#chrnocrusade

I’d been surprised she’d been able to understand demon technology so quickly. I had had a not unreasonable expectation that certain concepts would be difficult for her to grasp. Now I strongly suspect she was looking at our sensors and computing devices and saying to herself, “oh, how clever! They have machines who do all the tedious calculations and tracking for them!” I may have ranted about this a bit to Shader, who was less than impressed with my realization.

“You were looking at it the wrong way around, boss. She wasn’t a medium with a divining rod; she was a networked satellite sensor array.”

“You were surprised too,” I tell her.

“Says the man who just now figured it more than fifty years later,” Shader says in reply. She mocked me at length and then sent me off to make minor repairs in the control center.

It should be noted that Rosette and Joshua are recovered enough, and restless enough that beginning some weapons training lessons are necessary. Rosette would of course much prefer her firearms, but there is a certain shortage of ammunition and gunpowder at the moment. Joshua was eager to begin sword lessons again, and it turns out that Chrono gave Rosette some basic close-quarter shortblade lessons as well as hand to hand. I think she might do well with a long sword.

I had Rosette working on basic exercises while I worked with Joshua. This was mostly footwork, a review of defense and a light spar at half speed. Rosette was greatly distracted out of concern for her brother and suspicion for me. I had to correct her and redirect her to her exercises several times. After sparring with Joshua, I critiqued his form, and then had him briefly work with Rosette.

The activity was diverting for both Rosette and Joshua, though Rosette still grumbled about the lack of firearms. Guns are better than swords. Swords are just dumb long knives. Demons have all this technology but don’t have firearms, so on and so forth. Joshua, for some reason wanting to defend Sinner honor, mentions “the gun decks.”

Rosette’s eyes light up in a way that is absolutely uncanny. Despite being worn down a bit by all the exercise, she wants to see the guns decks.  This leads to a trip to the control room, where I show Rosette Eden’s defense systems, which includes the artillery arrays and the firing-spears. Rosette immediately wants to use one and is very disappointed that due to ongoing repairs, the firing spears are offline.

“You could still fight with them as regular polearms,” I point out.

“I could use my .45 like a blackjack,” she says.

“Rifles have bayonets,” I say. “Firing spears are more functional.”

“They have hoses,” Rosette points out. “They are basically tied to their source of ammo.”

“They can also be operated using your own astral,” I say.

We argue about it all the way back to the living areas of Eden. It was rather entertaining. Joshua was certainly amused, and kept switching sides.

I am still having strange dreams. I have been dreaming more often of the burning house, and a woman singing. I know who the woman is, but I am filled with anxiety that I might actually see her. That what I’m hearing is the song of a monster from the depths (beneath the waves, beyond the stars). At the same time, I’m pulled strongly in the direction of the cabin, in the direction of the woman’s voice. I need to see her, to confirm one way or another whether I will see the woman or the monster.

I’m wearing my armor; my sword is in my hand with blood drying on the blade. Again and again I start toward the singing, and each time, Mary is there, blocking my way, blood staining her dress. “No, Aion,” she says in the most recent dream. “Not like this. Not with your sword and your armor. You’ll frighten her.”

No matter what I say to convince her she won’t let me pass, and I can’t move her aside, and the dream fragments into a confusion of images and sensory impressions. Sometimes when I wake up I think I hear flames crackling. More often, I just have a headache and feel like I never actually went to sleep.