Andor's POV:

We were stopped on our way to the train station by an armed guard with a thick Canadian accent. "Sorry, ma'am, but I'll need to see an ID before I can let you leave Chrysoberyl."

Safire laughed. "You don't recognize me, Rorik?"

The guard, looking shocked, squinted at her. "Safire? Are you disguised again?"

"I'm surprised you didn't hear the whole scandal, of how I 'brutally murdered' these two," she joked, motioning to Alyssa and I. "I had to go rescue Gaines's memories from Galena, which involved me disguising myself. Do I still need an ID, or..."

"Nah, but I'd like to know why you just decided to pick up two kids on your way back from Galena," the guard answered, looking amused. 

"Well," Safire began, "these are Andor and Alyssa, some of the people who came here from Ruxomar. Kids, this is General Rorik, a military leader in Chrysoberyl and Zincite."

"Nice to meet you," Rorik said, nodding respectfully at us. We smiled back at him. "Well, you three are free to go down to Zincite. I would tell you to hurry before you miss the train, but nobody's on it right now. It's all yours."

"Thanks," Safire said, and started to briskly walk into the station. Alyssa and I almost had to jog to keep up with her long strides, but we didn't mind. The thought of a machine that showed alternates was incredibly exciting. 

We boarded the train again, but the ride to Zincite didn't take very long. It was only a few minutes before the connected carts roared to a stop next to a silver city, similar looking to Chrysoberyl. When we got out of the train, I noticed that this place seemed to have a more serious, busier feel to it, less like the cozy feel of the last city. 

"We don't have to go far this time," Safire said, hurriedly walking toward a large white building off to the side. "They constructed my laboratory relatively close to the station for convenience."

"How important are you here?" I found myself asking. "You seem to be very well respected."

She smiled as she approached the metal door. "Not quite as important as the leaders of these cities, but important enough." To open the door, she pressed her hand against it. It lit up as it was scanning her hand, probably checking fingerprints. Once the door was certain it was her, it opened. 

"Whoa," Alyssa breathed upon entering, and I had to agree with her. The room was pretty big, but it looked small next to the hundreds of machines that filled it. Some were tiny, littered across tables, but other stretched all the way from the floor to the ceiling. Some were clearly meant for stepping inside, while some seemed to be just a panel of glass. 

Safire smiled proudly as we admired her machines. "So, we can get started as soon as I remove the rest of this disguise." She stepped into one of the machines, pressed a few buttons, and immediately began to change into the woman I had seen through the cameras. Taller, with a thinner face, and with long blond hair. Her blue eyes looked icy instead of welcoming now, almost intimidating. When she walked back over to us, it was now with an air of authority. 

Alyssa didn't seem to be affected by her change in appearance. "Could you show us the machine that tells us who our alternates are?"

She laughed. "Of course that's what you would want to see." She began to stride over to the other side of the room, with the two of us on her heels. "Now, I'll warn you, this thing doesn't just magically tell you who your alternates are. This is science. I can tell who your alternates are based on how your mind works. I'm able to track who your alternates are in all neighboring dimensions."

"Which are the neighboring dimensions?" I asked, peering over her shoulder as she activated the machine. 

"The ones you come from, Ruxomar and the Realm of Mianite. We're the main three dimensions in our area. The others are too far away for me to contact, at least for now. Who knows how technology will expand in a few decades?" She shook her head with fascination at the idea. "Anyway, who wants to go first?"

"I will, I guess," Alyssa answered shakily. She shot me a nervous glance, and I smiled encouragingly in return. I was excited to see how this would work, but the thought of my mind being scanned made me uneasy. 

"Just step into the machine and stare straight ahead," Safire instructed. Alyssa did, and the process began. Small beams of light shone all over her head, mostly around her eyes. It seemed to take forever, but she remained almost perfectly still. Nervous on her behalf, I kept shuffling my feet and putting my hands in and out of my pockets. 

Finally it stopped flashing, and a bunch of text appeared on the screen. "What does all of this mean?" Alyssa asked, stepping out of the machine to get a better look at it. "Where does it say my results?"

"These are all the results of your scan," Safire replied, gesturing to the enormous sheet of text. "It tells a lot about you, but I won't go into that right now."

"Like my flaws, and stuff like that?" Alyssa was now looking at the machine with fear. 

Safire narrowed her eyes. "Not flaws. Personality traits. The only way a person can have flaws is when they choose to use their personality traits for something bad. It just says what makes you, well, you. Now do you want to know your alternate, or not?"

"Yeah, I do." Alyssa immediately brightened, almost forgetting about what had previously been on the screen. 

Another page of text loaded. "Alyssa Screziato, birth name Country Bat," Safire muttered, reading down the page. "Originally in Ruxomar. It says here that your alternate for the Realm of Mianite is a lady named Sonja, also called Firefoxx. And for Anatase, it says... oh, you're Elaina's alternate? Wow!"

She looked confused, but pleased that her alternate had earned Safire's approval. "Who's Elaina?"

"She's the leader of Zincite," Safire answered without looking away from the screen. "Quite underrated at first, ignored by Molybdenite. Probably because she was female, and because fighting wasn't her specialty." She sounded bitter, which was understandable. "But things have changed now. She's very well respected, and a good friend of mine. She's brought logic, reason, and peace to Zincite and Chrysoberyl, something that they didn't have before."

"Sounds like what Firefoxx went through with Mianite, besides the whole becoming a leader part," I said quietly. "She was always ignored, I felt quite bad for her. But, in a way it was better, because she didn't have to deal with Mianite." 

"Oh, was Mianite bad?" she asked, finally looking away from the machine. 

"Bad is an understatement," I muttered. "But oh well. Can I see my alternate now?"

"Of course." Alyssa stepped to the side, and Safire motioned for me to get into the machine. I did exactly what Alyssa had done, and felt thousands of little lasers surrounding me. I was mesmerized, unable to move all that much out of sheer awe. It had felt like a lifetime when Alyssa was scanned, but it seemed to take only a minute or two for me. 

"Who did I get?" I asked. Feeling slightly dizzy, I took a shaky step out of the machine. Alyssa guided me away from it, holding me upright. 

Safire didn't answer right away as she loaded up the next screen. I was hoping for an alternate like Alyssa's, a leader or influential person of some sort. When her eyes went wide and she bit her lip, I felt my face falling. Alyssa snickered next to me, and I gave her a gentle shove. "Is it bad?" she laughed. 

"Well, technically the person himself is good, but..." Safire broke into a grin herself. "This is kind of embarrassing."

"Just tell me!" I cried, growing impatient. 

"Hold on, hold on, let me read everything here." Safire cleared her throat. "Your birth name Andor Kikoku, but it says that neither your parents nor grandparents used that last name. Your alternate for the Realm of Mianite is apparently... oh, this is sad." She made a face again. "He was never even named, died after only a few minutes of being born, due to an attack by Dianite. Lived in Ianarea for a very short amount of time."

"The attack on Ianarea?" Alyssa gasped, but I was clueless. "That's where... never mind. I know a few people who either survived or died during that attack."

"Oh." Safire kept reading. "For Anatase, it says that your alternate is Malachai. As I said, slightly embarrassing on my part."

I felt my face growing red. "You beat up my alternate?" I shook my head slowly, and Alyssa's eyes widened. "I would've never guessed that he was my alternate. He just seems... I don't know."

Safire frowned. "Remember that he's brainwashed, Andor. You don't actually know what Malachai is like."

"That's true." I stood in silence for a second, then realized something. "Wait, you have alternates too! Who are yours?"

"I looked mine up a while ago," she answered with a sigh. "I was never born in Ruxomar, apparently. I was supposed to be born, but a man named Kikoku Botan messed up things he shouldn't have. I assume that's the supreme being of Ruxomar."

"Kikoku Botan messed a lot of things up," Alyssa muttered darkly. 

"As for my Realm of Mianite alternate," Safire continued, "it said it was someone named Furia. Didn't have much information on him for some reason, I assume the supreme being of that realm wiped the data. All I know is that Furia is dead, due to an 'unknown' cause." Suddenly, she looked to the side, and a worried look swept across her face. "Is something wrong?"

I turned and saw Alyssa slowly backing away, looking horrified. "You're... Furia's alternate?"

"Is that a bad thing?" she asked, looking just as confused as me. "I wouldn't know. There's no information on..."

"He was a monster," Alyssa continued, shuddering. "Unspeakable. I didn't witness him myself, because my alternate and her friends killed him, but I heard of the stuff he did. Turned traitor to his god, and tried to take his place. Burned stuff down. Desperately tried to kill everyone, and steal souls, and..." She looked furious. "If you're his alternate, there's no way I'm staying with you."

Safire's mouth hung open. "You're going to leave me, because of something someone else did?"

"You're his alternate!" she snapped. "You're alike! He was a traitor, and..."

"Alyssa." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I don't know much about alternates. But I have seen, from the data I've collected, that the Dianites from the Realm of Mianite and Ruxomar were incredibly different. One was kind and helpful, always trying to do the right thing. And the other one, apparently, murdered quite a few people and kept his sister locked up for no reason. They're alternates, but that doesn't mean anything. They're not the same person, just as Furia and I aren't the same person. Do you understand?" 

She stood completely still for a second, then let out a long sigh. "Sorry, Safire, I get it. It's just... I don't know."

"I have a few questions," I spoke up. "First of all, isn't Furia male? I thought alternates couldn't be the same gender."

Safire shook her head, looking happier with my question. "It said on his record that he was agender, but used male pronouns. It's different."

"So are you agender too?" Alyssa piped up. "But you just use female pronouns?"

She shrugged. "I mean, technically. But I don't really refer to myself as that." She smiled slightly. "Labels are for machines, not people."

Alyssa grinned, clearly liking that last sentence. I did too, but I had another question. "I don't really know much about Furia," I began slowly, "but I know that he was supposed to be, like, super powerful. He almost overthrew a god, like you said. Why don't you have powers."

The grin faded from Safire's face, and her gaze dropped. "Well, Andor, one can only assume that that's what was taken from me when the Galena leaders operated on me."

THINGS HAVE BEEN REVEALED! :0 I've seen sooo many guesses on who Safire/Malachai's alternates are, and a few of you have gotten them right! You'll be able to see more similarities between all the alternates later on :)