room

There were indeed many machines to test the AI´s physical abilities and senses "You already had the vision and hearing senses for what I know when you were an hologram, but now that you have a physical body you will have to sense with all of the five senses. Even by just walking you can feel what you are walking on, smell the area, look at your surroundings, taste elements, hear everything. The five senses are your window to the world and you must take care of them" the bioroid said taking a rather small ligt of 2 kilograms

Let´s start with your strength, a human body has a certain level of strength depending on their physique and it can be heightened or loosened in different cases. We biotoids are both part machine and biological so we have limiters to stay on human levels of all the physical areas, but this limiters can be overriden manually if we need to heighten our abilities. You could actually get close to your partner´s abilities if you manage to endure the overcharge on your body" Mara explained giving the weight to Cortana

[S121]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

Cortana grabbed hold of the 2 kilogram weight and lightly shook it up and down, feeling the weight and momentum of it. It was quite an unusual experience to Cortana. Back when she was a hologram, she couldn't experience weight. Cortana could feel the resistance of the weight as gravity tried to pull it to the ground. After a couple moments, Cortana then decided to bring her artificial muscle nanofibers online, increasing her strength to tremendous levels. As soon as they came online, Cortana felt the weight's resistance decrease until it felt weightless.

"Okay, it looks like my artificial muscle nanofibers are working. Everything appears stable, with no stress or delays in responsiveness.", Cortana said as she put the weight back.

[Kristia]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation


The bioroid was examining Cortana´s stength and noticed how calm she was with her limiters off. She had to see how Cortana would deal with such abilities

Mara looked at the AI and the weight "Ok then, now squeeze that weight with your current strength" she asked as she was prepared for the many posibilities

[S121]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

Cortana was a little confused by Mara's request for a single instant before figuring out what Mara was trying to test. Following what Mara had said, Cortana grabbed the weight of the rack and squeezed the handle. Cortana squeezed the weight tighter and tighter and felt the weight get suddenly hot. Cortana knew what was happening. As the metal bent under the immense pressure of Cortana's grip, the movement of the metal was generating heat. She could have squeezed much tighter, but it would have burned her hand. Before the heat became painful, Cortana stopped squeezing the metal weight and looked at what she had done to it.

The weight wasn't too bent out of it's straight shape, but there were heavy indentations where Cortana squeezed the dumbbell's handle.

"I think John's going to be jealous.", Cortana jokingly said as she showed Mara the warped weight.

[Kristia]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

Mara looked at the now bent weight "As you can see, having no limiters make things like steel or thickier objects feel like butter, it is a good thing when it comes to practical things like moving extremely weighted objects and opening walls, but you have to be careful when it comes to people. Having no limiters is extremly risky because you can hurt or even kill a person by accident. John may be extremely powerful, but that is because he has been training for years, you on the other hand just got your body in less than a day. You will need to tests your limits and be able to control them when you go to the world" she explained by picking up a similar weight and broke it by squeezing fast and strongly in seconds

"Now comes the emotional risk of having no limiters, there have been cases were persons with augmentations have gone berzerk because they were too powerful, intelligent and fast, these persons lost their humanity and became tanks with a humanoid form, so the limiters are locks to maintain your sanity from going berzerk. You said your type of AIs had a span of 7 years of life and finally going rampant on the last year, but then you were the rare case of surpassing such event and became a human in spiritual terms. Now you have a body, but it is still like a baby´s first days, you will interact with it and understand it, some good things and some bad things, but that is what makes you a human" the golden eyed girl said with a faint smile

[S121]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

"True. I don't really plan on using my artificial muscle unless it's an emergency anyways.", Cortana said as she smiled at Mara.

After Cortana spoke, she then put the warped weight back on the rack. After doing so, she then looked to the next test over on a small table; the reaction time test.

Over on a table was what looked to be a white, slim laptop of some kind. The only difference was that it had a single touchpad.

"Are you ready for the next part?", Cortana asked Mara.

[Kristia]

Helios System
Delta Division Flagship | Excalibur
Cortana's Custom Simulation

Preparing for the next test, the bioroid had an idea "How about we make the test with your reactions, but using first your preferred style be it augmented or not, and then do it with an average style?" she asked to Cortana

"It is to see how good you are in both versions and have some feedback" Mara said ready for the test