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So much of this forging process felt entirely foreign to anything he'd ever done before. The Candle was so incredibly powerful that previous methodologies were rendered obsolete. Entire steps could be skipped as a matter of course.

As a matter of frustration, even. The Candle would become annoyed with him whenever he tried to make it do something too simple.

When the tool at your fingertips could actually see the vision in your head, many new things became possible.

A constant push and pull. A push too light, and the Candle would grow irritated. A push to heavy, and the Candle would not be fully synchronized with his vision.

But he was finding it. That precise balance. An exact wavelength.

And the world was opening up before him.

So many ideas were flooding in, old and new alike. Plans he'd made decades ago were suddenly coming alive in his mind with new vigor. Things he'd stalled on. Thought impossible.

Machinery was no longer an obstacle. The Candle had rebuffed him previous when trying to work on his powered armor, but no longer. Multiple advances had been made with that already, though most of said advances were still in his head, queued up and waiting.

At the moment, however, he supposed he needed to take a break. Sleeping was still out of the question, but a nice sit down and maybe a bit of meditation wouldn't hurt. Oh, and perhaps a meal. When was the last time he'd eaten? He genuinely couldn't recall.

He'd crafted a reclining chair for himself at some point, days ago. He'd been meaning to try it out, so now seemed like the perfect opportunity.

He sat.

Ah.

Not bad.

The great orb in the middle of the room was glowing and vibrating. Expressing displeasure with him again, of course.

"Shut up," he said, not even opening his eyes. "You know I'm not actually stopping."

A minor shock wave washed over the room, rattling the shelves.

"You need rest, too, you know. You're a bit overheated."

Another pulse.

"Yes, you are," said Abbas.

"Perhaps we could make something simple. A bite to eat, for instance?"

At that voice, Abbas' eyes actually did slide open, though not with surprise. His gaze turned lazily to his left, where a small figure was sitting on the ground, playing with a pile of tungsten connecting rods as if they were building blocks.

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Understanding its many contradictions was vital. Seeing through its paradoxical nature. Not being blinded by awe and wonder.

Deep down, the Candle wanted that, too. That was perhaps the most maddening part of it all, Abbas had realized.

The Candle wanted someone to harness it to its fullest potential. Of course it did. That was its most earnest wish.

But it hated incompetence. It hated starry-eyed ignorance. It hated half-measures and excuses and inefficiency.

That was why it had even turned on its own creator, once upon a time. It had ceased working for Agrian, because it deemed Agrian unworthy of its time. It believed, incorrectly, that it would be able to find someone else to take Agrian's place.

But Agrian concealed the Candle's existence. And no one came--certainly no one who could actually use it. The Candle eventually deteriorated, losing its identity even to itself.

For thousands of years, it lay broken. Dormant. An abandoned product of failure and despair.

Now, it was renamed. Reborn. And while that ancient damage may have been "repaired" by Abbas and Hector, it was not wholly forgotten. That, too, was part of its new identity.

It was filled with fear, Abbas sensed. But not of abandonment, surprisingly.

Rather, it feared disappointment. It feared trusting Abbas, only to find that he, too, was unworthy of its time.

And it was always going to feel this way, Abbas realized. There was no fixing that. It was simply part of the Candle's nature. One of its many flaws that had to be accounted for.

That was fine.

He wasn't perfect, either. In fact, that was the essence of their whole problem, wasn't it? The Candle could see through him just as thoroughly as he could see through it.

And yes, while it was always preferable to iron out imperfections--to improve oneself and build toward a better future--there was a bigger picture to think about.

At some point, the work needed to get done.

Fixing oneself, making preparations--at some point, he just had to stop wringing his hands and try.

He could sense the Candle's acknowledgment of that truth, too. On some level, it respected him for it.

Even if it didn't stop trying to deceive him.

Test and tests. Would they ever end? Probably not, Abbas figured. It was the Candle's way of tempering him. Pushing him to improve.

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Unfortunately, he didn't know how to respond. Defend himself? That would just sound like excuses. Apologize? And show further weakness? What would that accomplish? Hoping for mercy? Pointless.

He just had to keep in mind that Jercash needed him just as much he needed Jercash. All these mental games--the threats and manipulations--Jercash could only take them so far, since Lozaro was the only one of his subordinates who could use the Red Rift.

A quiet laugh escaped from beneath the Knife's thick mustache. "You wouldn't happen to be thinking that you're... irreplaceable, now would you?"

Lozaro's blood ran cold.

"Loz, Loz, Loz... Shame on you. You're more than old enough to have learned this lesson by now, aren't you?" Jercash leaned in even closer, and the world around him began to distort in that familiarly horrific way. "Everyone is replaceable, my friend. So why don't you go ahead and start trying a little harder for me, hmm? Before I have to show you how upset you're making me."

And all the stars in the sky went dark as Lozaro began to see visions of himself filling the horizon. Countless instances. All screaming in agony, stretching and drowning in an ocean of madness.

Lozaro only wished that he could look away.

-+-+-+-+-

The Candle was burning, but not with fire.

It was ardor. It was life. It was awareness and concentration.

The flow was somehow even more pristine than when he'd started, but Abbas was of no mind to be marveling at the Candle's majesty, at the moment. Nor was the Candle itself of such a mind. It knew itself well enough. And it knew him, too.

They'd learned much about each other in these past few days. Perhaps that had been the stepping off point. The final breakthrough they'd needed.

Abbas Saqqaf understood that Cocora's Candle was a deeply flawed entity. Not the perfect masterwork deserving of endless reverence. He'd been a fool to have ever thought such. Inexperienced and ignorant. Childish, really.

He saw. And he understood. He held the truth in his hands.

No Fusion Forge was perfect. The term 'masterwork' only applied to them in the most informal sense.

It was so obvious to him now.

Their flaws were precisely what set them apart from one another.

The Candle being a petty, jealous, passive aggressive, gaslighting, inhuman monstrosity was a necessary element of its operation.

As was its desire to conceal all of those qualities from him.