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NICOLE

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"This... This is..."

From the safety of her own apartment, Nicole couldn\'t help but gawk at the massive ray of light shooting up into the sky. She had only gone home to pack her things in preparation for joining the sellswords in their journey, and she was just about to leave when a massive quake suddenly rocked the room. Quickly going to her window, her eyes widened as a giant pillar of light shot up into the sky. She hasn\'t seen anything like it, and even seeing it like it was now was already making her mind race.

After all, what kind of innovation would even be capable of creating such a massive output?

"That\'s... That\'s so massive..."

There was no way that any new innovation could be able to produce so much energy without some kind of source. Even her own innovation wouldn\'t be able to produce such massive amounts of energy without probably some kind of repeater or some sort... Wait...

Actually, she was pretty sure she could replicate such a feat if she was given the proper materials.

"Some kind of repeater then... Maybe a bigger extraction protocol..."

Just as quickly as the thought came to her, even more ideas began filtering in. Ideas upon ideas, all coalescing and making her head spin with wondrous machinations and possibilities. She didn\'t even care when she heard the loud knocking on her door along with the shouts for her to evacuate and leave the city. After all, why leave when something this interesting was happening right now?

"I have to get down there and see it for myself," she whispered against the glass window separating her from her muse. "I need to see what kind of energy it is."

With her suitcase haphazardly hanging from her hands, Nicole rushed out of her apartment, ignoring her worried landlord as she sprinted down the stairs and quickly made her way toward the sight of her interest. This was a chance of a lifetime. This should be the work of an innovation that had the full backing of the City-State, and she didn\'t care how she was going to get near it.

She had to see it no matter what.

"Wow... All these people running away..."

All around her, men and women were all decidedly going in the opposite direction that she was going. She knew that they were only afraid for their lives, but she couldn\'t help but be judgemental about them all the same. After all, this was clearly the work of their government. Surely, they had things under control even if the sellswords were doing some shady stuff. Not that she cared either way, really. So long as there was innovation, she would make sure that she was right there to contribute her genius to the cause.

"Halt, citizen!"

Nicole paused as she found herself being barred from going further. Right in front of her was a random Academic, the man clearly afraid by the way his fingers were trembling despite his expression. While she could feel jealous of the man being given her dream job before she could even pass those damn exams, she knew that such an emotion was beneath her now, especially since she had already decided to leave Marquee in the first place.

"And why should I?" she haughtily asked, her mind already coming up with a few lies to try and sneak past. "I live here, and I\'ve come to retrieve my things."

"A mandatory evacuation is currently being enforced," the Academic succinctly replied. "You can recover your things once the order has been rescinded. But otherwise, you best leave for both your life and mine."

Nicole raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Then what if I told you that I had a government-sanctioned innovation that is in current need of extraction in there, hmm? Should I call upon your superiors just to let me pass?"

That was a flagrant lie and she knew it. Of course, that didn\'t mean she was unable to do such a thing in the first place. She had Lewis as a contact, and she wouldn\'t hesitate to use it if it meant being able to achieve her goals.

"I-I see," the Academic wavered if only for a little bit. "Unfortunately, we\'re under strict orders that-"

"Is that a no?" Nicole pushed forward. "I suppose I\'ll have to go and get Lewis to try and-"

"O-Oh! R-Right this way then!"

She couldn\'t help but smirk as she strode forward, giving the Academic a nod before quickly moving on her way. Beyond that point, Nicole noticed that the roads were starting to look more dilapidated, the earlier shockwave clearly hitting this place harder than her apartment had been.

"Shattered windows and cracked stone..." she mumbled to herself. "Clearly this hasn\'t been powered by normal means..."

Solid fuel, much less black fuel couldn\'t have possibly made this explosion. For one, the lack of smoke indicated that the means of energy production had not been through burning. Also, the continuous pillar of light shooting up above her was purely white, which ran against the norm of conventional fuel producing gray to black smoke. No... This was something more along the lines of her Null Energy, perhaps even a derivative of it.

"Surely no one else had discovered what I\'ve done..."

All of a sudden, a hint of worry began to worm its way into her heart. Not out of her own or others\' well-being, but for the prospect of her ideas being stolen. Her innovation was her pride and joy, and while she had indeed shared her findings with the Intellects, she had made sure that her own papers and methods hadn\'t been copied. If this was the work of some Intellect stealing her work...

She ground her teeth... There would be hell to pay...

Inevitably, Nicole reached what looked to be the ground zero of the explosion. In front of her, the pillar of light seemed all-encompassing, its sheer width and length almost dwarfing even Centrax\'s biggest structure in the form of the administrative building. Littered around the blast site were shattered buildings and relative carnage. It was par for the course seeing as she felt the shockwave even all the way to her apartment, but seeing its effects firsthand had a sobering feel to it that she couldn\'t exactly place.

"Wow... This is...."

Nicole carefully strolled forward, making sure that her feet would catch themselves on a stray shard of glass or slab of stone that had scattered across the environment. Near the crater itself, what looked to be bodies lay unmoving on the ground, as well as a few still-alive bodies walking about aimlessly, desperately trying to establish order in what was obviously a lost cause.

"What happened here..."

Her curiosity burning, Nicole stepped over a stray leg as she made her way closer to the crater. The closer she got, the more the energy of the pillar washed over her. The more her mind raced to determine just what exactly was producing such vast amounts of energy.

"This doesn\'t feel as hot as it should be..." she quickly noted as she found herself standing by the crater\'s edge. "Is it being directed then? Focused?"

It would be the only logical explanation, after all. A focal point would reduce inefficiency in energy transfer, preventing heat from escaping the mode of transmission. In this case, the mode of transmission would be the very air itself, with the energy being directed by... something... A lens, perhaps? This did look like a beam of light, meaning that it should theoretically behave as such.

"Mirrors? No... A glass lens? Impossible..."

One by one, Nicole went through all the possible means that such a phenomenon could occur. Wracking her genius mind for answers, minutes passed before she slowly ran out of explanations.

"But it doesn\'t make sense," she mumbled to herself, her tone fraying and frantic the longer she went. "Surely there\'s something directing this thing, not to mention the power source itself..."

Even her own innovation needed a focal point to be properly harnessed. Granted, she hadn\'t gotten to that part yet, but she already had something in mind to transform Null Energy into something more useable for the common equipment. This, however... She was starting to think that this pillar of light was the result of the raw energy being given form. Unprocessed, perhaps this was its natural shape and nature.

"Yes... That might just be it..." she nodded to herself, a semblance of relief washing over her as she reached an acceptable answer. "This is its raw output. Unrefined, it\'s probably unusable just yet."

Her determination growing with her curiosity, she reached out her hand to try and touch it, only to recoil as its heat threatened to burn off her palms.

"Hot to the touch... Its brightness could be secondary to such a nature," she hypothesized. "Perhaps some kind of... No, that\'s impossible..."

Unfortunately, her ideas hit a brick wall the longer she tried to consider just what exactly was producing such amounts of energy. Burning had been the only great source of energy the Deep had known. Aside from her Null Generator, of course. But that meant that there were other means to produce vast amounts of energy without relying on fuel.

If so... What was it?

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