Chapter 1: Something's Wrong
The titans were dying. Their numbers had been dwindling for a while now. And it wasn't just the titans.
"There's something wrong with Alrest.", Natalya commented to her family in the training room one day.
"Gee, Talya, how long did it take you to figure that out.", Patroka replied sarcastically, blocking the shield Natalya had thrown at her with her spear.
"What did you expect, Patroka? She is Mik's sister after all.", Akhos grinned, from the safety of his ether shield.
Mikhail and Natalya exchanged a look.
Well, they asked for it.
Natalya aimed her next attack, purposefully narrowly missing their opponents. The air glistened with frost. She then passed her shield to her brother, who used it to knock an attacking Patroka back into the frosted area, before giving his sister a boost to jump high up into the air above them. He tossed her his fans in flight and watched her twirl in the air as she combined the ether flowing from his weapon with her own element, enveloping both Akhos and Patroka in a dark frozen blizzard. Natalya landed gracefully on her feet, and didn't waste a moment to swap back weapons with her brother, before they both raced off into the blizzard, not giving Akhos and Patroka a moment to orientate themselves.
"Three steps to your right, five ahead.", she told Mikhail. "I'll deal with Akhos."
By the time the storm cleared, both Flesh-Eaters had a Blade-Eater on top of them, and a weapon at their throat.
"You know, for two smart-asses, you sure go down easily.", Mikhail grinned.
"You ganged up on us. If you were fighting us normally, we'd kick your asses.", Patroka spat at them.
"This was a two against two fight. It's not our fault that you two suck at co-op.", Natalya told her. "I was being serious though. Something's wrong."
She got up and held her hand out to Akhos to pull him to his feet.
"This is Alrest we're talking about here.", Mikhail said, reaching out to Patroka who slapped his hand away and scrambled to her feet on her own. "What isn't wrong with it?"
"You know what I mean. It's more wrong than usual."
She earned herself three confused looks.
"Haven't you noticed, the titans are dying and now there are blades going missing."
"Titans have always been dying.", a voice cut in from the doorway.
The four of them turned.
"Jin! I didn't know you'd be joining us today!", Mikhail exclaimed.
The memory of the last time he wiped the floor with them still fresh on his mind. It had been a lot of fun, even though his muscles still hurt at the thought of it.
"I won't. But you four were about to miss lunch again."
"Sorry, we're on our way."
"No, you're not. All four of you need a shower and a change of clothes. You've been fighting for hours. You're all covered in Patroka's dirt and with Talya's ice melting, you're going to drag mud through the entire ship. I'll see you all in 30 minutes."
And with that Jin left and the rest were left to drag themselves off to the training room showers.
"What did you mean earlier, about the titans dying?", Natalya asked later between mouths full of stew.
"Just what I said. Titans dying isn't anything new.", Jin replied matter-of-factly.
"But there used to be no problem with living space before, and now, Mor Ardain and Uraya are about to go to war over territory. So something must have changed more recently."
Jin muttered something that sounded like "history lessons" and "Minoth's business", but when Natalya continued to look at him expectantly, he sighed.
"What do any of you know about the life cycle of Blades?"
"We awaken from the Core Crystals and when our Driver's die, we return to them. Rinse and repeat until the Core Crystal gets destroyed.", Patroka volunteered.
"Not quite.", Jin told her. "Mikhail?"
He sounded like a teacher calling on his top student - who looked more like the next class drop out, the way he was lounging in his chair.
"Well, unless some misfortune happens, like when the Core Crystal is destroyed or gets fused with human cells, Blades will eventually reach a point when they have to return to the Titan that bore them. Then, in the womb of that Titan, the Blades that return are reborn as Titans.", Mikhail explained to everyone but Jin's surprise.
"Since when are you the knowledgeable one?", Patroka snarked at him.
"I've seen it myself."
"When the hell -", Patroka exclaimed.
"Never mind that.", Natalya interrupted. Something about her brother's tone and the way he looked at Jin told her that this was a memory he shouldn't be pressed on right now. "If Titans evolve from Blades, then does that mean the living space crisis is our fault?"
"How would that be our fault?", Akhos asked.
"Well, we did steal a lot of Core Crystals, and we're basically keeping them from being awakened, which means they can't complete the cycle, so they won't return to the womb and evolve, which means the lack of Titans is our fault, right?"
"That doesn't matter anymore now.", Jin consoled her. When Natalya looked at him quizzically, he explained: "There are no more female Titans old enough."
"What?"
"There are three life stages for Titans. A larval state, a fertile state and an adult state. A Titan takes on average 2000 years to reach its adult state. Titans younger than that can produce Core Crystals, but only an adult female Titan has the womb necessary for Blade evolution. And the last Titan fitting that description died about 500 years ago.", Jin explained sourly.
"Which means any Blades born from Core Crystals older than that can never become Titans. And since the younger Titan generations are only just spitting out Core Crystals that are nowhere near old enough to evolve into Titans, there is no way to replace the dying Titan population of Alrest.", Mikhail supplied. "And to add to that, the Judician experiments massively decreased the number of Blades that would have been able to evolve."
"You mean creating people like us?"
"That too, but you must have noticed that there has been a massive increase of weakened Blades appearing over the last years. I mean, remember when we were kids, Talya? Powerful Blades were a pretty joycommon sight. I mean, not as powerful as Jin, but still, there used to be a lot of Blades on Obrona, Perdido and Cressidus. Now though, with every shipment of "cleansed" Core Crystals headed out of Indol, they become weaker. It's almost like Indol is draining them of their power and personality."
"And here I thought Amal-", a single silencing look from her brother had Natalya swallow the rest of that name. "... that bastard was bad. But his replacement isn't much better is he?"
"The new Praetor? Well, what did you expect? The Praetorium is Indoline. So is the Praetor. What amount of respect for Blades and Titans can you expect from a civilisation that calls itself the successors of Judicium?", Mikhail laughed coldly.
"But he was so extreme, can you blame me for thinking it couldn't get any worse than him?"
"No.", Akhos cut in. "Certainly where that man is concerned, things are personal. No one could fault you for not assessing the situation objectively."
"Objectively, Akhos, he was a piece of shit.", Natalya countered.
"A piece of shit without whom both you and Mik would be long dead by now, though.", Patroka pointed out.
"Are you implying we should thank him?!", both Natalya and Mikhail growled in unison.
"No, I just - well, it's another reason to be mad at him for - thanks to him there are now two more people bugging me all the time!"
"Aw, Patroka, don't be like that. You can tell us you think our presence is a gift. We won't mind.", Mikhail teased.
"What? I - you are so gross, Mik!"
As the two continued bickering, Akhos caught Natalya's gaze across the table and rolled his eyes. This type of exchange was nothing new. It wasn't like Mikhail had ever tried to hide that he had more than a platonic interest in Patroka, even though he mostly tried to play it off as a joke. And Patroka, well, Natalya assumed she was just not ready to work through her emotions. Not that anyone in this room was in any position to judge her. They all had their own shit to work through. Among all of them, Natalya had probably been the luckiest. At least Mikhail had turned up alive after all. So she didn't blame Patroka for reacting the way she did. Not just with Mikhail's flirtations, but also any time Akhos tried to show brotherly affection, and if Natalya had a gold piece for every time Patroka had told her they were "not friends", she would probably be able to buy out every Nopon in Argentum. Yet friends they were, and right now, her friend needed saving from her brother.
"Please stop, Misha.", she pulled a face, as if she had a headache.
"Stop what?", Mikhail asked innocently, before adding: "I think we agreed I'm too old for that nickname."
Natalya ignored him. "I signed up for a lot of things when I joined you. Watching my baby brother flirt was not one of them."
"I'm 508!", he protested.
Natalya raised an eyebrow at him.
"Your point being?"
Her brother glared at her. Natalya smirked at him. But before she could turn the conversation back to the topic, she was distracted by something none of them had ever experienced before.
Next to her, at the head of the table, Jin clutched his Core Crystal and groaned in agony.