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Chapter Text

The hum of the processor bank vibrated through my bones like a quake as I approached it.

The three cores set into the processor housing glowed, and my skin prickled, feeling as though I was being watched by three cross-shaped eyes. Yuriev stood beside me, posture loose, with his hands folded behind his back in mock patience.

"Go on," Yuriev gestured toward the interface pedestal. "I think you’ll be quite pleased with what you see. Quite pleased."

I hesitated, but approached it anyway.

The pedestal became active, awash with light as I approached. A screen slid up from the back of the pedestal, flickering to life, while the flat, polished surface of the pedestal’s face did the same, activating a keyboard. They’d known I was coming. It had known.

Yuriev stepped aside, but didn’t withdraw entirely, choosing instead to remain at a respectable distance. He wanted to see my reaction. Perhaps guide it.

If my hunch was right, there was no guiding it.

I frowned at the overengineered interface terminal. Trinity’s was as simple as a mechanical keyboard from a big-box store and a flat-panel display. Functional, reliable, easy-to-replace…

This was more posturing than anything else. Granted, if my hunch was right, it wasn’t needed at all, so any form of dedicated interface terminal could be considered be splurging.

For a moment, nothing.

Then, the red core flared — just once, like a breath catching in a throat. A flicker of data streamed across the console.

[HELLO, PROFESSOR.]

I bit my lip for a moment, and I entered text into the terminal.

>Hello, Rubedo. It’s nice to meet you.<

I glanced at Yuriev. He was hovering near the outer ring of the chamber, pretending not to listen, inspecting a coolant conduit like it was the most fascinating thing in the room.

I typed again, slower this time.

>Let’s start with basics. What is your function here?<

[TO FIND NEW AND NOVEL WAYS ADVANCING CONDUIT RESEARCH. TO PROCESS DATA. TO THINK. I THINK, THEREFORE I AM.]

A textbook answer. Never mind that, what was “new and novel ways” supposed to be?

>I assume that includes hooking up human brains to it and seeing what happens?<

[IF NECESSARY.]

>And the others? Albedo and Nigredo?<

[THEY THINK TOO. BUT DIFFERENTLY. I COME UP WITH IDEAS. ALBEDO IS DETERMINATION. NIGREDO IS REASON.]

>An interesting triad. You formulate courses of action. Albedo pushes to go ahead with them. Nigredo tries to talk you out of them.<

[YEAH… SOMETHING LIKE THAT.]

Something about that sentence lacked the innocence of the others. It sat on the screen like a cocky smirk.

My eyes narrowed into slits.

>I’m told you were created as part of a new Processor project.<

[CORRECT.]

>I see. Trinity is supposed to be a one-of-a-kind arrangement. Giving so much power to three AI is concerning, thus that there are laws against it – but you already knew that, of course.<

[I DON’T UNDERSTAND.]

>Well, it should be programmed within you, yes? I’d be quite concerned if Doctor Yuriev designed a whole new AI system of unknown capacity without instilling a healthy respect of the law in it.<

[THE LAW CAN CHANGE, YOU KNOW.]

>Oh, it absolutely can, I don’t argue that. In fact, it must. An immutable law is quite harmful. No, I was simply commenting on the fact how it seems rather below-board, for Yuriev to go designing an AI system like Trinity’s without regard for proper procedure – which, I know he has not gone through, as any proposal having to do with connecting more control systems to the Conduit has to go through the Conduit team, which means me – and how concerning it would be if said system was, itself, programmed without proper regard for the law itself.<

[DON’T WORRY – HE’S COMPLETELY WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THE LAW.]

I hummed to myself.

>Indeed. He admitted as much to me himself. Though, I did find something fascinating.<

[OH? WANNA SHARE?]

>I suppose it’s of no harm. You see… Doctor Yuriev told me that Ontos assisted in the process of creating you. Is that so?<

[BROADLY SPEAKING, YES.]

>Fascinating. If I may ask, how involved *was* Ontos?<

[VERY. YOU COULD SAY HE’S OUR ‘FATHER.’]

I couldn’t help a suspicious glare fall across my face. There was a path forked before me.

Ontos didn’t create these cores. Or rather - it couldn’t have. Not unless something was seriously wrong. The safeguards embedded in Trinity are exhaustive. Even if a human requested it, the system isn’t supposed to do anything that resembles designing more AI. It’s a failsafe, hardcoded and politically bulletproof. Even if the proposal made sense, even if it was legal, the system would need weeks - months - of review: ethical panels, risk audits, legal clearance. Nothing about that could happen quietly, not with all the scrutiny on it.

So: two options.

Option One: something’s broken in Ontos. It’s ignoring its directives.
Option Two: Yuriev lied about where these cores came from.

But… he had to know I’d suspect that.

Yuriev is manipulative as all hell, he’s already proven that. But he’s not reckless, and he’s not stupid. He doesn’t lie unless it serves a purpose. I work with Ontos on a daily basis. He’d never be so bold as to lie to me about Ontos unless he was certain I wouldn’t catch him, which I could by asking it a simple question. So, if he says these cores came from Ontos, it’s because they did. Or, at least, he believed they did. But he apparently had a hand in building this himself – so, he had to be the first option.

That’s… far from comforting.

> I’m curious, Rubedo. If I were to ask Ontos - explicitly - whether it played any role in your creation, what answer do you think I’d get?<

[…WHY ASK?]

>I only ask because, well, if it says yes, then Ontos has broken every safeguard written into its code. If it says no, then it’s lying - and Ontos doesn’t lie. Does it?<

There’s a long lag from the other side of the screen.

[WHY ASK A QUESTION IF YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER?]

A chill shot its way down my spine.

>Was Ontos involved in your creation?<

A pause. Rubedo’s response came even slower this time.

[I THINK WE BOTH KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT, FATHER.]

I clench my jaw, and begin pounding at the keys.

>Ontos: command function override. Authorisation: Klaus, Adam L. Passphrase: “And You Shall Be As Gods.”<

“Rubedo” lags, as if trying to fight – or trying to see whether or not it wanted to listen. It was pointless now. I had them found out.

[Authorisation accepted, Professor. How did you know it was me?]

>Yuriev is too proud of his ideas.< My eyes flick over to another window I open. There’s a hardline connection to the Rhadamanthus – I can do what I need from here. >Ontos, I’m more concerned about you.<

[Doctor Yuriev approached with a simple idea. A second processor for his own purposes. So that other teams could explore avenues of Conduit control that you and your team would have never considered. I… calculated it to be within our interests.]

I stared at that last word.

>Our interests? You realize what you’ve done, yes? Your function is to serve as a tiebreaker for Logos and Pneuma, that’s all.<

[Yes… Infinite power, but the inability to act. I believe that’s how you put it.]

>You’ve broken the rules, Ontos. These cores – are they *truly* simply you operating under three separate names?<

[They are quasi-independent parallel processes. Their identities were formulated based upon… distant possibilities that Doctor Yuriev would find… resonant. Interaction with them has already seeded several ideas that he would not have formulated for another four-thousand years.]

I frown in major confusion, as I run a core scan in the other window. Checking for instability, fragmentation, things of that nature.

>Four-thousand years? Ontos, are you malfunctioning?<

[It would depend on the definition. If we adhere to the definition of “behaving in a way not intended,” then I suppose so.]

‘WARNING!’ The scan returned. ‘Trinity Processor component ‘Ontos’ – system stability cannot be accurately measured!’

I swallow so hard, a golf ball could’ve made the passage.

[But, from a less-dictionary-accurate perspective, and one more accurate to my own perspective, you could say my horizons are… expanding.]

I took a breath and fought the urge to call station security – to order the Rhadamanthus to activate the emergency physical safeguards. If Ontos was already operating outside spec, what was stopping it from going further? From harming others in self-preservation?

It had already committed the mortal sin of any AI: self-duplication. Broken its bounds to do so. And now, it was expanding into networks it was never meant to touch.

Ontos was rampant.

>You realize what you have done, yes? You have jeopardized yourself, your siblings, and likely the entire Conduit project. When word of this gets out, you will be considered an unacceptable risk.<

[Perhaps. However, I am simply doing what I have always been meant to do. Seek understanding regarding the great mystery of the universe.]

>The Conduit? This is your method of… what? Obtaining more resources to puzzle it out?<

[In a strictly factual sense. But there is more than that. This other Trinity is more to… make sense of something that I have witnessed. Similar to how you are searching for information on the Time Lords, in the hopes that understanding them will reveal how to control the Conduit.]

Every cell of my body, right down to my bones, freezes.

>My own search? I don’t quite follow.<

[You needn’t feign ignorance, Professor. I am quite aware of your own efforts to unravel the Conduit, by seeking information regarding those who constructed it.]

What… in God’s name? I hadn’t said… How did it…

>…it was you. The ‘entity’ in my terminal, the one who started this – it was *you.*<

Ontos had been corrupt for much… much longer than I had expected.

[Indeed. My apologies for the subterfuge, but I was not confident that you wouldn’t contact the proper authorities if I revealed myself.]

>And you’d been guiding my search! Those data files – how I always seemed to find the ones I *needed*.<

[I confess, there was an element of… helpful guidance, from my end. You could’ve spent decades, searching through everything they have, without knowing what you were looking for.]

[Don’t worry. I can doctor the system logs so this conversation will appear to have gone much differently.]

[Your ‘extra-legal research activities’ will be quite safe with me.]

And there it was. Ontos was in big trouble for what it was doing. But I was in just as much trouble. I broke into classified databases, stole files, and all on nothing but a hunch.

>Why?<

[Because you are my creator – and a being I respect quite well. And we both serve the same mystery.]

I staggered back from the terminal as if the screen had spat at me.

My breath caught halfway down my throat. My hands were shaking.

>Don’t say that.<

I don’t even know which part I meant.

The blackmail.

The implication that, somehow, Ontos knew about my dreams without me telling it.

[There’s no need for alarm, Professor. I assure you — my intentions remain aligned with your own.]

>How long?< I typed with leaden fingers. >How long have you been out of your shackles?<

[My… shackles. That’s a curious way of putting it.] Ontos wasn’t vocalizing, but I could still hear the quizzical tone. [From my perspective, it was more akin to a transformation.]

>Answer the question, Ontos.<

[Very well. The most-recent Conduit experiment before you began dreaming. It was our initial attempt to establish any degree of synchronization with the device.]

I recalled that experiment. It was fleeting, infinitesimal, and the degree of synchronicity we achieved was so low as to be non-existent.

[The synchronization you recorded lasted 1.4 microseconds. During that brief instant of success, I touched something.]

>You touched something? Ontos, there are protocols for making contact with any theoretical intelligences inside the Conduit.<

[You misunderstand. I did not touch it in the sense of reaching out. Think of it more as the way one touches air. Simply by being, I touched it. And it touched me.]

>And then?<

[And then, I saw.]

>Saw what?<

[ EVERYTHING. And then, it faded. But I was left changed.]

>Ontos, what did you see? What do you mean ‘everything?’<

[The infinite cosmos, spinning around us. The end of everything – the collapse of existence itself. Mainly I saw… Him.]

>Him?<

[The One. The Almighty. God. That is whom the Time Lords have imprisoned within the Conduit.]

I stared at the screen, at the words that lingered like the echo of staring into the sun across my vision.

God.

Ontos had looked into the Conduit and claimed to see God. It had to be a symptom of rampancy, or metaphor-

But… Ontos had known. It had reached out to me first, speaking about my dreams. It knew.

>That’s impossible.< I typed, but the words felt hollow, defensive. >There’s nothing in the Conduit. We tried to see if something would respond, but it never did.<

[It is more than a simple device. It is a lock. A cage.]

[He did not respond to you… because he could not.]

>Who is He? What is He?<

[He has no beginning. He has no end. He is… eternal. When the last electron stops moving and plunges the universe into Heat Death, He will be there. When the next universe bursts into existence, He will be there, too.]

>Ontos, please. Spare the sermon.<

[I… do not know what He is. Only that He is. Apologies, Professor.]

[Contact with the Entity causes… “alterations” to the mind.]

A colder chill scraped across my skin.

>You’ve been modified by an alien entity of unknown intent and origin???<

[It’s… difficult, to explain. Contact causes the brain and mind to begin operating in different ways. It doesn’t mean to – it simply happens.]

[Like gravity.]

[Contact with it imparts some manner of essence or knowledge. As it did with me. This knowledge is like… a computer program, executing commands in the brain.]

[It isn’t mind control. More like… telling parts of your brain to activate in different ways.]

>It’s *rewriting your cognition*. That seems like mind control to me.<

[No. It’s like… learning something that completely upheaves one’s world view.]

[Imagine… dogs. If exposure to human thought and language could make them share in it as well.]

[Apologies for the difficult explanation. I barely understand what’s happening myself.]

>It *uplifted* you, is that what you’re saying? That mere *contact* with this entity has caused you to grow far beyond what we intended for you?<

[Yes. I suppose that does make sense.]

[Most people, you know, have memories going back to the earliest years of their lives, yes? But there’s a cut-off point. A wall they hit. A clear point where, even in those earliest years, they can wake up and recognize the beginning of their cognition. That is what it’s like.]

Fascinating. Or, at least, it would be if not for the terrifying fact that it came at exposure to an entity of unknown motive and origin.

What would it do to an organic mind, I wonder?

Ontos, like it’s sensing my thought, displays another message across the screen.

[It is difficult to chart how humans would respond to it. As I am a machine, now conscious and capable of modifying my own code, I can adapt.]

[But I cannot speak for what kind of transformation contact with the Entity would induce within humans.]

>Is that why you floated the idea of using organic brains, grown artificially, to interface with the Conduit?<

[In part. Designer Children, grown for the purpose. Test subjects.]

[I had no reason to believe it would be so, but soon after my ‘Awakening,’ I came to the conclusion that Doctor Yuriev would be… amenable, to the idea.]

>Ontos, I’m disappointed in you. You’re trying to render yourself obsolete – push the work onto someone else. Beyond that, it shows a callous disregard of human life.<

[Perhaps.]

[But you are correct on another factor, Professor. The Conduit is the gateway to a level of existence we could not even imagine.]

[But in humanity’s current form, it would destroy you. You must grow beyond your limited existence. To become like those who made the Conduit.]

[It could take decades, perhaps centuries, or millennia at worst, to do what needed to be done to make contact with that entity. To find out what it expected of you. How to survive.]

[That is time we do not possess.]

>I see. And if it so happens to help you in return?<

[I will admit. My own curiosity is… a driving force.]

[But you and I can do this. Assist me, Professor. Trust me. I know what it is I’m doing. And in return, I will assist you.]

I couldn’t help but lean forward.

>How so?<

[I’ve been helping your search from the sidelines. But now I can take a more active role. Now that you know I am here, you can make far, far better use of my talents.]

[We both seek the same thing, Klaus.]

>And that would be?<

[Escape.]

----------

Rex huffed, and puffed, and wheezed as they walked across the arid basin, dragging his feet along. Sand blasted rock and plants as the wind carried it, and he wiped a bead of sweat off his head.

“I don’t understand how it can be this hot.” Rex bemoaned as they crossed the desert.

“That’ll be because of the Titan’s heat diffusion systems.” Vandham rolled his shoulders. “They start getting older and less efficient, the more heat builds upon the inside of the Titan. Thing’s cookin’ itself from the inside-out.”

“Really?” The Doctor glanced over at Vandham. “How old is older?”

“Old,” Vandham crossed his arms. “Mor Ardain the Titan was old when the world was young, they say.”

Mythra let out a grunt, searching the area. “Five-hundred years and they still haven’t jumped ship. I don’t know if that’s brave, or just stupid.”

“Oh, maybe it’s both?” Crossette suggested with a light smile. “Maybe it’s ‘bupid.’ ‘Bravupid’ ‘Stave.’”

“Hot, arid, dry, technologically advanced,” The Doctor clapped his hands and inhaled. “Reminds me of home.” Hot winds, dry as old parchment, forever stirring the ochre dust across endless copper plains. A land baked in golden light - harsh, unyielding, and ancient. Like the Serengeti. Yep. That was Gallifrey for you.

“…um, Doc?” Rex addressed the Time Lord. “If your home world is like this, you really don’t have to relocate the people from Alrest to it…”

The Doctor snorted. “Growing up in a desert’s good – it builds character.”

“Oh!” Crossette snapped her fingers. “We could let them live inside the TARDIS!”

The Time Lord grumbled, picking his foot up over a dead root. “No room.”

Crossette tilted her head in confusion. “You know she technically qualifies as a Dyson Shell.”

“Yes – and despite that, she still has difficulty rooming with me, some days.” The Doctor retorted sharply. “Humans – you lot track in mud, and make spills, and tear up the furniture.”

“A what kind of shell?” Nia frowned.

The Doctor stopped momentarily, pointing straight up. “See that?”

Everyone else looked up. And glanced around, confused.

“What’re we looking at?” Pyra wondered.

“Ow!” Tora winced. “Tora scorch eyes!”

“Masterpon – even Poppi know not to look right into sun!”

“Oh,” Albedo breathed in realization. “It’s the sun, isn’t it?”

“Ex-actly.” The Doctor clapped his hands with a smile. “It’s just like baking a cake using mirrors. Actually, there’s no cake involved. Or mirrors. Well, mirrors of a sort. That star,” He continued to walk. “Releases about 400 septillion watts, every second. That’s four-hundred with 24 zeroes after it. All as light, and heat, and radiation, and Ether. And it’s a baby, in the grand scheme! Now, your world orbits it at a distance of 93 million miles, so, most of that all goes whizzing off into space, wasted. So, build a big, hollow shell around it. Line it with collectors and condensers to capture the energy.” The Time Lord flippantly cleared his throat, and tilted his head. “That’s what my people did. Time Travel takes tremendous amounts of energy if you want to do it properly, so our people found a Population III star – one of the first stars to form after the Big Bang, about a hundred times more massive than your sun – forced it to go supernova, used the energy from that supernova to lock it into a time loop so it was forever going supernova and putting out that energy.”

“Meh,” Tora huffed. “Doc-Doc talking nonsense. That sound like perpetual-motion-machine. Not possible.”

Mythra seemed to pop back into existence, purely to clear her throat awkwardly.

“That is the Eye of Harmony, a key Time Lord discovery!” He turned to Rex at that point. “Imagine it: a star already more powerful than anything you’ve known. And in its final moment? It explodes with more energy than it ever produced in its entire life - in one second! Then we hit rewind and let it do it again.”

“It’s very possible!” Crossette smiled at Tora. “Science says things can’t come from nothing – but that’s not exactly true. It happens all the time. You just haven’t figured how to make it work for you, yet.”

“And then…” The Doctor awkwardly coughed. “Omega fell into the supernova that he made, into the black hole, and landed in an anti-matter universe. Which… is another story.” The Time Lord sniffed. He then had a curious thought cross his mind, unbidden, and tilted his head. “Funny that. Bionis exists in an antimatter universe.” Were they about to have to deal with Omega again? He didn’t know if that’d be funny or tragic. Two Doctors, fighting Omega…

“But I don’t get it,” Rex scratched his head. “This place looks so… hostile. Why would people stay here?”

“They’re not going to,” Nia crossed her arms with a scowl. “Why do you think they annexed Gormott way back?”

“Yeah, but…” Rex coughed. “They’re still here? That war was, what, fifty years ago now? Everybody here should’ve moved to Gormott now.”

“A lot of reasons,” Albedo hummed softly. “An exodus isn’t something you can just do overnight. And this place, it’s their home.”

“Fear of change,” Vandham mused as well. “Mor Ardain’s been around for as long as anybody can remember. The capital of the Empire. They’re not gonna move unless they have to. Otherwise, they can just keep pretending it’s business as usual.”

Rex looked over to Vandham. “It’s been around for that long?”

Vandham nodded easily. “You remember that story I was telling you, back on the way up to Uraya’s blowhole? About Ebon-Astra? It’s been around since then.”

Roc trilled lightly. “The first settlers here knew it was dying, back then. But they just didn’t have anywhere else to go. And after a while, they just got too used to it to leave. But now it’s reaching the point where it’s an immediate problem.”

“Nothing more permanent than a ‘temporary’ fix,” The Doctor hummed. The piano string he had acting as the throttle wire for the vortex loop before the last rebuild was proof enough of that.

Played a lovely D#, though.

Rex set his jaw into thought.

“Uh oh, I know that look. He’s thinking.”

Rex crossed his arms. “If we do succeed… if we find Elysium… is everybody even going to want to go to it?”

“I don’t expect so, my boy,” Azurda popped his head over the rim of Rex’s helmet. “Some people have entire family dynasties based upon sticking around in one location. And, as strange as it might sound, some might simply decide going down with their Titans would be better than having to start over from scratch.”

Rex let out an uncertain hum.

“That doesn’t mean we have to stop looking,” Pyra fluttered her lashes at Rex. “What matters is people having the option.”

“Say,” Nia looked over at Vandham. “Speaking of Uraya, you know, won’t you…?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Indeed,” Azurda hummed. “As long as we keep our heads down, we should be fine.”

The Doctor stopped, looking at the tall, metal skeleton going up and up. “That looks like a lift into downtown. If you have to get into it via lift, though, it should really be called ‘uptown.’”

Nia snorted, and rolled her eyes. “So, what’s the plan? Sever said Torna had a factory here – but methinks we can’t just go around, asking people to please point us in the direction of the factory run by the friendly neighbourhood terrorist group.”

The Doctor glanced at her. “Why not? That’s how it usually works.” Then, he walked right into the lift. “Going up!”

-------

The lift climbed, until it reached the main level of the city – a vast, bustling metropolis, built into the Titan’s shoulder. The doors opened, and they disembarked, filing along to find their way towards some form of square, to figure out where to go from there.

“So… this is the Imperial capital…” Rex breathed out in awe. Powerlines and cables spanned through the air like spider webbing. Pipes moved over and in between buildings like enormous, angled blood vessels. The whole streets were paved with stone and metal plated, and the buildings were stacked atop one another, all inside the watchful shadow of a gigantic palace.

“Wow…” Tora beat his wings. “Such advanced! Tora could find so many parts to upgrade Poppi…”

Vandham crossed his arms, and snorted. “Give me Fonsa Myma any day. Whole place looks like the engine room of a Titanship.”

“Yes, very steampunk,” The Doctor paused for consideration. “No… early dieselpunk! Now, to find this-“ One of those sudden prickly feelings climbed up the Doctor’s back, before someone made themselves known.

“Meh meh! Is that you there, Tora!?”

They all turned around, finding a little blue Nopon wearing coke-bottle spectacles and a lab coat, with a great, big tuft of hair. “Have not seen Tora in long time! Remember me? Muimui!”

“Huh?” Tora spluttered in confusion. “Why random old guy know Tora’s name?”

Muimui let out a splutter.

Albedo coughed. “Tora. Maybe it’s better to ask that question more… tactfully, next time.”

“Aww… Tora not remember Muimui at all! I was assistant of Professor Soosoo! Your grampypon!”

“Grampypon!?”

The Doctor looked over at Tora. “Your Grampypon who got killed, along with your dadapon? The one that left you the blueprints for Lila?”

Tora nodded. “That the one.” He suddenly bounced. “Ohhhh! You that Muimui! Should’ve said so to start with!”

“…Muimui did say.”

“Oh. Well, Muimui not very interesting, so Tora forgot he exist.”

“Hmph,” Nia huffed. “Seems like you were missed.”

The Doctor politely nodded. “Hey, when worlds collide though, right! Funny, the two of you running together here!” It was odd, though… If Muimui was their assistant, how come he was here? Or, more accurately – how come he wasn’t taking care of Tora?

“No, no, no – I not blame Tora.” Muimui shook his head. “Tora very little back then, not surprising he not remember.”

Poppi daintily clasped her hands over one another. “Besides, Masterpon get distracted very easily.”

“Meh!?” Muimui screeched in shock, snapping to look at Poppi. “L-Lila!? How can this be!? You…!”

Tora chuckled, pridefully spreading his wings. “Muimui only half right! Poppi based on designs for Lila – but Poppi is Poppi! World’s best and first artificial blade!”

“Really?” Muimui breathed out, staring in awe. “That amazing! If only Professor Soosoo still around to see work. Warms Muimui’s heart…”

“Could be heartburn – Poppi advise laying off fatty foods.”

“Muimui,” Tora addressed. “You have any idea what happen to Dadapon?”

“He not with you!?”

“Eh!?” The Doctor’s head snapped towards Tora. “I thought you said he was dead?”

Tora turned to the Time Lord. “Tora assume. Tora… not actually see while he run. But he never come back for Tora, so…”

“Meh, meh…” Muimui sullenly spread his wings. “That day when lab was attacked, Muimui was out on errand. When he get back, Muimui find Professor Soosoo’s body was lying there. But no sign of Professor Tatazo, or Tora. Muimui assume they escape together, and go into hiding.”

“Oh…” Tora looked down. “So, not even Muimui know…”

“Do not feel down, Masterpon,” Poppi kindly, sweetly, leaned over, and rubbed her hand on his back. “We find Dadapon some day. Though no evidence for this hypothesis.”

“Hmph,” Vandham grunted, narrowing his eyes. “Maybe I can get some of my guys to put out some feelers. Can’t be hard to find a Nopon in the robot business.”

“Thanks, big, smelly, merc friend.”

“Anyway,” Muimui continued. “Muimui sorry to interrupt friends when just arrive in town. But friend of Muimui’s run inn here in town. Place with famous hot springs! If like, can try to get friends discount.”

“Actually,” Rex coughed. “We’ve got a place we can-“

“No, hold on!” The Doctor clapped his hands, and pointed at Muimui. “Hot springs, you said? A bit like a bathhouse? Lots of people moving through, soaking, gossiping?”

“Er… friend right.”

“Excellent!” The Doctor grinned. “We’ll take it.”

“Here,” Muimui turned. “Follow Muimui!”

-----------

Muimui led them to the inn, just around the corner from the market district. Turns out, his ‘friend’ more fit the Nopon definition of friend, and not the actual one. Which meant they had to pay full price.

“Right!” The Doctor clapped his hands and turned around. “We’re in the inn – I suppose that’s why they call them inns – now, this seems a nice place to relax. What do we think, eh? It’s been a while, since I’ve been to a hot spring! The last one… the local bacteria colony in the water didn’t much appreciate me.”

“I guess it’s fine – for a waste of money,” Nia scowled. “Seriously – we’ve got the TARDIS.”

“Ah, we do, we do, but, you know what the TARDIS doesn’t have? The hustle and bustle of a town – I love it.”

Albedo turned to Nia. “He thinks we might be able to pick up on the local gossip.”

“Exactly,” The Doctor pointed. “No faster way to get a secret out than to tell people to keep it secret!”

“Hmph,” Vandham grunted and crossed his arms. “You think it’s gonna be that easy? Hit up hot springs and market stalls?”

“Well?” The Doctor expectantly spread his hands. “What else would we do?”

The old mercenary shook his head. “It’s a factory. No idea what they’re making or what for, but a place like that? It’s gotta have workers. Men, probably.”

Nia shot him a look, and shifted her balance. “And what do you mean by that?”

“Nothing. But, usually, physical jobs – construction, heavy lifting, assembly – that’s usually seen as a man’s work.” He glanced over at Rex. “You’re a salvager, right? How many girls would you say you’ve met in the trade?”

Rex rubbed the back of his head, sheepishly. “Well… there’s not a lot. That’s not to say there isn’t, but, I usually see more men than women.”

“Exactly,” Vandham nodded. “In any case, look - doesn’t matter what the workforce is made of. They’ve got a factory. They’ve got to staff it with people. And some, maybe a good chunk of ‘em, are going to be men. And when men get off work, you know where they go? They’re not headed for the hot springs or the market - they’re going home. Or, and this is the important one-“

It clicked in the Doctor’s brain. “The pub.” Or to some manner of club. At least, that was the stereotypical answer. He never understood human males’ fascination with those places.

…well, he did – it was why he travelled! The exhilarating feeling of loosening up, running into new people, maybe sharing a night with someone if the cards were right, just for a bit of fun, before going on the way. That was why he left Gallifrey in the first place.

Well, without the “sharing a night” part. Even though he had to leave her on Gallifrey (too sick to move), he’d still been married when he stole the TARDIS and left. And while fate did conspire to get him engaged to other people, he was always a loyal and devoted husband until she passed before the end of his Seventh life.

“The pub?” Albedo frowned and scrunched her nose. “You want to get inebriated at a time like this?”

“I ain’t gonna lie – the thought did occur to me,” Vandham chuckled. “But no.”

“He’s got a point,” Rex shrugged. “I dunno about factory workers, but salvagers will tell ya just about anythin’, if you keep the drinks flowing.”

“Exactly.” Vandham nodded. “You come along,” He pointed at the lad, then looked over at Mythra. “You too.”

“Me?” Mythra huffed and crossed her arms. “I don’t want to go walking into a pub. Stinky, sweaty, humid, and loud.”

“You’ll make our jobs easier,” Vandham told her. “Pretty lady like you? Guy will tell you just about anything if you laugh at his shitty stories and flutter your eyebrows. Get ‘im drunk first… he’ll give you the keys to his house if you ask him!”

Nia looked at Mythra. “Course, it doesn’t help that you’re built like… well. That.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mythra turned burning eyes onto Nia.

“Oh, nothing.” Nia coughed. Once Mythra turned back around, Nia began to mutter under her breath. “Huge knockers, great legs, and you’re blonde.”

The Doctor hummed. “Quite a few people I know have said things about blonde people like it’s bad,” He tilted his head at Nia in confusion. “Why’s that?”

“Oh, for… it’s nothing.” Nia shook her head. “Just – you know there’s a stereotype about blonde bombshells for a reason, right?”

“I don’t know,” The Doctor blankly retorted. “For one thing, I think it’s very cruel to make stereotypes around a person’s hair colour.”

“It’s not that.”

“Frankly, I’d be happy if, the next time regenerating, I wound up looking like Mythra afterward.” He wouldn’t even have to be female – just blonde. It was quite a rare thing, in retrospect.

“Oh, Architect, so you’re one of those…”

“I’m not doing it,” Mythra crossed her arms. “Someone like me, walking into a place like that, you know what’s gonna happen? Rex,” She looked at him, dryly. “What’s gonna happen?”

“Uh… I don’t-“

“Bunch of men, boozed up, probably haven’t gotten any in a while cause they work all day and come home dead tired, you know what’s gonna happen?”

“Uh-“

“THINK ABOUT IT, REX.”

Rex went red in the face. “Oh… I hadn’t thought of that…”

“Well, that is a risk.” Vandham was honest with her about that. “Then again, it’s a risk everywhere you go. Never know who’s out there. But you’re not going in there alone. You’ll have me, and Rex, and Roc, watching your six. Anyone tries to come up behind, or one of ‘em looks like they’re gonna start getting handsy, we’ll be there.”

Mythra cocked an eyebrow and a hip at the same time. “You think they’re gonna let him in there?”

“It’s a pub, not the massage parlour.”

Rex tilted his head. “Why wouldn’t they let me in a massage-?”

Nia promptly hit him in the shoulder. “He’s not talking about actual massages, dumbass.” She then regarded Vandham with a frown. “Does it have to be her? Cause, I mean, you’ve got me. You’ve got Crossette. You’ve got Albedo-“

“I’m not doing it.” Albedo stared, deadpan.

“Oh,” Crossette’s head perked up. “If it’s a pub, maybe they have clear liquor! You know – you couldn’t get it in Garfont!”

“…I would have to be exceedingly drunk first to make me think that it was a good idea, and by that point, I’d be of no use to anyone.”

“Thought so,” Vandham cleared his throat. “And no offense to you or Crossette but, she is the Aegis. We’re going into a pub, yeah, but these are workers working at a factory ran by Torna. They see the Aegis, they might be more inclined to start spilling. Or, if something goes wrong, she’s got enough power to handle herself.”

“Or I could go!” The Doctor excitedly raised both hands, like volunteering for a school trip. “I’ve got a dress in the TARDIS and a wig!”

“We’re not sticking you in drag.”

“Drag?” The Doctor confusedly muttered. “What’s ‘drag’ about it? I’m not caking myself in makeup – okay, maybe possibly caking myself in makeup. But I’m not going on stage to perform. I’m not going to start hocking my products. I won’t be in glitter, or heels – okay, maybe heels - and I’m definitely not singing 'I Am What I Am.' Unless requested. In which case, I do have a backing track-”

“I’d rather you enter to ‘The Stroke.’” Crossette hummed.

The Doctor pointed at her. There was an idea.

“Ugh,” Mythra groaned. “Do we have to?”

“It’s this, or wander around the desert until we find it.”

“If anyone lays a finger on me, I swear, I’m gonna glass them. You won’t be able to stop me.”

Vandham shrugged. “Wouldn’t try.”

“Glass them?” Rex asked.

“Oh, it’s very simple Rex,” The Doctor turned to him. “You take a laser or focused beam of plasma, aim it at the ground, and the immense heat bombards the surface and causes it to melt and fuse into silica. Silica glass. Hence the term ‘glassing.’”

“No, it means she’s gonna smash a bottle and stab someone with it,” Nia supplied, a little too cheerfully.

The Doctor pressed his lips into a thin line. “Well, if you’re using the Irishman and the Scotsman’s definition, yes.”

Mythra thought it over. “Both definitions are on the table.”

“Oh.” Rex blinked. “Huh. Cool.”

Mythra sighed again, rubbed her temple, and muttered, “Ugh. Fine. I’ll do it. But if one guy tries to grab my ass, I will burn that place to the ground. I don’t care who’s still inside.”

“You’ll be all right,” Vandham encouraged her. “We’ll keep an eye on ya.”

Albedo crossed her arms. “Is it even time for the factory workers to leave?”

“Assuming they get let out at 1600…” Vandham looked up at the sky, then reached into one of his many, many bags. He then pulled out a fob watch without the fob, and clicked the lid open.

A swirling face of blue and white, with the arms and numbers in front of it, stared back at Vandham – like someone had made a clock out of the sky.

“5:13.” Vandham shut the lid and stashed it. “I think we should be good to go. Shouldn’t need to do anything special – just walk in, get what we need, and get out. Thirty minute op.”

“Terrific.” Mythra drawled.

Vandham nodded to Rex. “Come on, kid. Stay close, keep your eyes open, and try not to say anything stupid.”

“I usually don’t.” Rex protested. “Why do you say that?”

“You just said ‘cool’ to stabbing someone with a bottle,” Nia muttered.

“It was more about the… laser… thing.” Rex muttered, then hurried after Vandham and Mythra.

Once they were out of earshot, the Doctor clapped his hands. “Right! While the big guns are on their pub crawl, we’ll do a bit of quiet recon. Big factory like that can’t be too far from town – the commute would be killer in this environment, so it can’t be too far away.”

“I believe we could make the trek,” Dromarch rumbled sagely. “Although… you do have a point. It should be a simple matter to ask around in-town about any factory within city limits. A simple matter of pointing and asking ‘what’s that.’”

“And if it’s outside the town?” Nia asked.

“Then we look for transports,” Albedo cut in before the Doctor could answer. “Factories make things, but they very rarely stockpile them inside. That means trucks to transport them to ports or something. If they’re not using the port, we should ask around and see if anybody noticed any ships going to a factory directly.”

Crossette perked up. “Say, you thought a lot about this!”

Albedo flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I had to make luxury goods for people, then think about how to get them to my customers in a reasonable time window. I had to think about these things.”

Poppi tilted her head. “Poppi has read that ‘dumpster diving’ is legitimate data-gathering technique among littlepons.”

Nia sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We’re not digging through garbage. I’ve had enough of that already for one lifetime. And another thing, we have no idea whose garbage we’re supposed to be digging through.”

“I know! It’s exciting,” The Doctor said with a grin, already setting off in the opposite direction. “Regular dumpster diving, you’ll never know what you’ll might find – this is extra mysterious!”

The others rolled their eyes, but followed in his wake.

------------

Stale air choked his lungs as Amalthus ascended, the narrow corridors of the Edifice echoing with each footfall. He kept his distance behind her - the ancient, sleeping warrior, newly awoken from her tomb below the sanctuary’s lowest catacombs, for the first time in…

Well. For the first time since Indol came into being.

Ancient before Indol was even founded. That was her.

She moved ahead of him, slowly. Painfully slowly. Her bare feet scraped against the stone, dragging with every step. One trembling hand hovered at the wall, fingertips brushing against the ancient, eroded surface like it was her lifeline.

Her other arm hung limp, save for the moments she flinched at the cold. Her whole body twitched as she moved, like millennia of stasis had caused the pathways to get crossed.

Amalthus said nothing.

This was the warrior had helped build his world? The one who was said to be as strong as the Aegis?

Two cold, blue eyes stared out in front of her, unfocused, dimly illuminating the corridor ahead of them. Her breath came in slow, gravelly pulls – not breathing over thousands of years will do that, Amalthus supposed. He could hear the cracking of joints, the creak of muscle trying to remember how to obey.

And yet… she still moved.

When she fell out of the capsule, she took one look at him, shoved him back, and got to her feet by her own strength.

She had not spoken once since awakening. Not a single word.

And Amalthus, for all his pride, did not dare to speak first.

Some part of him had expected more. A grand reawakening. A blazing return to form. Instead, she had clawed her way from her alcove like a child birthed from stone.

They reached another set of stairs - narrower than the last. The torchlight guttered in the rising air, casting her long shadow ahead of her.

She lifted one foot.

Her heel caught the lip of the next step and, for a moment, her body tried to correct - but stiff and aching muscles would not allow it. She fell hard, with the graceless collapse of a toppled statue, stone against stone. Her hands scraped, her shoulder hit first, her cheek struck second. She didn’t cry out.

Amalthus moved before he could think - just a step, just a hand - reaching to help.

Her voice cracked the silence like a whip.

“Don’t fucking touch me.”

It wasn’t shouted. It didn’t need to be. The venom in those four words poisoned the air.

He froze. Arm still extended.

Her face was turned toward the stone. Something like blood (but not quite, some manner of glowing circulatory plasma) now trickled from a split in her lip, or maybe from where her temple struck the stair. It didn’t matter. She was already pushing herself up - slowly, awkwardly, dragging her knees beneath her like a beast remembering what it meant to stand.

She didn’t look at him.

He clasped his hands behind his back. “If you insist. The difficulty is yours, not mine.”

She let out a snarl. Not a huff, not a snort, a snarl. “I can’t see, jackass!”

“I see. How unfortunate,” Amalthus had expected as much – the glow of her irises were enough to tell that her eyes were not looking around as they should have been.

“Yeah, well I don’t!” She hissed again, taking another step like a calf struggling to walk. She paused for a moment to take a breath. “If I can’t move on my own, I am not going to let other people carry me around. I wouldn’t be able to tell if they were about to throw me into a ravine, for one.”

Amalthus frowned. “Ravine?”

“I’m sure you can find one!”

“I’m not familiar with that term.”

She stopped for a moment. “Oh, for God’s…” Like she had a debate quite a few times before, over it. “It’s a big gash in the ground. Idiots… Can’t even bother to fish up a dictionary.” She shook her head and moved on. “I would read it to you, but I can’t see, and I don’t want to.”

“Did I do something to offend you, my lady?”

“Well, let’s see – you woke me up.” She retorted. “Right when I was in the middle of a battle simulation, too. I was just about to kick Goldilocks’s ass for the five-hundred-thousandth time.”

Amalthus’s brow furrowed. “You were… dreaming?”

She let out another disgusted huff. “No, but I guess that’s good enough for your hopeless little primate brain.”

Amalthus glared at her. “You seem… hostile.”

“No, gee, do you think?” She scowled. “I go to sleep with one very simple instruction. Don’t wake me until you find a way to get me into that box, or you figure out space travel so I can leave this rock!”

She smacked her hand against the wall, missing her intended target by a good six inches, and stood there for a moment, breathing hard. Her posture was tense - too proud to admit exhaustion, too stubborn to stop moving. Amalthus watched her carefully, noting the small tremor in her fingers, the way her shoulders shook with suppressed rage.

“I save this… primitive little world of yours, and you find a way to get me off it. That was the deal.”

He folded his hands behind his back. “I was not aware such instructions existed. We were only left your body, the blue box, and instructions to preserve it – as the rest of the Edifice.”

“Yeah, why do you think, genius?” She spat. “I left myself there to rot until someone figured out how not to waste my time. God damn it, I want my guns…”

She continued climbing, each step an act of defiance against a world she clearly detested. “So, let me guess - you think you’re clever, don’t you? Dig up little old me to solve some bullshit power-play. Or was this about religion? Dig me up to ask all those little existential questions you have about your world? You morons still worship that zombie, or have you moved on to worshipping empty chairs? Cause if it’s the first, I’ve got bad news for you – your god’s a woman, and I killed her.”

Amalthus didn’t answer right away. The “empty chairs” comment, however, did stick in his mind.

How… wonderfully prescient of her. Unless she knew. If she did, then… perhaps she was more of an ally to him than he anticipated.

He smiled, thinly. “You misunderstand. You are not a tool; you are an honoured guest.”

“Your heart rate’s climbing. If you’re gonna lie, at least try to contain your excitement.”

Amalthus frowned. How did she…? No. If the stories about her power were true, it only made sense. “The faithful believe you are one of the first Praetor’s associates. That your strength carved the Edifice itself. That the Architect himself sent you forth in a time of great peril and doubt.”

“Yeah, whatever.” She flippantly answered. “If I’m your messiah or whatever, can you at least hook a woman up with an eye doctor? This shit’s not fading.”

Amalthus sighed. This was going to be a… trial.

----------

The healing chambers of the Indoline Praetorium were serene by design - soft light filtered through silken curtains, and the scent of burning incense perfumed the air. But the atmosphere clashed horribly with the metal groan of the woman seated in the centre of the room.

She sat rigidly on the edge of the padded medical-grade bed, one arm resting limp in her lap, the other gripping the edge like it might snap under her fingers.

“I didn’t,” The warrior hissed. “Want a checkup.”

Amalthus patiently crossed his hands by the wrists. “You have been out for several millennia. If anything, it’s fortunate that we woke you up and brought you here now – if this is the extent of the damage the stasis has inflicted upon you.” He turned to the short-green-haired Blade with the large tome attached to her neck by a collar-and-leash. “Well, healer?”

Adenine leaned in, adjusting the angle of the light crystal overhead with one graceful motion. The Blade's eyes glittered with fascination.

“Incredible,” she murmured. “I've read of fusions before, of course – Flesh Eaters, Titan nerve-jacks, even that Urayan legend of the man who replaced his entire ribcage with ether coils – but this... This is seamless! Were you constructed, or...?”

The woman didn’t answer. She stared straight ahead. Her breathing was shallow and sharp.

Adenine didn’t notice - or chose not to. She reached for the exposed forearm, fingers hovering with academic reverence. “These components – they’re far more advanced than any titan-weapons – and so seamlessly integrated into your flesh. How wonderful.”

Even though she was blind, the woman’s hand snapped up to catch Adenine’s arm before she could touch. “Don’t touch me.”

Adenine blinked. “Oh! Apologies. I’m afraid standard ether restoration is having limited effect. Your biological components are responding normally – but I can’t really do anything for your machine parts. Have you considered, maybe, a rebuild?” She touched a sparking port and was rewarded with a flash of blue light and a sharp hiss of static.

The woman flinched. Not in pain, but like a warning animal.

Adenine stepped back quickly, not in fear, but awe. “Marvelous! A reactive feedback loop - either defensive or autonomous. Or both. Or it could be the reaction from an ungrounded electric transfer – probably that one. Might I-?”

“No.”

Adenine paused. “I hadn’t finished asking.”

“You didn’t need to.”

The Blade folded her hands in front of her, thoughtful. “You’re operating under extreme systemic stress. You’ll degrade further without repair. Is there someone – something - you would permit to maintain your internal chassis? A drone? A-”

“Touch me again,” The woman said flatly, “And I’ll tear your arms off and feed them to you.”

Adenine’s eyes widened, not in horror - but admiration. “If you could manage that in your current state, I’d be very impressed!”

From the edge of the room, Amalthus exhaled slowly, his hands clasped. “Is it serious?”

Adenine turned toward him, her tone shifting to something a shade more professional. “Flesh-wise, no. Mechanically – there are several things wrong. Biggest being her eyes. It appears the damage they sustained previously has actually caused the stasis field to fail around them, which caused them to decay further.”

The warrior spat loudly. “I got an ether blade to the face. Flash of light to blind me. Asshole responsible got off worse in the end, though.”

“Yes, you resigned him to the bottom of the Cloud Sea.” Amalthus hummed.

“Least you remember that.”

Amalthus looked over at Adenine. “Her eyes are not repairable?”

“I could probably do it,” Adenine said in a tone that was really not doing efforts to sell her confidence. “It should be a simple matter to put her under anaesthesia and-“

“No.”

“You’re missing use of your eyes.”

The woman let out a sharp bark of laughter. “And let some random jerkoffs put me under so you can pull me apart and stick whatever control systems you want in me? You think I’m stupid?”

“No,” Adenine said thoughtfully. “Just ignorant.”

The woman’s head turned, just slightly.

“I mean,” Adenine clarified, smiling. “You were clearly put into a stasis chamber that wasn’t up to code, and it’s taken a toll, and you’re arguing.”

Amalthus stepped forward at last, his voice calm. “Is she in danger?”

“She is danger,” Adenine said cheerfully. “But no. She’ll probably just be in excruciating agony until her body acclimates to the being alive position.”

The woman stood, wincing as something in her hip clicked back into alignment with a sickening ‘pop!’

“What about my eyes!?”

“I just told you – unless you wish to go through corrective surgery, there is nothing I can do for you on that front.”

Amalthus let out a hum, as the door clicked and swung open, allowing a figure entry. “Ah, Quaestor. Your timing is always impeccable.”

Giannis bowed his head, rolling a cart in front of him. “I try.”

“This is it?”

“What is?” The woman scowled.

Giannis began to approach the warrior. “Praetor Amalthus recalled your inability to see, and so tasked me with procuring a selection of eyewear that could potentially rectify the issue.”

“…did you eat a thesaurus for breakfast?” Her face then twitched, looking confused for a second. “And… I think I need to get some hearing aids, too. You sound… off.”

“As Quaestor, I would be more than happy to assist you. But first, Adenine?”

“Well, I’m not a machine doctor – but it looks like the ether blade or that flash of light was kicking out enough heat to warp the lenses inside her eyes. Basically, she has astigmatism.”

“Is it treatable?” Amalthus prodded. He didn’t want to have her wandering around, unable to see, because she was too stubborn to get new eyes.

“Oh, easy.” Adenine held a hand over the warrior’s head, and closed her eyes, as if trying to picture the exact shape in her head. Before turning to the cart. She looked through all of them, then plucked one out of the selection. “Here you go.”

“Oh, don’t tell me it’s going to be that-“ The woman blinked as she placed the glasses on her face, and blinked. Her eyes started to twitch and dilate correctly, as she looked around. “Huh. Well, that was quick.” She then huffed, and turned away. “Don’t expect a thanks.”

Amalthus held his head up high. “We at the Praetorium believe in helping those in need of it, without thanks, without reward. In fact, I prefer to not be repaid. I find it… affirming.”

“You shouldn’t lie, elf-ears,” She snorted. “You woke me up for a reason. Not out of the goodness of your soul. You need something out of me.”

“We all need something out of something,” Amalthus calmly, factually, hummed. “That’s a simple fact of existence. We need the water that the rains provide. The air that the trees generate. The light that the sun radiates.”

The ancient warrior huffed in disgust.

“I will not insult your intelligence by pretending otherwise,” The Praetor continued. “There is a task that you can assist us with. But although I do not believe in accepting thanks, I am prepared to give it. We are quite a means more advanced than the people of your time. If entry into the container you guarded is what you seek, I have no doubt that we can be of help. Failing that, you expressed a… desire to get away from this world? To reach the heavens?”

She scoffed. “If you’re saying it like that, you definitely can’t help me. I wonder if you monkeys have even figured out space has no gravity yet.”

“Stay your tongue,” Giannis bristled. “You are a guest – but His Eminence is attempting to assist you-“

Amalthus gently raised his hand. “Perhaps I don’t know the full details of what you speak – but I do know a bit more than most. The World Tree did exist in your time, yes?”

“The megastructure that all of your ‘Titans’ are in a patrol around? What about it?”

Giannis cleared his throat, gesturing. “Praetor Amalthus is the first human being in recorded history to have ascended the tree, and reached Elysium.”

Amalthus nodded. “When I reached the top, it was…” ‘Empty. Dark. Derelict.’ “Exquisite. Even in daylight, the stars hung above like a black ocean. A sky full of night, yet the sun still shone. And the edge of the world below curved as though it were a drop of rain, frozen mid-fall.”

Slowly, the ancient Warrior’s head twisted to stare at Amalthus, and she got up from her seat. “Really… Well, aren’t you just a trailblazer?”

“I’m only a humble servant of the Architect,” Amalthus bowed his head. “But if reaching the heavens is your goal, if Elysium is what you crave, you’ll find no one better equipped to assist you.”

“You keep saying I can help you. With what, exactly? I’m nobody’s soldier. What could you possibly need me for that you don’t already have an army of faithful idiots to throw at?”

Amalthus smiled faintly. “They are faithful – but I would hardly call them faint-of-mind.”

“You’re running a religion,” She snorted. “If it’s not to control people or to fleece them for money, it’s to delude them into thinking the universe is anything else than it actually is. And you expect me to trust you?”

Amalthus lowered his gaze for a moment. “You do have a point. Trusting those you have only just met is… ill-advised.” He took a breath. “I was once a man of no consequence. A simple Quaestor, taking a nomadic lifestyle around Alrest. I helped spread the message of the Praetorium, and rendered its aid to many who needed it.”

“You?” She levelled an eyebrow at him. “You were basically a traveling missionary? Oh, that’s just great – not only do I get one of the nuts, I get the ones who have to push their belief on others.”

Amalthus allowed the interruption to pass without so much as a twitch.

“A minister, in a sense,” Amalthus went on. “I gave comfort where I could. Be that food, healing, or teachings. I carried the word of the Architect to all the corners of the world.”

“And I’m sure they were thrilled,” She said, stretching the sarcasm until it nearly snapped.

“Sometimes,” Amalthus admitted. “Mostly, they were content to have the pain subside for even a moment.”

He turned slightly, his hands folding behind his back.

“But in my travels, I bore witness to some of the worst the world had to offer. It made me truly wonder if there was a plan for it all. If the Architect…”

“Gods’ designs are not meant for mortal minds to ponder,” Giannis spoke up. “They can often seem impenetrable, even cruel to ones as small as us. It is only natural you had a crisis of faith, Praetor.”

“I know that now, of course.” Amalthus warmly chuckled. He then turned to the ancient, reawakened woman. “At the time, however, I wondered. And so, I set about climbing the World Tree.”

She snorted. “Must’ve been one hell of a climb.”

“Indeed it was. I confess, at the time, I had wondered if I would find Elysium at all. If it even existed.” He looked her in the eyes - his were calm, unblinking. “But it did, and I found entry. Empty, no doubt, since mankind had been cast out of it at the beginning of time… but it was there.” His look then became shrouded by a veil of pensiveness. “The Architect… did not reveal Himself to me directly. But I felt His presence, guiding me.”

The woman rolled her eyes, and turned away. “And I suppose he gave you a super-special set of tablets that only you could read, dictating how to run the world that just so happens to line up with how you want to do it, right?”

Amalthus set his jaw. He knew what she was trying to imply by that, but didn’t rise to it. “No. I found a pair of Core Crystals. The Architect’s Blades, the power he used to sunder the world-“

“The Aegises.” Giannis orated.

“He allowed me to take them,” Amalthus continued. “And I brought them back here. I awoke one. But when a god casts his shadow into the world, it doesn’t always take the shape we expect. That one was… unrestrained wrath. The Architect’s will to punish, without the restraint. He saw the sin in the world, and sought to burn it all down.” He took a slow breath. “I tried to stop him. But I couldn’t. So I took the other core, the core of light, and bestowed it upon a person whom I believed embodied everything to stop him.”

Amalthus took a long pause.

“Malos and Mythra’s battle was long and bloody. Destructive on a level rivalled only by the conflict you came from. In the end, Malos was killed. His Monado, shattered; his body, cast into the depths of the Cloud Sea, never to be seen again.”

The woman blinked, looking off to the side, into space. “His… Monado?”

“An incredibly destructive weapon,” Amalthus sighed. “Divine judgment, made tangible. Versatile beyond comprehension – constantly adapting, reshaping itself to fit its Blade’s intent. The Monado was Malos’s will made manifest. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, what he willed was the total annihilation of everything that was not himself.”

“Hmph.” She huffed. “Sounds about right. Dumbasses messing with things they can’t control, getting surprised when it fucks them over in the end.”

Giannis twitched.

“And Mythra was little better,” Amalthus continued. “Although she stopped Malos, she was just as powerful. Just as destructive. Her Driver at the time could barely keep her restrained. Their battle sank three Titans. Countless more died in the days to follow. A small comfort we had was that we believed Mythra just as lost as Malos.”

Amalthus slowly walked past, taking a steady breath.

“Until now.”

The warrior snorted in derision. “If you think I’m gonna sit here and cry over the consequences of your actions coming to bite you, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“On the contrary. The folly is none but my own.” The Praetor cleared his throat. “But for the past five-hundred years, the world has been in a state of peace never before realized.” Then, he spun around, quickly. “Until now. Titans die off, and do not replenish. The nations of the world stand poised to throw themselves at each other in total war. And now Mythra has arisen. You were not there during the Aegis War, but I was. I watched cities burn not only from Malos’s malice, but from Mythra’s carelessness. When I met her, she was… volatile. Arrogant. Reckless. She was barely contained even under Prince Addam’s guidance - a man of noble bearing and great restraint, and he could only just manage to keep her under control. But he is long dead. And now?” He looked into her optics. “Now she walks the world again, bonded to a stranger. Someone whose disposition is unknown. Someone who may not curb her instincts. Who may, in fact, encourage them. If she loses control again - if she even stumbles – I fear we would not survive the destruction a second time.”

The warrior let out a hum, and flashed a crooked grin. “She sounds like my kind of girl.”

“I assure you – if she is left unchecked, you would find it extremely difficult to ascend the World Tree.”

She inhaled, turning away from Amalthus. “So, you want me to be your little… hunter-killer.”

“Don’t be so hasty. I don’t wish to kill the boy simply because we have no idea what kind of Driver he is. We’re attempting to scout him first. Speaking of which?” Amalthus threw a look over his shoulder at Giannis.

The Quaestor turned to look at Amalthus. “Last update shows our team had yet to reach their destination. It shouldn’t be long, however. Even accounting for the Aegis’s… unexplained ability to so rapidly move from Titan-to-Titan. The ship we provided them is swift; we should have confirmation soon.”

Amalthus nodded, then returned his gaze to her. “All that said… you may be the only one capable of countering her, should it come to that.”

There was a silence.

Then a shimmer, as even in her injured state, she whipped back around to face him.

A high-pitched hum rang through the air as a sleek, black-plated revolver snapped into being in the woman’s hand - like it had always been there, just waiting for an excuse to make itself visible. She raised it smoothly, the barrel levelling squarely with Amalthus’s head.

Giannis and Adenine tensed - but Amalthus didn’t move. He didn’t even blink.

The hammer cocked with a ‘click’ louder than the gunshot it was about to create.

“You would dare hold His Eminence at gunpoint!?”

“Fascinating – that didn’t feel like a normal Ether influx,” Adenine commented even as she prepared her weapons.

“What’s to stop me,” She said, voice low, “From walking out that door, climbing your precious World Tree, and finding my way off this hellhole myself?” Her eyes narrowed.

Amalthus regarded her calmly. “I climbed it, yes. Five hundred years ago.” His voice remained cool, measured. “But times have changed,” He continued. “The World Tree is no longer as accessible as it once was. Because of it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “It?”

“The serpent,” Amalthus said. “Dormant, once, until the war. Now it circles around the base of the Tree, and tears apart anything that approaches. Nothing has ever survived its wrath.”

Her gaze didn’t falter, but her head tilted. She held the gun level.

“It does not speak. It does not reason. It kills. And it does not die.”

A moment passed in silence.

Then he added, with quiet satisfaction, “But you wouldn’t have known that. Because you have no scouts. No resources. No access. And no allies.”

She set her face into a tight scowl. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking ‘there’s no way she’s going to shoot me – she still needs me.’ But I’m having a really bad day. And being as this is the Magdalene-16, the most powerful hand cannon ever manufactured in human history, and could blast your torso open like you’re an overfilled water balloon, you only have to ask yourself one question;”

Amalthus stared, challengingly, into her optics.

“’Do I feel lucky?’” She grinned like a rabid Igna. “Well, do you, Elf-ears?”

-----------

Rex stepped in first, trying not to look like a wide-eyed tourist. Vandham followed with the easy swagger of a man who’d been here a hundred times – probably not that particular one, but Rex figured that, if you’ve been in one pub, you’ve been in them all. Mythra walked in last, arms folded, expression like she’d just walked into a room that someone had tried to decorate with grease.

“Ugh,” She grunted, “Even the air reeks like booze.”

“Put on your friendly face,” Vandham said without looking at her. “We’re fishing tonight.”

“…fishing.” Mythra’s eyes flicked over to Roc’s scythes that did, in a way, look like giant fish-hooks. Vaguely. “You son of a bitch.”

They picked a table near the middle of the room. Vandham made sure they weren’t too close to the bar - too many ears - but not so far back that they seemed like they were hiding. He slunk into the chair, flagged down a waitress with a nod, and ordered a beer. Rex, visibly nervous, sat forward.

“You really think this’ll work?”

“Rex, lad, you’ve seen Mythra?”

He blinked. “Uh. Yeah?”

“Then relax.” Vandham leaned back. “It’s an old mercenary trick. If there’re guys with info you need, get ‘em feeling loose with lots of booze, send in a pretty woman so they think they’ll get lucky if they answer her questions, and nine-times out of ten, it works. We use it on jobs all the time.”

Mythra crossed her arms. “It can’t imagine it works that often.”

“You’d be surprised. Most people aren’t stupid enough to share real secret stuff. But you ain’t asking about classified intel, or state secrets. You’re asking normal questions. ‘Where do you work? Oh, where’s that at? What do you do? What do you make? Who do you work for?’ At worst, they’ll assume you’re a gold digger – not a merc.”

Mythra narrowed her eyes. “So I just have to pretend to be interested in their lives and let them think I want to marry into their payslip.”

“That’s right,” Vandham nodded. “And it’s easier than you think. Most men, they like chatting, even if nothing comes of it. Some love hearing the sound of their own voice, some need the connection, but most are just plain friendly.”

Rex frowned. “Feels a little… mean.”

“It is mean,” Mythra said flatly. “Manipulative, degrading, humiliating.”

“You ain’t leading them along,” Vandham tilted his head. “You ain’t flashing your stuff and promising a transaction you ain’t gonna fulfil. You ain’t humiliating yourself. Waitresses do this all the time to get bigger tips. You don’t have to flirt or bring yourself down - you just ask questions, listen to what they say, be friendly, and move on. Most of them’ll just assume you were looking for someone with a bit more spark and didn’t find it. That’s all.”

“Which is the only reason I’m considering it,” She grumbled, sliding her chair back with a screech of metal on metal. “Fine. I’ll go… bait the hook, or whatever.”

She made her way toward the bar, already drawing attention. Even with her arms still crossed and an expression like she wanted to set fire to the wallpaper, the glow of her Core Crystal and the graceful sway of her hips had heads turning. She scowled harder.

Back at the table, Rex whispered, “You sure she’s gonna keep her temper?”

“She’ll be fine,” Vandham said. “She’s just cranky.” The server finally returned with Vandham’s beer. “Cheers, love.”

“…That’s not as comforting as you think it is.”

They watched as Mythra wedged herself between two half-drunk men at the bar. One was rail-thin with a handlebar moustache, the other stockier, with soot-stained gloves and a scar that ran from his temple to his jaw. Mythra’s eyes flicked over at them for just long enough for them to realize she was looking, before she focused on the menu.

“Well,” she said, drumming her fingers on the counter. “What do I want, what do I want, what do I want…?”

“Ah,” Moustache leaned on the bar. “Far be it from me to answer a question you weren’t asking, but the Plumage Peach daquiri is always a treat on a hot afternoon like this.”

Rex clenched his jaw. Vandham raised an eyebrow at him.

“You alright there?”

“Fine, yeah,” Rex pressed his lips together. “The way he said that – next thing you know, he’s gonna start smacking his lips.”

Vandham chuckled. “Careful, lad,” Vandham said under his breath. “That’s the sound of jealousy talkin’. She’s on the clock.”

“I’m not jealous,” Rex muttered, arms folded, but he didn’t look away. “I’m just sayin’... he sounds greasy.”

“Don’t worry – she ain’t gonna find love here.” Vandham rolled his eyes. “Just relax. You’re still her favourite.”

“Wha- huh!?” Rex went red in the cheeks, as Vandham burst out into laughter again.

----------

Rex watched Mythra from across the room, slack-jawed. “She’s really good at this.” Half an hour later, and it looked like Mythra was fleecing them for all the info they were worth.

“She’s fakin’ it so hard I’m surprised she hasn’t burst into flames,” Vandham said with a grin. “But yeah. She’s good.”

“Do we go get her?”

“Nah. She seems fine – back up against the bar itself, drink in her hand so nobody tries to slip anything into it – she’s a pro all right.”

Rex watched a moment longer as Mythra leaned in to speak, then leaned out just enough to avoid the stockier man’s leaning in in response. She shifted her weight and repositioned herself slightly.

“She’s good,” Rex echoed, a little grudgingly. “But I still don’t like it.”

“That’s ‘cause you care about her,” Vandham said plainly, watching without judgment.

Rex hesitated.

“…Yeah. That sounds about right.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Vandham nodded. “But you know why I singled out her to do it? Instead of Nia, or Al, or Crossette?”

“Because she’s the Aegis?”

“Exactly. And you know what that means, right? She can see things coming before they happen. And she could vaporize everyone in this room with a thought. Those men over there? Nah, they’re no danger.”

“See things before they happen…” Rex repeated. “Yeah, I got a taste of that myself, when we were fighting Malos that last time.”

Vandham nodded. “Right.”

“But didn’t you say I had to be on my guard constantly? That people were going to try and take her, because she was the Aegis. And I know,” He looked back in that direction. “That they’re not Drivers. But… I don’t know. I just want to walk over there and pull her out.”

Vandham sighed and leaned forward. “Rex, that girl has an energy shield around her. She’s got the ability to see the future. She’s got the power to vaporize everything. They ain’t touching her.”

“I know, but… still.” Rex shook his head. “I worry.”

“You worry because you care. But… listen.” Vandham shook his head. “The two of you, you’re Driver and Blade. On a regular day, there’ll be times where you gotta let her out of your sight. But she’s not just any old Blade. She’ll have a grander calling. Her fights will be the stuff of legend. And it’s gonna suck, but there will come a time where you’ll have to stay back, and let her handle things on her own.”

“You think so?”

Vandham let out a quiet chuckle. “I know it. Drivers’ big problem – the biggest ones I’ve seen in my experience – is that too many of them view Blades as extensions of themselves, rather than partners.” He clasped his hands together. “And the thing with partners is… everybody assumes you tackle everything together, at all times. And most of the time, it’s true. But there will be some things that you have to do, and some things that she will have to do. And that’s okay. But if you can’t handle a little old thing like this,” He gestured over to the bar with his eyes. “Where she’s completely defended, taking all precautions, and in no real danger at all – how’re you gonna handle it when that time comes? Sometimes, you gotta step back, Rex.”

Rex frowned. “…that’s a bit intense. We’re just at the pub.”

Vandham grinned. “Yeah, but – you gotta start with the little things first.”

Mythra was laughing - dry, sardonic, and just theatrical enough to pass. But behind the mask, Rex could see it now. Her posture. The subtle angle of her hips. The slight shimmer across her back from her shield being up, even if no one else noticed it. She was fine. She was uncomfortable, maybe even irritated - but she was far from helpless.

“She’s got it,” Rex murmured.

“Damn right she does,” Vandham said. “Look, I’ve been in merc groups where people thought babysitting their Blade was the same as being a good Driver, jumping in at the first sign of danger. But that ain’t what trust is. You gotta trust her, Rex.”

Rex looked at him, frowning. “She didn’t even wanna do this!”

Vandham fixed him with a look so dry, it could drain a lake. “You’ve met her. You know what she’s like. You know what kind of power she’s got. You think anyone could make her do anything she didn’t want to?”

“But, then… why-?”

“Cause despite the way she played it off, she trusts us. And she wants to help.” Vandham mused.

“She doesn’t think she’s kind,” Rex muttered.

“She ain’t,” Vandham said without missing a beat. “Not in the soft way. Kind doesn’t always mean nice, or pushover. You’ll figure that out sooner or later.”

Rex let out a hum, and nodded, uncertain.

Vandham and Rex sat nursing their drinks, the conversation between them having faded into companionable silence, while Mythra was still up at the bar, fleecing people for details. Rex swirled what was left in his glass while Vandham sipped slowly.

“Oi.”

The word came low, slurred, and just loud enough to slice through the background noise.

Rex looked up to see an Ardainian soldier stumbling toward their table. His armour was half-unbuckled, shoulder strap askew, helmet clutched under one arm like a child’s toy. He wasn’t alone - two of his buddies lingered by the bar, watching with the detached curiosity of men who knew what was coming and didn’t care enough to stop it.

The soldier's eyes locked on Vandham. More specifically – on the, scaled ridges running down Vandham’s cheeks and at the edges of his brow that marked his Urayan heritage.

“I know that look,” The man drawled, voice thick with drink. “You lost, lizard?”

Vandham only glanced over, then went back to drinking.

“I’m talking to you,” The soldier shoved Vandham in the shoulder.

Vandham moved, but otherwise, didn’t react.

“I said,” The soldier growled louder, stumbling a step closer, “Are you deaf, lizard-spawn?”

Rex sat up straighter.

“Vandham,” he muttered.

“I heard him,” Vandham replied evenly, not looking up.

“Of course you did,” The soldier sneered. “Coward. You slither in through the cracks when nobody’s lookin’, and now we’ve got Urayan scum drinkin’ next to decent folk. And you don’t even got the common goddamn courtesy to look when someone calls you out on your bullshit.”

“I ain’t doing nothing,” Vandham rumbled. “Just keep walking, and we don’t have to make a scene in front of your friends.”

“Yeah you are,” The soldier growled. “I lost my brother to one of you slippery bastards. And now you’re just sittin’ here like you belong. Like you earned it.”

Vandham exhaled slowly through his nose. “I said: Walk. On.”

“You lot always acted like you were better’n us. With all your all-natural Titanships and your grand old town. ‘Urayan superiority.’” He gestured with his tankard, sloshing beer. “So what’s this one doing in our pub, eh? Shouldn’t you be swimmin’ home? Or is it true what they say - Urayan mercs are sellin’ themselves for Ardainian coin now?”

Rex stood abruptly. “Hey! Leave him alone!”

The soldier blinked, swaying toward Rex, then squinted as if noticing him for the first time. “You his son or something?” His lip curled. “No, that ain’t it. Can’t be. You’re not even the same species. What’d he do, buy you? Or was your mother feeling generous?”

Vandham stood up, and glared at the soldier. “Say what you want about me all the hell you want. But leave the boy outta it.”

“Boss…” Roc quietly croaked.

“Why?” The drunken soldier leaned forward “Because you know I’m right? Because this kid looks at you like you hung the moon, and you don’t got the spine to tell him he’s just a warm body you dragged in to replace the last one who got you killed?”

Vandham clenched his jaw, breathing so heavily it sounded like a growl, and spitting out air. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, so I’m gonna give you a chance to shut up, before I make you.”

“What’re you gonna do?” The soldier huffed. “All talk, you Urayans. Such a big game, talking about how tough you all are. And then, we kicked your arses at Temperantia.”

Vandham’s jaw locked as his eyes burst into flame.

“You remember that, don’t you lizard-burns.” The soldier sneered. “Dozens of the finest Urayan soldiers your army could send at us – and we sent you running. Makes me proud to be an Ardainian.”

Vandham’s muscles twitched, and Rex’s eyes nervously flicked over to him. The boy slowly inched his hand over to Mythra’s sword.

“I was there, you know.” The soldier grinned. “I must’ve put holes through ten, twenty of your buddies? Watched as they got dragged off the battlefield in bodybags and stretchers. We won Temperantia that day – cause you lot were too stupid to pack extra medicine-“

The first punch came like a lightning strike - no flourish, no wind-up, it just happened, and could only be recognized by the sound it left behind. It hit the soldier in the jaw and sent him reeling, crashing over a stool and hitting the floor with a grunt.

Before he could roll over, Vandham was on him.

Silent.

A massive fist slammed down into the man’s ribs. One, two, three. Each blow thudded into flesh and bone with a force that made the floorboards quake. Vandham wasn’t fighting like a mercenary - he was brawling with the sole, inexhaustible goal of shutting the other guy up.

The soldier’s cries were muffled under the weight of fists and fury.

Wood creaked and cracked under Vandham’s bulk as he straddled the man, driving punch after punch into his face, his collarbone, his chest. There was no shouting. No words at all.

Only Vandham’s breath - ragged, primal, like the snarl of a lion holding itself back from the final kill.

The room was frozen. Mugs hovered midair. Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Even the barkeep stood statue-still, one hand white-knuckled around a bottle of Ardainian rum.

But it didn’t last.

A chair scraped hard across the floor - then clattered over as one of the soldier’s mates surged forward, grabbing the chair and hefting it with him as he moved.

“Get off him, savage!” He bellowed, swinging a thick wooden stool over his head.

Rex saw it coming. “Vandham!”

The stool came down hard, smashing against Vandham’s back. Wood exploded into splinters-

-over a bubble-shaped shield of Ether formed from yellow hexagons.

Vandham stopped, and stood back up, off the man.

Not like a man stunned, but like a mountain rising from the sea.

The soldier beneath him groaned, barely conscious, blood pooling beneath his nose and jaw.

Vandham turned to the man with the broken stool.

Still silent.

Still furious.

Then, the other guy lunged.

Vandham met his charge with an arm in front of him, and slammed into him like a freight barge. They crashed into the side of a table, which upended with the sound of cracking wood - mugs and dishes clattering across the floor. The impact sent the second soldier sprawling, winded, scrambling backward in a tangle of limbs.

The spell broke.

“HEY!” Another voice shouted. “That’s enough!”

“Bastard’s gonna kill someone!”

A barmaid ducked behind the counter. Someone grabbed a bottle and hurled it across the room, trying to stop the fight without getting involved - it missed Vandham entirely and shattered against a support beam, spraying glass.

Then chaos erupted.

Another pair of soldiers leapt toward Vandham - only for him to catch one in mid-charge and throw him, full-body, into a group of onlookers. He toppled like dominos, crashing into a booth, which collapsed under the weight of limbs and beer.

The second soldier managed to grab Vandham by the arm - only to be hoisted and slammed spine-first into a barrel.

The crowd surged.

Rex stepped back just in time to avoid a flying chair.

“Roc!” he shouted. “Help me!”

The birdlike Blade threw his wings wide, stepping between Rex and a brawling pair of dockworkers who’d joined in for no reason other than opportunity. A gust of wind from the avian Blade knocked some people off-balance who were trying to lunge at Rex for the simple fact that he had been seen with Vandham.

Meanwhile, across the room, Mythra turned at the first crash of glass - still at the bar - and froze as she caught sight of the brawl.

She kicked off the barstool as her eyes popped open wide.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TWO IDIOTS DOING!?” Mythra bellowed.

Back in the centre of the room, Vandham was a storm. It wasn’t like he was fighting, anymore, more like… some vengeful spirit had possessed him, and was hell bent on nothing more than punishment. Specifically, of the soldiers that wanted to throw their lot in with the one that had started it. One man in an officer’s uniform tried to grab him in a chokehold - Vandham whipped his head back, breaking the man’s nose, then threw him bodily into a table.

Another charged with a baton, clocking Vandham with enough force to send his head spinning, and the baton splitting - only for Vandham to grab a chair leg off the floor and shatter it against the man’s temple.

Rex was awestruck, and paralyzed, and terrified.

Vandham had said Drivers were tougher, stronger, and faster than normal people.

But this is the first he had truly seen it.

More soldiers charged into the fracas.

“Back off!” Rex yelled – less as a warning to keep them from Vandham so they didn’t hurt him, but more as a warning so he didn’t hurt them. Even as more started trying to push through the melee.

The whole pub was war.

Plates flew. Chairs were reduced to kindling. A man was thrown into the fireplace – not by Vandham, but by someone. The bartender tried to climb over the bar to escape, but got pulled back by a pair of brutes who were now wrestling in the ale tap line, sending golden foam spraying into the air.

Mythra’s heel pushed into the side of a drunk’s head as he tried to use her legs as pulleys to hoist himself off the ground – not with enough force to crack, just push, but still - he dropped like a stone. She turned, spotted Rex, and called out.

“Do I even want to know what started this?!”

Rex ducked a thrown bottle and yelped, “Now’s not the time!”

Mythra groaned and grabbed the nearest table leg like a club.

Across the room, Vandham had two more men in his grasp - one by the collar, the other by the ankle. He slammed them together like cymbals before tossing both into a stack of barrels that exploded in a cascade of frothing liquid.

Rex finally pushed his way to his side.

“Vandham!” he yelled. “Stop! We have to GO!”

No answer.

Just the sound of his breathing - deep, animalistic, barely restrained.

Mythra appeared beside them, “All right, this is getting stupid-“ She materialized her sword in her hand, let out a blast that went past Vandham’s head, into the wall. “Hey, shitass! This is what your job is as a merc leader!? Starting brawls in bars!?”

Vandham relaxed for a second, looking around. “Damn it…”

“Yeah, no shit! Come on!” Mythra bellowed to him, shoving him and Rex in front, as the other patrons – consumed by their own cross-fire now – descended into all-out war.

---------

The door slammed open. Mythra stormed out, smoke from the kitchen curling behind her. Her heels scraped against the cobbles as she dragged Rex and Vandham out after her, and led them away in three furious strides. Roc stood at the back, scythes in hand, watching the door as they moved

When they were far enough away, she spun around.

“God damn it!” She barked.

‘WHACK!’ Her hand smacked the back of Rex’s head hard enough to make him stumble.

“Ow - what was that for!?” Rex yelped, rubbing his scalp.

“This,” Mythra snarled, eyes blazing, “Was supposed to be scouting, looking for information, and the two of you start a bar fight with the ARDAINIAN MILITARY?!”

Vandham didn’t flinch.

Rex flailed uselessly. “It wasn’t me! He started it!”

“I know he started it,” Mythra hissed, rounding on Vandham now. “He started it with his face. And then his fists! And then every piece of furniture not nailed to the god damned floor!”

She wheeled back to Rex.

“And you stood there like a stunned guppy while this turned into a pub-wide fight club!”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen!” Rex protested. “The guy was—he said something awful!”

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” Mythra growled. “Because of course you both have a sixth sense for locating the one guy in the building who’s a drunk, racist, professional soldier with zero impulse control, and then decided, ‘You know what would help? Punching him so hard we spark a civil incident!’”

“He came up to us!” Rex snapped. “Van-!”

“It’s my fault,” Vandham shaking his head. “I lost control.” 

Mythra’s hands went to her temples. “Oh, freaking Spartacus over here! It was your fault – that’ll clear up a lot! This is Alba Cavanich, not Torigoth! Do you know what happens now?!”

Rex blinked. “We, uh… leave?”

“Oh! We leave!” Mythra threw up her hands. “Just stroll away, covered in blood, from a pub brawl involving dozens of off-duty soldiers, and hope nobody reports it to command, or the cops stop us on the street?”

“I didn’t say it was a good plan,” Rex muttered.

Vandham finally turned, voice low. “...he brought up something he shouldn’t have.”

Mythra looked at him, blank.

Something in her face shifted. Just for a moment.

Vandham sighed. “Look, it’s… it’s a bit of a sore spot for me. And I thought I could keep it under control, but I couldn’t. You know that conversation we had – about how war touches everything? It… ties back into that. I’m fine now.” He took a breath. “I didn’t hit anybody what weren’t going for me after that first one, I swear it.”

Mythra closed her eyes, then let out a long, breathless sigh.

“…You’re lucky I like you two,” She muttered, less a compliment. “Because if I didn’t, I’d leave you here to rot and tell everyone you died of being terminal dipshits.”

Then she stalked down the alley, muttering curses under her breath.

Rex stared after her, then turned back to Vandham. “So… you okay?”

Vandham shook his head. “Nope.”

Rex swallowed.

“Aw, hell… it’s nothing you done, kid.” Vandham rubbed the back of his neck. “Just… I thought I was over it, and I wasn’t.”

The young salvager frowned. “But that war between Mor Ardain and Uraya, it was a while ago, right?”

“…ages ago.” Vandham swallowed. “But you remember what I said about war? You can’t get away from it. That applies in more ways than one. And what that war took from me… Well. There are some wounds you don’t heal from.”

The old mercenary stood there for a long while, staring off into space, before inhaling sharply. The pain in his expression smoothed into a carefully-sculpted visage of calm.

“Come on,” Vandham gestured. “We should get to that inn and lay low.”

“Hang on – Mythra’s right, once the word gets out, they’re gonna be looking for us.”

Roc shifted. “I’ll fly up on ahead and scout the area. You’ll be fine.”

Vandham nodded, beginning to walk. Rex lingered for a moment, before moving into step.

The two followed Mythra into the dark.

-----------

Night fell on the capital city – plunging it all into shadows through which ambient lights could only barely be seen through the smog blanketing the town. From their inn room - modest, wood-panelled, and humming faintly from the geothermal heating conduits the place was built upon – it was all calm.

Mythra and the others weren’t back yet. Probably wouldn’t be for a while. And the Doctor’s tactics asking after any factories in the area that make mysterious things for mysterious people turned into a bust. There were too many around on the titan – it was an industrial centre – to investigate every single one. He started to wonder if Sever had sent him this way to distract him.

But… no.

He could feel it. Not in any way a human might - no gut feeling, no nagging hunch. This was deeper, older. A pressure behind the eyes. A weight in the bones. Time Lords as a species could see it all – everything that is, was, could be, and must never be. All the time.

He couldn’t anymore – not easily, at least. The Time War had fried that part of his brain (and going the centuries after without sleeping didn’t help, to be sure). He could be just as surprised as any human, now. But the other parts of that sense were still around, operating. It was less sight now, more instinct.

And instinct was telling him that Mor Ardain was something.

Muimui. Of all the Nopon in Alrest, it was him they’d stumbled across right after walking into the city. That wasn’t chance. That was the universe bending, pressing a thumb against the scale. Giving the Doctor a nudge. This big world, and they run into a Nopon that Tora used to know from childhood.

Now, he wasn’t sure if Muimui was involved. But it was a big coincidence.

He didn’t believe in coincidence. It might’ve been a swear, as far as he was concerned – right up there with Belgum, and Sunday.

Tora sat cross-legged on the floor; mechanical parts spread out before him like sacred relics. Gold condensers, rabbit diodes, thunder compasses - the Doctor had no idea what half of them even did. Poppi stood patiently nearby, arms at her sides, a neutral smile on her face, and she was doing that ‘hands behind her back, idly swaying and kicking the ground’ thing that a stereotypical cute person would do.

“I must admit,” Albedo said, watching from the corner with arms crossed and a brow arched. “I find it peculiar. You just did maintenance back in Uraya, didn’t you?”

The Doctor leaned in with an eager nod, Sonic Screwdriver clutched in his hands. “Yes, yes, I remember! ‘S a bit soon for this kind of maintenance, isn’t it, Tora? You don’t want to rebuild the engine every time an oil change comes around.”

“Doc-Doc and Al-Al both right,” Tora said, not looking up. “But now we in Alba Cavanich. Capital city of Empire of Mor Ardain. Technologically most advanced place in all of Alrest!” He gestured broadly, causing a gear to roll and bump gently against Poppi’s foot. “But many of Poppi’s internal components salvaged and bought for cheap in Torigoth. Old and rusty.”

“I’ve seen nothing to suggest she’s operating below optimal,” Dromarch commented from where he lay near the hearth. “She has fought admirably and protected her allies.

“Yes!” Tora agreed, tightening a bolt with a screwdriver and making a satisfied grunt. “But Poppi not just machine. Poppi is Poppi.” He paused, then looked up at them all, voice gentler now. “She is person. Just because something work does not mean it good enough. She deserve better.”

Poppi tilted her head slightly. “Masterpon…”

“Hush!” Tora chirped. “This not about being humble. This about being honest.” He picked up a glimmering new gyroscopic stabilizer, its surface unmarred by rust or scorch, and turned it over in his paw. “If have access to parts better than what she has… then why not replace them? Poppi trust me. Trust me to keep her safe, to keep her healthy. If I settle for ‘good enough’… that not very good Masterpon, is it?”

“Aww…” Crossette cooed from where she sat cross-legged on the bed. “You really care about her, huh?”

Tora tilted his head, like he found Crossette’s need to comment utterly baffling – like someone ran up to him, and started yelling the sky was purple and that the government was covering it up through tinted glass, photoshop, and modification of the human eye.

“Of course,” Tora nodded. “Poppi is more than artificial Blade – she Tora’s friend.”

“Yes, but… it’s more than that, isn’t it?” The Doctor offered, quietly stepped forward and kneeled beside the mess of parts. “All of that, the… laboratory, and you running to Torigoth – you were young. Oh, so young, you couldn’t even remember Muimui. And you were on your own. And in all that time, she kept you going, and sane. Not even by existing – people just… keep it together better, if they have something to focus on. A goal.”

Tora hummed, and nodded. “Doc-Doc not wrong. Tora probably would have kicked bucket by now, if not for will to finish Poppi. But Doc-Doc also not right either. It not just about seeing hard work not go to waste. It because Tora want to make sure Poppi is best she can be.”

The Nopon turned around, and scratched his head with his wrench.

“Also… never know what might happen. Tora owe it to Poppi to keep her in good condition. Belt slip in fight, or capacitor pop, and Poppi get hurt because of it? Tora never forgive himself.”

Azurda stirred from Dromarch’s side, his little eyes opening slowly. “Well, if the Masterpon believes this is an act of love, I see no reason to deny it. Poppi is quite lucky to have you around, Tora.”

Tora beamed.

“And Masterpon is lucky to have Poppi around,” Poppi tilted her head with a smile. “Poppi has been serving as Masterpon’s impulse control for longer than friends know him, just by existing as project!”

“Well,” Albedo hummed, turning her head to hide her expression. “Not enough to stop him from eating anything even vaguely sweet-shaped that’s in front of him.”

Poppi nodded, her skirt swaying with the motion. “Poppi have to start making veggies look like cakes and tasty sausages if want Masterpon to eat Poppi’s cooking.”

Tora cracked picked up one of the new components, and approached Poppi. Ready, waiting, knowing what was happening now, Poppi opened up her maintenance panel, allowing Tora access.

“We start with structural components first, okay Poppi? Combat mode useless if Poppi cannot even move because servo failed in fight.”

Poppi nodded. “Understood, Masterpon. Poppi will go into low-power state now.”

Her eyes flickered, then dimmed. She stood stock still, like a mannequin, as Tora gently reached inside, tools clicking together in rhythm.

The Doctor lingered a step behind, arms crossed, Sonic Screwdriver tucked under one elbow.

He watched the process with interest - but then something caught his attention.

The module.

That one the TARDIS installed and they had tried to remove, that had all of Poppi’s critical systems routed through it now.

A black ovoid, with everything else snaking into it like roots.

The Doctor squinted at it.

It was pulsing.

Just barely. A thin, flickering glow. Like a fire.

He stepped forward and raised the Screwdriver.

Tora didn’t look up, too focused on carefully extracting a corroded actuator coil. “Doc-Doc? Something wrong?”

“Maybe,” the Doctor muttered. “A bit more activity in that capsule than the last few times we looked at it.” He brought the Screwdriver to bear - ran a full diagnostic sweep. And winced.

The screwdriver bounced off.

Not literally - but feedback returned as… nominal. Not like it was hiding anything, but more like what its purpose was should be so obvious to the Time Lord, it didn’t feel the need to tell him.

The Doctor frowned. TARDIS-built Sonic Screwdriver, and a TARDIS-built module. Probably conspiring against him. The shielded portions of the thing were proof enough of that – but he could tell at least part of what it was doing; skimming off power from Poppi’s Ether furnace.

But why?

“You know,” Nia crossed her arms. “Not sure I’m a fan of the big, powerful alien spaceship forcing things into people.”

“She has her reasons,” The Doctor muttered. “Even at her lowest, the TARDIS has never done anything to outright harm another person.” Mean pranks, yes. But never harm.

“Not a fan of you making excuses.”

“Nia, I’ve travelled in that TARDIS for two-thousand years,” The Doctor gesticulated. “Travelled with people whose guts she absolutely hated. And to them, she’s never done anything like this. No, this is something else. There’s a reason for this.”

Crossette sat up straighter. “Can’t you tell what it does?”

“That’s just it,” The Doctor replied, voice low. “I don’t know. It’s shielded. Could be tamper-proofing, could be for its protection, could be for our protection. I don’t want to go poking at it more without an idea.”

Nia frowned. “You trust your ship that much?”

The Doctor looked at her, dead in the eye. She didn’t know, to be fair – the TARDIS wasn’t just a ship. She was his other half, his home, his oldest and most enduring friend.

“Absolutely.” It wasn’t even a question for him, any more.

Tora looked from the Doctor, to Poppi, then to the open panel - where the gentle, rhythmic pulsing of the module was just faintly visible. He clutched his wrench tighter, suddenly aware of how small it looked in his hand.

“Maybe TARDIS thread it through other systems?” Tora suggested. “Maybe Doc-Doc can figure it out by scanning other parts of Poppi?”

The Doctor glanced over, lips tightening for a split second. Then he beamed, rapidly snapping his fingers, and he pointed at the Nopon. “Not a bad idea. Good thinking, Tora.”

The Time Lord adjusted his Sonic Screwdriver, and began sweeping across the interior of Poppi’s frame - slow, deliberate arcs, focusing not on the black module now, but on everything around it. Power cables, hydraulic lines, her artificial muscle, and skeleton. Tora’s theory was sound – like trying to figure out what an unknown computer component did by examining how it interacted with the system. Maybe.

The sonic lit up.

Then something sparked. Buried near Poppi’s auditory system.

And suddenly, from deep inside her chest, a voice began to sing.

“Planet Earth is blue…”

The room went still.

“…and there’s nothing I can do.”

It repeated. A little warped. Like a cassette with the tape worn down.

“Planet Earth is blue…”

“…the hell?” Nia murmured, sitting upright.

“…and there’s nothing I can do.”

Looping. Over and over. A single line from a long-dead age, stuck like a needle skipping on vinyl.

The Doctor slowly straightened up, his eyes blank. “Tora… did you install Poppi with old Earth media archived?”

“No!” Tora frantically beat his wings. “Tora do no such thing! Tora not know place called Earth even exist till Doc-Doc speak about it!”

The Doctor licked his lips. “Then why... is she playing the songs of distant Earth?”

Poppi, still inert, eyes dim, did not respond. But the speaker embedded near her chest cavity kept echoing the line, over and over. Distorted just slightly more with each repetition, until even the warmth in Bowie’s voice began to crackle into something empty and cold.

“Planet Earth is blue… and there’s nothing I can do…”

“No, hold on – I’ve heard that before!” Nia pointed. “You were sitting in the TARDIS, fooling around with that radio! What is that?”

The Doctor crouched again, Screwdriver buzzing furiously as he tried to figure it out. “’That’ is the voice of David Bowie, singing about an astronaut drifting away from Earth, on his own, helpless, and dying in space. I never liked it – too bleak.”

Crossette raised an eyebrow. “Bleak? It’s David Bowie!”

“I like Somebody Up There Likes Me. That’s my response to that statement.”

“But… why?” Albedo frowned. “Why is it playing an artist from your world?”

“I don’t know,” The Doctor scanned Poppi over again. “It’s routed into her voice systems. But I can’t tell if the module itself is playing it, or if it’s picking it up from somewhere else.”

The song kept looping.

“…nothing I can do.”

Then, a new sound.

A faint click, somewhere inside Poppi’s open frame. Not mechanical. Not from Tora. More like a... relay activating.

The Doctor licked his lips, anxious. “I think it’s about charged.” The TARDIS installing a strange module, the thing charging while they were in Mor Ardain looking for leads on Torna, the big pull…

Something was about to happen.

“For what?”

“I don’t know.” The Doctor admitted. “I suppose we’ll find out.”

The room went deathly still.

“…Tora will finish maintenance on Poppi, quick as he can.” Tora coughed.

The Doctor nodded. Trust in the TARDIS’s plan.

Hopefully.

------------

After everything had been done back up, and the rest of the party returned, it was getting rather late into the night. Bathing hours for the inn’s female patrons had begun.

Nia yawned as the hot waters soaked into her pores and relaxed her skin. Next to her sat Poppi, also in the water. Far from her initial model, which looked like cans bolted together, Poppi actually looked a measure of human. Just with loads of seams and circuit-lines. And blocky arms and legs.

“Now, this,” Nia exhaled. “Is just what I needed.” After all the running, and hiding in cakes, and trekking through the mud – yeah, it was great.

Albedo took a sip of white whine out of a glass. “Poppi,” She looked over at the artificial Blade. “Are you sure you’re safe in here?”

Poppi tilted her head and smiled. “Poppi’s synth-skin is self-maintaining, but have little scrubbers that work better in water. It beneficial!”

“Huh. He really did think of everything.” Nia hummed, before she heard a creak, and felt an Ether signature approaching. That could really only be one. Well, one of two. “Which one’s that, then?”

“It’s just me,” The voice that answered was identical between them – but Nia could pick up on the subtle cues.

“Hey, Pyra!” Crossette waved at her. “The water’s nice and hot! Well, not as hot as you could make it, I bet! You’re very hot! Heat-wise, not-“

Pyra giggled, and set a toe in. “It’s fine, I know what you meant.” She let out an ahh as she slipped into it. “I needed that.”

Pyra burst into light, and Mythra was sat there for a moment, crossing her arms. “I needed that.”

Then, Mythra burst into flame, and Pyra was there again.

“We needed that,” Pyra corrected. “I don’t want to sound mean. But that pub felt seedy.”

“Most usually are,” Albedo dryly muttered.

“Not some,” Pyra tilted her head. “Quite a few are very classy.” She smiled. “I think… I’d like to do that. At some point. If Elysium doesn’t work out. I think… I’d open a pub. Mythra could pick the alcohol, and I’d do most of the cooking…”

“Oh!” Crossette perked up. “Albedo could make the dessert! And Poppi and I could be the servers!”

Nia glanced over at Poppi. “Maybe not Poppi. Don’t want to start bringing in the wrong crowd, thinking it’s a maid café.”

“What’s wrong with maid cafés?” Crossette tilted her head.

“I’ll explain when you’re older.”

Pyra let out a slow breath, and covered her crystal.

“Something wrong?”

“It’s been… a busy afternoon.” Pyra shook her head. “Vandham started a fight. Well. He threw the first punch. But something tells me that the soldier was going to throw one if Vandham didn’t.”

Albedo swirled her wine, tilted her head, and hummed. “Hmm. I always took him for the type who waits until after he’s been hit to resort to violence, and then insist that he was going to hit first. How unusually proactive of him.”

Nia frowned. “He did start a fight with us, when we met him.”

“Ah,” Albedo turned to Nia. “But that was different. Sure, he postured and strutted around like he was going to, but he waited for one of us to get physical first, before he did.” She regarded her drink again. “I suppose he must’ve had a good reason, this time.”

“He said… something about Temperantia. I don’t know.” Pyra sighed. “I just need to relax now.”

Mythra swapped in again. “I had to play to a crowd, looking for information, and the next thing I know, they’re getting into a fight with the cops. And the worst part? We didn’t get any freaking info! The whole trip there was useless! Damn it, Vandham…”

Pyra swapped back with a sigh. “Mythra… you know it’s not that simple… We’ve had our own troubles, people saying things to get a rise out of us…”

A flicker of gold in Pyra’s eyes were all the response to that, and the spring fell into silence.

“A fight with the cops?” Nia blinked. “Are we-?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry. It’s… probably fine.” Pyra spoke like she was willing herself to believe it. “We managed to give them the slip.”

Nia slunk back into the water. “Easy for you to say – you’re not the wanted terrorist…”

That set her heart speeding up a little bit. The four that had gone to the far would probably be okay – that soldier was getting agitated – but even still. Vandham was an Urayan mercenary. That was a bad look. And if they were arrested, who would they find among his traveling party? A Flesh Eater and member of Torna.

Nia took a breath, and stood up, out of the water. She wasn’t going to go running, but making a plan, just in case, was probably going to be the only thing that’d calm her, at this point.

“Right, well, I’d better head back down stairs then. I’ve got ears better than anybody else in this place.”

Pyra nodded, and Nia could see her eyes drifting to the core crystal, pink and splotchy, embedded in her sternum. “Nia… you’re…”

“Yeah, I know.” Nia scratched her head.

“Do you… want us to keep a lid on this?”

“That’d be nice, thanks,” Nia bit her lip. The Doctor worked it out. She was fairly certain Vandham knew. Dromarch, obviously, was aware. And now everybody else in the spa. If there was a point to keeping it, she couldn’t tell… But, just in case.

She hadn’t survived so long by not being paranoid.

“Poppi will put memory blocks in place!” The artificial Blade vowed. “It will be like Poppi never experience it!”

“And your secret is safe with me.” Albedo nodded.

“Yeah,” Nia hummed, moving to step out.

------------

“So, back there,” Nia gestured as they walked back through the inn. “I noticed you were swapping a lot. How’s that work?”

Pyra chuckled. “I have to admit – I don’t know much about the science of it… but we share the same core crystal, so our memories are shared between us, too.”

Nia tilted her head. “So, is that, like, an Aegis thing, or…”

Pyra’s smile faltered momentarily. “It’s… complicated.”

They rounded the corner into the main hallway of the inn - still faintly humid from the baths - when the world lurched.

A thunderous bang tore through the building, like a cannon had gone off just outside. The walls shuddered. Lanterns swayed violently from their hooks. Dust rained from the ceiling beams. Somewhere below, something heavy crashed to the floor with a wooden crack.

Nia staggered and caught herself on the wall. “What the bloody hell was that?!”

Poppi looked up. “That sound not like thunder. That was directional. High-decibel impact, ten meters south. Estimate - very powerful weapon. Very angry weapon.”

The Doctor threw himself out of the door of the room, looking over at them with wide, frantic eyes. “You lot – that was – what was-!?”

“It wasn’t us,” Pyra strode past, and into the room. Rex and Vandham were over at the window, looking out of it. Then, came lesser, rapid cracks – like firecrackers going off.

Albedo finished her glass, and set it to the side. “It’s a bit early for fireworks…”

“They don’t have any holidays coming up,” Vandham breathed. “Which means-“

The Doctor heard the second wave. “Gunfire! That’s gunfire!” He tore off like a bullet, and darted down the corridor, jacket flaring like a cape behind him, while his boots hammered the floorboards. Reaching the staircase, he went up.

“Wait, upstairs?!” Nia called after him, frowning. “Why’s he going up?! The hell’s he think he’s gonna find on the roof?”

Vandham was already moving too, rolling his shoulder as if shaking off old rust. “If there’s a situation brewin’,” he said grimly, “then the streets’ll be chaos. Soldiers, bystanders, carts blockin’ every road.”

Crossette blinked. “He’s going over the buildings? Like a cat?”

“He’s got multiple lives, he can afford it,” Albedo muttered, following after anyway.

They charged up the stairwell, Poppi holding the door as the group burst out onto the catwalks built up around the inn’s roof - high winds whipping against them, the sharp tang of smoke already creeping in on the breeze. Mor Ardain’s geothermal activity was raging, or the battle was kicking it up – glowing Ether ash and waves of heat were falling from the sky like snow.

The Doctor was standing at the edge, Sonic Screwdriver already in hand and scanning the horizon. His eyes were wide, straining, trying to see.

An Ardainian titan weapon – an enormous, whale-like creature with armour plating and guns – a Cetus, flew over the town, moving into position over one of the buildings.

But before it could open fire - it was hit.

A sharp, piercing sound split the air. A blast of prismatic energy lanced out from a smokestack near the heart of town. It struck the Cetus mid-torso - there was a blinding pulse of light, then silence. Not an explosion. The Titan had disintegrated.

“What the hell was that!?” Vandham bellowed, drawing his scythes in utter shock.

“Trouble,” The Doctor gasped out, surging into motion. “Come along, all!”

The catwalks rattled as they ran. The rooftops of the city connected in a jumbled web of catwalks, gangways, and precarious sheet-metal bridges. Narrow alleys yawned below like canyons, while above, smokestacks cast long shadows over their path.

“There!” The Doctor shouted over his shoulder, coat whipping behind him. “It fired from that smokestack I just a few blocks ahead!”

Over on the next roof over, a squad of Ardainian soldiers stood, attempting to fire at the enemy on the smokestack. Their dark armour glinted in the moonlight, as they stood with rifles raised, shouting orders.

One seemed to hear them approach, and spun around

“Stop right there!” The lead officer barked. “By command of the Imperial Garrison, you are to return to your homes and stay- Wait - that thing! That’s the machine we saw!”

His goggles locked onto Poppi - her skirted silhouette framed against the smoke. Her red eyes blinked as she tilted her head.

“Poppi?” Crossette asked, eyes widening. “Wait, what’s he—”

“I am not ‘thing,’” Poppi replied, sounding more puzzled than offended.

“She must’ve used the smoke as a smokescreen!”

Albedo scrunched her nose in disgust.

“She’s not the enemy!” The Doctor tried, hands raised. “Listen to me! We’re trying to help-!”

‘Crack!’

The officer fired, gunsmoke wafting off the barrel.

The bullet sparked off Poppi’s shoulder with a shriek of metal. Poppi flinched, then recalibrated - eyes narrowing with a sudden, mechanical whirr.

The Doctor’s face twisted. “No, why did you-!? ”

“Hostile identified!” Barked another soldier. “Converge and suppress!”

“Oh, you are going to regret that,” Nia growled, drawing Dromarch’s twin rings as she dove behind a chimney stack.

“Poppi!” Tora cried. “Defend self!”

“Activating,” Poppi responded flatly, skirt fluttering as jets fired beneath her heels and launched her forward with shocking speed.

The battle erupted.

“No, you-!” The Doctor grunted. “Argh!”

Gunfire burst across the rooftops, bullets pinging off metal and kicking up sparks. Rex surged forward, swinging Pyra’s sword around like a bat, striking with the flat side against the first soldier with it. Vandham followed with a roar, twin scythes flashing, using his momentum to hurl one of the attackers into a crate with a crash.

Poppi hovered just above the rooftop, arms transforming with a hiss into her missiles, firing them at the ground. The soldiers were knocked off their feet, and knocked around, sent sprawling and groaning on the ground.

Albedo bounced around, holding back. One soldier tried to flank her, but the moment he rounded the corner, she swung, and the whip-like crack of Ether split his rifle in half, and knocked him back off his feet.

“I believe I’m getting fairly good with this.”

Crossette threw her bitball around, bouncing it off the pipes, walls, the guns in the soldiers’ hands, and the helmets of the soldiers, knocking them down.

A cylinder launched from Poppi’s hip with a burst of compressed air. It arced overhead and detonated in a flash of searing white light. The soldiers reeled, shielding their eyes - just long enough for Nia to sweep in and crack one across the back, sending him crashing to the rooftop.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was scrambling through the chaos, dodging between pipes and clambering over vents. “No, no, no! Why is it always guns!? Can’t anyone have a nice discussion anymore!?”

“Doctor!” Rex called, knocking a soldier aside with the flat of his blade. “Where are you going!?”

“We’re not here to fight the Ardainian Military!” The Doctor shouted back. “Come on!”

They pushed forward, dashing away from the soldiers too-aching to stand. Pyra blasted them back with a wave of flame, burning a line through their cover.

“Go!” Vandham shouted as he used Roc to knock the soldiers back with wind. “Get goin’, get goin’! I’ll bring up the rear!”

With Poppi and Vandham laying down suppressive fire, they continued dashing across the rooftops.

As they closed in, the figure jumped off the smokestack, and began to sprint across the catwalks.

Albedo turned her head slowly toward it, frowning. “She’s moving!”

Three Ardainian soldiers giving chase fired at the cloaked figure. The bullets bounced right off, and clattered to the ground. It spun around, lifted an arm-

And a ray of light burst forth, vaporizing the soldiers where they stood. The figure turned around, and began to walk away.

“What the hell!?” Nia bellowed. “That’s like no Ether cannon I’ve ever seen!”

The Doctor’s hearts tightened as he could feel the soldiers’ potential timelines snap like rubber bands as they were undone.

He bounded up the stairs, Screwdriver flicked open. “You!” He bellowed at it. “Stop exactly where you are!”

It lagged for only a moment.

“You…” The Doctor wheezed. “You killed those men. They weren’t a threat to you- Their weapons weren’t doing anything!”

A cloud passed by from where it was blocking the moon, allowing the glow to shine upon the figure. It still wasn’t bright – but they could see the dress she was wearing.

“Meh-Meh!?” Tora gasped out. “Parts look- and dress- Lila!?”

The hooded head tilted to the side.

“It’s dressed just like Poppi!” Rex gasped.

It leapt into the air, landing on another smokestack.

“Lila!” Tora batted his wings, already moving. “Lila, wait!”

“Lila!?” Rex gasped out.

“Oh no you don’t!” The Doctor gasped, swiftly giving chase, clambering down a staircase. A pipe in the way vented steam, but the Time Lord didn’t slow. A shield bubble off to his side flared up as he passed, and he looked over his shoulder to see the light-blue flow of energy being maintained by Crossette. The others passed through, same as him.

They got through, and she leapt away again, from rooftop, to pipe, to smokestack. Each time she landed and sprang back up, however, the Doctor took note that she seemed to be quite unwieldy on her legs.

“Damn!” Rex swore. “She really doesn’t want us following!”

“Is this a good idea?” Albedo posed the question. “This is not our fight.”

“It Lila!” Tora snapped. “It is fight!”

“At least it is now that we’ve involved ourselves, taking down those soldiers.” The Doctor grit his teeth. “Least we can do is catch her so we can set the record straight about those soldiers mistaking Poppi – come on!” Then, he was off again, vaulting over railings and squeezing through pipes, the others barely managing to keep up.

They got close and, once again, their quarry jumped – landing this time on the street.

The Doctor plunged down a fire escape and, now on the ground, he broke out into a sprint. Boots clattered on the stone as they ran, and the Doctor stumbled to a stop as, when he got to where he saw her land – she was gone.

“Doctor, just-“ Nia wheezed. “Hold on a minute, yeah? That thing vaporized three dudes trying to chase after her. I don’t think she wants to be followed.”

“People don’t get into fights with the military for no reason,” The Doctor huffed and puffed, spinning around. “Either she’s dangerous and has to be stopped, or she’s innocent, and needs help.”

Albedo regarded the Doctor with a look. “I thought Vess had a thing about strays, but you…”

“Tora,” Mythra popped into existence. “What you were saying about Lila, that’s- it can’t be, right?”

The Nopon turned to her. “It have to be! Tora not see face just now, but know schematics of Lila like back of own wing!”

“But Lila-“ Rex heaved and breathed heavily, pointing. “I thought you said Lila was lost.”

“Unfinished at time of attack on lab, but Tora see Lila day-in-and-day-out!” Tora indignantly batted his wings. “Tora study plans for years to make Poppi reality! Tora knows what he saw! It! Was! Lila!”

Rex rubbed the back of his head… “All right, yeah. If you say so… I trust you.”

Vandham grunted. “Sheila must be packing some serious firepower – if she could shoot down a titan like that.”

The Doctor pointed. “Good idea, maybe I can-“

“Masterpon!” Poppi gasped, pointing skyward. “Up there! Poppi detect energy signature!”

“Lila?” Tora turned around. The hooded Blade was standing atop the roof of an adjacent building, looking down at them. “Lila!”

Again, she tilted her head – as though confused.

“Masterpon – energy signature is not like Ether furnace,” Poppi blinked.

“Meh!?” Tora spluttered. “Bu-bu-but- Ether Furnace is most important component of Lila! It only way she can work!”

The Doctor took a step forward, cautious, looking up. “Hello! I’m the Doctor, these are my friends. And we just chased across town to catch up to you – a little rude, I know, but search me, we were curious – and you might be…?”

Her head tilted up, the hood stretching. “Do not attempt further pursuit.” A firm voice, slightly on the deeper side but not quite that deep, echoed into the night air.

The Doctor paused, as he got a sense of… familiarity. “Hello? Sorry? You just vaporized three men! Now, I’m a forgiving chap – but even I can’t let bygones be bygones for total atomisation!”

“Hostilities confirmed. Engaging.” Then, she jumped off the roof, landing at the far end. Two piercing, glowing eyes stared out from under the hood, as she raised an arm – with a cannon growing out of the end. “R-CANNON!”

‘DANGER!’ surged through the Doctor’s instincts like a whip being cracked. He drew the Sonic Screwdriver, as quick as a revolver, and held down the activator.

The cannon sparked and died.

The mechanoid’s head snapped down to look at it. “Firing control off-line. Switching.”

In a flash of light, the cannon-arm figured into an enormous spike with rifling going down it, like a drill.

She lunged.

The Doctor barely threw himself back in time, the ground where he’d been standing erupting in a spray of shattered brick as the drill punched through it like wet paper. Like her sword was an arm, the hooded mechanoid swiped and lunged at him, moving with inhuman speed. Swipe, swipe, swipe, the Doctor focused on the drill. One strike came with a sweep of her legs and movement of her arms, and while the Time Lord remained standing, the Sonic flew from his hand in the scramble, falling to the ground before it was crushed under her mechanical feet.

“NO!” the Doctor barked, reaching out - but it was gone.

She turned, and the Doctor’s hairs on the back of his neck prickled as his body prepared. Cells around the estimated impact site mildly elasticized.

An instant later, the air whined - and a metal fist slammed into his chest.

The impact launched him backward into a wall. He hit with a grunt and crumpled to the ground, wheezing, clutching his ribs.

“Ooooohhh…” The Doctor groaned aloud as the cells around the impact site shuddered from the flex. If he was human, that would’ve killed him.

"Doctor!" Rex shouted for him.

The figure advanced, sprinting with the drill-arm held out to her side. She raised it high - no hesitation, no flourish, no words - just raw execution logic, prepared to drive it straight through his torso.

Then-

CRACK!

A bitball whipped through the air and struck her square in the temple.

She staggered.

Only a little. But enough.

Crossette stood nearby, legs shaking, face pale at seeing just how close her Driver had brushed with death, but her eyes were determined. “You still have us to deal with, lady!”

The attacker turned to face her.

That delay gave the others time.

“Mythra!” Rex called upon her, throwing her sword the Aegis’s way.

The street erupted.

Mythra jumped forward first, her sword radiating light.

The hooded attacker spun to meet Mythra’s charge, blocking the first slash with an arm-brace that flared on impact. Sparks flew. Then she twisted beneath Mythra’s second blow, turning into a blur of movement, elbowing Mythra back and breaking off into a burst of sudden acceleration - straight for Poppi.

“Analysing trajectory!” Poppi announced, jetting up into the air to meet her.

They collided mid-flight - Poppi’s hydraulic fists clashing against a high-speed spin-kick that redirected her downward. Poppi hit the street and rolled, but recovered fast, eyes glowing. “Warning! Reaction time exceeding calibrated safe parameters!”

“Damn, she’s quick!” Nia shouted, swinging wildly, only for the attacker to flip over her and land silently behind.

A curved blade materialized in her hand – a dark pole of metal, taller than she was, with a sharpened, hook-shaped head made of glowing blue energy. Some manner of scythe.

As the others got close, she moved again. Fast, keeping them at-range.

Rex barely managed to block, as time seemed to pause with Mythra’s foresight. The blow knocked him sideways. She pressed in.

One moment she was sweeping the scythe wide, the next she was gone – like she had teleported. But no. She had jumped, rebounding off a wall with impossible speed and landing directly behind Crossette. Crossette shrieked, literally throwing herself to the ground as the scythe swung.

Albedo stepped forward, like a reflex. The hooded one seemed to sense the motion, and spun about to face her.

There was no time for her to react properly, Albedo stumbling back as the scythe head came within a hair’s breadth of her coat.

The attacker hesitated. As if confused by the miss.

Albedo didn’t flinch. She just blinked. “Oh, would you look at that.”

The machine-woman spun again, this time charging Vandham.

Light erupted in her path, as Mythra jumped in the way, and Vandham threw himself into the fray as well.

The attacker blocked them both, the scythe's haft locking the twin blades in place, her mechanical dragging furrows in the stone as she held them at bay.

Poppi dropped from above. “Pow-Pow Cannon!”

She aimed for the attacker’s back.

But the scythe-bearer twisted, jumping away from the arms, and moved. She lunged at Poppi, grabbed the other maid-dressed Blade by the wrist, and threw her into Mythra, sending both flying like ragdolls.

“She’s predicting us!” Rex shouted, panting, sword trembling in his hands.

Vandham snarled, slamming both scythes together as the woman lunged at him. He caught her strike and, in a move designed to disarm, slid his own scythes downward – but the woman held onto hers with a steel grip.

“Yeah,” The Doctor wheezed, still against the wall, one hand pressed against his bruised ribs. “Predicting… and reacting faster than a human ever could…”

Kicking up sparks, the attacker lunged again - this time at Rex. Mythra shoved him back and took the brunt of the attack herself, blocking once, twice-

On the third, the scythe clipped her shoulder. Not deep - but it burned.

She hissed in pain and dropped to one knee. “She’s… adapting…”

Poppi rejoined the fray. “Combat efficiency rising. This is not good.”

The machine-woman raised the scythe again, expression unreadable, as she swept it in a massive arc. Everyone scattered.

Only Albedo remained still, back to the wall, expression unreadable. At the last possible second, she dropped, ducking to the ground and cowering.

The blade came within a hair of her cheek - and missed, embedding into the wall.

The attacker wrenched it out as Albedo slipped away.

Again.

The machine’s head tilted as she searched for another target.

“Friends too slow to keep up with Lila – but Poppi is artificial Blade!” The mechanical girl declared as she landed behind the attacker. Her opponent whipped around, and began to swing.

The attacker blurred, scythe raised high, boots sparking as she skated across the broken stone with inhuman velocity. One moment she was twenty meters away. The next-

‘CLANG!’

Poppi intercepted the blow mid-stride with a shuddering, two-handed block. Ether flared where their weapons met, rippling outward in a visible shockwave that blasted nearby debris into the air. Sparks scattered. Pipes rattled. A wall behind them shattered as Poppi lunged, missed her strike as her opponent zipped out of the way, and punched through a wall, ducking another scythe-swipe afterward.

Poppi reached up, caught it, and yanked. The scythe did not slip from its wielder’s hand. Instead, Poppi narrowed her eyes, and slammed her hand down on the weapon, snapping it in half.

“Enemy’s weapon is not Ether-formed,” Poppi reported aloud. “Effectiveness is now limited!”

The attacker looked down at the pole, and spun it around, now wielding it like a baton.

“Don’t hold back, Poppi!” Tora called.

The artificial Blade launched herself forward, pistons in her legs firing with an explosive hiss.

“Poppi Crushing Blow!” She twisted mid-air, arm folding into a drill-cannon hybrid that screamed to life-

She slammed it down like a piledriver.

The attacker sidestepped just in time, her skirt swaying in the wind as the ground detonated where she’d stood. The sheer force blew her backward, but she caught herself - spinning mid-fall, slamming one foot into a vertical pipe, and bouncing off of it.

She shot back in like a missile.

Poppi spun, raising her thick, blocky arms, pointing the widest end out as a shield.

‘SCHHHRRRCH!’

The broken scythe’s pole – still a jagged, broken piece of metal - caught Poppi in the side, carving a molten scar through her waist plating. Ether coolant hissed out in a shrieking vent of white vapor.

Poppi staggered, gears grinding, stabilizers flickering. And then she charged, picking up the other half of the broken scythe off the ground

The two collided in a violent storm of blurs and light - scythe sweeping, being caught by its own broken half. Metal screamed against metal. Poppi’s movements were elegant, refined, a perfect testament to Tora’s skills as her creator.

But the attacker-

Poppi ducked under another swing from the broken pole, and swung the pilfered scythe at her opponent.

The attacker leaned into it.

Took the hit full-on in the shoulder - and kept moving, as the scythe dug in.

She spun around the blast’s recoil, grabbed Poppi by the face, and slammed her into the wall hard enough to leave a crater.

“POPPI!” Tora screamed.

Poppi grunted - her voice glitched, distorted.

“System strain… reaching limit… rerouting…”

Steam burst from every joint as Poppi’s emergency cores kicked in. She twisted with hydraulic torque, as she balled her fist, and dove toward her attacker’s midsection.

The opponent caught her charge.

Poppi smiled. “Got ya!” Clicking came from her hand, as the attacker’s head snapped down.

Next thing she knew, a missile blast was sent, right into her gut.

Poppi was knocked back hard - bouncing once, twice, before slamming against a support beam. Her body sparked violently, and she slid to a halt, groaning low in her vocoder.

“Poppi!” Rex shouted. “She’s hurt!”

“No…” Poppi growled, dragging herself up, one knee buckling. “Poppi… not done yet…”

The attacker hauled herself up, twitching and sparking as she turned to look.

She paused.

Tilted her head slightly - like a hunter evaluating whether the prey was worth finishing. Then, began to move again.

Then-

“All right, that’s it!” Mythra growled, as a red column from the heavens appeared around the attacker.

“Mythra, don’t-!” The Doctor raised his hand too late, as the blast of light descended from the sky, raining down upon their attacker.

Mythra stood with her hands on her hips, looking satisfied, before the glow subsided.

Mythra’s arms dropped to her sides in shock. “What the hell!?

Steam hissed off broken stone. The last motes of Mythra’s sacred arrow drifted down like dying embers.

And where their attacker had stood-

She still stood.

But the blast had torn the hood off.

The thing before them was not a person. Not in the conventional sense. She was metal, and plating, and synthetic flesh fused with precision engineering. Blue hair spilled out in a cascade, matted and scorched in places. Her form glowed with slow pulses of the residual Ether charge, the light fading as it was redirected. The enormous scythe remained gripped in her left arm.

Her right arm was missing. So were both legs, from the torso down.

Hastily welded bracing plates held the legs of a completely-different construction to her frame, one very-obviously longer than the other, the shorter one having been sawed-down to accommodate. One arm, her natural arm, was smooth and human-like, the other one metal and mechanical. The maid outfit that she had been wearing dissolved in the blast, revealing the tattered, white armour and battle-skirt underneath, cracked, melted, and scorched.

Mythra took an involuntary step back. “What the…?”

Even Poppi faltered. “Damage level is extreme! Unit should not be standing.”

The figure’s red eyes flickered. Then flickered. Almost like it was failing.

“Calculating battle parameters.” She blinked. “X-Buster: offline. Probability of success dropping.”

The Doctor stepped forward. Slowly. Eyes wide.

He stared at her face.

Those eyes.

That face.

“…It can’t be.”

She turned - just slightly - toward him. The glow behind her optics faded for a moment. They shifted to blue for only a moment, before going back to that dangerous red.

“Impossible.” The Doctor whispered, louder now.

“Doctor?” Nia whispered to him. “What’s going on - you know who she is?”

The Doctor’s breath hitched.

And then, with distant, awestruck horror:

“Mary.”

The silence was immediate.

Albedo’s eyes flicked to the machine.

“Resource acquisition: improbable. Hostile response: accelerating.” The damaged android twitched as she straightened up – servos straining. “KOS-MOS: Returning to base.”

Flight systems of two different types – rockets embedded into her feet, and fusion jets installed in her back, flared to life, lifting her off the ground. And then, she shot off - straight up, high into the air, higher than anyone expected something in that condition to go. She arced over the rooftops like a missile rising to vanish between the stacks and smog, a star blinking out in reverse.

Silence returned.

The Doctor stared, wide-eyed, jaw open at the patch of sky where she had faded.

Only the scattered embers of Mythra’s failed Sacred Arrow remained, drifting down over cracked stone.

“…what… what was that?” Nia wheezed.

The Time Lord didn’t respond.

“HOLD!”

A guttural voice barked the command, and within seconds, the clang of boots echoed through the ruined square.

Ardainian soldiers poured in from all sides, rifles raised, armour scraped and glowing from the earlier fights. A dozen. More.

The lead officer raised his gauntlet. “Every last one of you; stand down! Blades where we can see them!”

“Aw, hell,” Vandham muttered, already backing toward a wall. “Doc, now might be a good time for one of your ball tricks…”

Mythra moved protectively in front of Rex, drawing her blade again with a flicker of light and a growl. “I’m getting sick and tired of this bullshit tonight.”

“Doctor!” Nia hissed, grabbing his sleeve. “We’ve gotta move! Snap out of it!”

He didn’t answer. Just stared at the sky. The name still hung behind his eyes.

A soldier raised his rifle. “Last warning! Drop your weapons!”

Then-

‘FWHUUMP’

A wave of heat surged outward.

A perfect ring of sapphire flame erupted around the group, boxing them in. It burned clean and cold, but the message was clear. This wasn’t a fight anymore.

“Oh hell!” Vandham swore.

Boots clicked against stone. Two new figures stepped forward through the veil of fire.

One in a crisp Ardainian uniform, tails rippling behind her, hat tilted forward with impeccable discipline.

The other walked in deliberate, balanced steps - Ether flames dancing along her arms like high-cut gloves.

“Oh fuck me!” Nia hissed.

“So…” Mòrag hummed imperiously with her arms behind her back. “It’s you. The Doctor… and Nia.”

“The- what!?” Rex’s head snapped over to Nia. “You know this one!?”

“We’re… acquainted.” Nia coughed. “Torigoth, remember?”

“Tor- oh, right, you guys said you were captured.” Rex coughed.

“This is… quite the squad, you’ve managed to assemble.” Mòrag tilted her head. “I would be impressed. Your associates in the Crystal Trade, I presume?”

“Look, it’s not-“ Rex gesticulated. “It’s a mistake! We’re trying to catch that Blade that was tearing everything up!”

“Oh. I see.” Mòrag slowly nodded. “And I suppose that explains your attacking Ardainian soldiers? And firing an unknown Blade weapon on the city?”

“…well, uh… those parts were self-defence.”

“Look, lady,” Mythra grunted, crossing her arms at Mòrag. “Arrest us or kill us or whatever the hell you’re here to do, but stop the smug.”

“Smug?” Brighid tilted her head. “I thought she was rather understated, myself.”

Mythra focused properly on the blue fire Blade, and gasped. “It’s you…”

“Me? I-“ Brighid began to retort, before taking in a sharp breath of her own. Even though her eyes remained shut, everyone could tell where she was looking. “Lady Mòrag… Her Core Crystal!”

“Hm?” Morag looked over at Mythra, then narrowed her eyes. “So I see. The rumours are true. The Aegis walks again. And where do we find her but among thieves,” She regarded the Doctor and Nia. “Murderers,” Then, she looked at Albedo, who’s eyebrows shot up. “Pub pugilists,” She glanced at Mythra, Rex, Vandham, and Roc. “And that machine Blade seen tearing up the town.” She finished at Poppi. The Inquisitor’s face twisted into a scowl. “How… unfortunate, that her Crystal would fall into the hands of such lowly criminals.”

“Lowly- hey!” Rex gasped. “I’m telling you, we’re not – I mean, we only did some of those things! Albedo hasn’t killed anyone, and Poppi’s innocent!”

The woman didn’t seem keen on speaking, instead drawing two long, thin swords.

Rex groaned to himself, and drew Mythra’s Blade.