Idris-9 [city], Teltobah [planet], Meertomb [star system]

01 July; 16:44:16 Hours

“<Forgive me, Commander,” the soft and angelic voice of Neaveh called from her ivory spire throne that sat at the head of the large observatory, where she held out her golden frosted hands toward Alarik, who stood at the foot of its platform. “For I should have never doubted the wisdom you carry with you.>”

The crimson-skinned swordsmaster smirked. His burning yellow pupils, which were encased in darkness, returned the Golden Voice’s gaze as he assured, “<There is no need of forgiveness, Lady Neaveh - It is the League’s honor to protect the Golden Voice from the prowling Fangs of self-anointed power.>”

“<Please, Commander,” she smiled but quickly raised her hand to shield it, as she cooed, “you flatter me.>”

“<I mean no disrespect, my Lady.>”

“<And I have taken none.>”

Alarik bowed his head slightly before Neaveh expressed her curiosity.

“<You speak as if you know who was responsible for the shot taken upon my life.>”

“<I am.>”

Neaveh now subtly leaned forward in her throne. “<Who are these… cowards?>”

“Shaomhav,” he answered without hesitation.

“<Tell me more of this, this Shaomhav.>”

“<They are merciless assassins illusioned into the self-righteous belief of freedom warriors breaking the chains of, of those who they see as oppressed across the universe, Lady Neaveh,” his brow scrunched and fangs brandished, growling, “They’ve pledged their fealty to a Grand Mane who once was a Knight of the merciless Union that seeks to hang its colors from every perch across the stars.>”

She now leaned back. Her golden index finger rested upon her plump lavender lips while her nostrils flared slightly. The angelic tone her voice carried now shifted into a hissing whisper, “<Predators cloaked in innocence.>”

“<Indeed, but it was the voice that yanked their cover back and revealed their evil to those who could’ve been deceived.>”

A boom erupted as the double doors of the observatory flung open. Alarik quickly spun around; his hands moved to the hilts of sabers sheathed upon his back and belt, but his grip eased as a high-pitched, yelping voice cried out, “Majah? Majah? Majah!”

Neaveh rose. Her eyes grew large as a dark olive-skinned teenager rushed into the observatory. She slid to an abrupt stop, where she gasped, and relief washed over her. There, framed beneath the dome shutter, Neaveh stood haloed by the golden cast of the setting sun.

“<You’re, you, you’re, you’re alive, Majah!>” the girl stammered, as she slowly climbed the platform with tears running down her cheeks.

“<Ohhhhh, of course I am, my sweet Niyuuh,>” Neaveh softly assured her, as she hugged her tightly.

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“<I, I, I feared that I had lost you, Majah!>”

“<No, do not fear my eventual inevitability,” she gently held her daughter by the shoulders, and smiled, “for it will thrust you into the very chamber that you were born for!>”

“<Commander!” a deep voice rumbled forth as the four remaining Pillars of the League - Kom, Doerin, Eegol, and Angela marched into the observatory, with Kom asserting, “You must see this!>”

Eegol, a Borlion whose existence translucently exposed his skeletal structure, breathily acknowledged, “<The… stakes… are… rising!>”

Alarik’s eyes narrowed. He skeptically watched as Angela pulled a holo-disc from a pouch upon her belt that she set on the floor in front of him, and tapped. At first, everyone watched a burst of flickering pixels fill the air like dust before they coalesced into a three-dimensional reconstruction. There, they saw surveillance footage hacked from the True Vision observers, which showed Gabe, Maya, and the Fangs exiting the building the shot on Neaveh was taken from.

Doerin, who was a Lumon - his body, a morphic living-energy of bluish-white lava only sustained within his black mail, perched upon Kom’s back and shoulder, said, “<It would appear that the Golden Voice has drawn the ear of quite the listener!>”

“<Quite the listener? Who?>” Neaveh asked with her left eye narrowing while her head clocked back ever so slightly.

“<Him? I, I saw him…” Niyuuh interjected as she pointed to Gabe, and the League all glanced around at each other before Alarik turned to her and growled.

“<What do you mean you saw him?>”

“<On, on the train in,” she again stammered, as she glanced to her mother before back to Alarik, “He passed by me on the car just before the stop.>”

“Ooooooh,” Angela cooed while twirling several strands of her long, wavy, purple hair.

“Mmmmm, <interesting,” Alarik noted as his eyes pinged around in realization, “So the Grand Mane, himself, was present for this attempt on you, Lady Neaveh.>”

“<The Grand Mane? He is this Shaomhav’s leader?>” she inquired.

“<Indeed.>”

“<And he seeks to, to liberate the so-called oppressed?>”

“<That is what their mission claims.>”

“<Commander - I wish to meet with this, this Grand Mane then…” Neaveh said as she stepped back from her daughter and retook her throne, but there, her voice contorted back into the hissing whisper, “Bring him to me!>”

Room 456A [diplomatic suite], Mul’Tarvuh Tower

Te’ev [gold-section], Skies Rim [floating belt-city], Dawma [planet], Elysium [star system]

08 July; 13:27:03 Hours

“Errrrhhhhhhhh,” growled through the long hall, as Waelum Gaesh stood with the two bodies of the fallen Lancers at his feet. “<You are an Envoy of the Sovereign… and, and you allowed Beelezika to defile and embarrass the King!>”

“<Commanduh—” Caetor attempted to say before two Lancers pushed him to his knees before Waelum, who slowly turned to him with eyes burning bright blue. “Puh-puh-please! You, you must, you must understand, sir! This, it, it wasn’t Beelezika! It, it wasn’t!>”

“<It wasn’t Beelezika?>” Princess Haelex yelped, as she was standing off to the side but now walked over beside Waelum, who glanced at her out of the side of his eye. “<What do you mean this wasn’t Beelezika? Was it my sister?>”

“<Your… your sister? The Archangel? Wuh-what?>” Caetor gasped.

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Aboard Vesper [Class V-2P Light Cruiser]

Hyper-lane [traveling through the interconnected hyperspace highway]

25 June; 05:36:43 Hours

“You failed me, Helena!” President Cullen Powers barked at her as his three-dimensional, lifelike hologram shoved his finger at her chest. “You failed me when I assured them you would get this mission complete!”

Helena looked to his finger that lingered against her gold mail. Her brown eyes flickered gold while her nostrils flared, and her upper lip twitched. “How were we supposed to know a Titan would be in our way?”

“I have no time for excuses!”

“Excuses?”

“None,” he reiterated through his gritted teeth.

“Have you ever encountered a Titan, President Powers?” Helena looked him in the eyes, and then licked the corner of her lip before saying, “How about the LAST Titan? The one who escaped Theo that night? Huh? Have you… Cullen?”

There came a moment of silence as the two stood across from one another in the dim common room of Helena’s cruiser.

However, Cullen let out a brief chuckle before informing her, “We’ve made a decision…”

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Kar’yul [common-quarter], Skies Rim [floating belt-city], Dawma [planet], Elysium [star system]

06 July; 05:02:59 Hours

Light blue eyes pinged from left to right as they scoured the crowd of Astronauts before them. Voices filled the short block within the early morning. There was an intensity to the twin sapphires as they faintly burned within the dark cast from a raised hood. The individual’s pressure was undeniable, as it shifted the flow of the Astronauts passing by, with not even one stepping within an arm’s length, but instead all subconsciously pulling away.

However, a voice called from over the individual’s shoulder, “<Hey?>”

There was a pause as their light blue eyes narrowed, and their right hand moved toward their side.

“<Princess? Princess, is that you?>” a woman said with a smile as she pushed her long pink hair out from her face as Dax pulled her hood down and spun around to her.

“<Gadreeha?>” she yelped.

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Velhall Palace

Oitylon [capital city], Ravelous [planet], Despæ [star system]

25 June; 10:48:29 Hours

“<Across an ocean of stars, I’ve scoured for your foul and festering existence,” deep and gravelly, Tavvuk growled as his ire was locked on Theo, who returned his gaze, “and here I’ve found you; after symphonies of horrific whispers, the tragic survival of the mangled, and an event of dark-and-light… hands now tied… with the… Defiler…!>”

Shriiiiink, Drake’s golden armored boot pivoted upon the marble as he positioned himself at a slight angle to Tavvuk. His eyes narrowed in a twisted marriage of intrigue and contempt. The pressure emanating from the Last Titan was oppressive as it continued to flood into the hallway, and slammed like waves against the shore that was Drake. He struggled to even glance over to his friend, Theo, as he could only manage to call to him, who remained unfazed by the exertion of power before them, “Hey? Brother, what the fuck is going on? This, this one of Throx’s guys?”

However, Theo didn’t answer his brother-in-arms.

There then came but only a split second, as Drake finally broke eye contact with Tavvuk and managed a glance to his right at Theo, but within that blink, the Last Titan shot forth. A flash of emerald. A glisten of silver. Tavvuk acted with such power that the ground trembled and sound shrieked, but his buster blade, Baeruk, met Gaerlus in an explosion of embers. Shhh-ink, clink. Boom, a shockwave ripped free while the two’s immense pressure coiled and pushed against the other while they stood blades locked.

Tavvuk grit his teeth while slowly glancing at Theo’s hands, and there he saw Theo’s inky black fingers gripping the hilt tightly. “<So the whispers, they are true…> Beelezika!”

“It has been a while…” Theo growled, and a demonic chuckle layered within his voice, “… that I’ve almost forgotten the screams of your kind!”

“RAAAAHHHH!” Tavvuk erupted as he managed to thrust forward just enough to create a step of space between him and Theo. Then again, he was already there, as he thrust his shoulder into Drake, who had now attempted to make his move on the Titan. Drake had barely perceived him. Almost instantaneously, Drake was launched backward, where he slammed back first into the wall of the hallway. He grimaced while he slowly slumped to his knees with his golden armor, letting out a piercing screech as it scraped the stone.

“Master Theo?” Edmund’s voice cut in over Theo’s commlink, “Um, is this a bad time to ask… What in the bloody hell is going on!?”

“Not now, Edmund!” Theo roared and thrust his left gauntlet-donning-hand at Tavvuk, commanding Shade, which pulled from the ground around Theo before a tentacle shot at the Titan.

Tavvuk, however, twisted Baeruk in front of himself to his right and redirected the tentacle of Shade before he charged Theo again. The gap closed in another blink. Theo now singlehandedly swung Gaerlus forward; the jagged blade met Tavvuk’s buster blade in a shriek of a million screams. However, Theo allowed Tavvuk’s momentum to lead forward, and he rotated his body counterclockwise. Theo twisted in on himself under the momentum in a fluid twirl and sidestepped Tavvuk, where he flanked the Titan and swung his curve blade up to the right - slicing the back of Tavvuk’s left thigh.

Sara, who was curled up on the hovering ottoman in the common room of Talon, quickly sat forward with eyes wide. She gasped. Her pupils dilated. Sweat began to bead upon her brow. Cole instantly looked up to her in that moment, as he was mid-push-up, and narrowed his right eye at her. She was nearly panting now as she struggled to the edge of her seat, and he stood up to help her.

“Wuh-what’s wrong?” he asked. “You’re not going into labor, are you?”

“Nuh-nuh-no—” she was mid-saying when Edmund cut her off.

“We have a bloody problem - Masters Theo and Drake are being engaged by a Titan!”

“What?” Cole yelped as he looked to the ceiling. “That, it, no - That’s not possible!”

“I’m afraid it is, Master Cole.”

“No, no, no,” Cole now anxiously chuckled while he hurried over to the steel table and grabbed his spark-pistols. “It’s, it’s not, Edmund!”

“I’m not bloody speculating - They are, in fact, engaging a Titan as you are pointlessly attempting to argue with me over that fact!”

Clang reverberated through the hall as Gaerlus yet again met Baeruk. An agonizing scream then ripped free with the two blades again locked. High-pitched chirping chattered with sparks igniting from every push Tavvuk and Theo made against the other.

Again, Tavvuk utilized his presence as a weapon, as he now stomped forward with his right foot and managed to just pass Theo’s right leg before sweeping it back. The force was enough. Theo lost his balance, and Tavvuk pushed Baeruk, overpowering him. Theo slammed upon his back, looking up at the Titan and watched the silver streak swinging toward his head. Yet it stopped in an explosion of sparks where it met Namagun, as Drake thrust his tantō blade in between his friend and the possibility of his end.

Tavvuk snarled. His emerald eyes darted to his right, where he saw the Golden Armed Knight. He then grit his teeth, hissing, “<Now you die alongside> Beelezika!”

Theo took the moment of distraction; he kipped up and launched his jagged armored boots into Tavvuk’s chest. The force pushed him back, sliding to a stop just outside his available strike zone, and he slowly looked back up across to the two who stood side by side.

Drake chuckled. He unbuckled his golden knight helm from his belt, raised it up, and lowered it upon his head while saying, “It’s always some bullshit.”

“Hey,” Theo smirked. “It wouldn’t be fun if it wasn’t, right?”

Drake didn’t answer. Instead, he side-eyed Theo before raising Namagun parallel with himself in his right hand, while he slowly positioned his left robotic hand palm forward.

Tavvuk unclasped his cowl.

The air stood static and charged, as if it were in waiting. The cowl now rippled down his shoulders in the moment of uncertainty. It slowly cascaded around him and pooled into a sea of green at his feet. The Titan now stood before Theo and Drake unhindered. His presence was hulking, it was unyielding, and swallowed the space between them.

Then - Clang. Shriiiiink. The Kalber screamed as the three’s blades cross-locked in a violent meeting of survival, challenge… and hate.

“No!” Cole erupted as he stood back to the opening side hatch. “You’re not coming with me, Sara!”

“Yes, I am!” she matched his frustration and put her hands on her hips. “Drake needs me!”

“They’re fighting a damn Titan! You, not eight months pregnant, wouldn’t be able to help them. What do you think that you like this will be able to do? Huh!”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Sara…” Cole growled with the hatch doors letting out a loud thump as they finished opening, and there, in the distance, Sara could see the three in the distance within a blur of silver and sparks.

“Drake!” Sara yelped.

Slowly, Cole turned to see what Sara was. His left eye twitched. His grip upon his spark-pistols tightened. Cole watched in a deep silence as Tavvuk blocked a vicious swing from Drake before he pushed forward and then used the break to unleash a powerful front kick that sent Drake sliding back.

There was no breath, as Tavvuk quickly spun Baeruk around before its blade caught Gaerlus just slightly behind his head.

“Edmund…” Cole called.

“Yes, Master Cole?”

“Ready Talon for takeoff.”

Sara grabbed Cole by the forearm as she looked up at him with large eyes.

“Master Cole?”

Cole took a deep breath. He bit his lower lip and briefly scrunched his nose before he pulled away from Sara and marched off.

“<Since the blackening,” Tavvuk growled to Theo, as they stood yet again, blades locked, with their feet pivoting to gain a stronger footing, “I have slain the stained; I have crushed the skulls of betrayers; I have given my blood to ensure this moment!>”

Theo scoffed. “You think as if you were there, that night, that you would have… what? Stopped Him?”

“<YOU!>” Tavvuk roared and overpowered Theo with a ferocious forward push of Baeruk.

Theo landed on his back, where he rolled through and onto his knee, and whipped his head up to find Tavvuk’s attention instantly shifting to Drake. The Golden Armed Knight shot at the Titan. The streak of gold met the silver blur of Tavvuk’s buster curve blade, then several flashes of sparks with Namagun and Baeruk clashing in a blitz. Clang. Crack. Clang. Tavvuk met the tantō blade while he now mimicked Theo’s twirling parry, but instead of flanking Drake, Tavvuk used the awkward blade lock and gained a looming presence over Drake.

Alerts flashed on Drake’s HUD, identifying his own heart rate rising, his footing beginning to slowly slip, and an unidentified interfering pressure in their surrounding system.

“Every day I realize why I pulled my ripcord,” Cole growled to himself as he neared the doorway and raised his right spark-pistol.

Blue soul energy spidered from Cole’s chest to his right shoulder. At first, it crawled to his bicep and then, in a blink, it surged through his forearm, and the barrel glowed blue hot. Cole steadied his aim. He slowed his breathing the moment before an energy-nail fired from the tip and shot straight at Tavvuk’s back. A screech, like ten thousand scarlet-tailed eagles cried out, ripped through the hanger and followed the nail on its trajectory.

However, the blue flash diverted. Reality shattered just slightly like a pellet hit a mirror, and the nail repositioned to the right, where it shot through the opening and struck the wall fifteen yards opposite of Tavvuk. Cole’s eyes fluttered. He glanced at his pistol and then back to the two with his nose scrunching slightly and eyes now narrowing. There was a moment of disbelief and uncertainty about his own perception, but his attention soon changed. Much like the round he had fired, he now looked to a young woman who emerged from behind a column to the left of the doorway.

Althya slowly positioned herself between Cole and the others. Her right hand was raised palm forward at Cole. Her head was bowed slightly with her lips curled down, and she looked up at Cole with just her eyes. She softly warned, “<I won’t let you stop him.>”

“Move out of my way, kid!” Cole dismissively barked and now raised his other pistol, but at her.

“<No!>”

“Kid… Don’t make me put you down!”

Althya didn’t budge. Instead, she now raised her other hand and displayed a growingly confident shift from that of defending her master to striking on his behalf.

Cole groaned as he tightened his grip. “Errrr, come on…”

Tavvuk’s attention snapped from Drake to over his shoulder. His emerald eyes burned as they caught sight of Cole ready to fire upon Althya. Drake could feel the overwhelming pressure pulling back in upon Tavvuk, like the ocean retracting from the shore before apocalypse. Then, without warning, the Titan released the blade lock as he spun around with his back to Drake, and a pinch struck the Golden Armed Knight.

Theo’s eyes grew large.

Sara, who watched on, soundlessly gasped.

Drake’s HUD went red. His vitals spiked. An alert highlighted the lower right of his abdomen, reading, “Fatality probability increased to eighty-nine percent!”

“No…” uttered free of Theo.

Again, Tavvuk’s attention was redirected. He had briefly seen Cole unload several nails that shot at Althya, yet they splintered off to her left and right, mere inches from striking her dead. Tavvuk then yanked Baeruk free from Drake, only to find Theo, who had moved faster than he could perceive. The Stark closed forty feet in barely two seconds. Gaerlus hissed as it fazed through the space and sliced Tavvuk clean across the chest. The Titan couldn’t manage to yell as he was thrust to his knee from the pain and force of the slash.

Everything drifted to dark around Tavvuk as he looked to his chest and saw his blue blood and sliced mail, only for him to slowly look up to his right where the light was being pulled. Lord paramount - Theo loomed over the Last Titan with a reigning silhouette of shimmering Shade that radiated him, as it absorbed the soul of sight. The present and the screams lost to generations flickered before Tavvuk like two realities fighting to be perceived.

A deep and reverberating breathing emanated all around as the Last Titan bore witness to his name’s creator, breathily acknowledging, “<Yuh-yuh-yuh-you…”

Pitch-black eyes gazed back into the emerald struggling to burn within the dark. Tavvuk could see the ear-to-ear, razor-sharp, fang-filled grin behind Theo’s helm. The Demon from the Deep peeked free in the second of desperation, and now everyone’s attention was demanded and given; as Cole’s mouth grew agape and his pistols lowered, Althya spun around where she wept, while Sara quickly crossed her arms in front of her pregnant stomach and panicked, “No, no, no, no, no, no!”

“<NOOOOOOOOOOOO!>” Tavvuk erupted, as he shot up with both hands fiercely gripping Baeruk, and he swung up at the twisted Theo before him.

Drake, who had fallen to his back, watched as the buster blade moved from down at Tavvuk’s left side to up at Theo in a mere blink. However, its silver streak was snuffed out as a colossal, blackened gauntlet-donning-hand caught it. The shimmering Shade silhouette that loomed around Theo had reacted faster than even the Last Titan could move, and He left him in awe as Tavvuk’s exertion of power was nothing compared.

Tavvuk hissed through his gritted teeth. His carotid arteries bulged. The whites of his eyes turned bloodshot before soon he bled from his nose. Tavvuk refused to surrender as he continued to pour everything he had into his unbudging swing, only to be tossed aside, tumbling down the hall.

Like a dam giving way, Althya and Cole both rushed forward. Cole stopped beside Drake, whom he quickly helped to his feet, as Drake’s robotic arm hung around Cole’s shoulders and his right hand pressed firmly against his abdomen. He panted and winced, “Wuh-we, we have, heeh, we got to get out, out of here!”

“I know… but,” Cole affirmed before their attention shifted from the other to the dark merely twenty feet from them.

There was what felt like a long moment of nothingness before the two began to inch their way toward the hangar. After several feet, Cole glanced back and barked, “Hey! Theo?”

Still - nothing.

Then, after crossing into the hangar, Drake forced Cole to stop as he now positioned himself to look back at his friend, and Drake said, “Bruh-brother?”

Pressure changed; the dark appeared to relent, and now Theo ever so slowly turned and made his way toward the hangar.

Cole slammed his hand upon the hangar doors’ control panel. A thunderous hiss roared as the massive blaster doors separating the hall from the hangar began to slowly close. Theo now stood just inside. His hulking pressure shimmered like flickering blackened flames of Shade which surrounded him in the ghastly image of the Demon from the Deep, and his attention snapped back over his shoulder as Tavvuk’s voice roared from nearly the other end of the hall.

“BEEELEZIIIKAAAAA!”

He turned slightly, his blackened eyes locked upon Tavvuk, who was on his hands and knees opposite Beelezika. The Titan panted. His blue blood was running from his nose as it had covered his mouth and chin while dripping to the marble beneath him.

“<The stars cannot hide you from me,>” Tavvuk growled, slowly looking up at Theo as the doors inched further closed. “Beelezika…”

“Theo!” Cole called as he and Drake were less than thirty-five feet from Talon, and he glanced back to their friend who still loomed at the entrance.

“… Beelezika…” Tavvuk’s voice grew louder.

“May, muh, maybe we sh-should,” Sara finally chimed in as she stood shaking at the side of Talon, her voice barely louder than a whisper, “Um, luh-leave him…”

Cole’s attention whipped to her with his left eye narrowed in a bit of shock.

Drake groaned as they stopped beside Talon. Sara now hurried to help him, as he wrapped his arm around his wife now, calling again, “Come on, bruh-brother - Let’s get out of here!”

“… Beeeelezika…”

The doors were a foot and a half from one another. They inched closer to each other, like sand racing to fill the other half of the hour. Tavvuk, now upon one knee with Baeruk plunged in the ground beside him, used his buster curve blade as leverage as he slowly rose to his feet. Althya, at his side in a fluster, helped him up fully. She looked over her master, seeing him bruised, sliced, and covered in his own blood.

It was in this moment that Theo’s right armored boot raised slightly from the ball of his foot; the air seemed to suck out of the hanger and hall, signifying the Blackened Knight was ready to storm forth. However, a soft whisper upon the Shade startled Beelezika, “Saehyshea tal duer’eemur mai tae, Æmordriel…” and the tension snapped as the Shade instantaneously retracted to its origin, and the doors closed.

A father fades.

Two souls defy destiny.

Jai & Kalsey Walker hunt the God’s Stone across the stars - a relic that is said to reshape reality with a whisper.

But Imperius Admiral G.B. Vector is closing in… and the Dying Star might devour everything.

The Armory opens once more this Halloween...

A new journey awaits across the vast ocean of stars as the fate of Klaus Walker takes center stage. But while his family searches for hope in a dying time, a darkness waits upon the horizon.

SOULS OF THE DYING STAR

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Velhall Palace

Oitylon [capital city], Ravelous [planet], Despæ [star system]

25 June; 09:21:43 Hours

Clunk, clunk, clunk rumbled up the large hall where it washed against the massive double doors of the throne chamber. Four Stormers stood guard. Black armor that absorbed the sun shining in from their left. The inner two Stormers stood with pike staffs crossed in front of the double doors, as the outer two stepped forward, glancing down the length of the marble to the approaching silhouettes.

Eerie tension thickened with the two sets of armored boots pounding in unison; one jagged and silver, while the other was pristine and gold.

“Is there a reason Sara and Cole stayed back on Talon?” Drake asked as he and Theo grew closer to the throne chamber.

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Aboard Talon [Class V Light Cruiser]

Hyper-lane [traveling through the interconnected hyperspace highway]

23 June; 13:55:09 Hours

“Master Theo?” Edmund called over Theo’s commlink while he piloted Talon alone, and Theo glanced up to his right out the corner of his eye as he answered.

“What is it, Edmund?”

“May I ask…”

“When don’t you?”

“Hah, ha, very funny, sir!” Edmund quipped before his tone now grew serious, “Where is Lady Dax?”

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Xynyx [planet], Ibish-8C [star system]

30 June; 07:34:09 Hours

The deep purple horizon grew to black as it reached to the stars and four moons that riddled the sky. Several mountains pushed through the clouds, which were cast in an orange and pink glow by the distant rising sun, sending flares of yellow and gold firing up from the horizon. A small Class III cruiser idled in the stone hollow, its ramp lowered to the ground. At the cliff’s edge stood Ravena, wind pulling her long brown hair aside as Klaus called out to her.

“We still haven’t properly thanked you!”

“For what?” Ravena asked as she turned around to him and Kyra, who descended the ramp.

“For what?” Kyra chuckled before she answered, “We wouldn’t have got off of Kandok without you.”

“I just gave you four a way off of that death rock, that’s all,” Ravena sighed as she folded her arms.

Klaus stopped in front of her, he extended his hand out to her, and let out a breathy chuckle. “Come on, you did more than that - You saved Far’s life from that droid. Believe me, that’s more than just flying us out of there.”

“Beelezika was the one who saved you all - Thank him,” she still tried to refute the two, but now Amelia chimed in from the top of the ramp.

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Aluxora [submarine mega-city]

Oscio [planet], Elysium [star system]

03 May; 23:15:44 Hours

“You look so happy, Toots!” Sacks said with a giant smile as he looked at Syia, who sat across from him at the table in a small tavern.

“<I do?>” she cooed as she held the Yahmo pup in her arms, with it sound asleep.

“Yeah, and it’s honestly beautiful.”

“<She is, isn’t she?>”

Sacks let out a brief chuckle, which caused Syia to look up from the pup to him with her eyes narrowing slightly.

“<What? What’s funny?>”

“No, no,” he now chuckled before taking a sip of his pint, then answering her, “I, I didn’t mean the pup - I meant seeing this innocence you have with it, that’s beautiful.”

“<Wuh-why?>” she asked with a sincerity that took Sacks aback.

“Why?”

“<Yeah, why is that… beautiful?>”

“It’s… Well, since we met you, you’ve been tense and acting like you’re running for your life, Toots,” he explained while motioning his left hand around before again taking another sip, and then he finished, “but now, with the pup, you seem almost at peace.”

“<I just, it, um, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt—” Syia now started to admit, but she caught herself and turned it on Sacks as she now asked, “<How did you and Augur meet?>”

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Idris-9 [city], Teltobah [planet], Meertomb [star system]

1 July; 10:25:09 Hours

Eeeeeeerrr, the high-pitched screeching ripped through the underground rail tunnel as the speed train shot through the dimly lit and musky passage. There were quick bursts of bright white as the inlet lighting of the tunnel flickered, and steam bellowed free from several small ports that the train shot by. The passenger cars, themselves, were elbow-to-elbow with Astronauts as chatter and laughter consumed their entirety, all while Gabe sat upon one of the benches - asleep.

“<Can you believe we’re going to be within eye sight of the Golden Voice, Nevaeh?>” one of the dozens of Astronauts said to his Mechlic - a grey with violet blotches, octopus-like being - friend, who happily nodded.

“<Yes! She’s saying what we all have!>”

“<Soon there won’t be anyone holding us back!>” another Astronaut loudly expressed, as he passionately spoke with his group of friends several feet off to Gabe’s left. “<The True Vision will not be able to keep us from changing the world anymore!>”

“<That’s right, Heltur!>” his friend agreed before another echoed.

“<Nevaeh is us all!>”

“Ohhhhhhhhh, Gabe…” an eerily familiar voice weaved its way past the Astronauts where it perched beside Gabe’s right ear, and his eyes shot wide open before they flickered around, taking sight of the car.

Gabe slowly leaned forward with his hands upon his knees, several of his dreads fell in front of his face, and the loudness of the chatter twisted into a pounding murmur. His eyes now specifically darted from one Astronaut to another. He watched their mouths moving while no longer being able to hear their words. He could feel the joy of their laughs, yet was deaf to their bellows. Then, Gabe’s eyes grew wide as he caught sight of a streak of crimson that moved through the thick toward the back of the car.

“Bastard!” Gabe roared and shot up from the bench seat, with Astronauts gasping and shrieking as he pushed his way past them in chase of the figure.

“<Hey!>” one yelped before a young female Telvian cried out.

“Ahhh! <That backwater-ape touched me! It touched me!>”

“<Watch your primate-hands, you backwater filth!>”

“<They have no standards! No standards, I tell you!>”

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However, Gabe paid none any mind as he continued to rush down the car as he caught flickers of the crimson silhouette through the crowd every several feet. His brown eyes slowly turned emerald as he closed the distance; he saw several wolf-like Astronauts who brandished their fangs to him, then he saw a dark olive skinned teenage Human-like girl who locked eyes with him for but only a moment before the crimson blared at him through another set of heads, and he moved deeper, only to then make out the rear door of the car slide open and then closed.

“No! You’re not getting away again!” Gabe growled before he squeezed by two large, pot-bellied Derks, and the door hissed as his approach triggered the sensor, with it sliding to the left.

Gabe paused. He could hear the shrieking of the speed train rushing through the tunnel. The warm, musky, and tense air blew in at him with his dreads pushed back out of his face. Gabe then exited car-twelve and onto the small connection bridge, with the next car’s front door hissing as it slid to the left. Something was different, however, as a thick and cold air wafted out at Gabe and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

“Mmmmmhm,” again, the eerily familiar voice came before the deep popping sound like someone cracked their neck, and Gabe entered car-thirteen. “I can smell it, Gabe… I can smell what you hate to admit…”

“Heeeh, huh, heeeh, huh,” Gabe panted with the door closing behind him, and his burning emerald eyes locking onto the silhouette in the alien darkness that smothered out the car’s overhead lights.

The familiar voice finished as a deep, gravelly and demonic tone bled over it, “… fear!”

“Theo!”

“What’s wrong, brother?” chuckling, the being who was silhouetted out now raised its head, as it stood out before Gabe, with the inky blotched crimson hood lifting just enough to reveal a twisted Theo. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

Gabe took an aggressive step forward with Shade crawling across the floor. “Your mind games never worked on me - They’re not gonna start now!”

“My mind games?” and then directly beside Gabe’s right ear, an ear-to-ear razor-sharp fanged mouthed Theo emerged from the Shade for a brief moment as he grinned, “No, not my mind!”

Gabe spun to find nothing but the dark with the flickering inlet lighting of the tunnel flashing in every few seconds through the window of the door.

Then slowly, Gabe turned back to the lurking embodiment of his eldest friend, and he growled at it, “You didn’t beat me!”

“Hmm, it sure feels like it!”

“You ran! You did, Theo! You ran away from me with your tail tucked firmly between your legs, to your Shim whore!”

Only the razor-sharp fangs could be made out through the shroud of darkness that blacked out Theo’s face while Gabe vigorously pointed at him, and yet they remained in the largest of twisted grins.

“I’m gonna end it,” Gabe breathily muttered as he proudly nodded his head over and over again, “Yeeeah! Imma end it! I’m gonna end it right here like I was going to on Ravelous!”

“Oooooooh,” the corrupted vision raised his right inky index finger, wagging it slightly. “Lying now?”

Gabe gritted his teeth and let out a deep breath from his nose.

All while from the ceiling behind Gabe, slowly emerged from the thickness of the Shade another shadow of Theo, who lingered upside down with arms wide open, and whispered, “I guess you couldn’t meditate me away, huh, brother?”

“Albatross!” Gabe roared and spun around to find the doppelgänger gone, again.

“Mmm, heh, ha, hah, ha!” simply bellowed from the monstrous Theo back off behind Gabe, but then a hiss ripped free in front of Gabe, and everything changed in a blink.

The cold darkness had vanished with the dull blue lighting of the overhead lights of the car painting its emptiness around him. Gabe’s eyes blinked in disbelief. He glanced around, and even back over his shoulder as he panted, but then heard the soft voice of Mya call to him, “Gabe? Gabe? What are you doing back here? We have to go! We don’t have much time!”

“He was here!” he frantically tried to convince her, as she grabbed his arm and pulled him along to exit the car. “He was right here, Mya!”

Mya stopped and looked up at him while she winced. “He? Who? You mean she? Nevaeh? Was Nevaeh here?”

“Nah-no, no! Thee—” but he stopped as he could see they were in the station and nearly all the Astronauts had disembarked and were moving through the substation toward the stairwell to the city above. “Wuh-wait… We’re here?

“Yeah,” she confirmed.

“Already?”

“Yes, Gabe! We don’t have much time! The Fangs are in position and are waiting for us!”

“The train ride was supposed to be thirty minutes,” Gabe couldn’t wrap his mind around the time loss, as he tried to rationalize to not Mya but himself, “I saw him… We boarded the train, and I closed my eyes for a second, just a second…”

“Gabe?”

“… Then, then I immediately heard him - I heard his prong-tipped tongue! I, I, I saw, I suh-saw that bastard! I could smell the death that lingers upon him! I know it, I nuh—”

Mya grabbed his forearms and forced him to look at her. “Gabe, pleeeeease! We have a tight window! We don’t have time, and if we linger any longer, we’ll miss our only shot!”

“Heeeeh,” Gabe sighed before he gently pushed strands of her long black hair out of her face, and then nodded his head. “Okay, let’s move.”

Mya smiled. She then guided him along as the two hurried through the substation toward the stairwell. The echoing thumps of their exit left behind the empty cars and suffocated in the hollow, before from the thickness of the dark, a deep and gravelly laugh rumbled free.

***

Thirty-five minutes later…

“Tear out its eyes!” roared from the massive, two-thousand large crowd that Gabe, Mya, and a small squad of Fangs looked down upon to the courtyard below them. “Make the Vision blind! Tear out its eyes! Make the Vision blind…”

“<Don’t get me wrong,” one of the Fangs expressed as he turned to the others with Gabe sitting upon the ground looking at his hands that were folded in front of him, “The True Vision is a blight to the Universe, but if we allow this cult to grow any larger - We’ll have a much bigger problem on our hands!>”

“<It just feels wrong, Kahto,>” another noted.

“<Wrong?>” a third scoffed before the second spun to him and snapped.

“<Yes, Lah’tahmar! It feels wrong to assassinate someone fighting against their oppressor! Does it not?>”

“<She’s not an oppressed, Ceedro! She’s a Tameerkan; a whisperer of lies; a cognitive bender!>”

“<So wuh—” Ceedro exclaimed, but as Gabe listened, his shadow cast upon the ground to his left twisted in his peripheral with Theo’s twisted laugh taunting him.

“Mmm, heh, hah, ha, ha - Listen to them, brother… Even your precious Quarter can’t decipher good from evil… How can your mission continue if they cannot simply differentiate the monsters from the virtuous?”

Gabe’s nostrils flared. His eyes again flickered between their natural brown and the burning emerald. He panted while biting his lip. He then clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles bulged and roared his growing frustration; however, all of their nipping attention quickly shifted over the ledge as cheers erupted.

“Nevaeh!”

“<We love your voice, Nevaeh!>”

“<Your golden tongue will set us free!>” what felt like the ten thousandth gleamed.

Escorted to the eye of attention, a dark olive-skinned woman entered the celebration of the thousands. Five followed her - neither ahead nor behind, as they orbited her like measured presence of the realized reality around her. Each scanned the crowd, and none spoke a word as the cheering continued what appeared nonstop.

Her long, curly black hair swayed in the subtle breeze of the courtyard. She raised her right hand in acknowledgement, gold-coated fingers that caught the glimmer of the sunlight, and she held it for a small eternity. The crowd grew louder and louder in adoring pride until she slowly lowered her hand, with the cheers instantly smothered. Her gold eyes scanned the Astronauts before her, and she smiled.

“<We love you, Nevaeh!>” a voice called from the crowd, and Nevaeh subtly blushed before giggling.

“<And I love you all!>” and she felt the reverberating uproar of their cheers that followed.

Gabe’s eyes were locked on the Golden Voice. His upper lip twitched while he heard the chatter of his Fangs still bickering at the other.

“<We have to take her out now!>”

“<But think of what ripple this will send across the Universe!>”

“<Think of what ripple will be sent out if we don’t,>” Lah’tahmar stressed to Ceedro, who looked through the enhanced sights of his Kramat B92-LR rifle, which was locked on Nevaeh.

“<For generations, their wall was unclimbable!” Nevaeh preached with the thousands before her at a dead silence as they listened to every word that left her lips. “<Many were lost; many could not take their persecution; many betrayed their own to preserve themselves, but now their wall cannot endure!>”

“<This is wrong, Lah’tahmar! Come on! Yurlish? Walgus? Mya?>” Ceedro expressed his tearing convictions and tried to gain unity, all while the twisted whisper of Gabe’s life-long friend rode the breeze where it again perched upon his shoulder.

“You’re so close…”

“<Take the shot, Ceedro!>” Lah’tahmar growled before Walgus affirmed.

“<This is Shaomhav’s mission - She is a threat far greater than the True Vision!>”

Nevaeh continued as she approached the edge of the elevated stage with arms wide open. “<The vision is now clear! We are its true nature! We are its true people! We are…”

“… She’s within striking distance, brother,” the whisper burrowed its way deeper into Gabe’s ear, as he grit his teeth and attention shifted from Nevaeh to Ceedro, who now closed his eyes. “Yet she’s still breathing…”

“Come on, Ceedro,” Mya even urged him, but now he removed his finger from the trigger of his rifle as he softly said.

“This, no, this isn’t my mission.”

“Grand? Mmmh, heh, ha, hah, ha!” the twisted whisper had contorted into a sinister laugh before finishing in a deep, solemn assessment, “My, how the once grand Shaomhav Quarter has softened!”

Gabe’s eyes nearly quadrupled. His chest puffed and contracted faster and faster. The high-pitched ringing he heard like a white noise for over several minutes now felt unbearable, and then in a blink, Gabe snapped.

“Enough!” he barked, stormed over to, and grabbed Ceedo by the shoulder before he launched him across the roof.

Mya gasped. Ceedro tumbled to a stop nearly twenty feet from the others, where his head slammed off the concrete ledge and knocked him unconscious. Lah’tahmar, Walgus, and Yurlish each glanced to their fellow Fang before their attention shifted slowly to their Grand Mane, who, in the moment of explosive frustration, flickered violently and rapidly with emerald surges.

Gabe, however, let out a deep breath before he took position. He grabbed the rifle and then he, himself, took aim at Nevaeh. The hairs of the advanced sights slowly lined up upon Nevaeh’s forehead, with the vertical moving into place as the horizontal bounced ever so slightly. Then, as Gabe calculated where her exact location would be in between his next breath, he squeezed the trigger, boom.

Perception for Gabe, Mya, and his Fangs all slowed to a crawl as the energy nail shot down the barrel and fired at its target. The cheering of the thousands muffled to a drawn-out, twisted moan that reverberated like a demonic horn that heralded an end. Yet Nevaeh smiled as she had just finished a sentence, completely unaware of the nearing death nail until a silver streak met it less than a half foot from the Golden Voice’s face.

Ting screeched free as a blade deflected the shot, and the crowd erupted in fear.

The yellow burning eyes of Alarik, a Nemaakian and head of the League, pinged around at the rooftops as he slowly lowered his curve blade down to his side. Nevaeh’s eyes grew large as realization flooded her of what was prevented. Though before she could move, a jagged and berserk Knight, Kom, moved in front of her with his shadow swallowing her in a glistening silver of his invulnerable skin. Then, in the brief glare of the sun reflecting off the sights of the rifle, Gabe now locked eyes with Alarik, whose scarred face cracked a small smirk.

“Dammit!” Gabe roared before he yanked back with the rifle and shot up to his feet, as Mya panicked.

“Gabe? Gabe? Wuh-what just happened?”

“<Is the target neutralized?>” Lah’tahmar echoed the sense of concern, but his facial expression answered his question before Gabe grunted and began moving toward the stairwell door.

“We have to get out of here!”

“Oh-okay,” Mya yelped and hurried in front of him.

“Fetch Ceedro,” Gabe then ordered. “We can’t leave him behind here!”

“<But our mission isn’t his anymore, remember?>” Lah’tahmar said as he threw his arms up.

“<He’ll be a liability now, Grand Mane,>” Yurlish added as she stopped at the stairwell where Mya held the door open.

Gabe now growled as the high-pitched ringing returned. “I said… fetch him!”

Lah’tahmar and Walgus’ eyes were narrowed as they looked at Gabe, who rubbed his temple, but the two relented despite the gut-churning feeling of festering darkness as they quickly hurried over to their fellow Fang. Mya, as the others had, she continued to look at Gabe while he slowly continued toward her in almost a daze. His index and middle fingers appeared buried into his temple, like he was contemplating age-old concerns, as the whispery voice of Theo howled by his ear, “Albatross? No… Your Damocles!”

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Gyltorish [city], Lytoris [planet], Savan-4 [star system], Sector-0107, Shaomhav Domain

26 Dec; 21:20:44 Hours

“… day forward, you exemplify the courage, sacrifice, and spirit of Shaomhav; a legacy forged through honor, peace, and the commitment to defend what is right. You are now part of something greater than yourselves - an oath that binds us together, a bond that unites you with those who have walked this path before,” Gabe Hightower spoke to a massive audience in the city square, as nearly one hundred graduates sat directly out before him. “It is with the greatest honor that I stand before you today, to welcome you into the Quarter. May your courage never falter, and may your honor be your guide. Congratulations, Claws of Shaomhav!”

Cheers erupted as the graduates jumped up from their chairs, they tossed their shawls into the air, while many hugged and congratulated each other as others were met by family and friends. The night sky overhead lit up with beautiful bursts of color as fireworks went off, and the booming echoed for what felt like miles. However, as Gabe still stood at the podium watching his graduates congratulating one another, he saw three of his Fangs looming off beyond the crowds to his right before they subtly moved back where they faded from sight.

The alley was dark and carried a musky smell that appeared to fester as the three Fangs stood in a circle talking to one another before Gabe approached them. He stopped several feet in front of his top warriors where he glanced back over his shoulder, and said, “What’s happened?”

“Grand Mane,” his Left Fang, Kairyu bowed his head and explained, “something of concern has unfolded in Aen’Goor.”1

Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “Wuh-what? What’s happened? Something with Theo?”

“What exactly, well, we’re not sure,” Tehvuh, the Right Fang answered as she glanced down.

“What do you mean that you’re not sure?” Gabe growled.

“The, the annual Aen’Goorian Royal Address,” Kairyu stepped forward as he elaborated, “King Theo Walker was not present, Grand Mane. No, his, heeeeh, his queen and their princess were in sole attendance for the royal family, and she made the address.”

“Dax…” he growled even deeper this time, but Tehvuh said.

“She spoke in terms of conquest, Grand Mane. It was almost as if she was channeling the lore of her fallen father. She was angry and, well, she, she, uh, she cried several times throughout her speech.”

Gabe clenched his fists tightly while his eyes ignited emerald in the dark, saying, “Eeeeeh, this is not good—”

“What’s not good?” Sadria O’Thsa asked, who was Gabe’s wife and Lioness of the Shaomhav Quarter, as she approached. “What’s going on, my love?”

“Heeeh, heh, ha, hah!” Gabe chuckled at first before he turned to his wife and smiled, saying, “Well, um, just some, uh, some rising concerns regarding Aen’Goor. Nothing for you to worry about, Sadria.”

“Rising concerns with Aen’Goor? Wuh-what? I thought Shaomhav and Aen’Goor had an understanding, my love!”

“We do, darling. We do.”

Sadria’s eyes narrowed as she stepped close to Gabe. “Then why are there rising concerns?”

“It’s, it’s the Shim. The Shim,” he said through his teeth before a grin transformed out of his disgust, and he finished, “but like I said, nothing to worry about.”

Sadria’s head slightly tilted to the right with her eyes still narrow, but Gabe reached out and took her hand before he began to lead her back toward the celebration. However, the two stopped in their tracks as the final Fang, the Secret stepped forward and he called to them, “There has been more, my Manes…”

Gabe’s eyes closed tightly and he bit down on his lip. “More?”

“Wuh-what are you speaking of, Grador?” Sadria asked as she was the first to turn.

“The imperial politics of Aen’Goor are not what we are here for, Lioness,” he said as Gabe turned and repeated himself.

“More?”

“Yes, Grand Mane. Many more.”

“I do not understand,” Sadria snapped as she glanced at her husband.

Grador again stepped forward, lowering his voice to barely above a whisper as he said, “Thirty-seven. There were thirty-seven this time.”

“Thirty-seven?” Sadria gasped.

“It was one, maybe two every few months but thirty-seven… No, no, this, it, it cannot be accurate,” Gabe tried denying, however Tehvuh confirmed her fellow Fang.

“It was a massacre, Grand Mane - We’re doing everything we can to conceal it from those on Bay’Etor.”

Kairyu sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “The locals are whispering and night tales are sure to spread, and when they do, they’ll spread like the leaves in the harvest moon wind.”

“Are, are there bodies this time?” Gabe asked as his hand pulled free from Sadria’s.

“Yes,” Grador confirmed, “all thirty-seven.”

“I must see!” Gabe exclaimed, but Sadria yanked his arm and spun him toward herself.

“My love! We cannot leave this celebration! If the Fangs speak of night-tales spreading already, our departure will breathe life into them!”

Gabe placed his hand over his mouth and his pupils shrunk as he thought, but then he nodded while saying, “Very well, we will return to the celebration… but tonight Tehvuh will depart for Endul to seek the Shimmer Queen’s attention regarding Shaomhav’s questions of Theo’s absence, and tomorrow, I will depart to the sight of the massacre…”

Immah [city], Bay’Etor [planet], Savan-4 [star system], Sector-0107, Shaomhav Domain

28 Dec; 18:31:22 Hours

Tssssshhhhhh sounded as the ramp of the cruiser lowered and smoke bellowed from the opening where Gabe and Grador emerged with a unit of Claws. The city was small and only possessed mini-ports for any extraterrestrial arrivals, which made any ships larger than a cruiser impossible to land within the limits. Local kids quickly hurried to the gated entrance of the port where Gabe and the others were, and they started calling to Gabe with cheer.

“<Grand Mane! Grand Man!>” a young boy yelled as he jumped up and down while several others chimed in.

“<You’re so cool!>”

“<I wanna be just like you, Grand Mane!>”

The crowd grew several folds from just a small group of kids to over forty people, who were all cheering and calling to Gabe as they now began walking toward the crowd. Gabe waved and smiled, and he stopped in front of them where he took a knee and said to the children, “Look at all of you! Young, smart, and powerful Clawlings!”

“<Clawlings? You, you think we could be Claws one day?>” one of the kids asked with gleaming eyes.

“<Even, even me?>” a ten-year-old girl said as she bowed her head.

Gabe reached out, gently flicked her chin up, and smiled. “Even you.”

“Grand Mane,” Grador called as he placed his hand on Gabe’s shoulder, “We must be going.”

Gabe glanced over his shoulder at Grador before he subtly nodded, and then he slowly stood up. However, one of the kids reached out and grabbed his wrist and whispered, “<Are you here be-because of the Lytoris Eclipse?>”

“The Lytoris Eclipse—” Gabe said as his eyes narrowed.

Grador nudged Gabe. “Grand Mane…”

He again looked to Grador as this time a speed-transport pulled up just out front of them from the crowd, and Grador now nodded in the direction of it but Gabe refused. “What is he talking about?”

“Wuh-what?” Grador stammered as he stepped toward the transport.

“If I’m here because of the Lytoris Eclipse - What is he referring about, Grador?”

“The Lytoris Eclipse? It’s, it’s just a planetary eclipse of the sun for Bay’Etor, that’s all,” he explained before again urging Gabe toward the transport where Claws awaited them. “Now please, Grand Mane, we must go.”

Gabe stood in front of the crowd with the young child still looking up to him while he reluctantly began to back away, moving toward the transport while the others in the crowd cheered him and called out, “<I can’t believe I met the Grand Mane!>”

“<Did you hear him? Did you? He said we could be Claws!>”

“<Grand Mane! Grand Mane! We love you!>”

“What is going on here, Grador?” Gabe hissed to his Fang while they neared the transport, but just as they were about to get in, a woman grabbed Gabe’s arm and spun him to herself while she pleaded with him.

“<Grand Mane! Grand Mane, please! My daughter! My girl! She’s missing! She wasn’t amongst them! Please—”

“Your daughter?” Gabe uttered with wide eyes while Claws pulled the woman back.

“<YES! Yes, Grand Mane! My daughter was not amongst the others! She’s still missing! Pleeeeeease!>”

Grador quickly ushered Gabe into the transport and closed their side door as the Claws boarded through the rear and the other side, all in a near blink before the vehicle sped off. Gabe bobbed his head around, attempting to look out the windows to the mother who begged for his help and instead, he barely got a glimpse of her as the crowd disappeared in the distance.

***

Fifteen minutes later…

A loud hiss erupted as the side doors opened and rose which allowed the Claws to disembark before Grador and lastly, Gabe whose eyes narrowed while he looked around. The homes in the small neighborhood were abandoned, the streets were empty with something that caught Gabe’s attention. He tilted his head slightly to the left before going to his right as he walked around the transport, where he stopped. Gabe even knelt down and looked to the ground as that same oddity remained, so much so that it caused him to reach out and grab a handful of the gravel that he looked at in his palm.

“This is ground zero, Grand Mane,” Grador announced.

“It’s,” Gabe said barely louder than a whisper as he slowly poured the gravel out of his hand to the ground beside him, “it’s red…”

Grador turned to him as his head clocked back slightly. “Excuse me?”

“It’s all red,” he elaborated as he stood up and looked around to everything. “It all has a red tint, why?”

But nothing as everyone remained silent.

Gabe’s nostrils flared as he glanced around at them all before finally barking, “Why does everything possess a red tint? Why?”

Still, none answered at first but after several minutes of staticky tension with Gabe continuing to glare them all up and down, one of the Claws stepped forward with his head bowed and he answered, “<Grand Mane, um, it’s, uh, it’s red because of, well, of, of the blood.>”

“Buh-blood?” Gabe asked with an up-tick in his voice.

“<Yes, everywhere.>”

“Where? Where is it then?”

“<We, we cleaned the area, Grand Mane.>”

Gabe’s pupils shrunk to pinpoints as his brow furrowed and he stepped toward the Claw. “Yous what?”

“Grand Mane,” Grador interjected, “I ordered them to clean the area.”

“What?” Gabe exploded as he spun to Grador before demanding, “I want to see it!”

“Grand Mane—” Grador attempted to push back, but an emerald aura ignited off of Gabe as he roared.

“NOW! I want to see it, now!”

Grador immediately bowed his head to Gabe before he turned slightly to the Claws, and ordered, “Retrieve the recreation disc,” and without hesitation, two hurried over to the transport where they unpacked a four-foot-in-diameter disc that they carefully set down in front of Gabe.

The air had grown thick as Gabe stood looming over the disc and the two Claws who readied to start it, as the intensely green glowing aura burned off him. Then like a countdown initiating, the Claw closest to Gabe tapped the top of the disc and a bright blue light blinked once, twice, and then a third time before a powerful flash erupted. The Claws, including Grador, almost flinched back as the pulse of light shot out from the disc to every portion of the neighborhood around them; yet Gabe stood unfazed.

The emerald whipping wisps quickly grew less violent as Gabe beheld the three-dimensional, lifelike recreation before him. There, mangled and a lot dismembered, were the thirty-seven corpses of men, women, the elderly, and even children which drove the glowing emerald eyes of Gabe dark and the aura extinguished. The Grand Mane was hit with the realization of what he demanded and promptly received as he stood in the middle of the massacre, looking upon blood everywhere.

Eduun Palace

Babuul’t [capital city], Lytoris [planet], Savan-4 [star system], Sector-0107, Shaomhav Domain

19 Jan; 06:27:44 Hours

There was a chill that lingered within the Mane’s chamber, the only light within was from the three-dimensional holograms of the miniature recreation of Bay’Etor, as well as dossiers of nearly a dozen other similar incidents that Gabe was going over. He swiped them around and pulled up their recreations which he analyzed as his eyes pinged back and forth between each one. Yet Gabe time and time again found himself returning to the massacre. His eyes dilated at the blood and grew teary at the mutilated bodies that until he had stood at the scene, he had convinced himself that the massacres were just simply rumors thrown around to scare the people of Shaomhav.

However, the reconstruction dematerialized slightly, parting in the middle, where a bust hologram of Tehvuh was constructed as she softly spoke, “Forgive me, Grand Mane, but Queen Dax is prepared to speak with you.”

Gabe nodded. “Patch her through.”

Tehvuh’s bust immediately dematerialized and was followed by others as the chamber went dark for a moment, but then out in front of Gabe constructed a life-size hologram of Dax who sat upon the Aen’Goorian quad-spire throne. Her eyes glowed bright blue as she looked at Gabe and snapped, “How dare you! Who do you think you are, summoning ME!”

“Where’s Theo?” Gabe asked.

“Where my husband is, is none of your concern… naexu!”

“Perhaps. Perhaps it’s none of my concern…” Gabe acknowledged as he slowly rose from his chair, a smirk growing over his face and his tone shifted to barely louder than a whisper, “… but rumors are spreading across the Uni, rumors of Al’taek Shihaev.”

Dax clenched her fists so tightly her knuckles went white and cracked while she grit her teeth.

“A blackening.”

“WHAT…” she now snapped, “… do you want?”

Gabe sighed as he bowed his head, but then slowly looked up to Dax as he said, “I’m asking for your help.”

“Excuse me?” Dax chuckled. “You? You want Aen’Goor’s help?”

“Heeh, yes.”

“Ooooh, see, now you have my attention - What does the Grand Mane of Shaomhav need from Aen’Goor?”

“Information… More so, confirmation.”

“Information?” Dax’s left eye squinted as her head tilted back slightly, and she asked, “Confirmation of what?”

“Murders,” Gabe quickly answered. “Brutal, bloody murders.”

Dax again chuckled as this time she leaned back in the throne and raised her arms out to her sides. “In Aen’Goor?”

“Why else would I be seeking Aen’Goor?” Gabe’s voice ticked up as his face contorted with a scrunched brow and flared nostrils.

“Watch your tone when you speak to me!”

“My tone? My tone? My people are dying! They’re being slaughtered! And not just being killed, but in the most brutal and bloody way, dammit!”

“Do you truly believe that Theo and I would allow such atrocities under Aen’Goorian colors?”

“And you think I do?”

“Is it not happening? That’s why you’ve come crawling to us, is it not?”

“MY PEOPLE are being bled! They’re bodies dismembered!”

“Hah, ha, ha, hah!” Dax laughed as she crossed her right leg over her left and her eyes dimmed back to light blue. “You sound like a scared little child hearing the night tales of the Hidden Dragon!”

Gabe’s eyes fluttered and he clocked his head to his right. “The, the Hidden Dragon?”

“Heeeeh,” Dax sighed and rolled her eyes at him before she growled, “I don’t have time for your games, naexu.”

“No, nah, no, wuh-what’s, what’s the Hid-Hidden Drag—” Gabe stammered only for Dax’s hologram to disperse as she ended her feed, leaving him to yell, “WAAAAIT!”

The Mane’s chamber returned to its darkness as he stood several steps from his chair, panting and clenching his fists so tightly that the veins in his forearms flexed through his emerald survival-mail. Gabe felt cornered by what was going on and now the lack of help from Aen’Goor, he wasn’t sure what to do but his eyes shifted as they narrowed in a sense of curiosity. He looked to a faint glow that cast against his back and lit up the floor in front of Gabe, which caused him to spin around where he found dozens and dozens of dossiers holographically constructed before a voice sounded, “Query complete: The Hidden Dragon…”

Gabe’s eyes narrowed further as he slowly stepped toward the holograms. Though the staticky tension grew tenfold as he found thousands of reports, drawings, photographs, and redacted documents before himself. “Nuh, nah, no…” Gabe stammered as he moved one of the documents into view and saw an ancient depiction of a man biting a woman’s neck, “Vampires.”

Brahm Castle

Totihry [mountain], S’Tohk [dwarf planet], Savan-4 [star system], Sector-0107, Shaomhav Domain

21 Jan; 22:05:24 Hours

The deep and haunting melody of strings reverberated through the stone hallways of an ancient castle. Faint flickering wisps of candles lined the cold and musky hall as an old man rounded the corner and walked forth toward massive wooden double doors. A shrieking creak ripped free as the man pushed open the doors and entered a colossal chamber. Hundreds of candles illuminated the empty chamber, as only a jagged and bone throne sat across from the entrance.

The old man remained silent as he proceeded to the heart of the emptiness, where he stood and pulled a gold amulet from around his neck which he gazed upon for a moment before taking a knee on the dragon etched in the stone floor. A sharp tink sound cut through the silence as the man placed the amulet into a deeper etched portion within the dragon’s mouth. His eyes pinged from side to side as a rumble followed and the chamber shook momentarily before the loud sound of gears cranking erupted. The old man quickly arose and staggered back with the stone floor cracking open and spiraling outward from the center of the dragon.

An intense and powerful heaviness consumed the chamber as the opening grew larger and larger until a boom erupted, and a gold sarcophagus started to rise. The old man cracked a large smile as he watched it come up into view; a dragon head, gold scales, and wings crossed over the chest. Slowly he approached the sarcophagus with a powerful pull directing everything to its center, and as he stood beside it, the old man drew a dagger from his belt that he used to carefully slice his palm. The man grimaced for a second before squeezing his fist closed tightly and holding it over the dragon's head’s mouth just as a single drop of blood fell free. Time appeared to slow for the old man as he watched the droplet fall through the air and splash upon the tongue, but that was when time returned to its normal perception as a deep guttural growl emanated from the sarcophagus.

Tsssssssssh erupted as pressurized air released from various parts of the sarcophagus. Then, the left wing slowly opened just a nanosecond before the right and the head of the dragon proceeded to lift and fold backward which revealed the silhouette of someone. The old man shakily took a step forward where he now saw the pale, gauntly man who laid arms crossed over his chest.

“<Muh-m-m-muh-my Lord?>” the old man stammered but gasped as the Dark Lord of the Hidden Dragon, Vlel’Debash slowly sat up while he growled.

“<Why… Why have you awoken me from my slumber?>”

“Al’taek Shihaev,” he answered barely louder than a whisper, “Al’taek Shihaev, <my Lord.>”

A sinister grin crawled free from the gaunt face of Vlel’Debash as his eyes were deeply sunken and a dim blood red. He proceeded to move toward his throne, leaving out a low chuckle with the old man begging of him as Vlel’Debash took his seat, “<I, I, I ask for your e-eternal fuh-forgiveness, my Lord! I would never have interrupted your slumber, but, but the River of Blood, it, it rushes to the Heartwood!>”

Vlel’Debash chuckled as he motioned his hand out before him. “<Forgiveness? You are aware, Kasyn, I do not grant forgiveness…”

“<Muh-my Lord—”

“… and I am quite famished, Kasyn!>”

Kasyn’s teeth nearly chattered as he could see Vlel’Debash’s eyes narrow upon him, but he quickly whipped his head back to his left as the sound of faint screaming echoed down the hall to the chamber. However, Kasyn’s attention quickly returned to Vlel’Debash who took in one of the deepest and longest breaths through his nose, only to bellow as the screaming grew louder and louder, “<Ahhhhhhhh!>”

“<Let me go! Let me gooooooo!>” a young girl screamed as she struggled to break free from the two pale men who dragged her into the chamber and up before Vlel’Debash.

The Dark Lord licked his fangs as his blood-red eyes slowly began to get brighter, and he asked, “<What spec do you come from, child?>”

“<Heeeh, heh, mon-monster!>” she breathily hissed and Vlel’Debash arose from his throne.

“<Bay’Etor,” Kasyn stepped forward and bowed his head as he explained, “The next phase in your prophecy, my Lord.>”

“Heh, ha, ha, ha, hah,” Vlel’Debash laughed before in an instant he had moved from standing in front of the throne to holding the young girl in the air by her jaw, saying, “<Heh, fresh blood!>”

Shaytur [town], Wylow [moon], Lytoris [planet], Savan-4 [star system], Sector-0107, Shaomhav Domain

28 Jan; 20:24:02 Hours

“Ughhhhh,” a young man, Faylor groaned as he and a group of friends were roaming down one of the abandoned streets of the town, “<Can you believe they’re actually enforcing this damn curfew?>”

Boom erupted down the empty street as another boy, Gabur kicked an old can and snapped, “<Yeah! Who does Shaomhav think they are? Aen’Goor? They don’t govern us!>”

“<That’s what I’m saying!>”

“<The Mane thinks he’s the King! Hah, ha, ha!>” a third young man, Teluht laughed but one of the two young women stopped as the others continued down the street and she shakily called to them.

“<Buh-but, um, but did you hear the rumors about what happened on Bay’Etor?>”

“<Huh, Meluh?> the other woman, Shyler turned to her with her head clocked back and she asked, “<What rumors? What happened on Bay’Etor?>”

“<There was a massacre, you guys!>”

“<Oh, come on! It’s just Shaomhav’s way of Exerting power on us all!>”

Meluh threw her arms out to her sides as she loudly said, “<No, Shy! I have a cousin on Bay’Etor! He, he told me that there was! It, it was horrifying! It, you, you don’t understand! It was so bloody!>”

“<There really was?>” Faylor asked as he took several steps toward Meluh.

“<Yes!>”

Shyler rolled her eyes at Meluh before she turned slightly away from the group who all started to move toward their friend. Still, from around the corner where they had come from, a group of Claws came walking and saw the five. The group of kids flinched as their eyes locked with the six Claws who now quickly marched up the street to them. The Captain of the group aggressively pointed his index finger at the kids, barking, “<Hey! What are you five doing out after curfew?>”

“<You don’t rule us!>” Gabur barked. “<Only the Wylom Congress can enact a legit curfew!>”

“<You all have a set of balls to be playing dictator after claiming you’re warriors of peace!>” Shyler growled as her brow furrowed and she stepped up to the Captain while the other Claws circled the group.

Meluh grabbed Shyler’s wrist as she aggressively whispered to her, “<What do you think you’re doing?>”

“<Standing up to these bastards, that’s wuh—”

However, the Captain snatched Shyler by the right bicep and pulled her close as he growled at her, “<We are the blade of the innocent! We have and will continue to protect you all…>”

“<HEY!>” Faylor yelled but the Claws began pushing the men back.

“<Let her go, now!>” Teluht snapped as he and Gabur pushed against the Claws.

“<Enough, all of you!>” the Captain yelled over everyone and the tussle instantly stopped with him pushing Shyler to the ground. “<The curfew is for your own good! You all will abide by it, understand?>”

Shyler pushed herself up with eyes wide as she looked at the Captain, shakily breathing. Meluh, though, quickly helped her friend up as the three boys hurried over to them and they then slowly began walking back down the street. The five looked back and forth between each other, not saying a word yet each look spoke loudly between one another. Yet they stopped ten feet from the corner as they heard the Claws now yelling, and they turned to see the six approaching a group of three not far from where they had been stopped moments prior.

“<HEY! We said all of you!>”

“<Get moving,>” another barked. “<Curfew is well into effect!>”

“<Your friends got the message,>” the Captain said as his unit stopped twenty feet from the two men and young woman. “<It’s time you three get it, too!>”

Meluh’s eyes narrowed as she uttered to her friends, “<Huh-who are they?>”

“<I have no idea,>” Teluht whispered as he started to back away.

One of the five other Claws took three steps toward the small group, sternly saying, “<Hey, are you three deaf?>”

The men still didn’t budge, but the young woman now turned around and looked at the unit. Her skin was pale and her hair was scraggly as it hung down in front of her face slightly. Her bright blue-eyes practically shined through her hair and the darkness of the night while she looked up to the Claw that again took three more steps toward them. Still, the two men didn’t budge and the young woman just stared.

“<What are you three waiting for?>” the Claw yelled, but the Captain’s eyes now narrowed as he watched his man take two more steps forward and it was at that moment something changed in the atmosphere of the street.

The young woman who appeared sympathetic at first, now a devious grin spawned free with the Claw taking a final step toward her as her two fangs brandished and those bright blue-eyes blinked blood-red.

Eduun Palace

Babuul’t [capital city], Lytoris [planet], Savan-4 [star system], Sector-0107, Shaomhav Domain

30 Jan; 07:41:35 Hours

“If this is all true…” Gabe breathily whispered as he looked upon hundreds of hologram dossiers and recreations, “… Vampires were never a myth—”

Errrrrrk ripped through the throne room as the left door opened. Sadria came walking in, looking up to her husband who was locked upon numerous massacre scenes and ancient depictions of Vampires. She shook her head while hurrying toward Gabe, calling to him, “My love, please! Please come to bed - You’ve been up for days, maybe a week!”

“I can’t!” Gabe barked with sunken and bloodshot eyes, as he moved holograms around.

“Pleeeease!”

“This… This, this plague that is spreading, it, it needs to be stopped!”

Sadria walked directly through the holograms which caused many to disperse before kneeling in front of her husband where she again pleaded with him, “I understand, my love, I do but you won’t think straight if you don’t get sleep!”

“SLEEP?” Gabe roared as he shot up from the throne. “Sleep, Sadria? Blood-suckers are massacring our people and you want me to sleep?”

Sadria bowed her head. “I’m worried for you…”

“You don’t understand,” Gabe tried to rationalize as he pulled and moved massacre recreations around, and tried to show his wife. “For millennia there’ve been reports and incidents scattered across the stars but over the last year, there’s been such an influx, Sadria! And more and more the Hidden Dragon has been whispered,” and he yanked forth the hologram of an ancient scroll that detailed the Dragon, but Sadria’s eyes grew large and she pointed out an emblem at its top.

“Is, is that, that the Eternal Tree?”

“The wuh-what?” Gabe stumbled and glanced at the scroll before denying his wife, “Nuh-no, no.”

“My love, that is it… It’s the Eternal Tree! The Heartwuh—”

However, the massive doors of the throne room roared as they were thrown open and twenty Claws and several Fangs came urgently into the chamber. Gabe waved his hand down to his right and all of the holograms instantly dissolved while he stepped forward to the edge of the platform with eyes narrowing. His nostrils flared repeatedly and his brow furrowed before he snapped, “What is the meaning of this?”

“Grand Mane…” Grador answered as he led the pack to Gabe and Sadria, “… There was another massacre, and far worse than the others!”

“Wuh-what?” Gabe gasped, though the sound of a young woman crying could be heard as the remainder of the pack ushered in.

“<Help me! Puh-please! Please, help me! They, they kidnapped me!>”

“A thousand dead,” Grador announced and Gabe’s eyes fluttered while Sadria stepped slightly behind him.

“<Some-someone! Please! Hel-help me!>”

“A thousand? Are, are you certain?” Gabe asked but his attention shifted from Grador to the young blue-eyed woman that the Claws dragged up before him in power-restraints.

Grador nodded. “Yes, Grand Mane.”

“Who is she?” Gabe pointed to the young woman with his left eye narrowed again, and he asked, “Why is she here? Why is she restrained?”

“<Your Majesty! Puh-please! Please help me! Pleeeease!>” she cried.

Sadria moved back further from the ongoings while Gabe instead took a step down the platform as he looked her in the blue-eyes. Grador, though, quickly stepped to him and placed his hand on Gabe’s chest thus stopping him. Grador urgently told him, “Her. She is responsible for the Wylom Massacre.”

Gabe tilted his head slightly to his left before looking her up and down. “You?”

“Heeeeeh, heh, hah, ha,” she bellowed with her blue-eyes blinking to blood-red and she cracked a large grin that showed her fangs, before hissing, “<Release me!>”

“We’re not the ones who’ve placed you in a prison,” Gabe said before wincing in a sign of compassion.

“<You think what I am now is a prison? No, no, my Lord has set me free!>”

“Your Lord?”

“<He will ensure we drink from the Tree!>” she gleamed before her tone grew dark and she said, “<And you will not be able to stop him!>”

“Is that true?” Gabe asked with the young woman eagerly nodding her head. “Then where is your Lord?”

“<The Head of the Dragon is where he needs to be,>” she laughed before taunting him, “<and I cannot wait to bathe in your blood!>”

Gabe’s eyes ignited emerald as he thrust his left hand up and clenched it into a fist before yanking it down, which caused a baseball-sized hole to rip open and a beam of sunlight to shoot down directly in front of the woman. Her eyes grew threefold and she leaned back while letting out a hiss. Now Gabe was the one to laugh, as he said, “Oh, now you’d like to get serious? Well then… Where is your Lord?”

“<You do not scare me!>” she yelled. “<Your blood! All of your blood! It will be ours! And we will drink from the Tree—”

“ENOOOOOUGH!” Gabe roared as he thrust his open hand palm up to the ceiling, which caused the small hole to rip open to a staggering thirty feet in diameter.

The glory that was the sun rained down into the chamber that was dark and gloom. The young woman immediately let out a bloodcurdling scream as the rays obliterated her into flames and ash before leaving her nothing but bones. However, what Gabe and Grador believed was the end in that singular moment twisted into a nightmare as other screams followed the woman’s. The two, along with half of the Claws, looked around to find Claws and three of the Fangs in flames as they flailed and thrashed around. There was a combined gasp among them as they watched their brethren rendered to bones and ash, and Gabe’s eyes dimmed back to brown as he uttered, “Nuh-nuh-no…”

Court of ‘Ever, Eduun Palace

Babuul’t [capital city], Lytoris [planet], Savan-4 [star system], Sector-0107, Shaomhav Domain

30 Jan; 19:13:27 Hours

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud echoed through the vast courtyard that sat within the center of the palace, with Gabe slowly walking through. The luminosity of the stars above lit up the vastness around the Grand Mane who gazed down to the stone walking path; as glorious marble statues that represented the free universe stood large, and stunning flowers from the Seven Spring Planets made up its beauty. It was quiet with the faint sound of water running in the massive fountain to Gabe’s right, where he stopped and looked at it but yet his mind wasn’t there.

“Wuh-what have I done?” he thought while the scene of his Claws and Fangs burning to ash before him replayed in his mind. “How could I have allowed this to hap—”

Gabe had frozen mid-thought, though. His eyes ignited bright emerald before spinning around as he expected to be face-to-face with the fangs of the Dragon, but instead, he found Sadria. His wife stood in front of him with large eyes and her bottom lip curled down. Gabe let out a sigh before he began chuckling, “Ohh! Heh, hah, ha! It’s, it’s just you!”

“I said to come to bed,” she almost scolded her husband, who now scoffed while subtly shaking his head at her.

“I can’t, Sadria! I can’t! Especially NOW - You saw what we’re up against… How, how I failed Shaomhav! ME!”

“How you failed Shaomhav? Wuh-what? What are you talking about?” Sadria struggled to get out as she couldn’t understand where his mind was, and out of desperation, she gently placed her hand on his face but he pulled away from her as he snapped.

“YES! Did you not see what I have allowed to fester in our ranks? These, these blood-suckers who have been within arm’s length of you! Of the innocent! And, and I’ve allowed that to flourish under MY nose!”

Sadria stood silent with Gabe slowly turning back to the fountain.

“I have failed.”

“Per-perhaps, perhaps it’s not all bad…”

“Not all bad?” he dramatically turned around with eyes narrowing, and he said, “Sadria, I’m in no mood to be playing games.”

His wife looked him deep in the eyes as they grew teary before she now turned from him. Sadria crossed her arms and bit down on her lip as she could hear Gabe let out a defeated sigh, but then she looked over her shoulder to him as she pondered, “Why?”

“Why? Why what?”

“Why, my love, why would some brood go through all of this for some, some mythical Tree of Life?”

Gabe didn’t answer her, however, he laughed which caused Sadria to turn to him before she playfully hit him on the shoulder as she said, “What’s so funny?”

“Ohhhhh, Sadria,” he smiled while turning so his back was to a small dying tree that sat between two marble statues, one that depicted a tortoise while the other a bear.

“Wuh-what?” she subtly scoffed.

“Myth?” Gabe slowly raised his arms to his sides with his eyes reigniting to an intense emerald, as his voice grew powerful and he emanated a tremendous pressure, “No, no, no, see, it was always right here!”

In a blink, a violent emerald aura erupted from Gabe with reality appearing to shimmer in and out of perception. Sadria stumbled slightly from side to side as she couldn’t believe her eyes; the small dying tree behind her husband flickered back and forth from that to that of a colossal, magnificent gold-leafed tree - the Heartwood.

Court of ‘Ever, Eduun Palace

Babuul’t [capital city], Lytoris [planet], Savan-4 [star system], Sector-0107, Shaomhav Domain

30 Jan; 20:36:40 Hours

“Heh, heh, heh, heh,” Sadria panted while her eyes were locked on the Heartwood and its radiating pressure as it came into focus.

Gabe slowly turned around to the glorious Tree of Life, looking at it with its shimmering gold leaves and colossal trunk that stretched up to the stars above. The Grand Mane slightly nodded once before he told his wife, “I was drawn here, to Lytoris because the Heartwood called to my Hae’Lektaes, Sadria…”

Sadria ceased panting. Slowly, she turned her attention to her husband with her eyes growing larger. Her mouth then subtly opened as if she was about to say something, though Gabe cut her off with the reality of where they stood and what the journey’s road that brought them there was paved with.

“Here. Everything, everything has led here; from the Prime Genesis to the Heartwood, every decision whether it was made by myself or everyone in the universe has caused this. Ohhh, my green days with KOG where we were just young guns with dangerous power going out into the universe and fighting for an idea we loved…” Sadria simply watched Gabe as she felt his pressure changing with his recalling of the events to her, “The early days after the tragedy of the Shaomhav Quart where Talius, Barret and I forged what would become this coalition. Brothers turned enemies, love lost, and the ever-raging war of good and evil is the blood that flows through the heart of the universe.”

However, Gabe’s eyes now subtly narrowed as he sensed something shift. The golden leaves upon the Heartwood raised slightly, indicating that what had been unfolding over the last few months was continuing to do so.

The Grand Mane turned to his Lioness who he took a step toward and let out a sigh. “Sadria… A Crown of Darkness, a Neutron Soul, and an Avatar of the Heartwood - We all began this journey from the same brick, but we are where we all are because of the decision made by ourselves and others.”

Sadria’s eyes deepened ever so slightly more, and a tear broke free as it rolled down her left cheek.

“Sadria?” Gabe gasped but she pulled away and turned her back to him. “Hey, hey, hey, what’s wrong?”

Still, she didn’t say a single word as she stood several feet from him with eyes closed tightly and biting on her bottom lip.

“Sadria? Come on, none of what’s happened is your fault. I promise you that. I should have seen what was lurking within the dark around us but after so long of not looking at everything as something evil… I was blinded to this dragon within our midst.”

Sadria whimpered, and Gabe walked directly up behind her where he gently turned her around to him. Her eyes remained closed yet tears now rolled down either cheek. Sadria tried to hold back her cries but she did so again and again, which caused Gabe’s face to wrinkle with confusion.

The Grand Mane softly pushed strands of her long silky black hair out of her face before he ever so slightly lifted her chin. “Sadria, it’s okay. I promise. Whatever you think is wrong, I promise it’s not. It truly isn’t.”

Sadria took in a deep breath through her nose and a pull of pressure came rushing toward her with Gabe’s eyes again narrowing, but now she opened hers as they glowed blood-red and she whispered, “I’m sorry, my love…”

Eduun Palace

Babuul’t [capital city], Lytoris [planet], Savan-4 [star system], Sector-0107, Shaomhav Domain

30 Jan; 20:50:16 Hours

Thud. Thud. Thud roared from just beyond the Mane’s chamber doors with it growing louder by the step as an ungodly presence neared. Thud, thud, thud until sound itself appeared to cease in a blink. An ominous pressure radiated through the double doors before a click now cut through the recently crowned silence, and the doors pushed forth. Ash wafted up into the air like snow before the steps again boomed through the emptiness, and a silhouetted man in the darkness slowly embarked up the chamber toward its core.

Thump. Thump. Thump reverberated with the man’s slow heel-to-toe steps kicking ash up into the air. The man passed the skeletons of the obliterated by without even a glance; their agape skulls like a haunting cry into his uncaring presence, and instead his attention remained posed upon what lay before him. Then, as he neared the heart of the chamber, the aura of moonlight shone down, giving sight to his blackened survival-mail and birth to the crimson of his robe. The man took a brief pause with his long, bony clawed fingers stretching forth before retracting back into tightly balled fists; he stepped forth and crushed the young girl’s skull under his heel - Crack.

The moonlight, bellowed a deep and reverberating hum like the haunting psalm of a coven’s choir while illuminating the Chancellor of the Hidden Dragon, Vlel’Debash.

Vlel’Debash stood at the core of the chamber where his attention slowly glided to the full blood moon above. His blood-red eyes ignited crimson in its light. Then a sparkle broke free as his cold and gruesome expression cracked a smirk that brandished his fangs to the fallen sovereign around him.

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Aboard Talon [Class V Light Cruiser], Orbiting Endul

Endul [planet], Dasihik Galaxy

12 June; 06:16:42 Hours

There was a heavy silence that consumed the dark and cold common room of Talon as the blue haziness of the side hatch forcefield barely illuminated four feet into the cruiser while a young teenage girl stood nearly face-to-face with the sight of the Crown Planet. The girl, Noeh clenched her fists tightly with her nostrils flaring over and over again while her short white dreads that had black tips shimmered as her head subtly shook. Noeh’s attention was honed on Endul and its glowing ring, however, her light blue eyes darted to her left as a voice called to her.

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Rulic [capital city], Titus [planet], Jeppa [star system]

14 January; 23:09:44 Hours - 14 years ago

There was an eerie and heavy silence that gripped the night sky over Rulic. The streets of the royal capital of the Iron Dictate of Blaque were distant with life; only the faint flames of torches that lined their cobblestones lit up the midnight darkness, barely a soul in sight except for the Iron Boots who patrolled the night, and the haunting caws of crows that perched on the peaks of homes. Normally, a night was deaf after curfew, but there was an unusual anxiousness that loomed like thick humid air, as if the Deep could sense an approaching grim change in the pressure.

Errrrr-ah. Errrrr-ah. Errrrr-ah. An alarm sounded while red flashing lights lit up the dark cargo bay of a B-24S stealth cruiser that flew undetected above the sovereign’s sky. A hulking silhouette stood center in front of the rear bay door, becoming visible only in the red glow of the blinking lights. This man, wearing dark gray mail and donning silver jagged armor from neck to toe, held a silver knight helmet in front of himself that he gazed into the eye holes of with an intensity before his attention shifted, but barely with only his eyes, to a woman who spoke his name.

“Theo?” Helena Madds, her hair tied back into a tight braided ponytail, marched down the bay to him where she said, “We’re two minutes from drop.”

Theo smirked. “Have I ever told you how much you sound like Com Sarg Wales?”

“Oh, shut up, Theo!”

“Seriously, he used to bark at us at academy just like that!”

Helena blushed slightly as she playfully rolled her eyes, though a moment later, her voice took on a more serious tone as she asked him, “Are you ready for this?”

However, Theo didn’t respond to her.

“Theo? Are you ready to do this?”

“Hel…”

“There’s still time,” she made a point as she looked him in his blue-green eyes while standing in front of him.

“Still time?” he said with his eyes narrowing.

“T-minus one minute…” called over the intercom, and Helena gently placed her right hand on Theo’s right cheek before answering.

“We don’t have to do this…”

His head shifted ever so slightly to his right as they held eye contact.

“… We can still back out of this…”

“Thirty seconds,” again called as a hiss ripped free, and the bay door began to lower with wind gushing in at them.

“Theo?” Helena whispered, but he raised his helm and lowered it atop his head.

A high-pitch suction hiss ripped free as the helmet connected to the spinal mech that lined down the back of Theo’s mail, its HUD flickered on, and he smirked at her. “I’m ready, Hel.”

“Fifteen seconds, fourteen seconds, thirteen seconds…”

Helena let out a brief sigh, closed her eyes tightly for a moment before returning her gaze to his, and then she turned to the open hatch. The two then looked out at the city below, they were no more than a thousand feet above it all, as the buildings appeared to be zipping by in blinks. Helena then gently grabbed Theo’s right gauntlet-donning hand in her left, and whispered, “I’ll always have your back.”

Again, Theo didn’t say anything back to her but instead he squeezed her hand.

“Ten seconds, nine, eight,” now counted down intensely with the two walking down the bay until they stopped on the edge of the ramp, where Theo’s tattered crimson cowl violently flapped back in the gusting wind, “five seconds, four, three seconds, two,” and just as the countdown finished, Theo let go of her hand and leapt forward where he shot down through the night sky at the gothic, contorted stone castle - Valkore.

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***

Moments later…

“Master Theo,” a voice with a thick British accent called over Theo’s secure commline as Theo slowly arose from his left knee, looking up to the gigantic entrance double doors of the castle.

“Edmund…” he whispered while pulling his curve saber, Gaerlus, free from one of the several elite guards’ chests whom he carefully neutralized.

“Sir, what exactly is the bloody plan here?”

“Execute the mission, Edmund - Take out any obstacles, eliminate the target, and retrieve the asset.”

“Of course, sir. Of course… but, you do realize that you’re going to encounter more Titans as you proceed, which will result in your stealth evaporating, correct?”

Theo let out a subtle growl before saying, “Tell me why I haven’t recalibrated you yet.”

“Master Theo,” Edmund quipped, “your threat is not as threatening as it once was.”

“Just, just upload the target’s location and overlay it with the GPS of my HUD, Edmund.”

“Very well, suh—” Edmund agreed, but cut off as Theo tapped the side of his helm and ended the transmission.

A high-pitch chirp upticked over Theo’s helm intercom as the data he requested uploaded to his HUD. He then tapped its side again with his vision shifting from a low-level incorporated night-vision to a multi-varied overlay of ultraviolet-vision, three-dimensional GPS, and an adaptive heart rate sonar. Theo could then see, with his new vision, the near dozen Iron Boots that lined the entrance corridor just before him and beyond the giant double doors. The gothic Goliath that once concealed his target’s whereabouts behind its twisted stone was now dissected as the GPS displayed the castle’s layout in real-time, with the target’s specific heart rate signature immediately located and highlighted.

Theo’s pupils shrank as his eyes now locked onto the highlighted and displayed location of the throne chambers of Valkore, only for the Kalber Knight to begin his siege forth.

***

Ten minutes later…

Boom. Boom. Boom, boom, boom. Boom. Boom erupted and echoed throughout the long halls of the castle. Columns of marble lined every hall, though now a thick fog of smoke filled them too, with the bright purple charges zipping in either direction. Their deep glow lit up the whiteout with flashes of horror as pools of blood accumulated upon the marble, columns were cracked and even some crumbled, while the silhouettes of bodies that were sliced down left in the wake of merciless Kalber approach.

Shrieks ripped free from just beyond the throne chamber doors, and a young raven-haired woman turned to her husband, who sat dominion upon the Blaque throne. “<Kai’Fes! My love! What is going on? What is coming for us?>”

The King didn’t respond to his queen. His pitch-black eyes remained locked upon the doors where six Iron Boots stood at the ready to take out whatever was approaching. His long hair hung partially in his face while the crown rested upon his head. Kai’Fes’ nostrils flared every few seconds, taking deep breaths that he immediately let out in his growing frustration, but then the true horror arrived.

The screams and blaster fire all ceased, and the hall went deaf.

The Iron Boot Titans slowly glanced back and forth at one another, their eyes all squinted, and a couple gulped as a thick aura of staticky uncertainty rose from the ground and wrapped around them.

“<Kai’Fes?>” his beautiful wife called, her eyes sunken deep as black tears began to glide down her pale cheeks. “<I, um, I, I’m scare—”

However, before she could finish her admission, the torches within the throne chamber extinguished one by one. The Iron Boots began turning from one direction to the other, the light ripped from its domain as they searched for its executioner, but they found nothing other than the expanding darkness, which was encircling them relentlessly.

Click, clunk, errrrrrrrrr-eh ripped through the throne chamber as it sat in darkness, and the double doors opened inward. The Iron Boots quickly raised their RAK3 energy rifles to the opening doors, with a deep hum roaring from the six as an even deeper purple nail charged up. Then, like the torches, one by one the Titan guards disappeared in high-pitched whistles.

“<Kai’Fes! Kai’Fes!>” his wife pleaded as tears rolled down her cheeks and she pulled upon his right forearm. “<We must run! We must leave, now! Please, my love! Please!>”

Still, he spoke not a word but instead raised his left hand as if to tell his queen to silence and halt as his pitch-black eyes took careful sight of his throne chamber. He watched the remaining three Titans each fall; first, the forefront center, who disappeared within the dark like a small child snatched by a ruthless beast. Then, as his attention shifted to the second, he witnessed him split in two before vanishing as if he never was there, and finally, he gazed upon the sole remaining. This final guard of the crown fired aimlessly in almost every direction while he took slow step after step back, and then as his right heel stopped firm, his RAK3 ground to dust from the tip of the barrel up to his hands.

My’Esha, Kai’Fes’ wife, let out a shriek as a death rattling gasp ripped from the Iron Boot and a jagged blade pierced free from his back. Then, in one quick sequence, the blade retracted and the Titan flew back thirty feet, where his lifeless body slammed against the steps of the throne platform. Clump, clump, clump sounded as the corpse slowly slid back to the floor.

There, before the King and Queen of the Iron Dictate of Blaque, they bore witness to Theo as he stood tall. His jagged silver armor was scorched from blaster fire and blotched by the royal purple blood of the Iron Boots he laid waste to upon his siege. Theo’s pressure could not be denied as he looked upon the two, with My’Esha cowering behind her husband, who finally arose from his throne.

“<Impressive…” Kai’Fes broke his silence, saying, “… a Stark Knight - What an unexpected lamb they have sent to slaughter!>”

The chamber grew deeply dark as Theo took a step forward with an eerie clank reverberating within as his boot moved upon the marble floor. Theo’s head then tilted slightly to his right, his crimson tattered cowl swayed as he stopped, and a smirk broke free of his intensity. He then bellowed with his voice deep and darkly augmented by his knight helm, “It’s always those who die so quickly who speak of certain demise for their slayer!”

“<Slayer?>” Kai’Fes barked with his eyes growing large and nostrils flaring. “<Every might in the Universe has sent some inept knight to die and be snuffed out by the Deep! And you will be no different!>”

He then thrust his hands toward Theo with black tentacles of Shade ripping free from the platform around him, shooting straight at Theo, who still just smirked. One by one, the tentacles shot through his silver Kalber chestplate with Kai’Fes grinning ear to ear. However, My’Esha watched with clear eyes not fogged by the rage her husband’s were fueled by, and her bottom lip quivered as she softly uttered, “<It’s a trap…”

Kai’Fes laughed while he raised his arms out to his sides with the tentacles now wrapping around Theo’s slumping forward body. “<Pathetic! A Stark Knight fallen - No fight; no will to reignite the honor of your ancestors; no reason for songs to be written of your name… Oooooh, your blood, pathetic mortal, it deserves the ruin it meh—”

“Mmmm,” Theo appeared to groan as he slowly looked up to Kai’Fes, and smiled, “I thought this would be extremely harder…” then, before Kai’Fes and My’Esha’s eyes, Theo dispersed in glistening particles of Straedum with Theo’s voice now calling from behind the King where he sat upon the throne, “… but clearly not!”

“<Wuh-wuh-what?>” Kai’Fes exclaimed in horror as Theo arose from the throne and raised Gaerlus with its tip placed firmly against Kai’Fes’ chest.

“Understand… there will be no songs written of you or your fallen empire, the Uni will fear to even whisper of its time…”

“<This, it, no, it, it isn’t possible!>”

My’Esha was frozen in disbelief as she could see Gaerlus piercing through her husband’s chest, but the Shade refused to save Kai’Fes and instead pulled and pooled around the two. Tentacles breaching the sludgy darkness around them, slithering up and standing at attention while black tears rolled down Kai’Fes’ cheeks and he steadily gasped in a choppy manner.

“Heh, ha, hah,” Theo chuckled and just before thrusting his curve saber completely into the falling King’s chest, he whispered, “Pathetic…”

***

Ten hours later…

A Washington SD-76 Destroyer orbited just outside Genu, where on the command bridge stood General Travis Willick, watching out the gigantic observation shield. He stood with arms folded, hearing numerous beeps and augmented noises as the command crew went about their duties. Then, before General Willick constructed the three-dimensional, realistic holograms of the Seven Presidents of the Union, he immediately stood at attention to.

“Misters and Madam Presidents,” the General saluted them before they all nodded.

“At ease, General,” Chief President Bruce Starus relieved him.

“What is the update, General?” Fourth Associate President, Gerald West, inquired before others chimed in.

“Yes, what is the status?” Third Associate President, Jericho Draax, said, and then the Sixth and Second Associate Presidents demanded.

“Was it a success?”

“Tell us what retaliation we will need to be aware of is coming!”

“Enough,” Bruce snapped at them all.

“Yes, enough,” First Associate President, Cullen Powers, chuckled, “Allow the General to speak - Go on, General.”

“Thank you, Presidents…” he nodded before explaining to them as they watched him intently, “Operation Knightfall was a colossal success. The target was eliminated, and the asset appears to have been retrieved.”

“That is music to our ears, General,” Bruce said with a smile, but Jericho raised his right index finger as he leaned toward the General.

“Wait… What do you mean that the asset appears to have been retrieved?”

“Yes, and a colossal success?” Sixth Associate President, Jennifer Gage, added.

The General sighed. “Well, Presidents, our Knight has been unresponsive since completing his operation and hasn’t been debriefed yet…”

“Then how can we know that the asset has been retrieved, let alone that the operation was a colossal success?” Second Associate President, Simon Fyre snapped.

There came a brief silence as General Willick looked to the seven, then he answered with a deep tone, “Genu’s population has completely flatlined.”

Jennifer and two of the other Presidents gasped before Bruce stepped forward, asking, “Flatlined? The entire population? Wuh-what?”

“Yes,” the General’s voice echoed as the B-24S stealth cruiser exited Genu, where in the bay sat Theo with his armor caked in royal purple blood as he held his knight helm in his hands and looked deep into its eye holes.

Helena was kneeling beside him with her hands upon his left forearm while standing to Theo’s right with arms folded was Klaus Walker, his brother, who looked upon him with sunken eyes. Standing silent before Theo were the remaining knights of his Title: Drake Cage at center, Gabe Hightower to the left, and Amelia Donté to the right. There was an unbearable pressure that consumed the bay as the stealth cruiser returned to the destroyer, everyone waiting for Theo to finally speak since they retrieved him, but he wouldn’t break.

“The-Theo?” Helena whispered with teary eyes. “Theo? Wuh-what happened? Theo?”

Then, he slowly looked up from his helm with Amelia and Helena gasping as everyone saw the inky blackness that now claimed dominion over the whites of Theo’s eyes, and General Willick’s voice finished unbeknownst to them all in a twisted symphony of bloodcurdling screams, “… Operation Knightfall was a complete success.”

Siihd [dwarf planet], Muhnt [star system]

3 August; 09:31:44 Hours

A gentle breeze blew through the surrounding trees of the open stone field where Crystal stood with her eyes closed tightly. Her white cowl shimmered off to her right as did her long brown hair. Still, her facial expression did not change as the vision she had on Lynden replayed in her head over and over again. The heavy reverberating breathing that called her to the throne chamber, and then the large and impending silhouette of flickering Shade that loomed supreme in the presence of a fallen crown. The pressure emanating the being was unmistakable to her, even as she recalled the vision, and again a tear broke free from her now-closed eyes and rolled down her cheek but before falling to the stones beneath her feet, Alastair called to her.

“Crystal - We have to decide, and we have to do that soon!”

Read more

L’ynden [ruin city], Genu [planet], Saber [star system]

30 July; 23:00:27 Hours

A high-pitched ringing consumed Crystal’s ears as her eyes narrowed tighter and tighter the louder it grew, her knees rocked slightly, she grabbed the sides of her head and before she knew it, Crystal found herself in an unknown place. The glossy white marble floor beneath her feet was soaked in royal purple blood while several columns were cracked. Even a couple were spilled across the ground, as they dripped with the remnants of what she knew only to be a massacre. Terror reverberated through the hall around Crystal like the internal head sound of a beating heart; shrieking screams briefly ripped out from the end of the hall in front of her, booming echoes of rifle fire echoed opposite, and then it all went deafeningly silent.

“Oh-oh-o-hola?” Crystal’s shaky voice finally broke free as it faded into the unknown ahead. “Alastair? Wuh-where are you? Alastair? Al-Alastair?”

Read more

L’ynden [ruin city], Genu [planet], Saber [star system]

30 July; 22:28:49 Hours

“The image of what?” Alastair snapped, his tone ticking up, before he glanced at Crystal, who hadn’t broken eye contact with the four.

The four appeared to be radiating a powerful aura as if the sun was held within their presence, creating a pocket of day within the deep and suffocating night around them. The man who adorned the white cloak then slowly lowered his pressed palms before extending his arms to his sides as he spoke directly to Crystal, “We have been waiting for you, Sister…”

“Sis-sister?” her eyes fluttered, her head clocked back slightly, and her feet pivoted in a sense of no longer holding her place firm. “I, I, I’m not your sister.”

“Of course you are - The Lord has prepared us for this day.”

Read more

Bleq’Puhl [town], Genu [planet], Saber [star system]

30 July; 11:45:30 Hours

Creeeeeeeak echoed through the small apartment that overlooked the large center courtyard of the small town, Crystal quickly spun around from the window to the opening door with her hand reaching to the hilt of her saber. Her eyes narrowed and flickered with uncertainty until she caught sight of Alastair who shuffled in and closed the door behind himself. Crystal let out a sigh and let go of the hilt of her blade, “Ay Dios! You didn’t knock like we said!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry about that but,” Alastair chuckled as he lowered the dark blue hood of his cloak, and his tone grew serious, “you were definitely right that he was here… Well, not this town but the city that used to exist a couple of miles to the west.”

“Yuh-used to?”

“Yup.”

“Wuh-what do you mean?” Crystal stammered as she took a few steps toward Alastair who reached to a pouch on his belt.

“Well, from what I could find out from some locals,” he explained while pulling a holo-disc from the pouch and holding it out in front of himself, “The Light… and the Dark… became one…”

He squeezed the disc with it leaving out a chirp before projecting a three-dimensional hologram of what ruin remained of L’ynden. Crystal quickly covered her mouth with her right hand and nearly stumbled back a step as her eyes sunk. She then subtly began to shake her head at the destruction she saw before she muttered, “Nah-nuh-no, what, light? Dark? What are you saying, Alastair?”

Alastair’s left eye now narrowed slightly before he said, “Crystal… They don’t want to say anything about this, this, this Event Horizon, but the one word I did get out of them - and more so a whisper… Beelezika.”

“We, we have to get there!” Crystal frantically told him before she spun around and ran to her white cloak that hung over a chair. “I, I have to see, um, see this for myself!”

“To L’ynden?”

“I need to see…”

“Crystal?”

“This, it, it couldn’t have been him…”

“Wait…”

Crystal finished latching her cloak’s clasp before she turned back to Alastair. “It couldn’t, um, Theo wouldn’t do that! He wouldn’t! He, uh, he, he would neh-never - I have to suh—”

“Crystal,” he cut her off as he gently grabbed her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes, “Slow down. Please. I get that you don’t believe your friend would do that, I do, I get it but we can’t just stroll right on into L’ynden. The locals here are already skeptical of us, and well, if we try to get there, I have a bad feeling.”

“A bad feeling?” she softly asked with her head tilting subtly to the right.

“Yeah… I got a bad feeling they’re not so innocent, Crystal, and they’ll put us in the same position as your friend.”

“Let them.”

Alastair’s eyes fluttered. “Let them?”

“Sí, nuestro Padre nos protegerá,” she said before clarifying for Alastair, “Our Father will protect us.”

“Alright,” he nodded before advising, “but let’s make our move at dark.”

Crystal nodded in return before Alastair turned and he slowly headed toward his bedroom of the small apartment, but he stopped as he heard her softly call to him, “I’m sorry.”

Alastair looked back over his left shoulder to her and let a grunt. “Hm?”

“She was kind and she didn’t—”

“We’ll leave at dusk, so we better get some sleep,” he sternly cut her off before quickly heading off, leaving Crystal alone in the room where she gently wiped away a tear, bowed her head, and folded her hands together in prayer.

***

Later that night…

Zuuu-oooooooom! Zuuu-ooooooooom, hummed through the deep of night as Crystal and Alastair zipped down the empty old, and worn street on their hover speeder-bikes headed toward L’ynden. A blur of resolve and the other honor as they shifted from one side of the road to the other in a blink to avoid barricades and fallen trees. The two were wearing HUD goggles that allowed them to see in a mix of night-vision and advanced-predictive sonar as the road before them was pitch black.

Alastair turned the throttle forward with his speeder-bike kicking a gear higher as he came side-by-side to Crystal, he glanced at her only to find she was locked in on the journey before them, and Alastair’s eye narrowed in a sense of uncertainty. “Hmmm, what aren’t you telling me?”

However, the resolve that pulsated from Crystal began to shift with a spark of uncertainty. She eased up on the throttle of her speeder-bike that then began to fall behind Alastair as she felt a growing change in the aura of the city as they continued their approach. The darkness that consumed the road and the foresight of the HUD goggles blurred with a flicker of powerful luminosity. Voices soon began to whisper past her ears in the blitzing of wind from the speed she was traveling.

“She is chosen,” one voice whispered before a soft woman’s followed.

“The Word guides her…”

“But she is clouded,” a deeper firm voice rebutted the others, “She is connected to it…”

“We must trust completely in what He has planned,” a final voice noted just before Alastair pulled directly beside Crystal and stopped her with the two drifting to a stop alongside the road.

“What the hell were you doing?” he barked at Crystal as she shook her head as if snapping out of a trance, then stammering to speak to him.

“Wuh-what, what, wuh-what are, are you talking about?”

“Crystal! You were flying! You slammed down the throttle and were practically on a death mission!”

“What?” she gasped.

“I almost couldn’t catch you,” he bellowed as they idled on the side of the road with Crystal’s eyes pinging around in confusion.

“The Word will guide her,” again whispered past Crystal’s ear, this time causing her to quickly look in the direction of L’ynden with eyes now large and sweat beading up on her forehead.

Alastair’s eye narrowed as he saw the concern wash over Crystal as she glanced to her right, and he quickly reached out grabbing her shoulder. “Hey! What is going on?”

“Maybe,” she breathily said as she still looked out into the distance, “this, heeeh, this was a bah-bad idea.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Crystal?”

“Nuh-nothing,” she quickly answered while turning her attention back to him.

“Don’t you lie.”

Crystal didn’t say anything as she looked him in the eye.

“What is going on?”

“Something is out there, Alastair.”

“Your friend?”

“Nuh-no,” Crystal shook her head and said, “Their pressure is nothing of the sort similar to Theo’s.”

“Their?” Alastair’s voice grew deep and low.

“Yes, I don’t know what they want but—” she explained only for him to cut her off.

“Well, let’s go find out!”

Alastair didn’t give Crystal any time to stop him as he turned, threw the throttle forward, and zipped off down the road in a blink. She gasped in disbelief while watching him speed off, only to hear one of the voices again as it emanated all around her, “Do not be afraid…”

***

Moments later…

The soft hum of Crystal and Alastair’s speeder-bikes bellowed through the silence to what remained of L’ynden. The two looked around at the darkened silhouettes of crumbled buildings like haunting shells of the life that was. Crystal’s heart rate was ticking up as there was a growing realization with her coming to a stop twelve feet from the very spot Theo stood during the Event Horizon.

Shakily, Crystal dismounted her bike and slowly she took step by step closer to the spot. Eight feet from it, she heard an unfamiliar woman’s voice, “Why do I feel like I know her, yai Emoor?” and Crystal stopped with her eyes narrowing.

“Hey?” Alastair called as he looked over to Crystal from his bike. “You okay?”

“Yuh-yeah,” she said, only for her to close her eyes while placing her index and middle fingers on her right temple with more voices, but familiar ones, coming to her.

“SARA! We have to get out of here now!”

“They took her from us!”

“Sara…”

Crystal’s eyes shot open wide as she witnessed a massive blackened void before her with a shimmering blaze of light orbiting it. Bloodcurdling screams filled the growing silence that grabbed ahold of the once lively city around her. Within the darkness were two, one blackened silhouette that she knew the pressure of all too well while the other burned bright, and her gut turned.

“Crystal…” she faintly heard at first while the unholy images of destruction and massacre continued before her, only to feel Alastair yank her from the vision as he yelled, “CRYSTAL!”

Like the air being sucked out of a sealed room, what Crystal bore witness to pulled away from her eyes as she now set them on four before her and Alastair. Her eyes pinged from left to right at them while her hand moved toward the hilt of her blade, with Alastair already holding his snub claymore, Ramghrut out in front of him. He softly asked her while refusing to take his eyes off those who stood before them, “Are these the ones you sensed?”

Subtly, Crystal nodded her head as she continued to eye them up and down; each adorning white survival-chainmail suits with gold armor-bands, and they stood as if the threat posed to them were of no concern. “Yuh-yeah.”

“Do not be afraid,” the voice Crystal heard earlier reiterated, as now the man adorning a white cloak of the four spoke and stepped forward as he pressed his palms together and looked up to the above. “For we are Imago dei Latores.”

“Imago— What?” Alastair hissed, though Crystal clarified in a calm tone as she placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Bearers of the Image of God.”

Battle Dome [megastructure]

The Mattis Academy

New York, Earth [planet], Sol [star system]

07 Sep; 05:28:37 Hours - 15 Year Ago

“Listen carefully - This will only be said once,” a voice called from the front of the two hundred Squires who all stood at attention, “You all have been paired with another! Your partner will be your key to passing the entrance exam! You two must survive three rounds within the Battle Dome where the lot of you will be reduced by half! Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” the Squires answered in thunderous unison.

“An identification tag was issued to you upon enrollment, and that tag will be assigned to your partner!” the Command Sergeant explained as a three-dimensional display constructed behind him where a recreation of the Squires’ Tethers was shown with an example partner dossier. “You will have less than a half hour to find your partner, report to your injection point of the Battle Dome, and get on the same page before zero-six-hundred! Understood?”

Sweat beaded up on the brows of the Squires as realization sunk in on them all, but yet without missing a beat, they again all answered in unison, “Sir, yes, sir!”

There came a pause as the Command Sergeant simply looked out at the two hundred thirteen-to-sixteen-year-olds who all donned survival-mail and sidearms. He could see the concern in many of their expressions, but a smirk soon curled out of the right side of his mouth as he caught determination within quite a few’s eyes. The Command Sergeant then took a single step forward, where he nodded to the Squires before raising his arms to his sides and said, “Time starts now…”

In a blink, all two hundred Squires frantically pulled out their Tethers where they looked to find who their partner was. Thunderous talking over one another consumed the massive chamber with them beginning to run and try to locate their other half, many yelling out the name of their partner while others panicked.

“James?”

“Lily!”

“Darnell!” sounded out with more screaming.

“This, this isn’t what I thought we were going to be doing!”

“Did he say survive?”

“I think we could die!”

“Ohhhhh, no,” a sixteen-year-old, black young man sighed as he looked to his Tether while others ran past him from all directions, and he finished with his bottom lip curled down and brow furrowed, “Why? Why? Why him—”

“GABE!” another young man’s voice called to him, and he slowly closed his eyes tightly while biting his lip. “Gabe, we’re partners, bay-beeeeee!”

Gabe Hightower slowly turned around to see the massive six-foot-tall thirteen-year-old, Klaus Walker hurrying up to him. Gabe shook his head, chuckling in disbelief. “No, no, this isn’t right. Nah, it’s, it’s got to be broken!”

“Nah, it ain’t broken! We’re partners!”

“Klaus, listen to me…” Gabe raised his hand out at Klaus to keep him back, saying, “Just because your brother and I are best friends doesn’t mean that we’re best friends, you get that, right?”

“I don’t care about that,” Klaus chuckled briefly, grabbed Gabe by the shoulder, and grinned nearly ear to ear, “but you and I are partners now! And that means the fun is just beginning, bay-beeeeee!”

“Oh God…”

A young sixteen-year-old woman looked to her Tether at her partner’s dossier, she let out a sigh before uttering his name, “Theo Walker,” and then pushed several strands of her long black hair out of her face before she looked up and glanced around.

Most of the other Squires were now gone, as they had found their partners and headed to their injection point. However, the young woman simply turned from her left to her right and then one hundred and eighty degrees as she still looked around for Theo. She saw roughly three dozen others still shuffling around, watching as they partnered up one after the other, and she sighed again with her eyes sinking. After several moments, she then looked back to the dossier where she saw Theo’s test scores and battle stats which now caused her eyes to open large and her eyebrows to perk.

She gasped slightly louder than a whisper. “Oh my…”

“Hel?” a deeper voice called and she, Helena Madds quickly looked up from her Tether before she glanced back over her shoulder to a blurry silhouette.

“Theo?” she asked while turning around and finding the young man donning dark gray survival-mail while shrouded in a crimson cloak with his hood up.

“We’re gonna be late.”

“La-late?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled and took a few steps toward Helena, “We only have a half hour and that was about… fifteen minutes ago.”

“Oh my God!” Helena shrieked and frantically looked to her Tether for where they were to go. “We only have fifteen minutes left! What injection point? Which one? Where, um, where do we go? Wuh—”

“Injection point two,” he calmly told his partner and lowered his hood from atop his head, cracking a smile at Helena who looked him in his blue-green eyes before she sighed.

“Two? How far, how, how far is that?”

“Like five minutes to our east.”

Helena covered her mouth with her left palm and blushed. “Oh.”

“It’s okay, Hel - You and I are gonna be fine.”

“I, I could see,” she smiled and raised her Tether showing Theo his partner dossier.

“You’re pretty good yourself,” he smiled back at her.

“Oh? Am I?”

Theo was just about to answer her when a voice called over the intercoms, alerting the Squires, “T-minus eight minutes! I repeat - T-minus eight minutes!”

The two looked at one another with their eyes growing large, and Theo smirked as he held his hand out in the direction of their injection point, “You ready, Hel?”

“I’m ready,” she said and nodded before they took off running.

***

Seven minutes later…

Helena and Theo stood in front of a gigantic metal door with numerous holographic displays in front of either, each display possessed vitals for them as well as various maps and schematics for the Battle Dome. They were going over and taking in as much as they could before a voice again came over the intercoms, counting down, “Twenty seconds… eighteen, seventeen, sixteen…”

“Are you really ready?” Helena softly asked as she glanced over to Theo who looked to her solely out of the corner of his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“No, I, I mean are you actually ready to kill other teams?”

“Yes.”

Helena gulped before she looked away from him and to the door in front of them as the holographic displays dissolved, and the lights dimmed until they were nearly off.

“I don’t mean to scare you, Hel.”

“You, you didn’t.”

“… eleven, ten seconds, nine, eight…”

“You sure?” Theo asked as he finally turned his head and looked at his partner.

“I mean, I knew this was something we might have to do at some point,” she admitted, “I just didn’t, well, I didn’t think it’d be this soon.”

“Hey,” Theo called to Helena and she quickly looked over at him, “I got your back.”

A smile slowly broke free of Helena’s concern and she reached her right hand out to Theo who in return reached his left out to her, with their fingertips grazing. Crack, boom, boom, boom erupted as the thunderous cranking rumbled around them and the steel door slowly separated from its middle. Their attention quickly shifted to the door with bright lights flaring through the small and growing opening as the voice finished counting down, “… four… three… two… one - DEPLOY!”