by L. C. Mawson
As Love stepped into the room, they turned to face her, growling a little.
Love entered cautiously, taking a deep breath as she extended her hand.
The creature kept its teeth bared slightly, but stopped growling as it examined her hand, trying to determine if she was friend or foe.
Love took another deep breath, focusing on not thinking of Hate.
No, wait...
As soon as she thought about not thinking about Hate, any calm the creature had disappeared.
It growled again, leaning back as if getting ready to pounce.
Before it could, a hand grabbed Love by the elbow and yanked her out of the room.
The door was closed firmly behind her, and Love spun around to see that the masked woman had been the one to pull her from the room.
“So, this was your best attempt at putting all thought of Hate from your mind?” the masked woman asked.
Love frowned, shaking her head as she folded her arms tight across her chest. “You say that as if it would be so easy. As if I would have managed to do it overnight. Surprisingly, focusing on not thinking about someone counts as thinking about them.” She didn’t care that her words were rude and sarcastic, she was too frustrated, though whether her frustration was focused on the masked woman or herself was a question she wasn’t ready to answer.
The masked woman sighed, placing her hands on her hips. “That’s why I asked you to work on this before you showed up here again. Of course trying to not think of someone in the moment will end with you thinking about them. I thought that you would spend your night refocusing yourself and thinking of other sources of love to draw from today. Clearly, you didn’t do that. Why not?”
Love sighed, looking away. In all honesty, she had spent the night trying to refocus.
It had been the morning, when no one but Hate had been available to come with her, that had thrown her.
“It’s okay,” the masked woman told her. “The creatures have already told me that you didn’t come alone. I had hoped that you would be able to do this on your own, but now I see that that was expecting too much.”
She turned towards the door at the other end of the corridor, and Love followed her gaze to see a couple of creatures nudging Hate into the room.
Hate frowned at the masked woman as she approached. “So, I take it you’re Love’s new teacher?”
The masked woman nodded. “Indeed, I am.”
“Why did you have the creatures bring me in here? I thought you were only interested in talking with Jia’s descendants.”
“I was, but it seems that Love cannot do this alone.”
Hate glared at her. “If you’re about to tell me that I need to get back together with her just so that her powers can work, I’m afraid you’re going to be very disappointed.”
The masked woman shook her head. “Of course not,” she assured Hate. “If anything, your relationship was damaging to Love’s powers. The fact that she is having difficulty controlling them now has more to do with the lingering effects of that relationship than anything else. It was toxic to her powers, and I suspect, toxic to yours. I would never ask you to subject yourself to that again.”
Hate’s glare didn’t let up, but it was now accompanied by a confused frown. “If that’s the case, then why did you bring me in here?”
“Because I told Love that if she wanted to be able to access her power to their fullest extent, she would have to let go of her relationship with you completely. That she would have to be able to keep you at arm’s length. I thought she would have the strength to do this on her own, but she apparently does not. I hoped that you would have the strength she lacked.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Love was told to let go of you completely, and instead she brings you here with her today. This inability to let go is what’s holding her powers back, nothing else.”
Hate rounded on Love, still glaring. “Is this true? Is being around me the thing that damages your powers?”
Love shrugged. “According to her.” She nodded to the masked woman. “But I can’t be sure that she’s telling the truth, and even if she is, you weren’t exactly my first choice to accompany me today. But we have to still be able to work together, regardless of the situation.”
Hate shook her head. “You should have told me.”
It was Love’s turn to glare. “Why? This is about my own internal feelings, which you gave up the right to know about when you decided to end our relationship.”
“And clearly that decision was right, given that it was ‘toxic’ to our powers. Hell, I should never have agreed to start dating you in the first place.”
At that, Hate spun on her heel and stormed out of the building, the creatures making sure to get out of her way as she left.
Love felt her throat sting as tears welled in her eyes.
Why did this have to be so complicated?
“I know this hurts,” the masked woman said, placing a reassuring hand on Love’s shoulder. “But it truly is for the best. If you want to access your powers in their entirety, you have to let her go. For good.”
Love shook off the hand on her shoulder. “You just don’t get it,” she muttered, before heading back outside herself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Love didn’t see Hate as she got back on Sleepy, and assumed that she'd made her way back on foot, despite the danger.
Even with the speed of the creature beneath her, Love didn’t catch up with Hate on the way back to the base and was forced to assume that the other Aspect had pretty much run all the way back.
Though, she couldn’t help but fear that Hate’s disappearance had a far more sinister explanation.
Love found the base empty and made her way to where the others were constructing the wall.
“Love,” Justice greeted as she approached. “You just missed Hate.”
“So she’s okay, then? She made her way back without getting into trouble?”
Justice nodded. “What happened?” she asked with a frown. “She came back here in a hurry and said that she was heading back to our Tower for a while. She said that it was something she had to do, and since Perception is being sent to ‘keep an eye on us’ again, it wasn’t as if we would be down a hand if she left.”
Love sighed, folding her arms as she looked away. “The masked woman said that I needed distance from Hate if I wanted to regain control of my powers. She told Hate this, and I suppose Hate decided that meant that she had to leave...”
“Well, if it helps with your powers, Hate returning to the Tower to make sure everything is fine back home is hardly the worst thing in the world.”
Love nodded as Justice headed back off to continue construction, having to admit that she was right.
If she wanted to put Hate from her mind completely, Hate leaving was hardly the worst thing that could have happened...
So then why was her stomach twisted into knots?
Love sighed at herself for a moment before trying to decide what to do. She didn’t want to return to the masked woman again that day, but she wasn’t sure if she should try to practice with her powers on her own for a bit or not.
Before she could decide, Empathy made her way over.
“Are you okay?” Empathy asked as she approached, her image shifting to incorporate Love into her current mash-up of Pain and Vengeance.
“Don’t you already know the answer to that?” Love asked, rolling her eyes.
Empathy sighed. “I already know that you feel awful, but I can’t pinpoint exactly why.”
“Then we’re on the same page.”
“You must have some idea.”
“Well, I’m assuming it has something to do with the fact that the masked woman told Hate about the whole being around me weakening my powers thing, and Hate has decided to return to the Tower in response.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” Empathy asked with a confused frown. “I mean, you do need to focus on sources of l
ove other than her, so her leaving can only help with that.”
Love sighed. “I know. You’re right.”
“If you know that, then why do you still feel so awful?”
Love felt her throat sting again as she folded her arms tight across her chest, looking away. “When she stormed off, Hate said that us ever being together had been a mistake. That she regretted it...”
“Ouch,” Empathy said with a sympathetic wince.
Love nodded with a humourless laugh. “Yeah, that about sums it up... I just... Even if we can’t be together, I would never regret the time Hate and I spent together... The fact that she does...”
Empathy shook her head. “She probably didn’t mean it,” she reasoned. “She was probably just upset and angry about the two of you having to break up.”
Love sighed, nodding again. “You’re probably right... That doesn’t make it any easier to hear.”
Empathy nodded with a sympathetic smile. “I know. But perhaps this is a good thing for now. With Hate gone, you should be able to refocus your powers, and that means we can focus on getting all of the monsters out of the city. After we reclaim the city, we will go back to the Tower, and you can sort all of this out then.”
“Yeah, sounds like a plan.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The next few weeks passed in a blur of routine that helped to keep Love from being too broken up about how things had gone with Hate. She instead did as Empathy had suggested, focusing on regaining her powers. Every day, while the others went to build the wall, Love and Empathy would go to visit the masked woman.
As reticent as Love had been to believe in the masked woman’s techniques, she couldn’t deny that they worked as the weeks went on. The more time passed since she'd last seen Hate, the easier it was for Love to focus her powers by thinking about other sources of Love, usually her sister.
Eventually, the masked woman took their lessons out of the library, taking them to a nest of monsters that she hadn’t yet tamed.
“Are you sure about this?” Love asked as they approached. “I mean, are you sure that I’ll be able to tame the nest on my own.”
The masked woman nodded. “I’m sure,” she assured her. “I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think you could do this.”
Love nodded before tentatively approaching the abandoned building that the creatures had claimed as their own.
As she approached, a young Dragon scuttled out from a crumbling wall, baring their teeth a little.
Love outstretched her hand in response. “It’s okay,” she assured the Dragon. “I’m a friend. I promise I’m not here to hurt you.”
Love concentrated on Empathy behind her as the monster sniffed her hand.
After a moment, the creature bowed its head and Love couldn’t help but smile.
Other Dragons quickly came up to follow the first, though none of them seemed aggressive.
Soon enough, all of them were either bowing their heads in deference to Love or looking at her with curiosity.
Love couldn’t help but grin as she turned back to the masked woman. “I did it,” she exclaimed. “I tamed the entire nest.”
The masked woman placed a hand on Love’s shoulder, and Love was sure that she was smiling beneath her mask. “You did indeed,” she agreed. “I knew you could do it. This is the power you wield inherently, without having to rely on anything as unstable as romantic love.”
Love sighed but found herself nodding. “I suppose you’re right. Maybe you and Hate were both right all along. Maybe she and I never should have gotten together in the first place.”
“As I told you, I have never had to rely on something so unstable, and my powers have never failed me. If you can form a more stable foundation, as I have, your powers should never fail you again.”
Love’s smile returned and she nodded. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t risk them again.”
“Come on,” the masked woman said. “Your sister will be waiting to hear how well you did today.”
Love nodded before hopping up onto Sleepy’s back. The masked woman followed her, and the two of them made their way back to the library.
Only, once they got there, they saw Empathy standing outside the building, and the familiar sound of a Rena bike fading into the distance.
“Did you have a visitor?” Love asked as she approached, hopping off of Sleepy’s back.
Empathy nodded. “Vengeance came over to drop off the video logs Captain Jia recorded.” She turned to the masked woman. “You wanted to see them, didn’t you? I asked Hate to send them over when she returned to the Tower, and they just arrived.”
The masked woman nodded, seemingly hesitating for a moment.
“Yes,” the masked woman eventually said, “I did ask that. Bring them inside, and I will find somewhere to play them.”
Empathy nodded, following the masked woman back into the library.
The masked woman quickly found a corner where she'd left some Rena computer equipment that Love assumed she'd brought from her ship, wherever that was.
The masked woman slotted the small drive with the tapes on into the computer and booted up the first one.
“So, this is what leaving Rena space feels like...” the woman on the screen said, a slight frown above her silver-lilac eyes as her white-blonde hair glowed beneath the lights of the ship. “I thought it would feel... I don’t know... Different. Uncharted. Like I was some great adventurer.” She let out a hollow laugh. “Some adventure this is... We’ll be lucky if we aren’t all branded traitors. The only shield we have is that, without me as his heir, my father’s throne would go to his brother, and my father would just hate that. Hopefully, putting him in this difficult position will mean an end to the Science Institute’s plans and an end to any further discussion of these creatures being used as weapons...”
“Why do you want to watch these videos?” Love asked, having already seen them. “Why do you care?”
The masked woman sighed, pausing the video. “I’ve been trying to piece together everything about what happened to the Aspects after they arrived. Why they stayed here on Earth, instead of rejoining their people...”
Love moved over to the computer’s controls, bringing up videos from much later. “If you want an explanation for why they stayed, you probably want to skip ahead.”
The video began to play again, though this time, Jia looked older.
“I... have a problem,” Jia said nervously on the video, and Love stopped paying too much attention. She'd already seen this tape more than once.
“Maybe it’s not a problem...” Jia continued. “We were beginning to wonder how to... We can’t reclaim this planet within our lifetimes. That much has always been certain.”
There was another long pause.
“I wasn’t going to stay here,” she admitted. “I wasn’t going to stay on this planet. I just wanted to show the other Dishar. To draw attention to the Science Institute’s work in the hopes of derailing it before things escalated. Earth was a tragic loss, but an acceptable one.
“But now things have escalated anyway. Despite my efforts. The last message we sent to the com-net returned unsent. Communications disruptions... They’re never a good sign. I worry that war might have already begun. I don’t want to join my father. I don’t want to fight my people. But I am Dishar.
“My crew will follow me whatever I decide. Most of them do not wish to return to a war either. But Earth isn’t our home. It never was.”
She paused, her hand moving down to her lower abdomen.
“But it is Mohinder’s home. Which means that it’s the home of our child...”
A few more moments passed as the woman gave a faraway look.
“Our species weren’t supposed to be genetically compatible. They still might not be. There’s nothing guaranteeing that I will be able to carry this child to term.
“But what if I can? Could I ever go home again? Earth was chosen as an acceptable planet to test the creatu
res on because Humans were considered lower life forms. Even if we are genetically compatible, can I convince anyone back home that they were wrong?
“At best, I would be asked to disown my child. At worst...”
She sighed, shaking her head.
“And that assumes that there is any home left to go back to in the first place. Even going back to fight my own people... That would be preferable to the possibility that the war is already over... I saw the damage people were willing to do to oppose my father. That was just one small group, with one bomb, and they took out half a city... If my father truly did escalate things into all-out war... There could be nothing but ruins left to return to anyway. Can I ask my friends and family to pack everything up and leave behind this home we’ve built to go back to one that might not even exist anymore?”
The masked woman hit pause on the video again, stopping Jia dead.
“So,” the masked woman eventually said, “that’s why she stayed, is it? Because she fell in love.” She spat the last word as if it was cursed.
Love shrugged. “Well, it’s like she said, they had lost contact with the Rena homeworld. Sure, falling in love probably made staying on Earth a more palatable option, but I don’t think that was the only reason. I think she was afraid of dying in a war that she didn’t agree with. Or worse, returning only to find that the Rena had already been destroyed by the war.”
The masked woman folded her arms. “So, she is either a fool who would abandon her people for love or a coward who would abandon them for fear of her own life?”
Love frowned. “That’s a little harsh. Sure, after watching these tapes, I hardly think that Jia was a saint, but her coming here did save humanity. There is no doubt about that.”
The masked woman sighed. “Yes, I’m just not entirely sure that that act of charity was worth the cost.”
Love glared at her. “Watch yourself, we’re still part Human.”
“And all the lesser for it.”
Love tensed up in anger, wanting to smack the mask right off her face, though she restrained herself, instead turning to her sister and saying, “Come on, let’s go. I don’t want to spend any more time in the presence of someone who thinks I’m less than a person.”