Outside the temple, on the edge of a forest of vibrant blue foliage, Aria made its best attempt yet at a Cascade Ring technique.

The process of learning a new iterator technique was similar to the process of awakening: Download a seed program, execute it, then iterate. Each generation of technique programs would work a little better as they adapted to the user’s unique intelligence core and reactor gate properties, and eventually the technique’s form would solidify. Fortunately, techniques tended to take far fewer attempts than awakening, requiring mere hundreds of iterations instead of tens of thousands.

The technique traced a thin white square in the air, which held its form just long enough for Aria to throw a punch through it. Although its fist stopped short of the dummy, the Cascade Ring created a phantom extension of the strike that extended about ten centimeters beyond Aria’s normal reach. The punch connected, hitting a bit further and a bit harder than it would have without the ring. It was a far cry from the long-range metal-shattering punch that Aria had envisioned, but it was a start.

After an hour of experimenting with the Cascade Ring program, Aria switched to a ranged program called the Dynamic Bolt. It took about half an hour of iterating until the program created any effect at all, which was initially just a drab square bolt of gray. Once the basic shot was stable enough to reach the dummy semi-consistently, it tried adding the technique’s intended flexibility; instead of firing directly at the target, it launched it just a bit to the side, then programmed in a turn.

The first attempt reached a point just to the right of the dummy, then suddenly ceased to exist. A handful of iterations later, it finally did what it was supposed to. Aria fired a bolt that traveled five meters towards the target, then turned at a sharp 90-degree angle to the left, hitting it from the side.

With two basic techniques under its belt, Aria immediately tried to combine the two. The basic idea was to pass the Dynamic Bolt through a Cascade Ring, increasing its speed, range, and power, but in practice it proved much more difficult than either technique alone. As soon as it tried to charge Code for the bolt, the ring dispersed before it could fire. While it didn’t get the combination working, it was good practice at both techniques, with one attempt sending a bolt far enough to hit one of the trees behind the dummy.

Something rustled in the underbrush.

Aria immediately dropped into a defensive stance, waiting for an attack to come from the forest. When nothing happened, it edged closer, until it saw a glint of metal hidden in the foliage. The hiding machine scrambled backwards into the open once it noticed it had been spotted. It was an unusual model, with two thin arms on the left and one bulky arm on the right, and it was in horrible condition.

“Wait!” The machine turned to flee, stumbling over a damaged leg joint and scrambling frantically back to its feet. Before it committed to its escape, Aria called out, “I offer repair!”

That made it pause. Aria had never heard of a culture where maintenance wasn’t sacrosanct. Offering repairs only to attack was an act of heartless betrayal so unthinkable that anyone who tried it would be shunned from society. Also, this particular machine really was in terrible need of repairs.

The battered machine cautiously limped closer, detaching one of its arms and holding it out, still ready to break into a sprint at a moment’s notice. Moving slowly and trying to look as harmless as possible, Aria took the arm and started turning it over to figure out what it could do with the tools it had on hand.

“What’s your name?”

“...Meteor.”

Now that Aria got a better look, it could see that Meteor was in even worse condition than it had seemed at first glance. A deep crack ran down its faceplate, which was dark, offering no insight into its emotional state.

Aria made conversation as it got to work. “I can’t fix all of this without better tools, but I’ll do what I can. Are you a student here?”

“Tried. Got rejected.”

“Rejected! Why would they do something like that?”

“Not an iterator.”

Aria recalled hearing that Rising Waterfall didn’t accept students who hadn’t awakened yet. They didn’t have the resources to spread their lessons out that far effectively, instead focusing on training established Alpha and Beta iterators.

“How did you end up like this?” Aria handed the arm back, having removed some lodged debris and smoothed some dented parts within the joints. Meteor didn’t answer the question, reattaching the arm and popping out the next one to hand over. Aria worked in comfortable silence for a while before Meteor spoke up again.

“I need to become an iterator. Don’t know how.”

“Oh! I can help you with that! I still have some of the awakening programs I used as seeds. You must be really interested in iteration, hanging around the temple even after they turned you down.”

“Too weak. Have to kill someone.”

Aria stayed quiet for a while, composing a response carefully now that the conversation had moved in a darker direction. “If someone’s after you, maybe you could ask the temple for protection instead.”

“Has to be me. It took everything.”

“Revenge, is it…” The common wisdom was that dedicating your life to revenge was a fool’s endeavor, and the wise thing to do was to let go of your hatred and move on. Aria imagined that, given their current state, Meteor wouldn’t be inclined to listen. Besides, Aria wasn’t convinced that revenge really was that bad. Most of the people who preach against it likely hadn’t truly been wronged.

Aria’s attention moved to the sword at Meteor’s hip. It was surprisingly high quality and in excellent condition, a stark contrast to the state of its wielder. It was the kind of weapon a powerful iterator might wield, engravings along its surface tracing lines for Code to follow that would support the use of weapon-specific technique programs.

“Where did you get that sword?”

“Belonged to my parent, before Saga killed it.”

It took every ounce of focus Aria had to not react to hearing that name.

“...Are you in danger right now?”

“No.”

“All right.” Aria handed the second arm back. “Meteor, I can’t force the temple to let you in, but I’ll come back here and help you awaken whenever I have the time, okay? If you need anything else, batteries or supplies, I can bring them out here. We’ll get you into the temple as soon as we can.”

“...Okay.”

Aria finished up the repairs in silence, and Meteor quietly disappeared back into the forest when they were done. It headed back to the temple, trying to think about what it could do for Meteor, or how it could refine its techniques further, or anything else. Anything other than Saga.