Before The Storm (Ch. 05)

At first, he'd been considering simply taking the gemstones out of Rose's Ashaka and putting them into the shell of a new one he'd built for himself, but he'd decided against that, simply because some of The Calm had boobytrapped their Ashakas to prevent tampering. He would be able to tell better once he was linked up with it, after he'd replaced the power cell.

In this, at least, he had a little bit of an advantage. Ashakas generally followed one of four major design approaches, one for each path - The Calm, The Rage, The Warmth and The Fear. About two-thirds of Ashakas were built to lean towards The Calm first and foremost, a result of wanting to use that particular path the most.

Sketch, on the other hand, had gone a different path. When he'd been Spark Walker, he'd known that The Calm was the easiest path to lean into, and therefore it would always be relatively easy to access. That meant he'd wanted to choose a different path for his Ashaka to lean into, one that he found more difficult to summon up easily, which meant his Ashakas had been attuned towards The Rage. He'd found The Warmth had been an easy enough path to lean into, and as a former soldier-of-fortune, he knew The Fear was always just around the corner, but the idea of letting anger get the best of him was something almost alien to Sketch's very nature, so he'd leaned into doing things the hard way.

As he opened the bottom of Fury Rose's Ashaka where the fuel cells would be inserted, he saw that she too had gone a different path, and that her Ashaka was aligned with the path of The Warmth, something he found a little unusual. The Warmth was the least commonly chosen path for aligning Ashakas, simply because the element of connecting to other people generally came easily for members of The Calm. That was their lot in life - to reach out a hand in good faith - so many saw the path of The Warmth as a tool that was always used externally, to help people overcome deep seeded prejudices to see the true person they were sitting across from.

The cells popped out of the bottom of it, two squat cylindrical tubes a hollow shade of gray, when they should've been glowing with a diffuse purple glow. He took a couple of minutes to check the structures of them, making sure they hadn't been damaged or depleted other than through natural dissipation, and was pleased to find they didn't have anything wrong with them. They were also of the same size and shape of the replacement fuel cells he'd built over the years, so it turned out the wait would be even less long than he'd anticipated. He'd had new fuel cells charged and waiting for the day when he'd found gems for his newly constructed Ashakas, but now he could just pop them into Fury Rose's and begin the linking process.

He headed over to the charge box, pulled out a pair of charged cells and slotted them into Rose's Ashaka before closing the cover, hearing the little sphere start to hum to life once more before falling silent again. The hum only happened during the device's starting up or shutting down.

Sketch placed his hands on either side of the Ashaka, cradling it between his fingers and palms as he folded his legs beneath him, starting to meditate in the ritual needed to bring this Ashaka from its original encoding over to his mental wavelengths.

Reclaiming an Ashaka was extremely uncommon, but when he'd been a Spark, he'd asked to learn the ritual for it, in case he was ever lost apart from his Ashakas and needed to borrow someone's spare. His instructor, Fury Mubatu, had thought it a strange request, but had learned to indulge his student's nature for esoteric learning.

He began flowing his emotions from his left hand to his right, directing them through Ashaka, which chirped in recognition of a different set of wavelengths than it was accustomed to. The metal sphere started to warm within his hands, something he'd expected, although the rate at which it went from 'a little warm' to 'almost too hot to handle' surprised even him.

His eyes opened, and he could tell from his reflection in the metal door that his eyes were glowing with a frightening light, something that wasn't unusual for the process but still looked unnatural even to his own gaze. That wasn't what concerned him.

What concerned him was that he was floating a good foot above the ground.

That had never happened before.

The ritual completed with a sudden surge of electricity up both of his arms, as his eyes closed shut and he felt the weight of the floor pressing up against the underside of his legs once more, clearly having fallen out of the air and back onto the floor.

He unfolded his legs from beneath him and moved to stand a little awkwardly, using his left hand to help steady him as he rose up, the Ashaka in his right hand, the tiny hum ticking off before settling like actual weight against his fingertips.

The change inside of his head was immediate. He felt more like himself than he had in years, a sense of immense clarity overwhelming him, like a part of him had been missing but that he hadn't realized that until had been returned, and now that it had, he could breathe without an immense pressure on his chest, easy and relieved breaths.

"It looks like it worked," Helen said to him, her disembodied voice ringing through the air. "You aren't emanating signals anymore, and your vitals almost make you seem five to ten years younger. Stronger heartbeat, increased blood circulation, increased mental acuity... I imagine you're feeling quite the rush, boss."

She was right, he had to admit. The changes weren't just mental, they were physical as well. His body moved with a sense of nimbleness he had thought long since lost. After his insanely long deep freeze, he'd assumed the degraded reflexes and strength had just been a side effect of that, and not a side effect of not having an Ashaka to focus his mental energies.

"I really am, Helen," he said. He felt steady enough now that he wanted to try something, planting his left hand atop of a table before vaulting his body upwards, balancing himself feet over head, all precariously stabilized atop one arm, his other arm still holding the Ashaka. "Gods, I thought these days were long since behind me."

*C'mon, let's not get cocky*, a foreign voice said from somewhere inside of his skull.

He was heavily startled but had enough clarity of mind to push back and land on his feet before glancing around the room a bit. "Helen, where did that voice come from?" he said as he moved over to his worktable, tossing the Ashaka from his right hand to his left before picking up a blaster with his right, feeling slightly better with the pistol at the ready.

"Where did *what* voice come from, Captain? I detected nothing."

*She can't hear me. Only you can.*

He spun around, glancing behind him, his eyes widening a little bit. "You *had* to have heard that, Helen."

"Captain, I regret to inform you... there is nothing to *hear*. Are you experiencing hallucinations?"

*I'm not a hallucination.*

"That's just what a hallucination would say," Sketch thought but didn't vocalize.

*You've grown a bit since I last saw you.*

"I... I've what now?" he thought.

*Reports were that you were lost on the frontier on a mission, well before the Dominion invaded. Keeping a low profile, were you?*

Sketch was trying to remember whose voice it was it felt like was rebounding inside of his skull until suddenly the truth became undeniable.

"Rose?"