SomeGuyOnlineXD: Good to hear from you again. :)

H.R.C. Stanley: Here we are. :)


Chapter 2

The Láckjang guard was slouching in her holo-chair, eyes lidded and bored out of her mind as she observed the network of Crystalvision projections monitoring everything, sipping from the small cup she had in hand. She returned the cup in question to its place on her desk. She yawned loudly, wondering by the Strato-Elf what was wrong with her and why she was so much more tired than usual this…

She didn't get to finish that thought as her head was, in a lightning-fast move, slammed against the desk and she was rendered unconscious. The silhouette behind her desk, eyes glinting with eyeshine in the darkness, promptly disappeared almost as suddenly as they'd appeared. A dark figure flit diagonally fast along one of the colour-hinted Crystalvision-projected corridors.


Less than two minutes later, a hexagonal lock was wreathed in bluish-purple energy like watery smoke. The lock in question was set in a circular metal door twenty feet tall and wide, and the source of the energy-stream was one of two small figures stood in front of it. Her arms criss-crossed and two fingers on either hand lifted, Cyclonis' eyes were closed in meditative concentration, and she looked almost peaceful, the crystals her curled fingers held in either hand's palm glowing, whilst Phoenix stood by her shoulder. Cyclonis opened her eyes (now wearing a camouflaged black-and-grey copy of her normal bodysuit identical to Phoenix's attire), and with a small but harsh grunt she tore her arms free of their X-position. The lock immediately shattered with that movement, and the door's S-shaped line became visible as the two panels separated and began pulling away, light flooding in from that which was beyond the door. The former empress turned rogue pulled a lopsided grin before she promptly stepped forward towards her prize, her subordinate right behind her.

The chamber within was not a place of gold, treasure and crystals, but row upon rows of cybernetic boxes, cables filled with power-supplying glowing liquid thrumming – a minor backup substation terminal for the Ionos-wide Crystalvision web, minor enough that it wouldn't be considered of much relevance, yet it still had direct access to all communications, which was just what Cyclonis needed. She couldn't stop herself smirking darkly again as she beheld the wealth of knowledge at her and Phoenix's fingertips, though she still checked herself.

"Upload the spyware," Cyclonis ordered with a glance over her shoulder at Phoenix, still smirking slightly. "Let's see what the manufacturers of Mikonosuin are up to with Project Aurum."

"Right away, Master," Phoenix replied with a slight bow of his head, before the four-armed snow-and-black birdman leapt away in a flash, and in three seconds he was at one of the many terminals, inserting the cuboid-shaped small crystal into a slot and rearranging the scattered holographic dots that indicated codes and commands. Cyclonis was doing likewise at a terminal on the row opposite from him a little further down, fingers working fluidly.

VWAAAAR!

Cyclonis and Phoenix's eyes widened fractionally at the screeching alarm, and they looked up. Not two seconds later, the lighting in the room dimmed as a hologram twice their size flicked into being, Cyclonis stepping slightly backwards from it: a hologram of an angular, six-eyed head.

"Security breach detected," the system intoned in a monotone, insectoid lips on the holographic head moving with its words. "Requesting intellectual verification. Please complete Pass-puzzle One." The A.I.'s holographic head was abruptly switched out for a holographic board with multiple pieces of varying shapes atop it, resembling pawns and arching tunnels and ladders criss-crossing the board, not unlike a popular game that Cyclonis had heard of on Atmos. Cyclonis' purple eyes widened in surprise for a moment, but then she scoffed, though she didn't smirk. She knew what the machine was doing: it had already called security, and passing the puzzle-based security codes would only give them more time to get her. But she would play anyway – she may have expected a more mainstream puzzle than what she was presented, but she hadn't been beaten at any strategy games on Atmos since she was nine.


"By the Strato-Elf!" exclaimed a voice, whilst a four-hologram grid showed four different Crystalvision perspectives, two of them showing the unconscious Láckjang guard and the two intruders inside the data vault trying to bypass the codes, respectively. The Jimūzunin who'd spoken hardened his face, then he turned to address the half-dozen troops in the red-lit carrier ship, all identically wearing black, insectoid-looking uniforms. "Look lively, troops. We have two hostiles, one of whom matches the description of Phoenix the Orange. I repeat, two hostiles, one of whom matches the description of Phoenix the Orange!"


Cyclonis' scowl was deepening by a mere millimetre with every several seconds that passed. She completed the ladders, tunnels and pawns holographic game.

"Pass Challenge Seven."

The game finished and a new board came up, all a full minute later than Cyclonis would have liked. She'd been intimately familiar with all of the most strategic games on Atmos from her childhood playing against her elders to a point where she hadn't lost once since she'd been ten, and after she'd arrived on Ionos, she'd made a point of familiarising herself with the popular game of Krishness over here in case she ever needed it – but she hadn't familiarised herself with any of the less universal, more primitive and childish games of Ionos which were so similar yet different from Atmos', hadn't seen the need to, for she'd never expected something like this to happen.

"Ah, Master, I think we ought to go," Phoenix said, the agile avian at Cyclonis' side in as much time as a single stride would've taken the average person, a nervous smile on his face – Cyclonis grimaced, but didn't say anything further, and Phoenix sensed her consent as he fluidly moved to lift his empress onto his back with his lower pair of arms, then leapt in a blur away with a spring of his legs.

Crystal-Bee security drones were already buzzing forward, entering just before the main doors fully closed and each firing twin sets of energy-beams. Phoenix was a zigzag of a blur as he leapt with his Master holding onto him from one wall of hard drives to another twenty feet across, climbing higher towards the ceiling – whilst the four-armed martial artist was moving, Cyclonis with a grunt threw a crystal behind them. The pinkish crystal exploded in a flash, and in an instant, crystalline structures were spreading like fast-growing mould to encase several Crystal-Bees. The Lightning-Fungus was fairly high-grade, one of the lightweight valuables Cyclonis and Phoenix had saved from her old shop. More Crystal-Bees were entering the chamber and firing – their energy-bolts dissipated harmlessly against the hard-drives' attuned forcefields, but one energy-bolt got very lucky, grazing black cloth to expose pale skin in two spots. Cyclonis couldn't stop herself gasping at the very close call to her left shin and arm, before she gritted her teeth and steeled herself to focus, craning her head upward.

Phoenix was carrying them higher with his zigzagging climbing pattern, slowing or speeding up as he made more diagonal or more vertically-aligned leaps between the two stacks to carry them away to safety faster even as energy-bolts rained from all around, whilst Cyclonis with one hand was aiming and firing blasts from a crystal. The blast hit and fried half-a-dozen Crystal-Bees at once, though many continued firing on them. Within two more seconds of climbing the tall stacks, Phoenix reached the top of the hard drive shelf, and he didn't stop for even a beat before leaping with his Master on his back for the open shaft in the ceiling ten feet away. With a rattling sound, Phoenix crashed into and fluidly grasped the hatch six-limbed, scuttling into it immediately whilst energy-bolts pounded the metal behind them, Cyclonis fluidly adjusting to his every movement and their every change in gravity, firing sparing, faint blasts from her crystal-staff behind them. The crystals that her staff had been running on since before coming to Ionos were running out of power.

Even here inside the ventilation shafts, alarms were blaring and distant yellow lights flickering, Phoenix's six limbs almost spider-like with how he scuttled on all of them through the narrow, dim passages. On his back, face focused and serious, Cyclonis promptly pulled up the necessary holographic map with the small purple crystal embedded in the sleeve on the back of her wrist.

"Take a second right!" she instructed her minion and escapist, who immediately exclaimed back.

"On it!"

They took such a turn just as a hatch began closing in the direction that had been ahead of them.

"Left!" Cyclonis said. Another closing hatch avoided. "Straight on!" Two hatches closing on either side. The two rogues were gritting their teeth in the narrow, dark shaft as Phoenix pushed them on.

After less than twenty seconds of travelling, the cubical hatch on the exterior chute came loose with one sharp bang, the two rogues sliding out feet-first, into the king-sized garbage carrier which permeated with the scents of rot and acrid chemicals, all just a second before the spiral-shaped emergency hatch slid shut over the chute's exit. The empress-turned-rogue and the snowball-coloured avian right-hand fluidly and almost breathlessly glanced back at the facility above from which they'd just escaped, with its towers vaguely resembling skyward fingers looming tall behind them and casting them in its shadow on this neglected back point. Cyclonis' anger was simmering – she'd managed to destroy some of the Crystal-Bees, but it was not enough to calm the fury, no, didn't even feed the fury and the sheer indignation the water it needed to cool when she was here, in this skip, surrounded by garbage some of which now clung to her hair and shoulders. After everything, from losing her empire to those childish Storm Hawks to ending up in Ionos, now she'd been beaten… by a children's game? Cyclonis' first instinct was to take it out on her subordinate who was just a few feet away from her in this garbage-pile, the one who'd been part of the operation, to impress on him that failure has consequences, it was still there. Instead, with a short roar, she suddenly struck both her fists down hard, into the skip's rim with a harsh clang. Cyclonis hissed slightly from the blow, her pale hands trembling slightly as they swelled from the force of hitting the metal – they would have broken if not for the training she'd received on how to avoid that. Her garbage-covered, avian assassin was just staring at her.

She turned her purple gaze up at Phoenix, anger and frustration that could scare a bear burning in those purple eyes, though it wasn't quite completely directed at him. Phoenix hesitated to speak.

"Master?" Phoenix's tone was… calm, composed, as if his Master had done nothing more than issue a moderately-unusual order out of schedule. Cyclonis lowered her dark glare to the ground – Phoenix kept his almost wary, cautious gaze upon her, a taloned, crow-like hand on one of his four arms lifted. She realised in that very moment; he had been observing and learning about her.

It was a couple minutes before authority ships began gathering at the facility, by which time the two companions were on their way to escaping.


Cyclonis and Phoenix returned to their lair shortly before dawn, in the stalagmite-shaped peaks beneath a pale-green aurora in a dark-pink sky, re-donning their usual clothes. The next day, Cyclonis had taken up a sparring session with their training drones – one that had lasted three hours straight.

Several more days passed, and Cyclonis delved into her three most familiar forms of time-spending: studying, experimenting, and scheming. She did all three harder and more furiously now after the recent failure. Phoenix meanwhile spent their downtime until his Master cooked up a new scheme going inbetween meditation, his own training sessions on their cave base's rocky slopes and scouring Crystalvision news channels for anything that might interest Master Cyclonis' schemes, whistling that distinct tune of his on-and-off for a while. That wasn't to say there was minimal contact between them: they regularly talked to each-other for some reason or another; whether that reason was Phoenix bringing his Master news, Cyclonis instructing Phoenix to fetch them dinner (on the occasions where she was too busy plotting to hunt dinner it herself), or something else. Phoenix made sure as a devoted servant to check on his Master's wellbeing respectfully, he even attempted to lighten the mood with jokes (though not too light for Cyclonis' taste). One thing about Cyclonis was that however short the interactions, and despite her expressed disdain for companionship, she loved talking to someone when she had someone around.


The oddly-shaped combo crystal split apart into several levitating pieces, some of them finding new slots to enter and others remaining levitating as the pale hand that guided their movements hovered; the young, pale woman contemplating with hard eyes. At the cave mouth behind her, a thick, dusty fog had descended outside – Phoenix's four-armed, elegantly willowy silhouette materialised from the fog, a slaughtered Hosubesi slung over his back as he came deeper into the lair and lowering the carcass from his shoulders, and Cyclonis almost had to repress an automatic smile from forming on her lips.

"A fine Hosubesi stew for dinner, Master?" Phoenix suggested respectfully as the tattooed avian halted diagonally behind the woman. Cyclonis, sat cross-legged on the red-and-pale-yellow mat from which she experimented with the crystal, one of several finer and less scrappy decorations now dotted around their cave base, looked out of her purple eye's corner at him as she contemplated the offer, having never tried such a dish before. She was fairly restrictive about her diet, mainly piscine foods which were good for her health and for the brain, but that wasn't to say she didn't have a habit of judging each of her meals' qualities inside her head, mentally commenting on how the flavour was more or less tangent and sharp this time or how there seemed to be a bit more texture or coarseness, a trait that went well with how Phoenix was a remarkable cook – certainly the kind of cook she could have seriously considered hiring for Cyclonia's royal kitchens. Back when she was the Master of her ancestors' empire; before it had literally fallen to ruin around her. Still, a small part of her was wary.

"Give me your best shot," Cyclonis murmured, smiling thinly. Phoenix looked like he was restraining a friendly chuckle as he bowed his head. He was turning to begin preparing the meal when Cyclonis' voice stopped him again: "But before you do that…" Cyclonis let the sentence hang for a moment. Phoenix the Orange had stuck around with her far longer than was practical, and it made the sensical part of Cyclonis' mind wary. After the loss of her ship and so many of her valuables alongside the rest of the crew, any less honourable underling in his position should have had more motive and perceived opportunity than not to desert her with as many goods as they thought they could thieve away with. But despite Phoenix' apparent honour, this devotion to staying by her, his continued attentiveness to her needs… There had to be another motivation, Cyclonis was sure of it, but she couldn't work it out for certain, even after analysing Phoenix for months while he was passive and during unrelated exchanges. So, with her own options currently limited given how vulnerable she would be without her only immediate asset, Cyclonis engaged the topic with Phoenix directly.

"Tell me – what do you expect to get at the end of all this?" Cyclonis asked, gaze fixed directly on her currently sole minion, her first lieutenant she supposed but without an army. She was interested to see how he reacted.

"Well… untold riches are pretty appealing, and it would be rude not to repay you for freeing me from Gonksiesh prison," Phoenix replied almost warily, a smile on his sloping beak as he glanced back over his shoulder at her, orange eyes seeming so warm amid his brow's black marking. Cyclonis could almost smell that there was more to this and that Phoenix knew Cyclonis was going to ask for it.

"That isn't a direct answer," she reproached him, her silky-soft voice warning before it calmed again. "What do you want?" The smile faded from Phoenix's beak, and as he looked to the side, he suddenly seemed much older and sadder, the black of his face and neck tattoos more prominent on his snow-white hair. Cyclonis had clued in some time ago that he wasn't nearly as happy as he pretended to be, which made sense as the reports on his background did not paint a happy picture. He seemed to deliberate quite-deeply and seriously for a good few moments before he came to his decision.

"A peaceful, tranquil estate high up on a peak, and a game of sky-chess every day would be nice," Phoenix replied fluidly, the smile slipping back on for a moment before faltering as his voice deepened, making direct eye contact; "and seeing those whom I consider myself close to safe."

"Safe?" Cyclonis echoed, now standing, arching an eyebrow with an almost predatory look of inquiry. A pause of some length passed between them, and Phoenix wasn't smiling anymore, though he still held his Master's gaze with his own orange eyes unblinkingly.

"Able to take care of themselves, know themselves, know how to heal themselves when the need arises," Phoenix broached carefully, almost nervously.

Cyclonis' reaction wasn't exactly instant, but it was quick enough. An energy-blast was suddenly fired and blasted the cave-wall as Phoenix had quickly moved to dodge it – he didn't move to dodge nor block when Cyclonis with a yell jumped at him in a flying kick, knocking him to the rock wall. She didn't bother pinning his neck with a forearm, no sense in that, so instead she held two glowing, thrumming crystals in either hand a foot from Phoenix's alert but less-than-shocked face. Cyclonis was baring her teeth down at him furiously.

"You think I am some lost little girl desperate for a father to give me hugs and tuck me into bed at night?" she all but snarled. She brought a crystal down with a yell. It missed Phoenix's bird head by three inches, causing a small but violent explosion of dust where it touched the rock wall, making Phoenix's catlike eye shift analytically. "I may be without a kingdom, but that changes nothing. I am a conqueror. And you are my lieutenant by your oath. But if you test me by continuing to act the part of a wet nurse, or a spy, I will find a new lieutenant more suited to the post." She brought the crystals a foot closer to Phoenix's sloping-beaked face, and for a rare moment, Phoenix looked genuinely unnerved, a misery which made an inward part of Cyclonis happy. Phoenix the Orange was an uncontested master of physical combat, technique and martial arts, but crystal-magic was the one thing he'd never been able to master – it was what had gotten him arrested in the past. "Remember your place."

Without any further word, Cyclonis withdrew her two crystals and lifted off of Phoenix as she turned away from him. Her back remained to him as she returned to and sat back down at her former position, her heavy eyebrows deep-set, whilst Phoenix wordlessly watched her. He said nothing, taking their food to be made into stew with a deathly silence.


Dinner between the two that day passed in silence.

After dinner, Cyclonis, with several trains of thought on possible new schemes which she could still conduct with just two people (or if worst came to worst, solo), took to the open plain a travelling distance below the main cave for physical training – she momentarily contemplated ordering Phoenix to spar with her as they sometimes did, to show she was not afraid and dispel any notion he still had that she was one-hundred-percent serious about what she'd said (and she was quite unnerved about how the thought of doing that and confronting him in such a manner made her feel more uneasy than it should), but she decided against it. Phoenix the Orange was a dangerous and feared being throughout Ionos mainly for his physical abilities, but he also possessed a talent for psychology, and truth be told, Cyclonis felt at the moment that she wasn't quite up to her prime for confronting him on the psychological battlefield – something which she mentally kicked and hurt her stupid girl inside herself senseless for. So instead, Cyclonis took up fighting the battle-drones that she'd acquired not long ago.

Cyclonis and the large battle-drone, with its bulky metal playing atop a crystalline nervous system and with its dead, purple-glowing circular port of a face, stared each-other down on the open, dusty plain. Her glare fixed firmly on the sparring apparatus, Cyclonis drew her crystal-staff in a flurry. The drone moved first, drawing back an arm above itself and above its human opponent, lightning forking through that arm. Cyclonis leapt and rolled to the side a second before the charged fist smashed to earth with a crash of noise and light which sent rocks flying, firing back with a blast from her crystal-staff without missing a single beat. The second the blast hit the giant drone, lightning fizzled and forked all over it as it trembled in place. Seeing her opening, Cyclonis sprung into a sprint. She ran for a low cliff face, jumping fluidly upon a ledge. Then with a yell, swinging and firing another, reddish blast from her crystal-staff. This blast crashing into the stunned torso's chest to send it toppling. It slid several metres backwards along the plain's ground. Cyclonis didn't smirk at all at her brief victory –her purple eyes widened, and she started moving a second before blasts started pounding the rock where she'd been like machine-gun fire. Coming from the second, smaller battle-drone, with its green-themed light emanating from its disc-face and its shorter, less-armoured build that was equipped with more visible artillery. Cyclonis performed several handsprings to stay ahead of the volley of blasts chasing after her and to return to the ground below the cliff-face – the second the firing behind her stopped, she took the opening. The crystal slipped from her satchel into her hand, and with an almost-feral snarl, she pointed the stone and let it light up. The flash rippled outward. When the explosion of light was over, the smaller drone was hurtling backwards along the plain into a crash, not unlike its larger counterpart.

Speak of a devil… At the sound of powerful footfalls through the earth, Cyclonis shifted her gaze. The larger, purple-themed drone had recovered, and the behemoth was charging with startling speed towards her. One quick visual sweep of her surroundings, and Cyclonis was sprinting and leaping up the shafts and ledges in another hill's side. With a very-close whir, the drone's metal fingers clamped around Cyclonis' leg, making her purple eyes widen before she turned. Teeth bared down at the giant automaton holding her, Cyclonis lifted her humming staff one-handed, and she smashed the butt-end with its secondary crystal against the drone's circular optic-face, producing a smashing noise and a spark of energy and lightning. As the energy-ring rippled outward from the point of contact, the larger drone was forced to stagger backwards several steps, away from Cyclonis and the cliff face. As it approached its smaller brethren, the green-optic drone's shoulder-mounted rocket launchers deployed with a whistle of noise. Cyclonis spun her crystal-staff in front of herself, glowing, as the barrage of explosives blew up against it and the vibrations shuddered through her. Then, in the break, Cyclonis slammed her staff's hilt to the ledge below her and rocketed upwards. She touched down atop the hill's summit in a catlike, almost wild crouch.

"Impressively done, Master." Phoenix was approaching Cyclonis along the ridge at a leisurely pace, unperturbed, that big, amicable showman smile on his shallow-beaked, black-tattooed face. Cyclonis returned to a standing posture and then spoke out to the battle-drones below the hill.

"Standby – Code Three-Spark-Seven." The battle-drones entered formal standing postures, their hum and systems audibly growing quieter. Cyclonis turned her hard purple gaze back on Phoenix. To her inward surprise, she didn't feel quite as annoyed by his presence as she would have expected to, but she'd grown accustomed enough to Phoenix's presence to sense when he wanted something. "Go on?"

"It is not my place to tell you what to do, Master," Phoenix acknowledged, breaking eye contact as he said that before he bowed his upper-body forty-five degrees. "That being said, if I am still your primary instructor in physical combative training. So, might I offer you some advice?"

"Advise away," Cyclonis said, extending a hand towards him – it would've looked like a particularly witchy movement if she still had her grandmother's old poncho-like robe and her mane-hood.

"It could help to take a break once in a while." Cyclonis' eyebrows lifted, then lowered a little as a sign of the thinning ice he was on, prompting Phoenix to quickly elaborate with rapid gesticulations of all four arms. "I found after giving away three years of my life spending every waking hour on eating, training or doing, that it grew counter-productive. Triumphing to the point of being a most adept fighter, one requires more than this-" He pointed to his temple.

"They require this?" Cyclonis asked with a gesture of one hand to her heart, her scornful tone making it clear what she thought of the matter.

"Oh, no, certainly not that, Master," Phoenix all but exclaimed, lifting his four grey, taloned hands. "that thing's good for the stage and wedding speeches, but the only kind of fight it's good for is the kind powered by wrath at a loved one being hurt. Not to imply that you have such weakness, Master." He added the last sentence on under Cyclonis' level glare: a warning at Phoenix's slightly-too-insulting tone there. Phoenix almost seemed to be struggling to elaborate when he spoke next. "Your fighting style, your movements, are the same style, over and over, with no variation. A range of strictly pre-recorded moves. That can be… limiting, Master. If you wished to be the best, you need to inject fresh blood into the gene pool from the outside; adapt instead of inbreeding your combative knowledge. And if your performance is any worse for wear tomorrow, you can release me from your services here and now." Phoenix's tone betrayed how he'd gotten the message that Cyclonis wouldn't make releasing him from his services a pleasant affair, yet the black-and-white avian assassin seemed unafraid – careful, but completely unafraid, reminding Cyclonis of who and what he was beneath that jovial exterior. Truth be told, in that moment she was recalling training session upon training session in one of the many dark and dull facilities of her family's industrial tower, the same lessons drilled into her again and again and again by royal training instructors, sometimes by the Dark Ace. Thinking about that last person brought about the first flash of his memory and the pain that came with it in a while. As the repetitive sessions of her training had built up, Cyclonis had gotten better and better at fighting with royal Cyclonian crystals and physical moves until the training had become complete second nature. And yet, on that train of thought, another memory flashed through her mind, of a girl with indigo hair and blue-and-orange colours acrobatically leaping above her head and besting her, a combative contest between the two of them on Terra Cyclonia itself which ended with her getting away. A heat flushed in Cyclonis, too small to burn her cheeks' surfaces, and she made up her mind on the topic of discussion there and then.

"Very well," she said, hard purple gaze meeting Phoenix's. "Teach me."


Two weeks passed, and Cyclonis and Phoenix went through a variety of training sessions together, the infamous martial-artist teaching the witch-empress a new method to regulate her breathing here, another way to use her opponent's momentum there, how to deliver a blow more devastating to her opponent and less risky to herself. He even briefly tried to get Cyclonis whistling. Truth be told, part of Cyclonis felt like she was back in that Cyclonian royal training gym in her childhood days, although the curriculum was certainly more fluid, quick-shifting and multi-styled than her original self-defence lessons as Phoenix had said. Even so, she suspected that Phoenix was still only feeding her a portion of his true martial-arts knowledge, knowing he would otherwise be removing his own value to her.

Then, one sunless and quiet morning, Cyclonis found herself striding forward alone on the barren plain. Towards the two inactive drones which she'd been training with a fortnight ago.

"Activate – Code Twenty-two Zero," Cyclonis commanded. The drones reactivated on her command and lifted their plate-faces. Cyclonis shifted herself into a battle-ready pose, purple eyes dark and crystal-staff held. The green-themed smaller drone fired guided missiles from both arms. Without so much as visibly inhaling, Cyclonis leapt and twirled rightward to dodge the first missile's explosion, then she gracefully sprinted angularly leftward to escape getting blasted by the next rocket's explosive impact. Her dodging course had brought her much closer to the two drones as she looked up, eyes she supposed appearing wider in that moment. With a whir, the towering, larger drone lifted a leg to stomp her. Cyclonis' eyes narrowed only fractionally as the shadow descended over her. Only just when the leg was coming down did Cyclonis leap in a certain direction, the force of the shockwave which shook the surroundings sending rocks loose, one of which slid under Cyclonis' feet like a surfboard as she hurtled towards a metal leg. The smaller drone, which the blast had carried Cyclonis near, turn its green visor-face down on her. Cyclonis acted immediately, aiming out her crystal-staff with a yell as the crystal at its head shone. With a blast, multiple translucent tendrils of energy shot through the air from the staff's head, twisting and coiling. In the same second that the smaller drone's shoulder-mounted missile-launchers primed, the energy-tendrils crashed into those launchers, and a chain of fireballs tore with yellow light and a noise through the smaller drone's shoulders. The smaller drone was thrown backwards, its metal feet cleanly leaving the ground for a moment as Cyclonis watched. Not two seconds later, a shadow was descending on Cyclonis and an ominous whirring approaching as she turned back. The larger drone didn't miss a beat, smashing one curled fist furiously into the ground ten feet from the girl. Cyclonis rolled to the side to avoid the shockwave the blow sent through the earth, splitting a lone boulder and causing cracks through the side of a further-away hill – Cyclonis immediately charged straight back towards the drone. The larger drone wasn't moving at all in the time that Cyclonis was sprinting full-speed towards it, standing there and staring, its purple-glowing disc face blank. With a whir, the drone lifted a large arm which arced with electricity, much like during the last bout. Cyclonis skidded to a halt, then rolled to the side. And then the drone, having not struck straight away, pivoted with a loud whir. And it struck the charged fist so near to Cyclonis' new position, throwing the girl's body clean into the air with the force of the blow which spat lightning.

Mid-air, as time almost seemed to slow, Cyclonis was grinning as she pivoted her body as much as she could, gaining as much manipulation as she could of her trajectory and balance. The blast had set her on a course back towards the recovered smaller drone, just as she'd been intending – crystal-staff's head glowing, with her legs bent mid-air and with a gesture of both arms, Cyclonis suddenly split into over a dozen identical Cyclonis's. The smaller drone almost seemed to backstep, its disc-faced head turning left and right with whirs to observe the duplicates of its target. Every Cyclonis landed in a crouching position one-by-one. Then the smaller drone began firing – its shoulder-mounted missiles fired not all at once in a spontaneous stream, but a few at a time. Every limited burst of missiles was targeted at a different patch of the Cyclonis's that were now charging towards the automaton, trying to catch them all. Fake Cyclonis illusions just disappeared or visibly fizzled when missiles exploded atop them and threw up smoke, but it wasn't enough, several Cyclonis's managing to pivot around the fireballs – one Cyclonis, however, ran right through the smoke and yelled, crystal-staff held like a spear. She lashed out at the drone's metal leg at a special point with a roundhouse kick and an angular fist-strike, the sound the impacts produced powerful enough to reverberate through bone, yet the woman wasn't even fazed before she immediately followed up with a point-blank blast from her crystal-staff's crown to the joint. With a sudden stagger, the drone collapsed to one knee. Cyclonis was already backing out of the drone's physical grasping range, staff held two-handed as she twirled it – she waited as she heard the larger drone's thundering footsteps as its figure approached her. The kneeling smaller drone lifted its green face towards her, and its launcher on the nearest shoulder fired its payload. With a slight hitching sound, Cyclonis stabbed her staff's hilt to the ground and disappeared in a bright-red flash, leaving the torrent of missiles to hurtle towards the larger drone. As Cyclonis rematerialised a mere twenty feet away, the smaller drone's missile-volley exploded upon the larger drone in the same moment that it closed the distance and swung its raised arm, knocking down the smaller drone amid the close-range fire and smoke.

Cyclonis was breathing slightly, a single beat of sweat on her pale forehead and no more – she lifted and looked at her crystal-staff, almost as if she were thinking that that was the source of her victory, but no, she knew better, and a rare, almost kind smile spread on her face at the strange feeling this two-week victory had brought her. Unseen by the self-rebuilding former-empress, Phoenix the Orange was sitting perched on a low hill, breeze rustling his overcoat-robe, sloping-beaked and tattooed face forming a smile as he watched her – a beaming smile which contrasted the tiredness of his catlike orange eyes.


Month #15 on Ionos

The Twin Terras were a pair of geologically-identical terras that had developed as cities along opposite lines to each-other: Poppukatoch was a hub of colour, vibrancy, media and pop-culture whilst its twin Kofunatoch was a steely, efficient hub of business and work.

A certain raven-haired and pale-skinned human's current business meant she was currently on the former terra, a vibrant purple-and-red cloak and hood preventing her from standing out and potentially being recognised amidst the crowds of multicoloured passers-by dressing in all variety of fashions and with all variety of implants, device garments or other pieces of machinery on their person as they went about their varying businesses bellow the many neon-like lights and holograms of the buildings. A year ago, the teenager would've loathed being in such a colourful and fandom-devoted environment as this for being that way and not more like the ordered and low-coloured environment of her empire's heart, and there was no denying she still felt a bit wary of it because of old habits but she was no longer so resentful. As it stood, she only intended to scan the holo-file she needed to that was only found in a Poppukatoch archive, perhaps retrieve a takeaway sample of the terra's unique cuisine for herself and Phoenix, and they could promptly begone.

Passing through a crowded street with exterior shopping stalls, her course just happened to bring her brushing by a Kitanen refugee who was walking several purple-and-pink furry beasts on signal-leashes, and a couple of them started sniffing and trying to run their tongues along Cyclonis' half-cloaked legs – she in turn swerved to try and keep the distance between her and them, her hood's shadow hiding the way she curled her lip at them coming near. Cyclonis had never liked animals, and she'd prefer to be able to keep as wide a berth between her and the things as possible.

Cyclonis was only two blocks away from where the holo-arcade she was aiming to reach was located, when she grunted in some surprise as someone shoved passed her, prompting Cyclonis to subtly glare daggers at back of the rude fellow pedestrian, although it paled in comparison to the outrage and desire for punishment she would've felt a year ago. She saw the back of the hooded, impoverished-looking Bokyunshit and her smaller counterpart skirting through the crowds, clearly at a panicked rate – they swerved through the pedestrians mulling in either direction into a lane, about seven seconds before two individuals in moderately-colourful jumpsuits casually sauntered into the same lane. Curious, Cyclonis approached, ear picking up more of the scuffle that was evidently building up towards violence in the lane. At the bend, Cyclonis had a view of the impoverished Bokyunshit, cornered at the lane wall by the two she'd seen tail them into the lane: a rubbery-skinned Bokyunshit whose naked mane of feathers on his head looked tattered, and a marsupial-like Oesaon-Bang.

"I told you; I don't have any chrysoberyl bars on me!" the elder Mikonosuinesh was shouting, holding the younger one behind herself protectively from the rogues. Cyclonis noted they were near an opening to a lane, a good place for the rogues to drag their oblivious quarry if they wanted to get violent without being stopped, and no pedestrians passing as close as Cyclonis were slowing or stopping to indicate they'd taken notice or cared.

"Oh, I think you do, princess," snarled the Bokyunshit, lunging an arm at the woman and grabbing her: the moment he did that, the menaced Bokyunshit pair flashed with white light and broke apart like glasses, to reveal an elegantly-dressed raptorial Mikonosuinesh and a decently-dressed Mikonosuinesh child in their places. Cyclonis' purple eyes widened at the feat.

"Folks like yourself are always rich, sweet-beak," the Oesaon-Bang said lecherously, rubbery mouth grinning as he looked the exposed Mikonosuinesh up and down – Cyclonis knew exactly what he was thinking, and she had an urge to curl her lip in a scowl. "You got plenty o' that on you."

"We did the bust on Monsunos like you wanted, but we think you're trying to rip us off," the Bokyunshit rogue purred, both of them slowly advancing closer on the Mikonosuinesh adult and her cowering child who backed away in tandem – towards the lane without even noticing. Cyclonis just shuffled and watched the scene calmly, not feeling all that sympathetic to whatever mess this woman had gotten herself into – her parents and even her grandmother had always said that lack of empathy was a strength. She could almost hear her grandmother's voice now.

"Stop right there!" the Mikonosuinesh woman tried to shout commandingly, pointing a finger, seemingly unconscious that she and her child were backing away from the two well-built rogues.

"Or what?"

"Or I'll scream, and someone will hear!" she said.

"You go ahead, pretty bird," rasped the Oesaon-Bang, grinning lecherously and getting right into her space. "I'm not normally into birds, but I like a princess who struggles." A pause passed. Then the Mikonosuinesh opened her beak to shriek – not one second after she'd started, the two rogues lunged at her, pushing both the physically-weak Mikonosuinesh into the lane. Within a few movements, the Oesaon-Bang had shoved the adult against the dull-red wall and was violently clamping her beak shut as she writhed and struggled against him-

"AUNTIE! LET HER GO!"

Whilst the child writhed and struggled against the Bokyunshit restraining her from behind.

"It's time you gave us what we're due, Lady Barvossa…" the Oesaon-Bang breathed in the elder's space…

"On the contrary, that's not going to happen."

…before a silky, almost sibilant voice drew the Oesaon-Bang's gaze away and past his shoulder. The figures in the alley saw the figure in the cloak and hood standing a little past the alley's mouth, almost cloaked in shadow, though the piercing eyes with purple irises were still visible.

"Not today nor any day," the figure added, and despite the wording, the criminals didn't hear any righteous fury that they were accustomed to in the threat. The Oesaon-Bang and the Bokyunshit just glared, whilst the Lady Barvossa and her niece looked both surprised and pleading at the stranger. The figure didn't give any further warning before, with a yell, she spun and shot her leg out – her boot connected with the Bokyunshit's unprotected knee, which audibly crumpled backwards under the force of the blow, in the split-second before the woman's same leg slammed out of nowhere into the Bokyunshit's neck, ink flying from his mouth as his head snapped back. He crashed head-first against the wall and crumpled, spittle drooling from his mouth. The Oesaon-Bang looked from his unconscious comrade back to the assailant, eyes wide, before with a grunt he threw the lady by the scruff of her clothing against the alley wall behind her, the woman's grunt cut short by the blow to her head.

"Auntie!" the child screamed, rushing to her fallen elder, and the Oesaon-Bang didn't move to stop her. His attention on the acrobatic would-be vigilante, he grimaced deeply as he drew and ignited a pair of yellow-glowing energy-scimitars. The purple-eyed woman in the hood, who's pale and pointed lower-face could now be made out more easily, simply smirked, purple eyes icy and unyielding, and she beckoned the criminal with a wagging finger. With a bellow, the Oesaon-Bang charged her. He tried to slash downward, then horizontal, then he tried to stab forward at the woman's centre, but the woman fainted and dodged around every strike. The Oesaon-Bang made to slash diagonally, and as he did, the hooded woman not only bent backwards away from the strike, but she grabbed onto the Oesaon-Bang's swinging arm as she did, swinging him off his feet – mid-air, he kicked out at her, producing a grunt. The cloaked woman staggered backward, out of range, and almost immediately lifted a hand near her face. A trickle of red running down from her nose, the woman's purple eyes in the hood's shadow widened fractionally at the sight of her palm, then she glowered murderously at the Oesaon-Bang. The Oesaon-Bang grinned nastily, pleased at his success – that felt good, and he was going to enjoy beating this bitch to a pulp. He charged with a snarl. The woman didn't go on a direct offensive – she ducked, and with a sweeping kick, she brought her assailant's legs out and sent him falling on his back to the alley floor, then with a vertically-descending motion of her forearm and painful crunching sound, she'd knocked the Oesaon-Bang out cold.

The Mikonosuinesh woman who would've soon been a rape victim stared bewildered at where he'd fallen, then just as her released niece sprinted over and hugged herself to the elder, both Mikonosuinesh lifted their wide-eyed gazes to their human rescuer.

"I- Thank you, gracious stranger," the Mikonosuinesh woman found her voice, eyes never leaving the pale girl who hadn't turned to face her. "I- You saved my niece and myself from these wretches. If you hadn't come by and acted in kindness when you did…"

"Your gratitude is appreciated, but misplaced," murmured the raven-haired girl, turning so her purple eyes met the rescued one's. Though neither Mikonosuinesh could see it, a grin was spreading on Cyclonis' pale face, the kind that usually came when she was speaking of a plan's success when she'd been the warlord of an industrial empire less than two years ago. "I saw that cloaking technology of yours. Impressive. Quantum-based if I'm correct? Creatures entirely-solid feeling illusions to ensure that touch as much as visuals are disguised?" Cyclonis was grinning like a smug tomcat as she breathed her words out. "And raiding it from Monsunos – that's not a light crime." The elder Mikonosuin comforting and quietly hushing her niece for a moment, before turning her beaked face back towards the raven-haired girl, eyes now firm in a businesslike mask.

"What do you want for my silence?" she asked quietly. Cyclonis examined the pair almost like a hunk of meat. Then she took a step backwards in the alley.

"I want you to give that technology to me," she said simply. When the Mikonosuinesh woman opened her beak in protest, Cyclonis cut her off: "I don't care how you bring it to me. Buy your way into discreetly duplicating it if you choose. But I want it." Her purple eyes were more piercing than any source of light in that dingy alley.


Phoenix and the Atmos girl's work on the heist played silently in the grainy Crystalvision projection, the camera's angle catching the look that they shared. Another Crystalvision projection, even grainier than the last and flickering, was showing Phoenix sitting meditatively in his laser-bar cage on Terra Gonksia as a small figure wearing a prickly mane across her shoulders approached. More Crystalvision projections were beyond that.

"Hmm…"

The seated silhouette hummed as he watched the projections, which were the only source of illumination in the room with their purplish light, surrounding the figure.

Then a blare made the silhouetted head turn.

Commander, we have news!"


Month #20 on Ionos

The years-old puddle of water was as still as glass on the cave floor, unmoving, the light within it changing with the same speed with which the world turned around the sun. Then something changed, a new light and a shape materialising in the puddle's reflection before a boot stepped through it and rippled it. Cyclonis and Phoenix were marching side-by-side along the tunnel, a crystal lamp which Phoenix held lighting their way, forming a ring of pink light on the cave's cylindrical wall as they advanced onward. Cyclonis' jumpsuit had gained further modifications in the last several months, in the form of thicker and more rounded armour-pads at her joints and shoulders, and the colour was now a brighter shade of ruby than her original jumpsuit had been, though with dark-blue stripes at the sides thrown in. Where she'd once worn her ancestors' prickly hood-mane about her neck, instead her jumpsuit was now equipped with a dark-green hood which she currently wore down. Cyclonis' face was firm and her purple eyes steely as she and her right-hand marched on through the tunnel – Phoenix was quiet and reserved, as was his way when in potentially-hostile and -unknown territory, but Cyclonis could tell that there was something more to it, something unpleasant.

"Wait," Cyclonis said fluidly, almost flatly, and Phoenix halted ahead – Cyclonis paused before she spoke again. "Is there something you want to get off your chest, Phoenix?" she asked. Despite Phoenix's shoulders and back facing her, Cyclonis could still almost sense from his body language when he closed his eyes and furrowed his black-tattooed brow slightly.

"Master, I am unsure our current course of action is wise," Phoenix said grimly.

"If my cross-examinations of texts are correct, then the long-lost Dual Ring within Fikutsu-shina is an Infinity Stone, and as such is of great value," Cyclonis said. She lightly gestured with the crystal-lamp, bouncing its dim light off the cave's features. "This cave is isolated, has been undisturbed for decades at the very least, and it matches the description on those scrolls we deciphered. Lending credit to the notion that we are on the right track." Cyclonis grinned to herself slightly in that way that she did when power was within her sight. "With a stone like that, we can manufacture technology of immense power."

"Yes, Master," Phoenix said, nearly whispering. "And whilst neither my physical abilities nor your crystal magic abilities need an explanation, the Temple of Fikutsu-shina is one of the most little-known and haunted ancient burial sites in Ionos, and it is in all likelihood home to an ancient supernatural power that I have never contended with before." He wasn't joking – he was being analytical.

"You think I do not believe in the supernatural?" Cyclonis murmured softly, almost as if she were trying to soothe Phoenix. She hmphed. "If the Guardian of Fikutsu-shina is as real as the locals make it out to be, it won't be my first dance with a spirit."

"Then how will this obstacle be bested in the worst-case scenario?" Phoenix asked, sounding like he was putting more energy into keeping his tone respectful. "It is rumoured that a series of tests are needed to pass this spirit, but nothing beyond that is known for certain."

"We will best it by the fact that there is nothing I can't bind to my will." Cyclonis slightly raised as she lifted her sheathed crystal-staff, almost glared at Phoenix.

"If there is truly nothing, then one must know everything there is," Phoenix said. Cyclonis immediately stopped. "Have you faced such an obstacle as a spirit guardian with that strategy in mind before, Master? What was the outcome?"

"The last time was different!" Cyclonis all but snapped, glaring out of her eye's corner at him, though she was inwardly surprised at how she'd slipped and admitted such weakness, whilst the taller four-armed assassin looked no less satisfied behind her. "I was younger, less experienced. This time will be different because this time, I will win." She moved to continue, but Phoenix's voice stopped her.

"I have served many a monarch both great and small, weak and strong," he said. "Many of them see their lineages and their kingdoms' progressions as a grand narrative, a destiny upon their lonely heroic shoulders." Cyclonis rolled her eyes, realising where this was going.

"And they always prove themselves wrong?" she said sarcastically.

"Yes!" Cyclonis was slightly taken aback by Phoenix's outburst. "There is no grand narrative for any kingdom or empire! They make tombs more splendid than the houses of the living, and they counted the old names of their descent dearer than their own or the names of their children!"

She turned around to glare at him. "You dare-?"

"I know this because I lost my child to such things!" he roared. Cyclonis' tongue was stilled, surprised and taken aback. Phoenix had never talked to her of children before. She'd known from examining his past that he'd had an offspring once, a daughter whom he'd outlived. Why was Phoenix bringing it up now… Her eyes widened.

"DOWN!" she screamed. Phoenix fluidly got down on all his six limbs at the sudden yell, but his speed was mirrored perfectly by the ghostly grey limb which grabbed him.

"PHOENIX!" Cyclonis screamed his name as, faster than lightning, the great martial artist who had taught Cyclonis to be a killing machine in her own right just like him and who had gotten them both out of a nigh-impossible-to-survive situation a couple of times, was dragged down the cave and into the blackness beyond the fallen crystal-torch's light.

Cyclonis stared after where Phoenix the Orange had disappeared to. The most competent fighter she had ever known, the most reliant one she'd ever had on her side, and he'd been snatched, disappeared in a flash like that. She had seen what Phoenix was capable of, and yet she'd never witnessed anyone, or anything take him down so fluidly and easily like that before, defying all his sharpened senses and reactions as well as his agility and strength. It was disconcerting to say the least, and it made her wonder why she hadn't yet been taken alongside him, which in turn made that paranoid, suspicious part of her mind looking for any weaknesses think that perhaps Phoenix could be in league with the creature against her, though she squashed that down almost on impulse. Most of all, Cyclonis suddenly felt conscious of how she was very much alone, here in this dark tunnel with that entity. She almost couldn't process it for several moments, then her rational mind went racing. But grovelling in fear would do her no good, so she steeled herself, promptly picking up the crystal-staff as she rose to her feet and marched onward, down the dark tunnel.

Cyclonis didn't have to navigate far down the tunnel before a light came into view ahead. Opting to take the cautious approach in case she hadn't been detected yet (much as she doubted that), Cyclonis crouched low and slunk carefully and silently forward, emerging behind the cover of a small outcropping of rocks to what she knew right away had to be the shrine of Fikutsu-shina. The chamber was lit by a pale silver beam shining vertically downward from the rocky cavern's ceiling, and Cyclonis saw the place was vast – the size of a small town. Though the walls were rugged rock, apart from the watery moat at the cavern's walls, the floor was entirely, unnaturally smooth. And in the cavern's centre, Cyclonis saw as her purple eyes widened, underneath the silver beam; a podium clearly carved by a veteran architect, and hovering above it, a glowing crystalline stone in the looping shape of a helix. The Dual Ring – so, it was indeed an Infinity Stone. But what really caught Cyclonis' attention was two figures beside the podium. She saw Phoenix, restrained to the ground by shafts of earth which seemed to have formed diagonally upward and encased his four elegant arms taut, while loops of earth firmly cuffed his eagle-like legs in place. Grunting through the rock muzzle encasing his entire beak and lower-face, Phoenix tested the binds subtly, before giving up, the tension and wrath fading from his face to make him look submissive as he analysed his surroundings and the second figure. The other figure was a hovering, translucent semi-humanoid made of light, a ghostly tail trailing above the ground. Unlike the last spirit Cyclonis had met in the Forbidden City long ago, the Guardian of Fikutsu-shina was the same pale-grey as the limb which had dragged Phoenix off, and it had four insectoid limbs each ending in three claws vaguely like a crab's pincers, but the face was very human-like – resembling a woman's face with high cheekbones, and pure-white eyes like ghost-lights.

Cyclonis watched and waited – the spirit didn't appear to be doing anything, simply hovering there and staring at Phoenix. Then ghostly clawed hands, a legion of them, pressed their way out of every square metre of every surface near Cyclonis, making her purple eyes bulge in shock and fright. She jumped without hesitation. She slid with a noise down the nigh-vertical cavern wall, leaping off and vertically spinning before touching down fluidly on the ground. Both heads in the cavern-temple turned towards the arrival.

Cyclonis glowered at the Guardian, watching carefully for any movement, re-drawing on her archive of information concerning spirits and how to destroy them as she lifted her staff, the crystal on the end humming slightly. The grey spirit fizzled a little, then it lifted its palm shining with pure-white light and the effect on it ceased, lines of air rippling like with heat around the glowing palm as Cyclonis' spirit-weakening spell was blocked. Cyclonis' eyebrows lowered at that move. Without further warning, she spun with an almost animalistic cry, firing off energy-bolts from the end of her staff. The Guardian dodged and twirled through the air, fluidly evading the first two energy-bolts-

VSHWOOM!

The third energy-blast came upon the Guardian and dissipated, to reveal a ghostly scimitar held up by the spirit in the space where the energy-bolt had exploded. And as the scimitar lowered, Cyclonis saw that that damned face still remained cold and impassive, chillingly so. It was clear in that moment that this spirit would not be nearly so easily subdued as the Oracle of the Forbidden City had been.

The Guardian said nothing, simply staring with those blank white eyes at Cyclonis, high-cheeked and sickly-grey face impassive – it lifted one of its four arms, gesturing upward. Cyclonis followed where the Guardian was pointing, gaze tracking to the cavern's ceiling, and for the first time, she saw images, carved into the cavern ceiling high above. From one end of the cavern ceiling to the other: people in robes which must have been fashion for the temple's builders approached a figure resembling the Guardian who was between them and the Infinity Stone; the robed people fought with axe and spear against obscure black hordes now surrounding them while the Guardian and the Stone remained untouched; and the Guardian was gone and the robed warriors approached the Stone, black, primitive stick figures of corpses littering their surroundings. Cyclonis' purple gaze flit back onto the Guardian.

"So, these are the Trials of Fikutsu-shina?" Cyclonis murmured, arching an eyebrow subtly to indicate her question. The Guardian was still silent and blank-faced – she certainly had less personality than the Oracle Cyclonis had once encountered in the Forbidden City. Then the spirit lifted all four arms upward dramatically, and a tremor. Cyclonis immediately went on her guard but didn't react prematurely. The earth parted and a hunk of chrome metal armour the size of a house rose in a cloud of dust – twin orbs of that ghostly, pale-grey light flared in its helmet.

SHIKK!

As Cyclonis watched with a schooled expression, long, perfectly-curving blades slid with a sudden sound out of the behemoth's legs, followed by more up the behemoth's body, until it looked almost like a humanoid made of mace heads. The behemoth started moving its footless, armoured legs – despite looking almost like a hollow suit of armour, the thing moved with heavy footsteps that reverberated in Cyclonis' skeleton. The metal monster lunged a three-clawed, spiky hand towards her. Cyclonis grit her teeth, crystal-staff's tip glowing bright as she readied a blast, angling her feet – then she stopped, face relaxing slightly as she recalled what Phoenix had said, recalling the lore she'd looked up on this place.

So, she did what she knew she needed to win. Cyclonis lowered her crystal-staff and lifted her hands. The spiky fist that was twice as big as her halted in response to the gesture of peace, a millisecond from shattering Cyclonis' bones to dust. A long, tense pause passed, neither Cyclonis nor the armoured metal arm budging an inch. And despite the hardness and the cunning glint in her purple eyes, there was neither a conniving smirk nor an irritable frown on her pale face. Cyclonis watched as the metal golem's arm began screeching and crunching. The golem was folding in on itself, plates and armour reconfiguring as it sunk back into the earth – her line of sight to the temple's other two occupants now cleared, Cyclonis was seriously thinking about retribution on the spirit anyway for what it had done to Phoenix. But she tempered it, repressing a chuckle. She got the feeling that this wasn't yet over. There were two more trails, were there not?

The Guardian gestured with her four arms again, and in an instant, twin craters of earth rumbled and cracked and swirled like whirlpools at the spirit's feet. In front of Cyclonis, two figures rose out of the earth like statues, her eyes flitting between either one to examine them. One figure was practically a walking suit, such was his heavily-decked armour of mostly-silver plating not unlike the Sky Knights Cyclonis had loathed; whilst the other figure was a tall, thin, frail old woman in flowing, magenta and bronze and purple-reddish robes whose long, scraggly grey hair masked most of her face – that second figure gave Cyclonis a sense of déjà vu which she was most unused to feeling. Fully emerging, the figures lifted their heads, only specks of eyes glinting menacingly out from the armoured figure's spike-tipped helmet, whilst the woman's magenta eyes seemed oddly vulnerable. The armoured figure lifted the twin scimitars he'd been holding in front of himself, in a flurry of singing metal and purple-lined silver, finishing the dance by slamming the twin blades to the earth. That last act triggered a tremor which Cyclonis felt through her boots – the tops of the stalagmites near the armoured figure slid away from where his weapons had sliced clean through. So, real enough to maim her. The armoured figure was readying himself in an attack posture, and Cyclonis lifted her staff as the crystal at its crown glowed. Her eyes flit from either of the figures to the Guardian to the surroundings in front of her, calculating – the first trial was not clear-cut, and she doubted this trial would be any different. She almost missed the detail on the woman figure, but her gaze just caught and zeroed in on it – the magenta-eyed, almost serene-looking woman's thin hand subtly fiddling at a gap in her robes, grasping something. Cyclonis' purple eyes widened, rapidly contemplating.

Ah.

Cyclonis' boots tensed and then leapt off the ground. The raven-haired former-empress shot across the distance between her and the figures with a yell, staff raised, legs curling mid-air. The armoured figure lifted his scimitars.

SHING.

Purple energy cut diagonally through a figure and out their other side. The two halves fell away, turning to dark wisps as Cyclonis stood right in front of the figure she'd targeted, staff held diagonally downward from her swing. She had targeted the deceptively comforting-seeming woman, the bisected wisps flashing a hint of a dagger that had been concealed inside a sleeve, before they vanished into the earth. The armoured knight who remained, and whose colour theme and spiky helmet oddly reminded Cyclonis of a very specific Sky Knight enemy of hers, lowered his guard and sheathed his weapons in front of her – then he too disintegrated. A test based on her past and whether to trust what reminded her of love or what reminded her of amnesty, Cyclonis realised, and she immediately decided in her head that she hated this particular test with a passion. She turned her gaze back toward the Guardian. One more trial to go.

The Guardian gestured with an arm to the restrained Phoenix, whose orange gaze glanced between the spirit and Cyclonis. Then the Guardian lifted her crab-like arm towards her neck in a slashing motion. The message was clear.

Cyclonis was stunned. She knew exactly what the spirit was saying she had to do to pass. Her face was cold and unreadable below the eyes as her hard purple eyes flit from the Guardian of Fikutsu-shina to the rock-bound and gagged Phoenix and back. Sacrifice him or claim one of the most powerful crystals in the world. Cyclonis' gaze turned, and her face somewhat softened as she looked upon the Infinity Stone hovering above the pedestal in the almost divine-looking beam of silver light, slowly rotating in the air. How long had it been since the witch's empire had fallen, since she'd entered Ionos permanently, since she'd fallen from the empress of a kingdom that had once controlled the entire Atmos to a homeless rogue who had failed time and time again to rebuild some semblance of what she'd lost? With an Infinity Stone, how much closer could she get to building something which would last and flourish? Yet on the other hand… bright and enthusiastic pain in the ass or not, Phoenix had been her right-hand for over a year. Her mentor, her… Part of Cyclonis' mind sort of screeched to a halt when she realised where that train of thought was going. She didn't need friends, she'd scorned them. Nothing but a pointless, overrated luxury and a waste of time that could be better spent on allowing one's ambitions to elevate them higher. So… why did she feel so unsure that taking the stone was the right thing to do?

Phoenix's words in the cave came back to her mind. She glanced at him. His orange eyes directly met hers. Cyclonis was surprised to find Phoenix's catlike eyes were neither afraid, angry, nor even determined but were sort of… looking at her solemnly with a kind of acceptance in there. As if he was… As if he was what? Expecting her to do something? Trusting her? With his life?

You know what he's doing, a mental voice whispered in Cyclonis' head. She glanced back at the Dual Ring.

Cyclonis' purple gaze returned to the Guardian, the witch's pale face dark.

"No," she almost hissed. The grey spirit said nothing, facial expression remaining blank, although there was the slightest shift in her neck which made it seem like her head was being held higher – whether in disapproval or pride, Cyclonis could only guess.

Then the entire cavern began trembling with a quake, making Cyclonis cry out as she almost lost her standing balance. Boulders were raining from the ceiling all about the vast cavern, adding to the cacophony of noise from the earthquake – the Guardian of Fikutsu-shina faded away like an illusion cast by a setting sun. The Infinity Stone, and the pedestal holding it, were rapidly sinking towards the floor. Cyclonis yelled almost bestially as she leapt towards the stone, might as well try to take both options if she could – a blue forcefield flashed painfully and threw her back whilst the stone sunk away. Cyclonis' wide eyes remained on where the Infinity Stone had just been, then she turned her gaze, all whilst the rough cavern walls were closing in like in a dream. Running over to where Phoenix was trying to free himself from his earthy bindings, Cyclonis with a growl fired several energy-shots in quick succession, each shattering one of the rock shafts.

Phoenix used his free claws to break the stony muzzle binding his beaky mouth and exclaimed, "Oh, boy!" Then as a new growl rose above the tremors, Phoenix and Cyclonis both found their heads looking around their collapsing whereabouts. After a moment, a torrent of foamy white water came spraying forth from high up, no doubt from a subterranean body of water being breached and spilling in its fluids.

"Let's go!" Cyclonis shouted over the cacophony of noise as a sheet of grey water like rain and mist spilled alongside the thickening boulder-rain around the cavern's two remaining occupants.

"No need to tell me twice!" Phoenix exclaimed, and there was no further exchange of communication between the two before they went sprinting away, a cavern wall snaking closer in.

Student and teacher leapt acrobatically and fluidly with a light step from one falling boulder to the next to a ledge on the inward-snaking cavern walls, vaulting towards the ceiling where the silver beam still shone into the cavern, their only possibly hope of escape.


The landscape of limestone-coloured hills was trembling with the force of an underground quake, not the first that this haunted land had experienced in its known history beneath its dark-grey sky with a silvery aurora. The hills themselves were relatively smooth as if polished; completely plain, devoid of any vegetation save for a rare few, far-apart crystalline trees – except for a single pit on one of the hills that led to the-Strato-Elf-knows-where. From which two arms, then six in total emerged, as Cyclonis and Phoenix climbed their way out from the place that lay below. The damp-haired adolescent and the four-armed avian humanoid stood up as the tremor that had reverberated the air subsided, both of them dirty with dust and soaked with water – the first thing Cyclonis did was cast her dark glare around the landscape, damp locks of her hair obscuring one eye, whilst Phoenix sighed air through his shallow-beaked mouth. Cyclonis screwed her eyes shut.

Then she tilted her head and screamed to the heavens, ringing loud and clear for dozens of metres along the landscape. She'd screamed in rage before, but this felt… different. Like this was her internal anodyne to a wound that had been there for a long time, one that she hadn't even realised hadn't properly healed until now. Her scream died down, and within seven seconds, Cyclonis lowered her head, eyes shut, and sighed. She stalked away from Phoenix's orange gaze, and she approached a rock on the hill. A year ago, she might have smashed that rock with her crystal-staff in rage, but now the dark-haired girl simply sat herself down on it, eyes closed. There was no rage or anger in the girl's pale face, just dismay, and maybe a little disappointment. Phoenix said nothing, standing where he was, and after a brief pause his feline orange eyes shifted away from her and to the side, an unreadably sad or solemn look on his face, though for what only he knew. Cyclonis thumped a fist on her rock seat without looking. She heard the gravel crunching under Phoenix's large-taloned feet as his shadow and his head approached her.

"Master?" he asked, his voice soft and almost gentle – Cyclonis turned her face towards him, and though her eyebrows were firm, there was almost a sense of desperation in her purple gaze. Phoenix's eyes widened fractionally – the look on Cyclonis' face vaguely reminded him of a child looking to their parent and begging them to tell them what to do.

"Phoenix…" Cyclonis murmured in a voice that none who'd met her would have ever expected to hear two years ago – soft, quiet, deflated, tired. She sighed before speaking further. "Why do you think we are doing this?" There was a pause, before Phoenix lowered himself with his double-jointed legs and he sat down next to her, his catlike eyes gazing at her sympathetically.

"To secure your rise to power, your kingdom's restoration, Master," he reiterated what Cyclonis had said about her motivations, carefully.

"Really?" Cyclonis said again, wet hair obscuring her eyes as she didn't lift her head towards her servant.

"Master?" Phoenix asked.

"How many times have we tried, Phoenix?" Cyclonis reiterated, a little bit of harsh bitterness creeping back into her voice.

Phoenix hesitated before answering, "Approximately eight, give or take."

"Eight setbacks, give or take," Cyclonis bit out, an almost self-sardonic tone creeping into her voice, hair still masking her eyes. Phoenix paused for a moment, then he breathed out an audible sigh through his beaked mouth, an energy in his shoulders seeming to thin in that moment.

"Permission to speak freely, Master?" Phoenix asked, and anyone who didn't know who he was could have mistaken his tone for trepid. Cyclonis simply turned her head slightly to and nodded her ascent, eyes still obscured. Phoenix's black-and-white face hardened a little as he spoke.

"The world won't end just because you tried and failed to attain your goal," Phoenix declared, his face growing harder and darker, not a hint of humour left in it.

"It is not just my goal or even my grand story," Cyclonis all but hissed out, mouth subtly scrunching into a grimace as a soft, deathly tone entered her voice.

"It is your family's – your late family's," Phoenix said without missing a beat, orange eyes lowering and tone turning solemn as he said that. A shift in demeanour which even now, the logician in Cyclonis' mind couldn't help catching onto. He seemed to be grappling with something before he spoke again. "I was similar once. As you already know, I once had designs in becoming prominent, respected, known across Ionos by name. Made allies in the underworld to bolster, made enemies consequentially. I made my daughter a part of that – I raised her into it. I was going to pass everything I knew onto her so she could succeed me after we had everything I was after." Phoenix met Cyclonis' gaze directly, so many emotions swirling. "She was butchered by a band of Yeongyul-Geumi that I'd stolen some territory from." He let that hang as Cyclonis' eyes widened fractionally. "But has anyone ever asked you what you want, not as a Cyclonis but as a person?" A vague hitch of breath escaped Cyclonis' mouth, as if she'd wanted to say something and it had died on her tongue, half-visible eyes behind her hair widening in surprise – she'd expected the answer to come to her straight away, but it didn't.

"I…" She turned her head away from Phoenix again. She was almost looking at her lap now, and it gave the four-armed martial artist a clear view of one of her eyes despite her hanging hair. That purple eye was looking directly at him, and it was brimming, alive with fear, confusion and vulnerability. A hint of sadness crept back into Phoenix's black-marred face at that. "…I don't know," she answered.

Phoenix leaned a little closer to her as he said, "There are other ways to better oneself in this life. You were born into royalty, Master, but that doesn't mean you're meant to be the same as your forebears." Cyclonis' purple eyes widened, but she refused to meet Phoenix's gaze, thankful for her raven-black hair obscured the look in her eyes from view. She thought that over, and what Phoenix had said about her rigid training and needing to learn more many months ago came back to her mind. Only once Cyclonis was able to school her expression somewhat again did she turn her head to look at her servant fully, her expression looking almost astonished to the naked eye, and perhaps a little grateful. "Trust me." Cyclonis turned her gaze on him at that, and his orange eyes were deathly dark, hard and heavy. "If you don't ask these questions now… you'll regret it. Believe me. I know." Then after a pause, Phoenix forced an almost weak smile on his beak which didn't quite match up with the lingering sadness in his eyes. Cyclonis' purple eyes widened fractionally at that, but she only looked at him out of her eye's corner.

The two of them sat in silence for some time upon the rock, and eventually Phoenix began whistling his tune again but slower, and more haunting – Cyclonis got the impression that this version of the tune was coming from a part of Phoenix's heart that he seldom let her see. Eventually, they moved on.