A Kindling Storm

The crisp crackle of lightning split the sky as thunderclouds swirled violently beneath the shores of Altera, the black tendrils of a massive hurricane splashing across the cliffside and shaking the island slightly. Standing above the howling wind and the roaring thunder, Eve surveyed the broad fields of trampled grass and crumpled reeds in the distance, every square foot under the constant watch of at least two vigilant nasod. In total, nearly three hundred mechanical soldiers guarded the plains surrounding the entrance to the Core, far fewer than the legions that stood at the ready just a few kilometers away. With her reconnaissance complete and the ground beneath her feet rattling softly, Eve's eyes darkened and she returned to the others.

"How did it go? Did you figure out where we are?" Rena stood with her hand against her ear, keeping her hair from her face as it whipped about in the wind. On the ground beside her, Elsword and Aisha sat with their backs together, leaning against one another as they rubbed the soreness from their shoulders and used the faint afternoon sunlight to review their incantations. Nearby, a shower of sparks burst through the air and vanished in an instant as Raven sharpened the edge of his blade against a small whetstone.

As the air trembled and the earth shook, Eve stood within the center of a tenuous calm, surrounded by nasod patrols and thunder crashing against the shore. For reasons she could not begin to explain, she hesitated. The path was clear before her and there was no time left for delay, but when it came time to tell her companions that the very safest route to take would be directly through a field full of elite nasod soldiers she found herself uncertain. With the transporting tunnel sealed behind them, they were already beyond any hope of retreat, but still she wavered. It was apparent now more than ever that after they took the next step, they would be sprinting all the way to the end.

As the dark mist of the shrieking storm spilled across the valleys and settled into the hollows, Eve nodded slowly and turned back toward the plains.

"The most direct route to the Core will take us through that open field. Beyond that is the foundry, where all nasod tools and buildings are manufactured. Most likely, it is now being used to produce munitions. The central elevator in the foundry should lead directly into the inner Core..." She glanced back at the others, a measure of caution in her level voice. "We will meet with significant resistance from this point forward... Are you ready?"

Rena smiled broadly at her as Elsword and Aisha each gave a wry grin, gathering up their weapons and climbing to their feet. Right behind them, Raven sheathed his sword and stood, his eyes narrow and his brow furrowed as he glared out at the field full of enemies below. Though their confidence and bravado masked a wealth of scars, they each held their ground against the howling wind and prepared to rush straight into an overwhelming swarm of whirling blades and bursting cannons. Rolling his right shoulder and adjusting his grip, Elsword smirked deviously and stared down at the rippling sea of reeds.

"Yeah, let's go. They'll get pissed if we make em' wait any longer to get their faces smashed in."

"Heh..." Raven chuckled lightly, "If you're as slow as you were in practice yesterday, they'll be waiting another week."

Elsword's eyes brightened and he glanced aside at Raven. "You wanna make that a bet?"

"Hmph..." Aisha stretched her hands out and gathered a sphere of swirling dark energy in each of her hands and grinned. "Are you guys really gonna fight over second place?" As thunder shook the sky above, Aisha dashed down the hillside with Raven and Elsword following close behind her. Somber eyes followed them into battle as Eve flew off toward the skirmish, running alongside Rena and raising her voice to compete with the endless symphony of the storm.

"Rena... Why do they pretend to be in high spirits? Their pulse and heart rates are erratic and their breathing is unsteady. They are obviously anxious and distressed."

"Ah, well..." Rena drew her bow and pulled it taut, holding it at her side as she rushed into the field of clattering steel. "Sometimes, pretending you're not afraid is the best way to keep yourself together." She slid forward and released her bowstring, firing a burst of gleaming arrows across the plains and piercing the nasod all around Elsword and Aisha. Without a moment's rest, Rena darted across the field and joined the fray, pinning down the approaching patrols and picking off nasod marksmen.

As Eve stood uncertain, Rena's words echoed through her memory over and over until she could scarcely make sense of them anymore. Before they had set out, she was prepared to destroy millions of these mechanical mockeries of the nasod and her resolve was unshakable. Now, she still felt her sense of duty and purpose just as strongly, but something else arose inside her thoughts, something that gave her pause and made her doubt her own directions. What was it that made her so uneasy? Why was she suddenly questioning herself when she had been so certain before? After a mere second that seemed like an eternity of bellowing thunder and shearing steel, she finally identified the cause of her concern; immediately classified as an 'anomalous error', there was a small, unassuming sensation that developed in her routines just within the past twelve hours. At least, she had decided that it must be an error of some sort, the result of her abrupt awakening and the centuries she spent sleeping. Otherwise, she could offer no rational explanation for her sudden attachment to the people she was now traveling with. She could not explain why she wanted so badly for them to remain safe and unharmed. In the midst of a raging battle and an oncoming storm, there would be no time to track down the root of this error. The very best she could do, for herself and for her companions, would be to eliminate everything that threatened their safety.

Eve dashed over the quaking earth as lightning flashed across the sky, cutting through violent gusts and quivering reeds. Light bleached the air and drowned out all color, leaving Rena momentarily blinded and dazed. As soon as her vision returned, she saw Eve gliding past her, rushing toward a pair of nasod hiding in the underbrush. Swinging her hands out swiftly, she hurled Moby and Remy into her enemies, knocking them into one another and sending them toppling backward. Before they had a chance to react, Eve leapt forward and threw out a pair of electrified spears that pierced the nasod and burst through their bodies, leaving them laying in a broken heap on the ground. Eve's feet touched the ground for only an instant before she jumped aside, avoiding a hail of gunfire and flying over to Aisha's side.

I was not designed for combat... however, if I am to continue calling myself the Queen of the Nasod, I must be capable of at least this much...

While Aisha was occupied with a pair of massive armored assault drones, a pack of light infantry moved around to flank her. Spinning quickly, Eve dropped from the sky and swung her hands down, sending her drones crashing into the approaching nasod one by one, pummeling their faces and knocking them to the ground. As Aisha held her attackers in place with a gleaming ethereal chain, Eve gathered her energy into her hands and released a colossal orb of electricity, bursting brightly and ripping the massive nasod apart.

Even if I have to destroy every one of the false nasod on this island, I will bring my people back...

A surge of thunder rattled the air as the hurricane roared and hissed, its crown now rising into the sky and swallowing up Altera's shoreline. Seeing Elsword surrounded, Eve darted across the plains and charged her hands, unleashing a stream of electron balls across the field and into the air. Crippled by the overwhelming shock, the nasod at Elsword's back and flank staggered and fell to their knees, quickly collapsing onto the brittle wheatgrass below. From the North, a swarm of blade-armed soldiers charged over the corpses of their comrades, their feet falling heavily against the trembling earth. Breathing in deeply, Elsword drove his blade deep into the ground and clenched his fists, sending a wave of glistening swords shooting out of the ground and into the oncoming nasod. Those that remained upright continued their charge for only a moment longer, stopped cold by a slender spear that raced through the air at Eve's command. As the billowing howls of rain and wind subsided, she saw that Raven was struggling to fend off a pair of nasod soldiers while a dozen snipers pelted him with bullets that he could only just scarcely block with his left arm. With the wind circling around to her back, Eve hurled Remy and Moby toward the snipers' nest.

I cannot allow you to misuse the hearts of the nasod any longer. I cannot allow you to hurt them more than you already have!

As the marksmen took aim and prepared to attack, Eve swept her hands out sharply, pulling her drones across each rifle's barrel. When the nasod opened fire, their guns were pointed firmly at the chest of the soldier next to them, leaving only the first in line alive. While Raven dispatched his attackers handily, Eve hurried toward the remaining sniper just as a bolt of lightning shot through the air overhead. Raising Remy into the air above her, Eve captured the errant bolt and threw her drone out at the lone marksman, blowing it away with a concentrated burst of electricity. With the shrieking black clouds of the ravenous storm engulfing Altera, Eve stood on a small outcropping and panted heavily, her arms and legs weary from the strain of battle and her energy nearly depleted. While she waited helplessly as she regained her strength, a dark, jagged shadow rose from the reeds at her back, looming over her with malicious intent. It was all she could do just to turn her head and see the ominous outline of a giant mace crashing down upon her. She tried to move, but her legs were heavy and numb, their power drained by Eve's earlier haste. With her energy absent, all she could do was stand her ground and brace for impact.

A sharp metallic clamor pierced the air as a monstrous mass of twisting spikes ground to a halt against gleaming steel. As the flash of lightning flooded the air, Eve stood stunned as she stared at the mace resting just a half foot above her head, its massive bulk held in check by no fewer than four familiar weapons. Raven. Rena. Aisha. Elsword. At the instant Eve was in the greatest danger, they had all rushed to her side, easily deflecting a fatal blow and menacing the mechanical knight that stood before them. Pushing with all their might, Raven and Elsword cast the mace aside while Rena riddled the towering nasod's chest with arrows, leaping to the side as Aisha blasted its bulk away with a sharp burst of dark energy.

"You okay?" Elsword looked back over his shoulder at Eve, his eyes narrow as sweat rolled down his cheek. It was a simple question, part of the familiar routine of confirming everyone's condition after close calls and sudden shocks, but with her energy sapped and her thoughts overflowing, Eve was unable to answer. Within moments, Aisha and Rena were at her side shaking her shoulders and waving their hands in front of her face.

"Eve! Eve, are you okay!?"

"...I-" The deep bellowing of distant thunder interrupted, giving Eve just enough time to compose herself and run a quick diagnostic of her internal systems. Power reserves up to seventy percent. Mobility normal. All cognitive processes normal, or so her programming told her. The tight pressure in her chest gave he cause to doubt her own assessment, but doubt would have to wait for a time when she could afford it, when lightning and lead weren't falling all around her. Blinking slowly, Eve straightened her spine and raised her head, meeting Rena's worried gaze as a light mist gathered on her cheeks.

"I am alright. I depleted my energy reserves and was temporarily unable to move. There is no cause for concern."

"Like hell there isn't!" Aisha glared fiercely as the swirling fog twisted around her ankles and blanketed the ground. "You can't just say everything's fine after you almost died!"

The pressure in Eve's chest became a sharp, stabbing pain and her mouth hung open, unable to issue a response to Aisha's angry, anxious eyes. Before she could form an intelligible answer, Rena intervened.

"Aisha, it's alright... Look, they're all retreating for now, so let's find somewhere safe and rest up for a bit."

"...Yeah." Aisha scowled and let her shoulders relax as the whistling wind scattered her hair across her face. Even with all the time she had spent preparing for diplomatic excursions into the human world, Eve could not decipher Aisha's nervous glare, Elsword's uneasy glower, or Rena's soft, sighing smile. For now, rest and recovery would be the best course of action and sorely needed after a battle that ended with the destruction of nearly two hundred nasod in less than ten minutes. It was a great misfortune then that they were immediately robbed of any respite.

A bright, fiery glow rose in the shaded sky as a blazing meteor tore through the clouds and plummeted toward the desolate plains. With no time to shout a warning to the others, Rena drew back her bow and released a powerful blast of air, scattering everyone into the air just in time to avoid the massive impact of a smoldering fireball. As Eve rolled across the crumbling grass, she caught sight of a tall, lumbering shadow at the edge of the field, a shape at once familiar and entirely alien to her.

"Is that...Ignis...?"

Rising to her feet, Eve found Elsword and Rena standing nearby, their feet held steady and their backs turned on the fuming crater left behind by the meteor's impact. The towering shadow of an ancient nasod charged toward them with reckless haste and they each took a wide stance, leaping aside as a heavy steel claw plowed into the ground at their feet. By the time they regained their balance, a menacing suit of scarlet steel stood over them, its jagged shoulders billowing smoke and its arms engulfed in flames. Dashing to the side and circling around the fiery nasod, Elsword lunged forward and swung out broadly at the back of the nasod's knee. His opponent made no effort to move, standing its ground as Elsword's blade hit the weakest patch of its armor with a faint thud and bounced away.

"What the hell?" Jumping back in shock, Elsword confirmed with a glance what he'd already felt; he hadn't made even the lightest scratch on the nasod's hide. Before he could prepare for another strike, a wave of fire and ash surged toward him, surrounding him in an instant. Just before the flames consumed him, Rena ran to his side and plucked her bow, blasting the conflagration away and firing a pair of arrows toward Ignis, both of which scattered harmlessly into the wind.

"Be careful! Its partner is hiding somewhere nearby!" Even as Eve shouted her warning, a huge, jagged icicle sailed across the plains, its tip aiming for Rena's chest. Lightning flashed and cast a keen shadow across the ground as Raven rushed forward and sliced the icy javelin into a mound of rounded lumps. A dozen yards away, Aisha frantically hurled a volley of fireballs toward a silvery blue giant, a huge nasod that tossed a relentless stream of sharpened ice toward her. In the violent roars and quick flashes that followed, Eve could finally confirm the identify of their opponents; Ignis and Leviathan, the ancient guardians of the nasod empire. At that moment, she knew that there would be no escaping this battle uninjured.

Now standing side by side, the guardians of the plains stared down at the intruders before them. As a the cascade of thunder and wind subsided, they spoke in unison with a great, unnerving voice that cut through the air like a rusted spear.

"Cease Your Resistance Immediately. You Will Enter Into Our Custody, Or You Will Be Neutralized. Make Your Choice Quickly."

A round of exasperated scowls answered them immediately as Aisha and Elsword scoffed and glared sharply at them. Glancing aside, Elsword's eyes narrowed as the roaring wind swept across the plains once more.

"You feel like givin' up yet?"

"Hmph." Aisha rolled her wrists and tapped her toes against the ground. "What for? It's not like these guys can take us."

"Heh..." Elsword grinned, his knees bent and ready to charge when a bright ivory glow flew past him and landed only feet away from the towering nasod. Eve stared up coldly, her eyes pleading and stern as a spray of mist scattered across her face.

"Stop this at once! I am your queen, and I will not permit threats against my companions."

Ignis shifted its head, staring down at Eve with its single, glowing eye. "You Are No Longer Recognized As Our Queen. Your Orders Are Invalid."

A terrible shock ran across Eve's shoulders, down her spine and into her chest, sharper and more unsettling than lightning's strike. The echo of their words rang out through her mind a million times in the next second, each repetition seeming more unreal than the last. Surely, she expected the mindless, mass-produced machines of war to ignore her authority, but these two... they were ancient nasod, the guardians of Altera who had existed for centuries beyond Eve's own birth. She knew them by name, she remembered the sound of their voice, she had spoken to them as a child and watched them fend off the human invasions over a thousand years ago. The very thought that they were rejecting her of their own will gave rise to a new, disturbing pain that twisted and writhed in the pit of her stomach. As she stood staring uneasily, Leviathan reached forward and swung its broad arms swiftly, knocking Eve through the air and onto her back with a powerful thud just as the bellow of thunder erupted overhead.

Without waiting for any further negotiation, Elsword ran across the plains, quickly closing the distance between himself and the merciless guardians and throwing a dense bolt of flame at the icy Leviathan. Ignoring the fiery curtain as if it were a warm summer breeze, Leviathan countered with a quick jab that met with the broad side of Elsword's blade. Reeling back from the powerful punch, Elsword gritted his teeth and scowled harshly.

"How the hell do we hurt these things? Nothing's gettin' through!"

"Their barrier..." Eve's arms and elbows quivered as she pushed herself up, struggling to regain her breath as her drones pushed lightly against her back. "They are protected by a barrier device. If we destroy that, they will be vulnerable." She raised her console with one hand and spread its screens out in front of her. "I will track its location now."

"We Cannot Allow That." In the breadth of a second, the guardians stormed past Elsword and Aisha, bowling them over and barreling toward Eve. Just as she was scrambling to her feet, a flurry of sparks and fire spread across the gusting wind as Raven and Rena rushed in to block the guardians' advance. Rena turned her head and looked over to Eve, her bow braced against Ignis's furious blows.

"Go! We'll hold them off while you take down the barrier!" Then, sensing the strife and conflict in Eve's eyes, Rena gave a quick, confident grin. "Don't worry, we'll be fine." In the next moment, a strong pulse of wind from Rena's bow forced the guardians back, giving Eve just enough space to fly away in search of the barrier generator. As Ignis and Leviathan turned to pursue her, they found Aisha and Elsword barring their path. As the cyclopean nasod readied their next attack, Aisha shot Elsword a quick glance and a smooth grin.

"Don't die on this one, okay? I don't want to have to lug all your stuff around."

"Heh, die?" Elsword laughed lightly. "I won't even get a scratch on me."

In the next instant, as the wind carried their voices away, the air exploded into a bright cloud of smoke and steam, obscuring the field from Eve's view as she rushed toward the foot of the mountain nearby.

At first, the signal from the barrier device was weak, drowned out by the electricity crackling in the air and dampened by the rough, worn rock of the mountainside. After just a hundred yards, however, the signal began to grow, reaching out from a narrow chasm in the mountain's base. As she approached the ragged cliffside, her feet froze. When the nasod had retreated from the field just a few minutes ago, they were not returning to the foundry to regroup. They were gathering here, in the gaping maw of the mountain, standing watch over the bright, humming barrier that kept the guardians from harm. With just a glance, Eve knew that she was incapable of defeating the army before her. At her best estimate, she could destroy just less than half before her energy reserves ran dry and she collapsed. The impossibility of her task gave her pause for only a moment though; after all, she did not have to destroy a hundred weaponized nasod. She merely had to destroy a single machine, and that was well within her power.

Seizing the initiative, Eve launched a pair of electrified spears into the crowd of nasod, cutting deep into their ranks and opening a narrow path. Running through the horde, she swept Moby and Remy out beside her, knocking over the nasod at her side and sending them toppling over into their comrades. An abrupt impact halted her progress as a shield-bearing soldier charged quickly and pushed her all the way back toward the cliffside. Scowling bitterly, Eve jumped onto the armored nasod and kicked off of its shield, flying into the air and soaring over the swarm below. As her momentum waned, she gathered a strong charge in her hands and cast her hands in a wide arc, spreading a hail of electric orbs through the air that fell and burst violently as they collided with the nasod on the ground. With the wind at her back, she managed to land just beside the pulsing barrier device.

With no regard for the shadows closing in on her, Eve swept her hands out and drove her drones into the buzzing generator, denting its thick shell and tearing a tiny hole in its armor. A painful blow interrupted her attack as the mindless throng rushed to surround her, knocking her against the razor sharp rocks and slamming her to the ground. In a fit of desperation, Eve fired a pair of electron orbs out in front of her, flashing and knocking away the nearest nasod while she leapt to her feet. As she hurried back to the generator, however, she found it firmly surrounded by more than a dozen formidable guards. Dashing blindly into their midst, Eve thrust Remy and Moby toward the generator, pounding another hole in its hide before being knocked away into the cliffside.

Twenty-six destroyed... I will not last if I have to-

A swift blow to the chest halted her reflections and forced her to slide back, losing ground and panting heavily. Her arms were tattered and her sleeves torn and frayed, her hands trembling as her knees buckled beneath her and her balance failed to keep her upright. As she staggered toward the barrier machine, her eyes heavy and her breath a sharp staccato, she dug her feet into the ground and leapt. As a dozen pairs of bladed arms swung down upon her, Eve thrust her hand into the small tear in the barrier's shell and discharged a hundred thousand volts into its core. A great, savage explosion shook the sky and resounded across the mountainside and in the following moment, silence.

Wiping a stream of blood from his eye, Raven dodged an icy fist and began matching blows with Leviathan. With every swing, his blade bounced away as if it were a dull plank slapping the side of a steel gate. Determined to make a mark on his opponent before the frost on his fingers forced him to resign, he darted between Leviathan's legs and thrust his sword into its back. When he felt his blade sink in up to its hilt, he immediately leapt back in awe. Amazed by its own frailty, Leviathan pivoted awkwardly, stumbling toward Raven with its fist raised high overhead. Before it could exact revenge for its injury, Aisha snapped her fingers and a stream of scalding plasma pierced the air and sliced Leviathan's arms from its body in a single, clean swipe.

Across the field, Rena huffed and panted as sweat poured from her face and ash covered her hands. As Ignis charged toward her wildly, she ran forward and jumped as high into the air, firing a dozen arrows that burrowed deep into the nasod's armor and stunned it briefly. While Ignis tried to shrug off its wounds, Elsword lunged forward and swung out sharply, spinning around as his blade cut through the nasod's knees. Using the last of his energy, Elsword continued around, bathing his blade in fire and burying it deep in the guardian's chest. Within the space of a few seconds, the indestructible nasod had become heaps of smoldering steel, silent and still as the skies below began to clear. The threat of death defeated, Rena and Elsword hurried over to where Aisha and Raven waited, all four of them running toward the mountain and searching for Eve. At the back of a narrow chasm littered with the gnarled, mutilated remains of a hundred nasod, they found her.

Laying on a small ledge in the middle of the cliffside, Eve was covered in ash and soot, her elegant clothes a shredded mess of charred scraps and her ivory skin smeared with oil and mud. There was no doubt what had caused this catastrophe; at the base of the chasm, a heap of blasted steel lay at the center of the destruction, the ash that marked the massive explosion spreading out like a great black flower, blossoming in the midst of a storm. When they finally reached Eve and brought her down to the ground, Aisha gasped and everyone stared anxiously. The superficial damage to her clothes and skin was quickly overshadowed by the exposed wires and fizzling circuits sticking out of her broken arm. Wheezing and desperate for breath, Eve opened her eyes slowly, her left a faint, flickering gold and her right eye black and empty.

Too horrified to speak, Aisha's hands quivered and she clenched her fists to stop their trembling. At her side, Elsword's mouth hung open, but words retreated from his lips. As the last lingering remnants of the storm headed off toward the horizon, Raven and Rena stepped forward and tried to administer any semblance of first aid they could, knowing full well that they had no idea how to help an injured nasod, let alone one so complex as Eve.

"Eve, what do we need to do? Where does it hurt? Do you need anything?" Rena rifled through her pack frantically, picking out bandages and salves and then tossing them aside as she realized their impotence. Eve's shoulders creaked as she strained her remaining arm and pushed herself up, her voice a ragged, rasping cough as she spoke.

"A-A-Are you all uninjured?"

"Like hell we are! What happened to you!?" Elsword's eyes went wide and his voice shook uneasily.

"I... did not expect the explosion to be so violent..." As Eve's arm gave out and she collapsed into Rena's arms, moaning in pain as her broken arm fell against the ground. "I can... repair myself with parts from t-the guardians. I apologize. It will delay us for some hours..."

"It's okay, don't strain yourself." Rena wiped the soot from Eve's face and smiled faintly. Peering over her shoulder, Aisha stared at Eve cautiously, a tear on the verge of falling across her face as she knelt down beside her.

"You need help right? Tell us what we need to do! What do you need to fix yourself?"

Turning her head slowly and painfully, Eve breathed in sharply and nodded.

"Here you go, that's the rest of it." Elsword laid a pile of metal and circuitry down gently on a smooth cloth alongside Eve, the last useful pieces of Ignis and Leviathan that they could salvage. Fortunately, they were of comparable quality to Eve, albeit constructed for combat, and she was quickly able to identify all of the components necessary to return herself to a healthy state. With the final delivery complete, Eve turned to Elsword and glared firmly.

"Thank you. Please leave us now."

"Eh?" Elsword frowned. "You don't have to be so rude about it..."

"She's not being rude, dummy." Aisha huffed and pouted from the corner where she sat sorting through the remains of the giant guardians with Rena. "She's got to undress to fix herself. That means no boys allowed."

"Er... right." Elsword scowled and blushed, sauntering away to join Raven outside the mouth of the small cavern where they had taken refuge. With Aisha and Rena assisting her, Eve was able to repair her broken arm within an half hour, her blinded eyes in just an hour, and by the time the moon overhead, she was on her feet and moving freely.

"Wow..." Aisha blinked, astonished and relieved. "That was a lot quicker than I thought it would be."

"With the necessary equipment, repairs are simple." Eve rotated her wrists and pulled up her console to start a final full body diagnostic scan. "In spite of that I would prefer to never do that again. It was extremely unpleasant."

"Well, at least you're alright now." Rena smiled as a series of beeps and chirps sounded from Eve's console, indicating that she was perfectly fit and able. "But, we've got to lay some rules out now. From now on, no blowing yourself up, even if it helps everyone else. Sacrificing yourself is not allowed, got it?"

Eve blinked, confused. "I do not understand. What do you mean when you say 'it is not allowed'?"

"Just don't do it. There's no need to sacrifice yourself..." Rena's smile softened and her eyelids fell slightly. "I know there are times when it's the only thing you can do, but that's why you of all people shouldn't do it. When you sacrifice yourself, it's like you're saying that there's nothing more you can do, that this is the very most your can accomplish with the rest of your life. It might be the case for someone else, but Eve... you can definitely do more than blowing up one old machine. You're the ruler of this island, right? So you can definitely do much, much more than that."

Without warning, Rena leaned forward and hugged Eve gently, catching her off guard and making her blush brightly. As Rena pulled back, she grinned cheerfully. "So, I guess now we need to get you some clothes, huh?"

"Gah, I didn't even think about that!" Aisha winced, preparing herself for another few hours of work. "Oh, wait, I might have some things she can borrow still... They might fit..."

Shaking her head softly, Eve gathered up the bundle of silkreeds and steel scraps that Raven had brought at her behest. "I can make new fabric with the silkreeds. It will take some time, but Remy and Moby will do most of the work. You two should rest. I will be finished by morning."

"Alright." Rena nodded, weary but content. "Let us know if you need anything though, we'll be right outside."

Eve nodded and Rena walked out into the moonlight, leaving Aisha behind as Eve set to work stripping the silk strands from the pale stalks stacked beside her. Noticing that Aisha was wavering uneasily, she stopped her hands and glanced aside at her.

"Aisha, is something wrong?"

"Oh, no... everything's fine." Aisha shook her head and continued on toward the cavern's mouth. At the exit, she paused and stole a glance back at Eve. "...Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Aisha."

Sighing as much from relief as exhaustion, Aisha headed outside and prepared for sleep, leaving Eve to pass the hours of the night quietly as she set her drones to work weaving a ream of soft silken fabric. While they rolled and hovered about, Eve stepped aside, staring at her console and pondering the pile of scrap leftover from the bodies of Ignis and Leviathan.

… I will need to trim my hair. It will not be suitable to attack the core with it in such a state. Beyond that, I need to convert my power flow to support sustained periods of intense activity... How troublesome. As Eve considered her options, it became increasingly clear that she could not keep up with her companions in her current state, let alone face the heightened resistance she expected to meet as they approached the Core. She was the queen, and for that reason alone, she would not tolerate the possibility of becoming a burden on anyone else. As she scanned the scraps of Leviathan's armor, the ancient nasod's small, glowing heart caught her eye and an unexpected thought crossed her mind. Reaching down slowly, the picked up the heart and held it gently, her gaze boring deep into its silvery surface.

Is it even possible...? I have more than enough material here, and I am well aware of the necessary procedures, but still... no true nasod has ever been born outside of the Core, and its mechanisms are entirely unknown to us. It may not be possible to create another nasod on my own... but, perhaps I should try...

With her hands moving rapidly, Eve toiled on tirelessly into the night. Even after Remy and Moby had finished assembling her new overcoat and stockings, she continued to work. Even after the moon sank below the sea and the stars brightened the murky night, she continued to work. By the time Eve finally closed her toolbox and dismissed her console, the sun was waiting just below the horizon, casting a faint orange glow across the sky. With only an hour left before her companions awoke, Eve finished the last of her cosmetic adjustments, cutting her bangs evenly and wrapping the rest of her hair into two loose buns on either side of her face. Her new suit of white silk and ebony fit comfortably and, with some strategic steel reinforcements, it would guard her well against the weaponized nasod. Still more than a little nervous, she finally returned to her new creation and opened her console, uncertain of whether or not the assistant she had crafted over the arduous night would even move, let alone be born as a true nasod. With a steady hand and a tense breath, she entered the final startup command and stepped back. Either out of habit, or perhaps as part of a deeper, long forgotten ritual, Eve recited the first words that greeted every newborn nasod.

"Arise, child of the stars. Your hallowed rest is at its end..."

For several seconds, only silence answered her. With doubt creeping into the corners of her mind, Eve's eyes sank and her confidence faded. As she turned back to her toolkit, preparing for another hour of tinkering and adjustments, a faint glimmer caught her attention and she whipped her head around just in time to see her new assistant shake his head out and rise to his feet, stretching his arms carelessly and scratching his back before spotting Eve. As soon as he caught sight of her, he straightened himself up, took his heavy blades in hand, and knelt before his queen. All at once, Eve experienced a new range of sensations that she could not adequately classify as her heart raced and her hands tingled with overflowing electricity. Looking down with what any human would call pride and satisfaction, she nodded firmly at the first real nasod to be born in over six hundred years.

"Welcome to the world, Oberon."