[Can’t Opt Out]

Olivier thought his brain might explode and wouldn’t that be the perfect end to this terrible day?

Everything was just so much. It had been so much for a long time, his Censor pushing his mind and awareness to its limit and then beyond because both he and his Censor had decided that burning out his Censor was a risk they were willing to take. The fact that they had found that man, Hwris, lingering on the outer limits of Porsq’s abilities had proven them right—in no world did they want that monster knowing they were there, lest his abilities strike them down.

Before Porsq’s abilities had exploded over the aether, the pain had been bad, but burning his Censor out had been the main risk, and really, Olivier would have been all for learning to use his core if his Censor blew out on him. Fast learner that he had always been, Olivier was sure he would have been able to grasp the basics of core use relatively quickly, if such things became required of him. It wouldn’t be ideal, but well, nothing about this situation was ideal.

Now, however, Olivier wasn’t convinced his brain wasn’t turning to mush, [[Blissful Silence]] struggling to catalogue the world around him as Porsq’s abilities bled through the aether. The boy’s power stretched and stretched and [[Blissful Silence]] stretched with it and Olivier couldn’t stop it—couldn’t pull the function back into him.

It were as though the function had latched oto Porsq’s abilities and decided to take a ride. He was nothing but a passenger now, and Olivier knew that low-devs had minds suited for overwhelm, and while he generally enjoyed learning and pushing himself, this was not fun. His Load Levels were Perfect, allowing him to layer task upon task over his mind and only feel the ache of it when he truly pushed himself to the limit. Having a mind prepped to handle dozens of tasks at once, especially when his Censor could turn so many into background noise that could then be tuned out, Olivier had never actually experienced his Load Levels overloading.

It was not enjoyable, and Olivier had never been more grateful for his Perfect Load Levels—not to mention that handful of other Categories that added further support to his mind—until now.

A thousand fragments of information that weren’t actually fragments but entire documents flooded his mind, and was this what Porsq was seeing? What his mind and abilities were taking in as he pressed his ability outwards, catching everyone who wasn’t part of their group within a net?

It was so much.

So much.

So much.

It also didn’t help that other functions in his Censor were losing it. In particular, the war game function was losing its mind. In hindsight, perhaps he should have disabled it. Then again, considering he suspected Emilia and Halen had designed it, perhaps it would behave the same as Emilia’s [[Blissful Silence]]. The girl was curiosity personified—Halen as well, if Olivier’s first impression of him were correct—and it made sense that any function that spit forth from her mind would hold that unending curiosity within it as well.

So, had he disabled the war game function, Olivier wouldn’t have been shocked if it had popped up to do exactly what it was doing now: interfacing with [[Blissful Silence]] to glean as much information about the situation as it could while also offering him suggestions as to what was going on and how to proceed.

In the back of his mind—what little bit of it was still functioning under his control—Olivier knew what it was telling him was interesting. Currently, however, he just wanted everything to shut up.

Shut up.

Shut up.

There were too many connections being made—a map of people and their mental states as Porsq’s abilities swept over them, plucking at bits of their minds, pushing bits of his intentions into them. The boy was good at this, Olivier could tell from what he was retaining of what was happening. That was horrific, not because the boy was frightening—although Olivier was certainly aware now that, were the child not protected from the evil’s of the world, he could be formed into something monstrous—but because Fräthk had forced him to become this skilled.

Really, what had Fräthk been expecting to happen when they allowed Porsq to learn to use their abilities like this? That he would never turn his abilities upon the organization that had run him out of his home and then imprisoned him?

“Fräthk just gets stupider and stupider the more I realize they seem to have had no proper plan,” he mumbled into Xavier’s hair.

Amongst their group, most of their members couldn’t directly feel what Porsq was doing. He could feel it, and even through the burn of his mind and the functions his Censor was refusing to shut down—and really, that alone was odd, as usually Censors prioritized their owner’s safety over everything and Olivier was almost positive it was risking brain damage—Olivier was aware that he could feel Porsq’s abilities in a more visceral way, his body itself aware of what was occurring in a way that was usually blotted out by a lack of training and his Censor naturally muting that information for him.

The aether shook and shuddered and screamed, and yet, oddly enough, he thought the aether a welcoming thing. There was no resistance—something his functions were going crazy over, and without much knowledge of skill design and the aether, Olivier was left to think this wasn’t always the case. Instead, while Porsq’s abilities seemed to almost be… distressing the aether, it also accepted what was being done to it.

A creature accepting torture because torture will shield its loved ones from death—what an odd thought, but it stuck there, within Olivier’s mind all the same, Xavier pushing further into his chest because the little boy could feel what was happening as well.

The boy was silent as he shook, while a little ways away, Cheska was similarly buried into Izurial’s chest, her fingers digging into her short blue curls as the silverstrain ran a hand up and down her back. Through his Censor, Olivier could hear the man whispering to her—assuring her it was okay and that Porsq would be done soon. It felt intimate—voyeuristic—to watch and listen to them, but Olivier couldn’t shut it off.

Keeping his Censor from cataloguing anything was currently impossible, his mind an open-scape, welcoming in everything of the world even if it might break him.

Xavier’s eyelashes fluttered against his shirt, and Olivier could feel it all, hear it all, smell and taste and see it all even with his eyes slammed shut. Emilia needed to fix whatever this was—and what an odd thing, to know that even if he had the newest version of [[Blissful Silence]], he would be suffering just as much as he currently was.

Whatever was happening with the function, somehow he knew—he knew to the very core of his being—that it wasn’t intentional and would have happened, no matter what version he had.

Tucked into an alleyway, Cordk pulled in slow breaths, his own eyes closed in what almost seemed a calm. It wasn’t. While his Expansion Levels were on the lower side, the man’s aether awareness was higher than normal. Perhaps he couldn’t feel as far as Olivier could, but he could feel it. Next to him, Renton glared into the abyss, concerned his adoptive father’s heart would give out under the strain of the situation; Olivier knew this because Porsq did and he shouldn’t know it—shouldn’t have been capable of interfacing with the preteen’s abilities like this, but he could and it was terrifying and wrong and—

And Porsq’s abilities shuddered to a stop, his net expanded as far as they could go. With practice, the boy would be able to go further—stretch his area of control and then hold it there, anyone who stepped foot in his domain falling under his influence.

For the moment, they had no idea of how much power the child would one day have, and while Porsq had admitted he could keep an area under his control, it was currently nowhere near what his maximum range was for this sort of catch and implantation of everyone in the area. Porsq reached, leaving his intentions behind in everyone his abilities touched, but he couldn’t hold that intention within them; instead, it was left to simmer out or burst into reality. One day, his range for this ability would be bigger as well, his abilities able to reach further than anyone could imagine, all to leave a drop of something other within the minds of his targets. One day, Porsq would have the abilities of a monster—of a god—and Olivier was going to make sure the boy grew up in a world that would protect him.

“I’m going to keep you safe,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to Porsq and then Xavier’s foreheads—the little girl had, thankfully, fallen asleep while they were chatting about the plan, and Olivier didn’t think she liked him enough to allow more than him carrying her about. “I’m going to make sure you get to choose what sort of things you do with your abilities, once we’re out of here,” he added, his voice a warble of uneven syllables because even with Porsq’s abilities now settling into a gentle hum as they pulled back towards them and his maximum range for a sustained area of influence, his Censor continued to burn.

Honestly, Olivier was shocked his head hadn’t exploded. If his Censor needed to burn for a bit, he was okay with that.

“Sorry,” Porsq said, peeking up at him with watery eyes, his nose dribbling blood that dropped onto Olivier’s aether-covered shirt, before glancing towards Cheska—Cordk was out of line of sight—“I didn’t know it would hurt you so much…”

Olivier hadn’t known it would either, but he was glad Cheska had anticipated some discomfort when he had used a skill to relay the situation with Hwris watching the courtyard and his plan to their group. As she had been around Porsq using his abilities a few times, over her months in the holding cells, the young woman had already known she would feel them, while she had suggested that low-devs might also feel something, given how much of his abilities the boy would need to use.

So, Olivier had warned everyone to keep their discomfort to themselves as best they could while also telling Porsq to ignore their discomfort—the last thing they needed was for him to need to start over and potentially not have the mental stamina to reach quite as far. As it was, the boy was drained, and Olivier would likely need to carry him for a while—he really had nothing left to give, especially as he continued to hold his wavering area of influence around them as best he could. It wouldn’t last, but they only needed a distraction so they could slip away.

There was also that fact that now having felt the boy’s abilities… Olivier honestly wasn’t sure if he would have been able to tell Porsq to try again, had he stopped midway through. It was one thing to accept the risk that his mind might be melting while it was happening, but there was a chance his Censor would have refused to give him a translation of, “Try again, and ignore our discomfort this time,” into Lüshanian.

“It’s fine,” Olivier assured the boy, tugging gently on Xavier’s hair to check on him as well.

The little boy’s eyes were overflowing with tears—not surprising, as Olivier had already felt the weight of them seeping into his shirt. Porsq reaching out and began to brush the little boy’s tears aside, whispering more apologies.

Xavier, adorable child that he was, shook his head, and gave as solemn of a it’s fine as Olivier had given, his own fingers reaching out to brush blood from Porsq’s face. Later, Olivier would need to ask what exactly the child had felt. Censors and their functions, he knew, interfaced with the world in a way that wasn’t normal for most human brains. Without them, most Free Coloniers had to focus in order to feel or examine the world in such detail, but with training, they could do it. If, as Olivier suspected, Xavier was a low-dev, it was possible his mind had become similarly overwhelmed with details of what Porsq had been doing, its natural abilities being pulled into the flood of the preteen’s power. It was equally possible that [[Blissful Silence]] had accidentally managed to connect his mind with something it shouldn’t have normally been capable of and Olivier had experienced everything far worse than anyone else.

Despite his only passing interest in skills and functions and how the aether worked—although, he could admit that his interest was increasing, thanks to his acquaintance with Emilia and Halen—Olivier wanted to know the answer.

How much of what he had just experienced had been due to him being a non-dev? How much due to his Censor? How much due to Emilia’s functions?

How much due to something that was just inherent to he himself?

Olivier’s questions, however, would have to wait. A flood of people—residents and visitors to the area who had previously fled into buildings—began to enter the courtyard, pulled by Porsq’s manipulations of their minds.

It was time to move—to take advantage of the swarm around them—and get the fuck out of there and away from Hwris’ lingering gaze.