"You know about as much about what she can do as I do," she said. She held up a hand. "Wait here for a second."

Closing the distance to the Pillar of Dawn, Colleen knelt in front of Ileyna and spoke a few words to her. Nodding, the girl turned and ran off in the direction Jordan went, clutching her beret to her head with one hand. Colleen turned back around and motioned for R.D. and Matt to come over, then sat down on a nearby bench.

"So, I heard from Alasea that you might come by," she said to R.D. as he arrived. "But you, Matt? I heard that you were dead, or missing, or something like that."

Edited by RisingDragon on October 9, 2008 at 17:29:11.

Matt parked himself on down. "Yeah, you and everyone else. But me and Alasea, we've got history, so I figured I'd tag along with R.D. for a bit."

Colleen nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah, I bet. So, I'm guessing you two came here wanting to know what's up with Ileyna, huh?"

"Ileyna?"

Colleen nodded again. "That's her name. Ileyna Telamon. She's an orphan, just like every other kid around these parts. Me and Jordan look after them, and protect them in case some of Ziatoch's monsters get through the shield somehow."

"Shield, huh?" R.D. said, crossing his arms over his ruined clothing. "So that's why this place is devoid of damage."

"Yeah. I fixed it up, and put up a shield that wards others away. Carnax doesn't even know its here."

Ileyna, eh? Sounded exotic. That couldn't be good. Especially considering how she melted the Flux like putty.

A thought came to mind. "Colleen, I have a question." Matt pulled out the shard of the Omega Core and held it up before her. "You ever seen anything like this before?"

Colleen spent a good three minutes looking at the object, resting her chin on her hands, which were propped up on her legs. Soon, she sat back upright. "No," she replied, shaking her head. "But I knew someone who did."

"Did?" R.D. said, catching the past tense of her statement.

"Mhmm," she murmured. "Illyasviel was her name. She found a shard exactly like that one about... oh, ten years ago. She described it to my mom the day after she found it. Illyasviel said that when she touched it, she saw... things. Images. Whatever it did, it hurt to touch it, and it hurt her brain. But after a few moments, the glass stopped hurting her. She took it back to her place. In the morning, it was gone."

"Gone?" R.D. said, glancing at Matt.

"Don't look at me," Matt said. But that was the same kind of reaction he got to it.

He glanced back toward the Pillar, where Ileyna was hiding. Hmmmm. "Was she related to the girl?"

"Illyasviel was pregnant with Ileyna when she found the glass shard," Colleen explained. R.D. frowned. So, the woman was dead--Colleen had said earlier Ileyna was an orphan. "She went and consulted a mystic about what had happened. That mystic could feel the shard's power, but not in Illyasviel."

"You don't mean..."

"That's exactly what I mean. Whatever happened, that shard was absorbed by the unborn Ileyna. I'm guessing that shard's power was developed in her as she grew. I knew she had some sort of power, but its never manifested until today."

Well, that definitely explained things. But if Ileyna had the fragment of the Omega Core...how were they going to get it out of her?

"Colleen, I won't lie to you," Matt explained. "We need that fragment. It's a part of a destructive artifact that we need to seal away before it can reassemble and cause any problems. Problem is...I've got no idea how to get it out of someone once it's in there."

R.D. didn't like where this was going. He also didn't like that smirk Colleen was giving Matt. "Matt, how did you get that piece out of that monster you two fought?" she asked.

Uh oh. "Well, uh..."

The last time R.D. heard about Hell and Heaven, he was on the recieving end of it, and since it wasn't exactly a move made out of sunshines and rainbows...

"I...hit it a lot until it gave up?"

Edited by The Helldragon on October 9, 2008 at 21:45:14.

If anything, Colleen's smirk grew wider. "And how did you get the piece from the monster that attacked you today?"

R.D. frowned.

"... Ileyna got it out of the Flux," he said.

"Exactly," Colleen said. "I think that if you want to get any other shards out of anyone else, you're gonna need Ileyna to get them."

"Hold on!" Matt cut in. "How do we know that wasn't a fluke or anything? She could've just melted the Flux-who knows if she can pull out other Core fragments from things without killing them?"

Unless. "Wait a minute, I've got an idea. Bring her over here, would you?"

Colleen raised an eyebrow at Matt's request. "Care to explain why I should?" she asked.

Now it was Matt's turn to smirk. "We're going to test this power of hers." He raised a hand. "On me."

R.D. raised his eyebrows at this. So did Colleen, for that matter. Keeping her face blank, she stood up and walked away, heading off to where Jordan and Ileyna went.

With her gone, R.D. looked at Matt. "You sure this is a good idea?" he asked. "If she does manage to get that thing out of you, you're gonna be pretty helpless."

"Not a problem. I've got two. One in each hand." Matt raised the other, examined them both. "The right gives me powers over the elements, I know that much. But the left...I dunno what it does. I figure she can just remove that. But if she tries to melt me..." A nervous laugh. "Well, I just hope it doesn't come to that!"

Yeah, that'd be a great way to start this journey. Getting melted. Magic.

"Looked to me like the Flux melted because the piece was taken from it," R.D. said. "Like it was the only thing holding it together."

A few minutes later, Colleen returned. Clutching to her jeans behind her was Ileyna, who was looking at the two of them shyly. Her beret slipped a bit, and with one hand she pushed it back up on her head. "Ileyna, this is Matt and R.D.," she said to the girl, soothingly. "Don't worry. They're friends and they won't hurt you."

Edited by RisingDragon on October 9, 2008 at 19:16:53.

Matt thought the beret firmly established Ileyna's "cute as a button" status. But he wasn't here to analyze that kind of thing. He slid out of the bench and crouched down to her level, and spoke to her calmly. "Ileyna, I'd like if you did something for me, okay?" Matt raised his left hand, knuckles facing the little girl. "You can feel this, can't you? You can feel the energy in my hand."

Ileyna bit her lip, almost refusing to answer as Matt came down to her level. Even as she came near, and as Matt's hand came up, something strange happened. Ileyna's hair, blonde in color, flashed blue as the ends raised up slightly, along with a siren-like chime sounding.

R.D. had to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.

Slowly the girl nodded in response to Matt's question, still not speaking.

Well, if THAT wasn't an obvious signal... "Right. Now, here's what I want you to do." Knees began protesting so Matt settled on the ground. "I want you to remove this from my hand. Just like you did with that monster."

A few minutes passed, and Ileyna only stared at Matt's hand, as if he was holding some sort of venomous snake in it. A few more moments passed, and R.D. shook his head.

"Doesn't look like she's--" he cut off as the girl suddenly began glowing again, the wings and the halo and the symbol appearing once more. Once again, they could hear the hollow, melodic sounds that came with the girl's aura. R.D. suddenly blinked--that symbol on her forehead wasn't the only place it had appeared.

It was shining inside of the gemstone of the pendant that he now saw around her neck. He could suddenly remember where he had seen that symbol--it was the same one that flickered within the Ao-Gem.

Colleen stepped back, pursing her lips as she watched. This was incredibly interesting to her, now seeing her abilities in action.

Ileyna was hovering now, her left arm outstretched and her hand in the position it had been in when she had extracted the piece from the Flux.

"Recro! Singulus... restituo... animus... substantia!"

As her hand swung down, once more the silvery ripples wavered across the air, distorting the light around Matt. Again, energy was being sucked out of him, condensing into a single point. Light flashed, and a new shard was in its place. It hovered for a few minutes, then dropped to the ground.

Ileyna floated backwards a bit, then settled down on the ground as she fought the urge to run away again. After a moment or two, she let go of the power, and the aura, wings, halo, and symbols disappeared. Ileyna stood there, staring at Matt and the shard on the ground with wide eyes.

Edited by RisingDragon on October 9, 2008 at 19:42:10.

Hmmm. Body still intact and unmelted. Shard of Omega Core safe on ground. Being scooped up. There we go.

"Well, I consider this experiement a smashing success." Matt dropped the shard in his pocket to join the first one. "Looks like we might need you after all, Ileyna."

Ileyna's eyes somehow managed to wider, and Colleen once again found herself being used as a shield by the girl. She shrugged at the others. "I don't think she finds that very appealing," she said.

"Look. Lemme explain. We need to gather these shards. They're part of a very dangerous artifact. If we don't collect them, the artifact will reassemble itself...and then everyone will be in trouble."

Matt's tone dropped, went somber. "I've seen what this artifact can do. If it's left unchecked...it's all over. This place, this world. Every world. Gone. Vanished. Like nothing ever really existed."

He looked past Colleen, at Ileyna. "Ileyna...do you believe that people are born to accomplish something?"

Ileyna cocked her head slightly as she listened to Matt speak. She wasn't quite sure what he was talking about, but as he spoke, she relinquished her grasp of Colleen's jeans and stepped out into the open. When he finished, she spoke in a soft voice. "I guess so."

"Me, I used to think that I was here to figure things out for myself. And I still think that, don't get me wrong, but ever since I've gotten involved with this artifact..."

Matt shook a finger, almost trembling. "We're all a part of this now. You, me, R.D., we've all been chosen by some higher power to get involved in this thing. Why do you think you've been given that kind of power, Ileyna? It's not just for kicks. You're here to do something with it. And like it or not, you're a part of this.

"But you're not alone. Yeah, this whole thing may seem scary, but me and R.D., we'll stand by your side, because we have to face this thing together. We can't run away. No...we just gotta stare that big ol' storm right square in the eye and say 'Gimme your best shot pal...I can take it!'"

...in retrospect, that was possibly the second worst inspirational speech he had ever done.

Ileyna, after hearing the speech, looked confused and perhaps just a little frightened. All she asked was one question.

"... why me?"

"Heh." Matt leaned on his hand. "You know, I've asked myself that very same question and so far I don't have a single answer. But that's the way the cards've been dealt. We just gotta play with what we've have."

Ileyna still looked unsure. Matt wasn't the best motivational speaker, R.D. knew, so he figured that maybe they should try a different angle at persuading the girl.

"You saw what that monster was doing," he said, catching her attention. He slipped his hands in his pockets. "Other bad guys will try to hurt good people if they get their hands on those shards. You can take those shards back from them, and we can protect you during that."

He looked at Colleen for a brief moment, and she merely nodded for him to go on. He looked back at Ileyna. "If you have that kind of power, why not put it to good use?"

Slowly, the girl broke eye contact with R.D. and Matt, and looked down at her hands, contemplating.