"Why build a robot capable of copying the martial skills of a Moonbreaker like you," Cythera said, brushing dust off her hands, "but not give it the physical stats to actually beat you?" She tossed a shattered robot chassis aside like a true piece of trash.
The clearing around them was a scarred mess—cratered earth, scorched grass, smoking metal limbs, and jagged ice littered the wet dirt. She and Nyra began walking toward the center, where Damon stood, and Klaven sat.
Nyra glanced around the ruined battlefield, her brow furrowing. "Well, it seemed to beat Klaven perfectly fine. Maybe Klaven was working with them from the start, and they hoped to scam him by killing him? You know, so they leave no tracks at all since we can't question a dead body," she said half‑joking, half‑serious.
"That's possible," Damon said, weighing the thought. "It's quite creative, actually. But I don't think so. The machine explicitly called me its target."
Klaven didn't say a word. He just sat frozen on the dirt, watching the three of them.
"For it to be able to beat you," Cythera continued, her sharp eyes dropping down to her cousin, "it should have been built to operate on your physical level."
Klaven remained on the floor, his knuckles white as he clutched Alya's pulsing core against his chest like it was a lifeline—the only single thing keeping his entire broken psyche intact.
A heavy, stretching silence fell over the clearing. All eyes landed squarely on Klaven. Damon, Cythera, and Nyra just stared down at him, the weight of their combined gazes pressing into the dirt. The stillness in the air grew thick, suffocatingly quiet except for the low, rhythmic hum of the golden sphere in his hands.
Damon finally exhaled a sharp breath, "Dude, you really need to snap out of it. I dunno what's up with you, but you're making me consider the possibility that you're just a clone of the real Klaven from the Trineum festival."
"He's not a clone," Cythera said coldly. "He's just the version of himself that's finally realized his actions at the festival were incredibly stupid. His attempts to make us listen to him were also stupid, so right now, he's mentally scanning every single word about to come out of his mouth."
"So he doesn't say or do something stupid again," Nyra added bluntly.
Klaven's shoulders flinched, his jaw tightening as the words cut through his panic. He swallowed hard, his chest heaving as he forced his eyes up to meet theirs.
"I'm sorry... for what I did," Klaven said, his cracked voice barely carrying over the wind. "I already told you before, but... I have a feeling you weren't truly listening to my words then. I am genuinely sorry, Prince Damon."
Damon looked down at him. Slowly, the harsh, analytical edge on his face softened. He dropped into a low squat, bringing himself down to eye level with the boy's face slightly covered in filth.
"If it's my forgiveness you want, let's just get it out of the way," Damon said, his tone easing.
"I'm not holding any grudges against you, Klaven. Look, when I get mad at someone, I usually get a violent urge to just beat them until I'm satisfied. It's honestly funny to think I'd risk my life to save a rabbit knowing that about myself. But the truth is, if I weren't satisfied, I wouldn't have stopped beating you at the festival. But yeah, I did. Time's passed, and I've forgiven you since then."
Klaven's breath hitched in his throat.
'This person… I don't even know if I understand him,' Klaven thought, terror and awe warring in his chest. 'Most people I know are wolves in sheep's clothing, or vice versa. He's… both, simultaneously. Depending entirely on who he faces.'
Damon's calm voice snapped him out of his head. Tilting his head slightly to get a better look at Klaven's conflicted face, Damon reached out and placed a firm, steady hand on the young man's shoulder.
"So, we can talk about the past later. But right now, we need answers about the thing we just fought," Damon said, pointing a thumb to the scattered body of the four-armed mechanism. "Why exactly did you get hurt so badly?"
Klaven wiped a smear of soot and dirt from his forehead and unsteadily forced himself to his feet. Standing before the Prince, he extended his hands, gently passing the glowing, majestic core of Princess Alya back over to Damon.
"The main reason I lost was the acoustic blasts," Klaven explained, his chest still tight. "I'm sure you've noticed by now... I have an incredibly low resistance to pain, despite my current stage."
Nyra crossed her arms, rolling her eyes. "If you already know you can't handle pain, why do you involve yourself and cause massive problems in the first place?"
Damon pointed at his sister, whispering, "She's kinda right."
"I've been wondering that same thing ever since we were children," Cythera murmured. She turned her gaze to her cousin, the cold mask slowly sliding off her features. "But… that's going to change now. Right, cousin?"
Her expression was softer than Klaven had ever seen it. Watching the sudden, gentle warmth grow in Cythera's eyes, the crushing weight of isolation vanished from Klaven's chest.
The change in Klaven's was comparable to watching a dull sun rise in fast motion over a dark horizon. The tight, defensive lines of his mouth eased, his expression settling into a quiet, unpolished look of profound relief.
"Yeah," Klaven murmured, his voice finally steady. "It will."
He turned back to Damon, focusing entirely on the logistics of the battle. "When I fought it initially, the machine matched me perfectly in all physical areas. Majorly, I lost the exchange to its after-effects and the sound of the blasts. I was lucky none hit me. I think each blast forces wounds to expand. Based on what I saw, I chose to remain careful."
Damon's mind raced as he held the pulsing core.
'It matched him perfectly in physicals. But it wasn't able to match me. Klaven is at the Aegis stage, meaning that a specific prototype was designed to be exactly a stage lower than me... physically. It was never meant to win against me—it was meant to observe. But why not just build a machine on my level from the start? Is it because they knew I'd beat it anyway, since emotions power Eterna, and my sheer urge to win would surpass any software program? No… to assume they could just manufacture a machine at my stage would be to assume Kagarth can mass-produce bots at any stage they please.'
He looked up at Cythera. She turned her head toward him, her analytical gaze locking onto his as if sharing the same silent realization.
'Power gaps in the stages between Aegis and Sovereign are drastically large,' Damon reasoned internally.
'And those gaps increase exponentially as you go up the stages. The Kagarthians simply can't manage the resources to create a machine on the physical human level of the Crest stage, especially not with the doughnut King they've got. It makes sense that even if they somehow did, they wouldn't just deploy a weapon of that magnitude to a school. It would be reserved as one of their kingdom's major military defenses. So, I am right, I was being watched. But by Doran, or someone else?'
He stood up and paused, letting an exhale from his nostrils. 'Anyway, we should fix Alya first. We'll check on those boys after, I don't think it's Doran though. I think those… shardlings might've actually beat him.'
As Damon and Cythera stood there, locked in a silent, intense exchange of thoughts, Nyra spoke up to break the tension.
"Err… what are you guys thinking about right now? We should give Alya her core back, right? What I'm thinking is, what if the seal completely breaks the second she wakes up?"
Cythera broke eye contact with Damon and looked down at the greyish, dead-mirror form of the princess. "We've got nineteen hours before her body permanently expires without it. Either way, she'll die if we stand here and do nothing. So we have two options."
"And what exactly are those?" Klaven asked.
Damon took a step forward. "Option one: we wait for my mom to get here and let her make the executive decision. She'll arrive in a few hours since I explicitly told her to take her time."
"And I'm guessing the second option is to—" Nyra started.
Cythera looked over at Nyra, cutting her off with a gentle, resolute nod. "Yeah. To restore her core ourselves right now, and do whatever it takes to help her calm down the second she opens her eyes."
They all paused for a moment, the weight of the choice pressing down on the small circle.
Cythera broke the silence, her tone measured. "I think we wait for the Queen."
Damon met her gaze instantly. "I know exactly what you're thinking, Cythera. And no way."
"If your mother got here, she would handle this strategically, Damon," Cythera argued, her voice tightening. "She'd leverage Princess Alya's safety to force her parents to swear an oath, finally making them support us in our battle against Gamishi."
"Yeah, that's the tempting plan on paper," Damon countered. "And of course, my mom wouldn't just recklessly destroy it on a whim. But neither of us has ever even had a ten-minute conversation with the King and Queen of Sunspire. For all we know, they might not love their daughter one bit—especially considering they possibly forced her to bond with ten different cores in the first place. They'd just end up ragebaiting my mom."
Nyra stepped forward, crossing her arms. "I've actually got to agree with big bro there. Mother's patience is running thin with the Sunspirians. She wouldn't care about their excuses, and if they push her, she might instantly just destroy the core herself."
She placed one hand on her hip and gestured with her other hand, "She's already tried every diplomatic and even sympathetic way to get Sunspire to join our war and save Eternum and the Multiverse for decades. If she gets a flat 'no' from those rulers after bringing them their daughter, Alya's core is becoming and exploding orange juice that only she could survive."
Cythera shifted her stance, her expression softly forcing a conclusion. "And so what if it does? If Alya dies, the worst Sunspire would do is launch a retaliatory attack against us. And we'd win regardless."
"I'm not trying to be a thorn in your side," Klaven spoke up quietly from the edge of the circle, "but we all know you hold back on your true powers, Cythera. So let's not jump to conclusions about an easy victory."
Damon's ears perked up, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at her. "Hmm? You hold back? Since when?"
A soft, measured quiet resolve returned to her expression. "That's not what's important right now."
"Yeah. You're right," Damon said, letting it slide for the moment. "Sunspire would absolutely get into a war with us. But I want everyone to actually think with me for a sec. If you can see any other viable reason why we shouldn't just give Princessa her core back right now—after I explain a few things to you—then I'll wait. Deal?"
Cythera glanced at Klaven, then at Nyra, who merely shrugged in response. Turning back to Damon, Cythera nodded slowly. "Sure. What is it?"
"We'd probably get dragged into a war anyway if my mom gets successfully ragebaited and decides to destroy Alya's core out of revenge for all the times those rulers have rejected her over decades," Damon said, his voice dropping into an almost serious, analytical register.
"I can't really blame her, to be honest. If they can't swear a simple oath to join a war that would literally protect their own daughter, I don't think they cared about her in the first place. But you're all forgetting a major piece of this… thing. All of Doran's actions still point to the fact that the Kagarthians are actively preparing to declare war. They wouldn't fight us alone; they're too weak. They might just partner up with the angry Sunspirians and make it a two-on-one coalition against Woewyn."
Damon paused, his gaze sweeping over their faces. "Actually, scratch that. It would be a three-on-one. Because—why? Anyone?" He said calmly.
Cythera's lips parted. "Because—"
"Exactly," Damon cut her off smoothly, not breaking his momentum. "Because we still don't know how the Atlanteans' waters got contaminated in the first place, and it seems like they're blaming us right now. They're desperate, meaning they'd easily team up with the others just to take over Woewyn's resources. Now tell me, what are our actual chances of winning a three-on-one war?"
A sudden, sharp bzzzt echoed through the clearing as a stray spark of electricity discharged from one of the dead robotic frames nearby.
Overhead, a lone forest bird let out a harsh, solitary chirp that seemed to echo through the silence. The grim reality of his words settled over the group, their expressions turning deeply somber.
"It was a rhetorical question," Damon continued, his voice steady as he looked at the pulsing golden sphere in his hand.
"The answer is significantly less. Woewyn has twenty-six billion citizens to protect. As the Prince, I'm telling you right now that we have a whole lot more liabilities than any other kingdom on this plane, despite our strength. So, do you still want Alya's core becoming a squeezed orange, or do we put it back in her right now and do our absolute best to calm her down when she wakes up?"
Klaven and Nyra turned their gazes to Cythera.
Cythera sighed, the stiff tension in her shoulders finally giving way as she dropped her hands. "Alright. Let's give her back her core. But we have to find a way to keep her under control, the exact second she opens her eyes."
"Why don't you just wait here, and I'll go slip into the nursery to get some anesthesia?" Klaven suggested, his voice tentative.
Damon turned his gaze to him with an incredulous look. "Didn't we tell you we don't know if Doran or his main forces are still on the loose out there?"
"All we really have to do is remind her that she's fine," Nyra chimed in, stepping closer to the center of the clearing. She paused, her sharp gaze landing squarely on Klaven. "But honestly, Klaven? I don't think you should be anywhere, even near her line of sight when she wakes up."
Klaven threw his hands up defensively. "What did I do now?"
"Think about it," Nyra said, gesturing bluntly. "You're the absolute last thing she saw before her whole world ended, because you were the one who physically ripped the core out of her chest. If we're treating this like bringing her straight back from the dead, you should probably be the absolute last thing she sees. Right, big bro?"
Damon nodded slowly, glancing over his shoulder. "Klaven, it wouldn't exactly hurt your pride if you just went and stood behind one of these trees for a minute, would it?"
Klaven let out a heavy, defeated sigh and facepalmed. "Yeah. Fine. No problem." He turned and walked a few paces away, disappearing behind the thick trunk of a nearby tree.
Cythera knelt and hoisted the princess into her arms, drawing Alya's lifeless, dark-grey body flush against her chest. Even with her back supported, Alya's head remained slouched forward, utterly limp.
Damon dropped into a low crouch in front of them, his fingers tightening around the majestic golden sphere. He locked eyes with Cythera.
"Okay. Three... two... one... Go."
Damon pressed the glowing core back into her chest.
Instantly, the effect was a violent, diametric opposite to the dark, suffocating stillness that had consumed her in the crypt. Back then, the light had drained from her irises like a dying star, her skin turning a sickly, hollow grey as blackened veins webbed across her flesh.
Now, the transformation hit like an explosive shockwave of life.
The moment the emerald-webbed sphere breached her skin, a radiant, blinding pulse of golden Eterna rippled outward, violently chasing the darkness from her veins. The sickly grey tone of her flesh shattered, replaced instantly by a flushing, vibrant warmth.
Alya's eyes snapped wide open.
Her chest surged forward as she violently gasped for air, her lungs drawing in a ragged, desperate breath as if she had just been dragged to the surface of a deep ocean.
The golden glow in her irises flared to a brilliant, blinding intensity. She looked directly into Damon's face, noticing the speck of gold in his blue eyes, her vision a blur of gold-red light, before her eyes darted frantically to Nyra, then around the scarred clearing.
"I'm… I'm alive," Alya whispered, her voice a trembling, panicked breath.
Cythera slowly, cautiously began to loosen her grip around the princess's torso to give her space.
Free of restraint, Alya reacted not out of survival, but trauma. Her hand swept the dirt with frantic speed, fingers locking onto a razor-sharp shard of scrap metal from the shredded machine. Without hesitation, she drove the jagged edge upward, aiming straight for her own neck.
CLANG!
Cythera's hand moved like a flash of frost, intercepting the strike mid-air and slapping the jagged metal piece completely out of Alya's grip, sending it spinning across the dirt.
SMACK!
Before Alya could even register the block, Nyra leaned forward and delivered a swift, ringing slap right across the princess's face. The force of the strike snapped Alya's head to the side, completely freezing her in her tracks as her breathing hitched.
Damon stood entirely still in his crouch, his eyebrows raised as a look of subtle, profound shock washed over his features. He stared at the panting, unhinged princess, trying to process the absolute chaos that had occurred in a matter of three seconds.
'Oh yeah…' Damon thought to himself, a deadpan expression settling over his face. 'She's definitely crazy.'