The Principality of Scientia was a technological marvel, a country that welcomed everyone from every walk of life and prided itself on its scientific achievements and breakthroughs. It was no secret that a good majority of the technological developments in Gaea were due to other nations adapting the technology that Scientia created. They believed that knowledge was the right of all beings on the planet, and that no one nation had a monopoly on it. So, whenever an invention, or breakthrough was created, after several safety checks and patents were done, the tech was released to the public. Which helped other nations like the Boiling Isles, Amphibia, and Tír na nÓg.

The country was led by their current Scientist Supreme, Miriam Lafayette. She obtained the title from their last Scientist Supreme. The details weren't exactly made public, but rumors say that there were some dangerous things going on behind the scenes when it came to former Scientist Supreme, Moris Morlak. Regardless, Miriam deposed him, and now she was the Scientist Supreme. She ushered in a new golden age for the nation, many new inventions were created, and breakthroughs in genetic engineering. In fact, it was Miriam Lafayette who managed to develop a method for couples of same sexes to have children. Some either loved it or hated it depending on your point of view, but it opened the way for a lot of couples to have children without having to resort to magical means.

Since, until then, it was the only method, and the Boiling Isles and Tír na nÓg still had such options, but for those who were less confident about using magic, this was an alternative. Plus, Scientia had free healthcare for all citizens.

Fast forward a few years, and Scientist Supreme Miriam was now a grandmother. Now everyone in Scientia was naturally smart, growing up around technology and in a nation that encouraged knowledge acquisition and growth, it wasn't hard to believe that most of the inhabitants were tech savvy and knowledgeable. But not everyone could say that they were geniuses, although there were some who tried to gun for the position of becoming the nation's leader, but to this date, none had been able to topple Miriam. However, there was one contender who tried, one who took the nation's motto to heart.

She was given the moniker of "Moon Girl", but her real name was…

"Lunella?"

"Yeah, Mom?" Lunella called out.

Lunella Lafayette was a fourteen-year-old girl, she had a mess of curly, dark brown hair that she tied into two puffs on either side of her head. She also had on a pair of jean pants, sneakers, a pink skirt and belt combo, a pair of blue frame eyeglasses, and a black t-shirt over a white long sleeve shirt. Currently, the young teen was tinkering with the hover skates, using her tools to recalibrate the gravity coils that allowed one to float off the ground. She turned her head away from her work and looked over her shoulder as her mother entered the workshop area.

Her mother was Adria Lafayette, she had a pair of black sunglasses on that had the arms and rims around the frames cycling through different neon rainbow colors, around her neck was a pair of headphones that also had the same neon glow effect.

"Need your help. That VFX Holo Generator you made…it's kinda actin' up," said Adria.

"What? Well, what's it doin'?" Lunella inquired.

"Right now, it's creating a bunch of holograms of horror movie monsters."

"But today's Disco Day, Horror Night ain't until next month," said Lunella.

"Yeah, I know. Which is why–"

"AAAAAAAAH!"

Lunella and Adria looked in the direction of the screams.

"So, ya mind…?"

"Yeah, let's go."

Lunella put down the tools she was using and picked up another set for the job ahead of her. She and her mother walked out of the workshop area and into the main business area. Her family owned a popular roller rink called "Roll With It", it was started by her grandfather and grandmother, it was on the slide since her grandmother had become Scientist Supreme not too long before meeting her grandfather. This place served as a special haven for her, and her grandmother, or Mimi, as she preferred, didn't want her family forgetting where they came from. So, they would work in and maintain this roller rink together as a family.

As Lunella and Adria walked into the skating area, Lunella now saw what her mother was talking about. There were several horror movie monsters and slasher characters running around the rink, scaring the customers. Yes, they knew that they were holographic projects, but what Lunella did find strange was that the monsters and slashers seemed specific.

"I'm not completely up to date on all the horror movie bad guys, but I honestly don't recognize any of these guys," said Adria.

"Yeah…I don't either. Somethin's definitely up, let's head to the generator," said Lunella.

As Lunella and her mother walked past the various creatures, and the scared patrons, she saw that her father, James Lafayette Jr., and her grandfather, James Sr., were trying their best to calm the patrons and get them out of the rink until they managed to fix the problem. But once they got onto the rink, that's when things took a strange turn. The generator on the other side suddenly beeped and spluttered, with electricity crackling off of it wildly.

"What's going on?" Adria asked.

The holographic monsters flashed for a moment, and then turned towards the rink, surrounding it as they closed in on Lunella and her mother.

"Yeah, yeah, scary, c'mon Mom, let's–"

One of the slasher characters attacked Lunella with its cleaver. Call it instinct, reflexes, or intuition, but whatever you called it, Lunella managed to take that feeling and quickly took a step back just in time for the cleaver to miss her. However, it managed to nick some of her hair in the process, causing some strands to fall to the floor.

Adria noticed this and said, "Uh, did that thing just cut your hair?"

Lunella, also perplexed, nodded her head. Unable to deny that some of her hair was indeed cut off.

That's not possible! They're just holograms, not hard-light holograms! I didn't load enough photon particle cylinders to allow for hard-light creations! Lunella thought.

"Mom! We're in trouble! They can hurt us! They're hard-light holograms now!" she warned.

"Hard-light?! Oh, no…" Adria ducked just as one of the monster's swiped its claws at her. "RUN, LUNELLA!"

Lunella narrowed her gaze as she tapped the sides of her shoes. Within seconds, the shows that appeared to be plain sneakers swiftly transformed into a pair of the same hover skates that she was working on not a moment ago. Lunella quickly jumped up, grabbing her mother's hand in the process as she pulled them out of the center of the death ring the monsters created. Both of them landed a few feet in front of her mother's turntables, and when they did, the monsters all turned in their direction.

"James! Get the police here, now!" Adria shouted.

"I already did! They're comin'!" James Jr. cried out.

Lunella tapped the side of her glasses, and immediately they began to transform, becoming mechanical goggles that made whirring sounds as they zoomed in and out. On the outside of the lenses, you could see a magenta circle that acted as an indicator for her eyes. On the other side of the lenses, the microprocessors began analyzing the hard-light constructs, and verified that they were indeed solid. She turned her gaze to her Holo-Generator, and the readings showed a massive amount of energy being given off by her creation.

"Dad, Granddad! Go and cut the power!" Adria suggested.

Lunella looked up and watched as some of the projectors were now aiming towards the entrance and backdoor.

"NO! DON'T!" Lunella warned. "If you do that! They'll just appear there before you can get out!"

The monsters were starting to move towards Lunella, she furrowed her brow as her mind tried to come up with a solution.

The only way to stop this is at the source.

"Mom! Play my song."

Adria was confused for a moment, but then understood what her daughter was going to do.

"Be careful, honey," said Adria as she proceeded to put her headphones on.

Lunella's mother flipped a few switches, twisted some dials, and dropped the needle. The speakers started to thump with a hip-pop song that made Lunella bop her head. She then smacked her fist against the stage, and within seconds a panel opened and produced a hilt. Lunella tossed it up in the air, letting it spin as the monsters looked at it for a moment before she caught the hilt and pressed a button on it. Immediately a hard-light construct version of her grandmother's Ohger Calibur appeared in her hand as she took a stance.

Lunella began to hover a few inches off the ground as she skated towards the monsters, but right before attacking them, she dropped low to the ground and slid, passing through the open legs of some of the monsters. As she passed by them, she used her construct Ohger Calibur to cut the legs out from under the monsters, shattering their legs into blocky pixels of light before they flopped onto their faces or backs. Once behind them, Lunella quickly flipped onto her front as she got back to her feet and charged in again. One of the monsters, a tentacle looking thing, launched six of its tentacles at her.

The young teen smirked as she clicked her heels once and made her skates release a burst of gravitons that launched her forward in a straight line. The tentacles surrounded her, but Lunella spun around, extending her sword out as she diced up the tentacles like a buzzsaw, still on a crash course for the tentacle monster. Just before getting too close, Lunella pointed the sword above her head, turning herself into a human drill as she struck the center of the monster and bore a hole right through it. The tentacle monster dispersed into pixelated light particles just as she managed to come to a stop.

Lunella shook her head as the room spun around her, represented as spirals on the outside of the lenses. That was a cool move, but probably not the most productive she noted.

The slasher character from before readied to cut her down again, but Lunella managed to recover and jetted out of the rink and landed on the other side in the direction of her generator. The constructs dispersed from the rink, turning into a swarm of light pixels that reformed into the monsters in a defensive line in front of the generator. Lunella's goggles locked onto the power cable that fed the generator its energy, all she needed to do was cut that and this would be over. Lunella skated towards the defensive line of monsters and slashers that tried to stop her. The young teen began slicing and dicing through one construct after the other, but it was getting annoying as some were reforming a few seconds after she cut them down. Her mind went into some mental calculations as she came up with a crazy idea, but it could work.

Lunella waited for that same cleaver wielding construct to attack, and when its arm was at the right angle, she cut off its arm with enough force to make it go flying towards the ceiling. Upon doing so, Lunella slashed through its body, tapped to turn off the blade of her sword, and then tossed the hilt towards the power cable. Her parents and grandparent were yelling in confusion as to why she just tossed her only weapon, but the constructs took this chance to close in on her.

However, Lunella looked up and smirked as she watched one of the projectors begin to fall from the ceiling. When she cut off that last construct's arm, she made sure to cut it off with enough speed and force to make it fly towards that particular projector, cutting it at the stem. When she saw it about to fall, that's when she tossed her hilt. And just as she predicted, the projector fell at just the right angle to strike the button on the hilt, forcing the hilt to hit the floor as the construct blade extended out and cut straight through power cable, severing it half. The generator started to make a few sounds before the entire contraption suddenly shut down.

Lunella turned around, keeping her confident smirk as she watched the constructs make one last attempt to attack her, coming to within just a few inches before dispersing into harmless normal holographic pixels.

"Moon Girl magic!"

A couple of hours passed with the police working to get statements and investigate what happened. Lunella was granted the chance to look over her invention, with the supervision of the attending officers of course, to try and find out what happened to her invention that caused it to go to haywire. After some looking, she found the culprit. There was a device that was crudely attached to the back of her machine. It looked like a spider-bot and had six cylinders of concentrated photon particles. It also had wires that were coming out of it and into the generator, which meant that someone intentionally hacked and sabotaged her invention, more than that, someone tried to sabotage it to try and kill her family.

It wasn't like this was completely uncommon. She and her family were related to the current Scientist Supreme, which was why Lunella studied sword fighting. For the day when she would wield her Mimi's Ohger Calibur. Luckily it paid off.

A camera bot floated into the rink, one of its panels opened and created a holographic screen where her parents and grandfather were. On the screen was her Mimi, otherwise known as Miriam Lafayette. She was at the Ministry of Science, going about her duties of being the head of state, but after this little incident, they had her on lockdown, believing that she was the next target. So, unfortunately, she could only communicate with them via the robot.

{Are you all alright?!} Miriam asked.

"Rink's a bit of a mess, but we're all okay, dear," said James Sr.

{Oh, thank the Shugods. And Lunella?}

"Right here, Mimi!" Lunella skated over to where her family was, smiling happily upon seeing her. "You good, too?"

{Yes, although these guards won't let me come and see you.}

{Ma'am, we told you, whoever went after your family might be–}

{Whoever came after my family and grandbaby are gonna wish they never messed with the likes of me! I may be old, da–} Miriam was going to use another word, but remembered her granddaughter was listening in. {Dang it! But I can still kick anyone's butt!}

James Sr. crossed his arms, shook his head, and smiled as he said, "Always a spitfire."

{Anyway. Lunella, you should hold up on your project unveiling later. What with all this.}

"Oh, nuh-uh, I ain't lettin' some 'assassination attempt' ruin my day! Or are you scared that you're gonna have to give me the title of Scientist Supreme? I wouldn't blame you, my next invention is goin' to change everything," Lunella boasted.

Miriam sighed as she smiled.

{Stubborn like your grandmother. Fine, I figured you wouldn't. So, that being said, I sent a friend over to–}

"LUNELLLLLAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Everyone turned towards the front door and watched as a fourteen-year-old girl appeared in it, one that the family recognized immediately.

Her name was Casey María Eva Duarte Goldberg-Calderon. She had on a pair of gloves that had circuit patterns at the bottom, around the palms, and fingertips. Her dark brown eyes had contacts on that allowed Casey to see a virtual overlay of what everyone was seeing via her camera-bot, and granted her the ability to manipulate the effects and emojis on the fly. She was wearing an azure, sleeveless, shirt, with a pair of black boots, and shorts that matched her top. Casey hurriedly ran towards the Lafayette family and brought Lunella into a hug.

"Amiga estas bien?! (Friend, are you alright?!) Who tried to hurt my girl?!" Casey exclaimed.

Lunella chuckled and replied, "Casey, I'm good. We're all okay. But we don't know who did this."

Casey took a moment to look over Lunella and her family, and then sighed with relief.

"Dang girl, it looks like things got crazy," said Casey.

"Yeah, but I took care of it."

"Oh man, tell me you didn't bust out some sick moves and with a dope song playing in the background," Casey begged.

Lunella chuckled nervously as she nodded.

Casey smacked her forehead as she exclaimed, "¡Oh! dame un descanso! (Oh, give me a break!) An epic beat down and I wasn't here to live stream it for the Moon Girl channel?!"

{Such a pity, Casey. We'll make sure you're at the next assassination attempt,} Miriam joked.

Casey's eyes widened as she realized that Lunella's grandmother was watching and listening to all that. The young teen chuckled nervously as she turned around to face the holo-screen.

"I-I didn't mean it like that, I promise!"

{Casey, child, relax. Anyway, your escort should be there right about…now.}

Just then, thundering footsteps could be heard coming towards the rink. Lunella's eyes widened with joy as she and Casey rushed out of the building. When they were outside, they watched as the nation's guardian Shugod came stomping down the street and stopped a couple of feet from the police line. The white and black living mechanical being that protected all of Scientia, and its name was God Tyranno, or as Lunella loving nicknamed him…

"DEVIL!" Lunella cried out.

God Tyranno gave a low, happy growl. The crowd dispersed as Lunella and Casey walked up to the Shugod as it lowered its head, allowing Lunella and Casey to pet its snout.

"Heh! Now this is what I'm talkin' about," said Lunella.

The holographic screen and the camera orb that displayed it floated out of the building and next to Lunella and Casey.

{Show me what you got, Moon Girl,} Miriam challenged.

"Oh, it's on!" Lunella remarked. "Beam us in, Devil!"

God Tyranno roared a little, and within seconds both Casey and Lunella were enveloped in white light before they were instantly transported inside of God Tyranno's cockpit. The inside of the cockpit was spherical in design, neon white circuit lines appearing and disappearing on the three-sixty display. In the center of the cockpit was an exoskeleton piloting apparatus, allowing the Scientist Supreme to physically pilot God Tyranno, or in this case, the living machine could act on its own.

"Let's get a move on, Devil!"

God Tyranno turned around and began running down the street, the giant mecha beast jumped into the air, and as he did, some platforms appeared out of the sky and formed a path for him. From the sky, as God Tyranno ran, Lunella and Casey could see the entire capital of Scientia, the city of Lunamaria. It was a sprawling metropolis, and an advanced city of tall skyscrapers. Some buildings were white, and had neon lights that outlined their shape, and others were silver in color. There were many spires that were spread out through the city and further out, they had the purpose of creating a wireless signal that reached across the country, and even past its borders to allow the other nations to communicate with one another over vast distances, across the seas and oceans. There were several flying vehicles flying around the city, ranging from bikes, and a few Shugods that acted as modes of transportation.

At the center of the entire city was a large white building that was dubbed the Ministry of Science where Lunella's grandmother resided and did her administrative duties for the people of Scientia. Lunella looked upon that building, her brow furrowing as she smirked.

Lunella was always in competition with her grandmother for the right to become Scientist Supreme. Don't get her wrong, she loved her Mimi dearly, she always gave her advice and helped her out whenever she needed it or stood back and allowed Lunella to figure out the solution herself. But Lunella wanted to prove that she was Scientist Supreme material, that she wasn't just some socially awkward genius, that she could in fact kick butt, and be the leader that Scientia needed for the future.

As she thought this God Tyranno kept running along the metal panels, each one appearing in rapid succession to keep forming a makeshift road that led to a warehouse further down. God Tyranno hopped off the platform and landed in the middle of the yard. Once down, the young scientist and social media influencer appeared in front of God Tyranno in a flash of light. Once out of the cockpit, Lunella and Casey walked up to the front door where Lunella punched in some numbers, causing the door to slide open as the two of them entered.

The entire warehouse lit up, showing various types of machinery, and computers that were running calculations that were beyond Casey. While she wasn't a slacker in her academics, she wasn't exactly at the level that her bestie was, not many were.

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask you something," said Casey.

"Yeah, Case?"

"Is God Tyranno, like, alive?"

Lunella kept walking until she was at a coat rack that had a white lab coat hanging from it.

"Well, I guess that depends on what you consider 'alive' to be. I guess I've always thought of Devil as an intelligent AI, like the other Shugods," said Lunella. "I mean, think about it. All the Shugods are mechanical in nature, and can think and act on their own, and choose to be controlled by a designated leader of each individual country."

"Huh, then, if that's true, why do the Boiling Islanders think that their entire archipelago and country is the corpse of a fallen Shugod," Casey remarked as she tapped on the top of each of her gloves. "I mean, I've been there once, and I can't exactly say that that might not be true, when you get up close to those giant rib bone lookin' things. They really do look like rib bones, and some things are alive there."

Lunella put on a pair of rubber gloves as she reactivated her special goggles.

"Okay, so the Boiling Archipelago is…unique. And that's what they believe, there's no actual physical or written evidence that that's the case. All they go by is legends," Lunella explained.

"Well, how do you explain the strange things that they can do? We do live in a world with magic, talking frogs, newts, and toads, and witches and demons. Heck, Tír na nÓg has spirits floating around like it's no big deal."

"It's true, Gaea is very unique. Magic in Tír na nÓg works waaaaay differently from the magic in the Boiling Isles or in Amphibia." Lunella walked up to the computer and tapped on a few buttons before a hatch opened on the floor near her. "And when I become Scientist Supreme, I'm gonna find out the mystery behind why we have three different types of magic in Gaea, and what the Shugods actually are!"

Casey loved her friend's enthusiasm and determination when it came to discovering new things.

"Okay, amgia, just promise you're not going to dissect a Shugod," Casey remarked.

"…"

"Chica, you better not be thinking about it. ¡Vas a fastidiar a Devil y a todos los Shugods de Gea! (You're going to tick off Devil, and every Shugod in Gaea!)" Casey exclaimed.

"Relax, Case, I'm not going to dissect a Shugod," Lunella began walking down the hatch before adding, "Not a live one anyway."

"¡Ay, niña loca! (Oh, you crazy girl!)" Casey took a deep, calming breath. "I love you, Lunella, but sometimes the things that come out of your mouth, are muy loco!"

After that little exchange, Casey got some things ready. With a wave of her hand, she made several camera orbs come to life from inside the warehouse. Like a conductor of an orchestra, Casey made the camera orbs fly into position, putting them at the perfect angles. She pressed on her right earring, which acted as button that sent a signal to her contacts that allowed her to activate the lenses. Once they were on, Casey was about to interact with the virtual overlay, bringing up screens and other controls that allowed her to adjust the lightning, and set up their "Moon Girl" channel.

I can't wait to see the look on Andrea's face when this blows up! Casey thought, reveling in the idea of her social media rival's lament.

Once everything was set up, Casey put on her best smile and snapped her fingers. The camera spheres all lit up with a green light, indicating that they were now live.

"HOLA SCI-EN-TIA! IT'S YOUR GIRL CASEY GOLDBERG-CALDERON! I'm coming to you all, live, from inside Section 6 where my amiga is about to unveil her latest creation! You know here, you love her! She's Lunella Lafayette! Aka, Moon Girl!" Casey announced.

As soon as she did, the cameras zoomed in as a multi-tiered stage popped out of the floor, with Lunella standing at the top of it. The stage released some smoke and a puff of wind to make her lab coat flutter for dramatic effect.

"Hey y'all! Ready for some Moon Girl magic?!" Lunella exclaimed from her spot on the stage.

Casey waved her hands around and created holographic images of people cheering and whooping it up for her. At the same time, she could see the number of views already starting to rise rapidly.

"Now, before y'all get to asking, yes, I'm fine, and my family's fine. We had a little commotion that went down at Roll With It, but it's all been taken care of, and we'll be back up and runnin' in no time," said Lunella.

Casey had one of the camera's switched to her as she said, "I can't believe I missed it! But from what I heard; Lunella took care of some construct monsters like a boss!"

"It was no biggy, but it was a good opportunity to test out my sword skills! Gotta be ready to use that Ohger Calibur when I become Scientist Supreme," Lunella remarked with a smirk.

Lunella hopped down from the multi-tiered stage before jumping off the last tier with a stylish flourish.

"Now, I'm sure you're wondering what I got that's gonna revolutionize Scientia and all of Gaea, and what will eventually make me Scientist Supreme!"

Casey could see the comments flowing, all of them wanting to see what it was that Lunella was going to show them. Without further delay, Lunella gave a little kick at the base of the multi-tiered stage, and a moment after, the stage began to collapse and revealed a strange contraption. It was cylindrical in design, the outer casing was made of various types of metal alloys, while inside sported another device that had glowing coils around.

"Oooh, it's soo…so…what is it?" Casey asked as she had the camera spheres zoom in on it.

"So glad you asked. I think we can all agree that cross-country travel takes way too long, especially when transporting things like food, supplies, tech, all that good stuff. Plus, if a natural disaster happens, and we want to help out one of the other nations, it could take hours to reach them. That's time people don't have, especially when there's a life on the line. But what if I told you all, that I could cut down a trip that used to take a day or two, to just a minute?"

Now Casey was interested, and the comments were coming in at a rapid-fire pace, all of them wondering how such thing would be possible.

Lunella smiled and activated her hover skates as she hovered over to the invention and leaned on it.

"Well, that's what this bad boy does Scientia. Introducing the first ever portal generator!" Lunella announced. "That's right, with this, all the nations could be traversed in mere minutes rather than hours or days or weeks! We can send goods right to other nations, send help to other nations during a natural disaster! Or even just increase tourism to other nations by cutting down the travel time! The possibilities are only limited by your imagination folks."

"Whoa, Lunella, is this…uh…is this safe?" Casey asked.

"Aaaaaaabsolutely. I've gone over all my notes, checked my data, and theory is sound." Lunella skated over to a control panel on the left side of the device and stopped next to it. "Now, for safety reasons, I'm not gonna open a portal to Amphibia, Tír na nÓg, or the Boiling Isles. I do not want to have to explain what I'm doing there. So, we'll start with something simple and close by. Someplace I know there's no one around, my bedroom!"

Lunella began inputting the coordinates to her bedroom into the control panel but kept them hidden from the cameras. Privacy and all that.

"It should go without sayin' that precise coordinates need to be input into the destination. Otherwise, you could end up portaling into a wall, or over a body of water. Like the Boiling Sea," Lunella shuddered at the thought. "And of course, it's also important that the place you're opening the portal at is not where there's a lot of people. Spatial displacement is no joke everyone."

With the coordinates set, Lunella began powering up her machine. Casey took her usual spot behind the blast proof shield wall, just in case, while the cameras hovered around Lunella and her invention.

"Let's juice it up!"

Lunella threw the switch to her portal generator, making the device whirr to life. The internal coils began to glow brighter and brighter as energy began lapping off it.

C'mon…C'mon!

However, something went wrong. The power was fluctuating wildly, before the entire thing shorted out, causing the circuitry inside to get fried and knocking out the power to the whole warehouse, leaving Lunella and Casey in the dark.

"WHAT?!" Lunella exclaimed.

"We'll be right back! Like, comment, and subscribe!"

[Live Stream Has Ended]

Miriam Lafayette chuckled as she finished watching her granddaughter's live stream.

"She's quite the precocious one, isn't she?"

Miriam's brow furrowed when she turned around to look at the person she had come to see. Locked away in a prison cell behind her was a dark-skinned man, about as old or a little bit older than Miriam. His hair had become a little disheveled since his incarceration, but you could clearly see streaks of white on the sides of her head. He sported a trimmed beard, a pair of black rimmed glasses, and had a lanky build. This man was the former Scientist Supreme, Moris Morlak.

"Moris, you had better tell me how and when you managed to make contact with my granddaughter," Miriam ordered.

"Oh? Why would you suspect that I had contact with her?" Moris asked.

"Don't play me. Her invention was based on the portal technology we developed together! The same one that nearly brought monsters into our world. Heck, for all we know, we could've nearly opened a back door for the Khaotic to come back!" Miriam exclaimed.

"I honestly don't know what you're talking about. Perhaps Lunella there just happened to find our old blueprints and managed to recreate it," said Moris.

"Not possible. I scrubbed Scientia's entire database myself. The only ones who know how to recreate it are standing right here in this room. So, tell me how you managed to get the information to her!?"

Moris raised an eyebrow as he said, "Before that, how did you know Lunella's invention was our old portal generator? You didn't seem at all surprised when you were watching the live stream, and you weren't in a hurry to go and stop her…Unless, of course, you already knew that she had made it, and sabotaged it?"

Miriam turned away for a moment, and Moris smirked, realizing he had guessed right.

"Why, Miriam, that's not fair now. Sabotaging your granddaughter's invention, she could've easily taken your spot as the Scientist Supreme when it worked," Moris chided, playfully. "That's not a good look."

Miriam scoffed.

"Lunella will take my position one day; she's determined and smarter than you or me. But it won't be by using that. And don't think I don't like you for the attempt on my family's life earlier today," Miriam accused.

Moris raised his hands up as if to show surrender.

"I have no idea about that either. Perhaps you have more enemies than you think? If you always keep an eye on me, you'll miss the obvious, and then it'll be too late," Moris warned.

Miriam rolled her eyes. She knew Moris was behind this, she knew he was the reason why Lunella was able to make their old portal device. How that was possible was currently eluding her. His cell prevented any wireless signal from leaving the room. The prison they were in was made to keep anyone and everyone disconnected from technology, making it a literal dead zone for any tech that wasn't rudimentary. So, how he was communicating with Lunella and assassins was hard to figure out, especially when she made sure to vet all the guards in the prison to make sure that they weren't sympathizers or former loyalists.

"You can come at me, personally, all you want, Moris. But do not involve my family."

Miriam began walking away but stopped when she heard Moris say one last thing.

"Whether you like it or not, your granddaughter is involving herself. You can't shield her from everything, Miriam," said Moris.

"No, but I can prepare her the best I can. And that's why she managed to thwart that assassination, and it's also how I know that my grandbaby will become a better Scientist Supreme than either of us."