Shadows of Alrest

by kiben007

It had taken unthinkable sacrifice, but with Malos dead and a new Elysium to call home, it seemed like the world had been given a second chance. But old habits die hard, and not everyone is willing to see the world change for the better. Even with the Aegis gone, the work of her companions is far from over. Sequel to my previous work, "Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Atonement"

6. The Shadow of Osiria, Part 3

"Can you give me my kingdom?" Dagas asked, voice crackling over the speaker in Adenine's ear.

"I can give you freedom," Nia replied. "With some conditions, at least initially. Whether or not you can convince others to follow you is another matter entirely."

"Subjects will come in time. What I require is Regideria. My birthright."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Dagas used to rule a kingdom on Temperantia," Adenine said, her voice transmitting to a speaker next to Nia. "Regideria. At the end of the Tornan Captivity, a large number of Judicians returned to Temperantia and clashed with the Indoline settlers who had—"

"Thank you, Adenine," Nia said, cutting her off. "Are there any records of where this kingdom used to be?"

"That wound you healed last month was the Aegishammer, left behind by Rhea's destruction. That's where Regideria's capital city used to be."

"I have seen it," Dagas said. "My Driver and I journeyed there years ago, in search of my past. Even if nothing is left, I still have a claim to that ground."

"Doubtful," Nia said. "But, if the other Caretakers agree, we might be willing to return the land to you as a show of good faith."

"It's a start. Will my vassals be allowed to join me?"

"If they cooperate, and you all submit yourselves to some surveillance, then I could make the case for a few of you. Not Bradly, though."

Adenine heard Bradly shout something from further inside the prison, but he was too far away from Nia for the microphone to pick it up.

"What would happen to my Driver?" Dagas asked.

"I don't know yet," Nia said. "But I do know that he stays here, where he can't resonate, until we figure it out. That's not up for discussion."

"We need him," Corvin said, interjecting from the next cell over. "He's our Driver. If you're really still a Blade, you should understand how important that connection is."

"Not everyone here feels that way, but that's not really the point. Bradly is an unrepentant murderer. I'm not going to let him roam free."

"I can bring in our latest revival, if it helps," Adenine said, glancing over at the door next to her. "I've been talking with her, and she might have something to say."

"If you think there's no risk," Nia said. Adenine floated through the door, into one of the infirmary's private rooms, and tuned out the rest of the conversation. This Blade was the latest one they'd managed to pull out, though there were still a few left who were probably beyond any hope of recovery. She couldn't move around long-term, yet, but perhaps bringing her back into close proximity resonance with her Driver could fix that. It'd be a gamble, though. Something to bring up with Nia later.

"T-elos," Adenine said, knocking on the door. "Time to get up."

T-elos sat up and stretched. It had been nearly a week since their last checkup, so Adenine floated back a little, giving the other Blade time to get her bearings.

As Adenine glanced around, her eyes settled on a half-empty glass of water nearby. On her reflection in the liquid's surface. On the mottled, purple core that hung around her neck, now. She could still taste the monk's blood in her mouth more than two years later. Somehow it bothered her more than not having legs.

"Are we having another session?" Telos asked, swinging her legs off the bed.

"Yes and no," Adenine replied. "How much do you remember about your Driver?"

"I never had a very high opinion of the man, but he was competent enough in a fight. Why?"

"Bradly got himself captured. His Blades, your old friends, aren't being very cooperative. Do you think you'd be willing to talk with them? Maybe convince some of them to jump ship?"

"Why should I? You still haven't delivered on your promise."

"You're missing a third of your core. I'd say I've delivered marvelously, given the circumstances."

"I'm barely allowed to leave this room!" T-elos protested.

"Barely capable. Not the same thing."

"I'll show you capable," T-elos huffed, taking a step toward Adenine. Instantly, she lost her balance and fell to her knees, but she didn't stop trying to struggle forward until Adenine put a hand on her shoulder.

"I will fix you," Adenine said. "And when I'm done, you won't need a Driver, either. The same goes for your friends, if you can get them to join up. If you're not feeling up for it, you can lie back down. We'll have an appointment later today."

"I'll talk to the others," T-elos grunted, pushing herself back to her feet. "As boring as this place is, it's better than a—" She slipped again, and Adenine put an arm out to steady her. "—cell."

"Something we can agree on," Adenine chuckled. She and T-elos slowly made their way to the cells like that. Fortunately, they didn't have far to go. Adenine had petitioned to have her lab set up near the prison. It was always better to have quick access to test subjects, even if the other Caretakers weren't keen on the idea. Though, with how few prisoners they had taken so far, there wasn't much progress to speak of for her experiments. Eventually, her lab had started pulling double duty as the community infirmary, just so she had something to keep busy with.

As they approached the door, she tuned back into Nia's microphone, and instantly she was greeted with a wall of shouting that made her pause momentarily.

"—one getting the business end of his fist every time he got boozed up!" Vale shouted. "No, you were the one who always loved to watch!"

"I did what I had to do!" Corvin protested. "I didn't want to get on his bad side any more than you did! It's not my fault you woke up looking like his dead girlfriend!"

"Vicious words, Corvy," Azami tittered.

"You have many strengths," Dagas said. "Lying is not one of them."

"Fuck off," Corvin spat. "I've got no loyalty to Bradly, but going back to work without a Driver would be a hassle. I need him."

"We're not letting any of you go back to being mercenaries," Nia said. "That's one of those conditions I talked about. You stay in Temperantia and play by our rules, or you stay in these cells and waste away."

"We had it better with the Flamebringer's band of idiots than we'll ever have it here," Corvin said. "Perceval, back me up here."

"As far as I'm concerned, you're all traitors," Pervecal huffed. "You can burn for all I care."

"We all know you care," Azami said.

"Coming in!" Adenine announced, pressing her hand against the pad next to the door. It slid open, and she floated in. As she did, she let T-elos's hand drop from her shoulder, and the weary Blade made an effort to stand on her own two feet.

"I see things here haven't changed much since I left," T-elos said, looking over the group. Vale was outside her cell, standing next to Nia, but the others were still caged. Her eyes met Bradly's, and his eyes widened. She smirked. "That gag's a good look for you."

"That's what I told him," Azami giggled.

"How?" Perceval asked. "Bradly said your resonance cut out. We all thought you were dead."

"I was, I think," she said. "The Praetor put my core in a machine. For a while, I was networked with hundreds of other Blades. It was… An experience. Adenine managed to pull me out, eventually."

"Basically, I'm a genius," Adenine said, allowing herself a small smirk. "This is the tip of the iceberg, kiddos."

Nia shot her a glare, but she ignored it. These Blades needed convincing? She'd delivered the goods. Nia could be mad at her later.

"I can't help but notice they haven't put you in a cell," Perceval observed.

"I'm back for less than a minute, and already you're challenging me," T-elos said, frowning. "Why am I not surprised?"

"I'm stating facts. You're cooperating."

"They know they can't contain me, so they don't bother trying."

Adenine snorted at that. T-elos took it in stride, though. The posturing was obvious enough that it wasn't likely any of the others were buying it anyway.

"Cut it out," Corvin groaned. "I thought, with you dead, at least we'd be spared this ridiculous farce." He gestured in her direction. "You can barely stand."

"And yet I'm doing better than any of you," she noted. "So it seems, once again, that I came out ahead."

"A shame Zenobia isn't around to hear you say that," Azami said.

"Why are you here, traitor?" Perceval asked.

"The doctor wanted me to convince you all to give the Gardens a chance," T-elos said. "But now that I'm here, I'm reminded of how much I can't stand any of you. This place is too good for the likes of you anyway. Stay down here and rot with that failure of a Driver, for all I care."

"Nonsense," Dagas said. "I am a king." He turned to Nia. "I'd be willing to conduct negotiations in a more civil atmosphere, one ruler to another, if you are amenable."

"Go with it," Vale muttered, not loud enough for Dagas to hear. "This'll go smoother if you buy into the act."

"Alright," Nia said, sighing. She strode forward and unlocked Dagas's cell. He walked out and tipped his crown at her, then went over to Vale's side.

"Are you really doing this?" Corvin asked. Vale left the room rather than reply, and Dagas simply smiled.

"You people sicken me," Perceval spat. "A Blade should be loyal, above all else."

"Loyalty should be earned," Nia said.

"That isn't how Blades work," Corvin said. "Maybe you two have been Flesh Eaters for so long you've forgotten, but Blades don't get to choose their Drivers. We don't get to choose to be loyal, either."

"What if you could choose?" Adenine asked.

"I'd drop his sorry ass in a heartbeat," Corvin said, jabbing his thumb at Bradly. "But life's not a fairy tale."

"It could be. What if I told you I could transfer your resonance to someone else, without forcing you back into your core?"

"Scandalous," Azami said, clutching her pearls. "I would never think to leave my beloved's side."

"It doesn't work that way," Corvin said, crossing his arms. "I'm not an idiot."

The longer he studied the grin on Adenine's face, however, the less sure of himself he became.

"Like I said," she smirked. "Tip of the iceberg."

"Sounds too good to be true," he said, turning away.

"You'll change your mind." Adenine shrugged. "Let me know when you do. Come on, T-elos, you've got an appointment." She put her arm around the unsteady Blade's shoulder again, leading her back up to the lab.

"From one master to another," Dagas commented.

"Would you ignore the advice of your royal physician?" T-elos asked.

"No, I suppose not," he chuckled, turning to address Nia. "Now, Queen Gardener, where shall we conduct our negotiations?"

"I'm afraid I'll have to postpone," she said, closing the door behind her. "I'm already late for a meeting. One of the other Caretakers will show you to your room, and we can discuss the details of your stay when I get back. Does that work for you?"

"Running a kingdom is a difficult task," Dagas said, nodding sagely. "I will enjoy your hospitality in the meantime, Queen Gardener."

"Good," Nia said. She led Dagas down another corridor, leaving Adenine and T-elos alone. Vale had disappeared, which was a little concerning.

"Eyes on Vale?" Adenine asked, pressing a finger to her earpiece. She didn't want to take the chance that Vale had just been putting on an act to get out of her cell. It took a few seconds to get a response.

"She's in the courtyard," Akhos replied. "Nothing suspicious from her so far, but Mikhail's going to check on her soon."

"Tell him to come in for his appointment after he's done," she said. "And thanks."

"Don't trust my teammates?" T-elos asked.

"We can't be too careful," Adenine replied, opening the door to the labs. T-elos hobbled over to the operating table and sat down while Adenine wheeled out a device from a corner of the room. An old Judician resonance analyzer. It could probe a Blade core's internal structure and extract rudimentary data from the responses.

"How many more times must I go through this?" T-elos asked as Adenine placed the probe against her core.

"As many times as it takes to reactivate everything," Adenine replied. Once the probe was secure, she began tuning another device she'd jury-rigged onto the probe head. A focus, designed to stimulate the probed areas and restart core activity, though the process was mostly trial and error. Trying to figure out which parts of the core weren't talking to the whole, which parts didn't belong, which were missing.

"Let's get this over with, then."

"Sit still," Adenine said, activating the device. It took a few moments to whir to life, but soon began displaying ether waveforms on the console next to her. She moved the probe across T-elos's core, measuring a baseline of points to make sure nothing had deteriorated. With that out of the way, she turned to measuring the darker areas of the core. The whole area was a tangle of pieces of her own core and tendrils of Amalthus's "vessel", but most of what was missing or inactive was her memory banks. Adenine hoped that the problem would fix itself when T-elos eventually returned to her core in however many years' time, but until then Adenine would do her best.

"I'm starting the first pass," Adenine said. "Close your eyes."

T-elos muttered an affirmative and did as instructed.

"Tell me what you see."

"There's fire. People are running, trying to find somewhere to hide, but the flames are getting closer. My Driver is laughing. He's driving a sword through someone's chest. A man, protecting his fleeing family. I'm laughing too. My scythe tears into the building next to me…"

The appointment continued like that. Adenine stimulating T-elos's memories. Some of them stuck around, some of them didn't. Always fewer than Adenine expected. It was like that for Dromarch as well, though his damage was far more extensive. As Adenine worked, however, she noticed one area of T-elos's core go dark. Somewhere that had lit up near the start of the appointment. That wasn't supposed to happen. Her core was fragile, but active areas in a Blade core shouldn't shut themselves down as long as they could still resonate with the surrounding ether.

She passed the probe back over it, and it flickered back to life, though it took her a moment to confirm that it properly reconnected to the rest of the core. Strange.

She didn't mention the issue as they moved on to the final stage of the appointment, cutting away the pieces of Amalthus's suit that were still clinging to the newly activated areas. She used a precision laser for that, modified from the wreck of a Gargoyle she'd destroyed during the Cataclysm. T-elos's core had been on the outer portion of Amalthus's Blade suit, hooked into the network but not physically mixed with other Blade cores. That's what had made her salvageable when so many of the other cores he'd absorbed weren't.

As she cut, however, she couldn't help but think about the area of T-elos's core that had gone dark. It shouldn't have been possible for a Core Crystal to go dark like that, when the accompanying Blade still had a Driver to resonate with. For that to happen, either something was severely wrong with the core itself, or there was some deficiency in the atmospheric ether levels, like in the Spirit Crucible.

T-elos had been extensively damaged, but she was still capable of generating her body, so it couldn't be a problem with the Core Crystal itself. And no other Blades around here were having trouble resonating with the ether either. So…

Perhaps the two effects were conspiring? A weakened core susceptible to lowered atmospheric ether where a healthy core wouldn't be? It was possible. It might explain why so many of these more damaged areas were having trouble coming back online. But for that to be the cause, then the local atmospheric ether would still have to be abnormally low, and…

Well, there was one potential explanation she could think of. If the ether wasn't dropping locally, but globally, then it wouldn't be noticeable until it started to affect people like this. And with the number of Titans who'd died in the Cataclysm, it was no surprise that the global ether level would drop.

But that shouldn't have lasted this long. The Titans could collectively output much more ether than the atmosphere could realistically hold, but they also had dedicated ether perception for gauging its levels. That ether feedback mechanism ensured their global output stayed consistent no matter how many of them there were. So long as the Cloud Sea was still around, anyway.

Only the Cloud Sea wasn't infinite anymore. The Cloud Ridge had been destroyed alongside the World Tree. These days, it was a substance in rather short supply. So if the Titans couldn't simply draw up more to increase their ether output, then…

That line of reasoning didn't bear thinking about. If she was right, it would mean the Titans all had an expiry date, now. And if they weren't capable of holding up the atmospheric ether levels, then the outlook didn't look great for the Blades either.

For the moment, she pushed the scenario aside and focused on the task in front of her. Finishing this appointment. Her duty as a Caretaker came first, these days. She could toy around with hypothetical scenarios in her free time.

But she'd need to start soon, because if she was right, this was a problem they would need to deal with sooner or later. Preferably sooner. Because she did not want to find out what would happen to everyone here if the ether suddenly fell out from under them.

---

A Titan-based weapon system. Like one of the old Judician Destroyers of legend, only a thousand times as potent. A distilled ether overload, triggered on purpose, capable of leveling entire cities. Maybe even continents. This scientist, Dr. Jenal, was standing on the cusp of a weapon that would change the nature of warfare. Tens of thousands would die. Nations would fall in days. More importantly, people would realize how much they needed a constant supply of Titans. They'd start to wonder why they're all dying off, and they might even start trying to do something about it. The Praetor couldn't abide that, and by extension neither could she.

"Legatus," the monk said, drawing Adenine out of her thoughts. "We'll be arriving in Saihate shortly."

"Thank you, sister," Adenine replied. She stood up and exited the cabin, walking out onto the Titan ship's deck. The city passed below her, the sounds of battle mixing with the rising smoke to remind Adenine why she and the Praetor were undertaking their mission. These savages tore each other apart so long as there were resources to fight over. But they'd change their tune once the Praetorium controlled the remaining Titans.

Figures moved through the city streets in packs, cloaked in gray and sticking to the shadows. At first, Adenine thought they were Urayan mercenaries. But when one group stopped and turned their weapons up at the Titan ship, they didn't let forth blasts of ether. Ballistic fire bounced harmlessly off the ship's hull. Spessians, then. The only nation who hated the Praetorium and had enough power to act on it. They were a major stumbling block to the Praetor's plan. This weapon in the hands of Uraya or Mor Ardain would break the Praetorium's tenuous hold on Alrest, but in the hands of Spessia, it could break the Praetorium itself. Better to get ahold of the doctor before anyone else did, to ensure no one could wield weapons on that scale.

"It's awful," Fan la Norne said, walking up behind her. "All this fighting over one forest."

"It's what humans do," Adenine replied. "The pointless slaughter defines their species."

"I don't believe that."

"No," Adenine snorted. "I suppose you wouldn't. You've still got so much of her in you."

"Her? Who do you mean?"

"Your former Driver. I never met her in person, but according to the Praetor she was extremely kind. Almost too kind, if there is such a thing."

"His Holiness has never made mention of her before. Do you know how—"

"Forget I said anything," Adenine said, cutting the conversation off as quickly as possible. It wasn't something she should've brought up in the first place. She didn't know what had possessed her to. "We've got a job to do here. Let's focus on that. This war has gone on long enough." She clenched her fists and began floating on jets of ether. "I'll handle the Urayan end. You talk with the Ardainian Colonel."

"May the Architect guide you," Fan said, bowing her head. Adenine returned the gesture and blasted off the Titan as it neared the docks. If the doctor was still with the Ardainians, then the Praetorium's Goddess could handle the negotiations. But Adenine had a feeling things wouldn't be so simple.

An explosion caught her attention as she patrolled the city. A Titan ship had crashed near the Ardainian garrison, full of fleeing Ardainian soldiers, and a force of Spessians was tearing its way out of the garrison to give chase. If the Spessians had taken the garrison, but they hadn't yet taken the doctor, then this group was probably her best bet for finding him. As the two groups clashed, she shifted course and shot straight for them, manifesting a sword in each hand.

Her landing wasn't pretty, but it wasn't meant to be. She was tough, and they weren't. As she crashed into the Spessians, throwing up a cloud of dust around her, she drove a sword into the neck of the nearest soldier. Unfortunately, it got stuck, so she was forced to dissolve it, and while she rebuilt her weapon, another soldier charged through the dust and took a swing at her head. As he stepped in close, she ducked to the side and drove her remaining sword into his stomach, where it met some resistance. Titan-hide armor, by the look of things. But that wasn't going to be enough to stop her. With a burst of ether, she forced her sword forward, breaking through the armor and slicing the man's stomach open. He fell to the ground, and she let the sword fall with him.

The rest of the soldiers were smart enough not to attack her, instead backing up and giving the Ardainians behind her room to breathe. Then, before the Spessians could get their second wind, she extended her remaining sword into a halberd and swung it at the crowd, forcing a wave of ether from the weapon's head and driving the Spessians even further back. She glanced back at the group of Ardainian soldiers, but they were already moving between two of the buildings. She would've let them continue on and left them to Fan, but she spotted Dr. Jenal's head poking up from the group.

"Doctor!" she shouted, blasting off to follow the group. "Doctor Jenal! I need—" Something struck her from behind, searing a hole through her torso and driving her into the ground. Momentarily, she couldn't tell up from down, and in a panic, she fired a stream of ether in all directions, trying to keep the unseen enemy at bay. Thankfully, it managed to work. Two spikes of stone shot up from around her feet, but they were cut down before she even noticed they were there.

Just as the initial shock of being ambushed passed, however, a wave of water flowed down the alley, washing her and several Ardainian soldiers back toward the Spessian forces. Luckily, she had her wits about her again, and she took to the air to evaluate the situation.

The Urayans had arrived, and they were tearing into the Ardainians. Their Drivers in particular were rather vicious as they clashed, but she didn't care about that. She zeroed in on Dr. Jenal, attempting to flee in the chaos, but before she could fly over to him, a wall of stone rose up to cut her off. She turned around to see a pair of Drivers emerging from the ranks of the Spessian forces.

They weren't Spessian, but other than that, Adenine couldn't immediately place their nationality. Ardainian, most likely, by their pale skin. But Ardainians wouldn't be assisting a Spessian assault on imperial soil. Tantalese, perhaps? The pair looked to be brother and sister, both with dark hair and dark eyes. They were young, but they carried themselves with experience. The brother carried a large bow, while the sister held a glaive surrounded by a ring of stones. What stood out about them was that their Blades seemed to follow the family resemblance rather closely as well. They were both very human. Very boring.

Adenine tried to go around, but the female Blade erected another stone wall in her path. They grew together, and more walls emerged next to them, slowly forming a dome nearly two blocks in diameter. These two seemed rather confident in their ability to fight a Praeatorium Legatus. But if they wanted a fight so badly, then Adenine could oblige them. And in so doing, teach them that there was still a vast gulf of power between the Praetorium and the forces of man.

She'd need to be quick, though. She couldn't afford to let the Urayans get their hands on the doctor. So she manifested two new weapons, an axe and a spear, and descended toward them.

"Circle around," the sister said, planting the bulbous end of the glaive in the ground. "Don't let the Urayans leave the city. Push them back into the Colonel's forces if you have to."

The Spessian forces obeyed, moving around the growing dome the Blade had set up and heading parallel to the direction the Ardainians had been moving.

"Does King Kataramenos know you're here!?" Adenine asked, gathering her ether.

"The king is a coward!" the woman shouted back. "We're going to do what he won't!"

"A Praetorium Legatus," the man said, smirking. He swung the bow through the air, and it shifted into a scythe. "We'll send your broken core back to the Praetor as a preview of what's to come."

"What a waste of time," Adenine sighed.

She threw her spear, firing a blast of wind ether from her hand to propel it toward the man. The wall of wind momentarily obscured her opponents' vision, and in that moment, she disappeared from sight, travelling around the ruins of a building the woman's Blade had torn up with a series of spikes. The spear struck home just as she swerved around the other side, and while the man was busy deflecting her first attack, she rocketed in for the kill, axe drawn back.

Just before she hit home, however, the woman blocked her strike with the ring of stones, arresting her momentum. But that took their attention off her spear, which she immediately detonated in a burst of wind ether. The ground around it shattered, and the head exploded, sending the haft spinning out toward the man. With their attention split, Adenine tried to close the distance to the woman and strike her in the chin with her palm.

The woman jumped back, swinging her glaive to cut off Adenine's hand, but she was too slow. The hand shot forward, detaching from her wrist and gripping the woman's leg. Adenine pulled her target back, but before she could follow up, a pillar of earth tore up from the ground, striking her in the stomach. Then a second pillar formed to give the woman something to brace herself against.

Adenine let go of the woman's leg and shot up, getting clear just before the man ran around his partner to swing at her. She braced herself against the ceiling of the dome and formed a dagger in her hand. Data she'd taken from Minoth, before he volunteered for the experiments. She didn't like using his weapons. It felt disrespectful, especially now that he was dead. But he was the best fighter she'd ever met, and the Praetorium still had need of his strength.

Dagger in hand, she fired herself down toward the pair. The man formed his scythe back into a bow and fired a bolt of lightning up at her. Just before it struck her, she blasted herself to the side and swung her axe out, cleaving through the obvious follow-up stone spike that the woman had prepared. Then as she landed, she swung the axe around at the man's head. He blocked it with his bow, but it wasn't a weapon well-suited for defense. It left his gut exposed, and immediately she drove a knee into it. One blast of wind drove him into the dome wall, and she used the force of the blast to spin herself around toward the woman.

Of course, she predicted Adenine's attack, swinging the glaive for her head, and Adenine met it with her dagger. With one pulse of ether, the weapon's head split open, exposing the barrel of a hand cannon, and she twisted it to catch the glaive perfectly. Just as the woman's weapon met the barrel of the cannon, Adenine fired, and the force of the explosion threw the glaive back into the distance. As the woman staggered back, Adenine drove the butt of her axe into her stomach.

At the last second, an ether shield blocked her thrust, and in response, she grew the axe handle into a spear. With a violent burst of ether, it erupted at the woman, crashing through her ether shield and clattering across the ground. Then she flicked her wrist up, striking the axe handle against her opponent's chin. The woman stumbled back and threw up a wall of stone around herself, but before Adenine could follow up, a bolt of lightning erupted at her. She barely had time to put up an ether shield.

Spikes of earth erupted around her ankles, spearing through her legs, and she had to blast herself free, tearing her shins in half in the process. It was painful, but that was better than getting bogged down against an earth Blade, and they'd grow back eventually. Then, as she took to the air, she enlarged the cannon of her knife and fired a blast at the man. He returned fire, and she ducked between two buildings to avoid it, which immediately began to crumble around her. Rapidly, she expanded the cannon further, enveloping most of her forearm, and she morphed the remains of her axe into a hammer. Just as she finished, the pieces of building began to fly at each other, trying to catch her in the crossfire, and she knocked them all back with a wave of ether. It left her exposed, but she was ready for that.

The man fired a blast of lightning, and she caught the blast with three layered plates of ether shielding. It tore through the first two, which she'd left weaker intentionally, but stopped at the third. Before he could get off another shot, she unleashed a blast of her own, constricting the barrel of her cannon to concentrate the ether as much as possible. With a crack, the blast shattered her ether shield and struck the man square in the chest, scattering his own defenses in an instant. As his shield failed, the lance of ether pierced the side of his stomach. Then it dragged the air behind it, forcing a second blast of compressed wind through his body. He didn't even scream as he fell.

His partner did, though. She leapt at Adenine, howling and swinging her glaive. Chunks of stone tore up behind her, travelling in a loose parabolic orbit around her head, and they shot forward at Adenine just before the glaive swung around to meet her head. Adenine shifted position to dodge the rocks and swung her hammer against the woman's glaive, but the woman swung with enough force that it didn't really matter. Her glaive imbedded itself in the hammer's head, and a spike of stone grew out of it, cutting Adenine's weapon in half. Frantically, she shoved her cannon arm at the woman, but an ether shield blocked her path, leaving her center exposed. Immediately, the woman swung her glaive down, aiming to slice Adenine's head in half.

Before the attack could hit home, she dissolved her cannon into ether and forced all of it into a blast of wind, knocking the woman to the side ether shield and all. Then she shot her hand forward to pursue her, manifesting her normal gauntlet. It wasn't fancy, and it didn't give her the opportunity to test new combinations, but sometimes the simplest methods were the best.

As the woman scrambled to the side, avoiding Adenine's swings, another ether shield manifested to block her in. This woman's Blade was a lot more coordinated than she was, but without her, the woman wouldn't stand a chance. So with the woman temporarily occupied by blasts from her gauntlet, she hefted the remains of her hammer's haft and formed it into a spear.

Then, abruptly, she jumped and threw it at the Blade, who stood between two large piles of rubble. With nowhere to move, she erected a shield around herself, and in that moment, Adenine shot forward and grabbed the Driver's head. A blast of ether from her elbow drove the woman into the ground, but she didn't go limp right away, so Adenine shot forward, dragging her through the streets. She slammed her into the side of the stone wall her Blade had erected, and she collapsed.

A blast of lightning fired at her, and she turned to see the man's Blade holding his bow. She shot forward at him, and he tried to keep her at bay with another shot, but she was faster. At the last second, a blast of wind let her dodge to the side, and immediately she lunged forward to grab the weapon's core. There was a brief struggle as she ripped it from his hands, but she'd done this dozens of times before, and he was panicking. After a moment, the core dissolved into the paper folds of her body, and she integrated its combat data with her own. Then she put that data to use, forming a scythe in her hands. This Blade's scythe. He stared at her in disbelief, and she used his momentary confusion to strike him aside. Then she drove his own weapon through his Driver's stomach and left it there.

The Blades didn't fight back further as Adenine took to the air again. They hadn't dissolved yet, but they had to already know their fate. Their Drivers wouldn't be recovering from those wounds. Not on a battlefield like this, so far from anything resembling actual medical care. So with nothing keeping her, she drove her fist into the side of the earthen wall and fired a blast from her palm. The whole dome shuddered, and after another blast or two, she had her exit.

The moment she was on the outside, she took off again, scanning the city to see where the Ardainians had gone. With any luck, they'd managed to get the doctor to the Colonel's forces, where Fan would hopefully have enough pull to get custody of him. But if they'd failed, then she needed to find the Urayans and end them as quickly as possible.

She spotted the Urayan water Blade locked in combat with two others in the distance, and she could see more commotion happening over by the docks. Fan was at the docks, so she'd handle this. It seemed as if the Urayan was outnumbered two-to-one, trapped between a small bird-like Blade and a large fiery woman with four arms. But as Adenine came to a stop above them, the fighting didn't slow in the slightest.

"Where is the doctor!?" she said, her voice echoing across the city blocks the Blades were currently demolishing.

"You just missed him!" the water blade shouted back, throwing out a wave to keep the four-armed Blade back. She was keeping herself off the ground with twin jets of flame from her larger hands, while her smaller hands held an oversized katana. The bird Blade collided with him, knocking him back, and the four-armed Blade shot forward. He blocked her strike with an axe, and a jet of water followed his swing. The four-arms dropped to the ground and swung her larger hands up, firing jets of flame to keep herself from being overwhelmed.

"I am here as a Legatus, on behalf of the Praetor!" Adenine continued. "Under the articles of the Concords of Negaris, I demand you take me to Dr. Jenal!"

"Fuck the Concords!" the Blade laughed. "And fuck you, Legatus! Uraya doesn't answer to you anymore! House Vaerin's running the show back home now!"

"Tiresome," Adenine said, frowning. She formed another scythe and shot down at him just as he was scrambling away from one of the bird's attacks. He didn't react in time, and she drove the scythe through his thigh. To his credit, he didn't scream. He didn't even stop smirking, which annoyed her. But regardless, he was pinned, and after a moment, she hoisted him up by the throat.

"I will not ask again," she growled. "Where is the doctor?"

"With any luck, he's out of the city by now," the Blade spat back. Adenine tore the scythe down his leg, and that time, he screamed. But she didn't stop. Not until she brought it out clean through his foot, at which point he went limp, and she dropped him to the ground.

Stupid mistake. Immediately, a wave of water struck her back, and he propelled himself away from her with a second one. The other two Blades bothered to pursue, but she didn't. This was a distraction. The Urayans were hoping to tie up as many Blades as possible, and it looked like the Ardainians had taken the bait. But she wouldn't. She had to get back to the Ardainians and figure out where the rest of the Urayan forces had retreated to.

She'd barely moved twenty peds before something struck her in the back, burning a hole through her chest and knocking the wind out of her. Her vision swam, and it took her some effort to reassert control over her limbs. As she staggered to her feet, she looked up to see the two Tantalese Blades striding toward her.

---

Adenine set the probe down and floated back to give Mikhail the space to stand up. His core wasn't a part of him in the way it was for a Blade, and she still felt like that was her responsibility. She had overseen the original surgery to implant it, and their knowledge had been so woefully incomplete back then. She'd made so many mistakes, and as a result, there was a region in his chest that hadn't fully integrated into the core's ether circulation. It hadn't been a problem before he plugged his core into that Tornan ship. But during the last exchange with Indol, he'd literally torn himself to pieces under the strain, and the whole area around the core had gone necrotic. Nia had tried to fix it, but no matter how many times she healed it, it always got worse again. Adenine was supposed to do something about it.

Yet another mistake she found herself atoning for, these days.

"How am I looking, doc?" he asked, smiling at her. It unnerved her. She was one of the people who'd ruined his life, and here he was putting it in her hands again. That wasn't normal behavior, and it made her suspicious. Still, he hadn't done anything beyond that, so she could push past her suspicion.

"Bad," she said, trying to maintain a clinical tone. "Your ether circulation is deteriorating, and that's spreading the damage. Every time flesh loses connection to the ether supply, oxygen buildup begins to take its toll."

"Meaning?"

"You're old, and your age is catching up with you. The strain you put yourself under damaged your core to the point it can't compensate, and Nia isn't going to be able to for much longer either."

"I'm dying?" he asked, sounding more curious than distraught.

"That's not how I'd put it," she said. "Your circulation isn't going to fail entirely, at least not yet. But the dead tissue is perilously close to a lung. We'll need to look into other options if things get that far, but I've got some ideas for repairing your core before then."

"Good." He swung off the table. "I've got too much work to do to just die now. Speaking of—" He paused to put his shirt back on. "—are you coming to the meeting today?"

"I've got a lot of data from T-elos's appointment to work through, and…" Adenine thought for a moment. She usually skipped out on the meetings, but she did need to talk to Nia. It would be good to actually attend one every once and a while. "I'll make time. When is it?"

"Patroka, when's the meeting start?" Mikhail asked.

"Four minutes ago," her voice replied.

"Oh for…" he muttered, quickly securing the last of his armor as he staggered toward the door. Adenine floated after him, and the pair headed for the meeting room. "I thought I told you to remind me when Nia finished up with Garfont."

"You were busy having a woman run her hands all over your half-naked body. I didn't want to interrupt."

"Jealous?" he asked. Patroka made a noise, but Adenine couldn't gauge her intent. "Or just enjoying the view? I can take my clothes off again, if you want. For your eyes only, this time."

"I can't believe I have to listen to this," Akhos said, his voice only sounding in Adenine's earpiece. "Can you finish building my body so I can throw up?"

"I'll get right on it," she muttered, listening to Mikhail and Patroka continue their bickering. Thankfully, the two quieted down as they approached the meeting room, where Nia was already meeting with the others.

The meeting room was a glass dome at the top of the Gardens where Adenine had stored the remains of Amalthus's vessel. Initially, the Blades inside that still had distinct personalities had wanted a room with a view, but now Akhos and Patroka were the only coherent ones left. Adenine had cut out all the rest, and she would've cut them out too, but being Flesh Eaters meant she couldn't remove them for fear it might kill them. So while she looked into alternatives, they'd networked themselves into the Gardens' systems, acting as the de facto overseers of the complex. After a few months, the Caretakers had started meeting here as well. It was one of the only places in the Gardens they could meet in private.

An image of Patroka projected down from the vessel, and the woman met Mikhail with a scowl. The projector was the least Adenine could do for them in the meantime. Akhos was already standing with the Caretakers, but the meeting hadn't begun yet. Waiting on Mikhail, probably. He handled too much of the day-to-day maintenance not to keep him in the loop.

"Sorry we're late," he said, smiling as he and Adenine joined the circle. "The appointment ran long."

"At least you managed to get Adenine out of her dungeon," Strix said. He wore a tattered cloak over bandages nearly soaked through with a black substance. Occasionally, some of it leaked out of the folds, but the drops that hit the ground evaporated quickly. They covered most of his body, including his core, and wrapped around his eyes. There was a constant, thin stream of the liquid leaking down his face like tears, to the point Adenine suspected his eyes were made of the stuff. If he even had eyes to being with. He was one of the few Flesh Eaters who'd avoided capture. A lifetime ago, Adenine had tried and failed to hunt him down herself, but he bore her no ill will, unlike some of the others.

"The witch is here," Minoth noted. Adenine was glad at least someone hadn't forgiven her. She'd known Minoth longer than anyone else here, and they'd been at odds long before she and Amalthus had gone off the deep end. The part of her that didn't feel like she deserved forgiveness was glad to have that constant reminder of her past. Someday, though, she hoped he'd come around.

"She isn't so bad," Mikhail said. "She's kept me alive this long, and I'm willing to bet she could do something about your lungs too."

"I don't want her help, Mik. And neither should you. I'm only putting up with her because Nia said to."

"The world ended, old man. The way I see it, there's not a better time for second chances."

"Can we start the meeting?" Akhos asked. "Everyone able to make it is here."

Adenine noticed two of the Caretakers were missing. Kalarau wasn't a surprise, since he barely left his room, but Nal usually attended these. The others weren't concerned, so she didn't pay it much mind, but it was still strange. Even stranger, though, was that Qadar had bothered to show up. The only Flesh Eater who'd flown under Indol's radar entirely, even before they'd lost Obrona to Torna. She attended even less of these than Adenine did.

"The Garfont Mercenaries have solved our poaching problem," Nia said. "At least for the time being. The culprits were Spessian mercenaries led by an Ardainian terrorist named Walraig. He got away, but the Coalition have taken his men into custody. We already have a pretty good idea of what they were after."

"Titan hides," Azurda said, grumbling from his perch. His head hung through a window in the dome near the vessel. He usually sat in on the meetings to ensure the Titans' interests were being taken into consideration, but he rarely spoke himself.

"Fuck…" Strix muttered. "They're increasing production."

"They're gathering forces as well," Azurda said. "Three of the Nopon Trade Guilds have broken the Osirian Treaty and allied with Spessia."

"The treaty doesn't mean much, nowadays," Akhos noted.

"Even so, there's a reason I brought it up. The Guilds that defected were all targets of the Osirian War, their trade routes prizes the victor intended to claim. Together, they hold nearly thirty percent of the Nopon Guilds' resources. The Council suspects others may defect if relations continue to sour."

"They want a war," Minoth said. "I'd bet—" He devolved into a coughing fit before he could continue. Adenine floated toward him, but he shot her a glare, so reluctantly, she remained where she was. They had to wait a few seconds for him to continue. "—there are others out there who would join up with them, given the chance. Sthenos, Duthract, the Brionac remnants, the Praetorians. They're going to have an army before long. One that might even be a match for the Coalition's."

"The Praetorians will not work with them," Qadar said, drawing everyone's attention. She was small, probably the smallest person in the room, but she carried herself with confidence. The pair of flaming, eye-covered wings she wrapped around herself like a cape probably helped inspire some of that confidence. She was an oracle, or close enough to one. Whenever she made predictions, they tended to come true. Not all the time, but enough that people listened when she spoke.

"Is that a prediction, or…?" Patroka asked, letting the statement hang.

"A deduction. Sthenos is an old country with a long memory. Centuries of grudges are bound up there. Against Judicium, against Torna, and against Indol. They will unleash that fury soon, with so little standing in their way, and Spessia would rather aim that fury than risk provoking it themselves. Sthenos will wage war with the Praetorians, possibly with our Gardens as well, and Spessia will use that chaos to strike the Coalition. The two will aid each other to achieve their mutual revenge."

"It'll be worse than that," Adenine said. She hadn't meant to speak, but the words had come out all the same.

"You think they've got something worse planned than all-out war?" Strix asked.

"Yes and no…" Adenine thought for a moment. "I feel like there's more to it than that. Indol gave power to nations like Mor Ardain and Uraya, then used that power to control the spread of conflict. Smaller nations were crowded out, to the point where they had to fall in line or risk annihilation. It happened with Duthract, Osiria, and Gormott, but Spessia held on by being self-sufficient and isolated. They've always wanted very little to do with the outside world. Indol invaded their homeland to wipe out Tornan refugees, and they invited us in because it meant getting rid of the outsiders. And now they're aiming to take down the Coalition, maybe even conquer Elysium? It doesn't fit. There's something else at play."

"There is," Qadar said. "They are driven by goals beyond mere martial conquest."

"You're saying they don't want a war?"

"No. But it will not be a war they need to win. Merely draw out, in order to distract from their true goals."

"Which would be?"

"I will not have known. The war will have been a protracted endeavor, it would seem."

"Great…" Mikhail sighed. "War's inevitable, then?"

"It was looking inevitable before," Akhos said. "We need to focus on keeping our people safe. It's time we begin considering stronger defenses."

"The Gardens are a sanctuary," Nia said. "I don't want us to surround ourselves with more weapons when we're trying to move past those parts of ourselves."

"We might not have a choice," Patroka said. "If Sthenos or Spessia come here, we'll need to be ready."

"You're right. I don't like it, but…" She paused for a moment. "We can't build a better world if it burns to the ground first."

"I'll talk to Crossette," Mikhail said. "We've been kicking around ideas for ordinance for a while now, so we should be able to cook something up."

"I'll discuss this with the Council and General Reez," Azurda said. "See what assistance they can provide."

"It might not be enough," Akhos said.

"What's that mean?" Strix asked.

"Adenine said this was uncharacteristic of them, but it's not without precedent. During the Osirian War, Patroka and I were mercenaries on the Spessian payroll. Or our Drivers were, I guess. Same difference. Point is, they hired us to retrieve a weapon. One they thought might end the war for good."

"Did they get it?"

"No," Patroka said. "They got jack shit. Working prototype trashed, scientist who built it shot in the head. All they got was his corpse. Still, Akhos has a point. This is awfully familiar behavior."

"They fought tooth and nail for that corpse," Adenine muttered. Suddenly, the feeling in the pit of what had once been her stomach started to clarify itself.

"Adenine?" Nia asked. "What are you thinking."

"We need to be careful," she said, putting her thoughts together as she spoke. She'd been debating bringing this up with Nia and the others for a while, but now there was no point in putting it off. It was a long shot, but they'd have a nearly perfect defense if it worked. "Whatever they're planning, they're too confident for them to have nothing up their sleeves. So we need to prepare for the worst. I think it's time we revisit the Haze issue."

---

Adenine dove to the side as a wall of spikes erupted in her direction, forcing her between the walls of two crumbling buildings. Immediately, they moved in to crush her, but she was able to throw herself through one of the windows, immediately taking off down an alley. The lightning one was taking shots at her every time she took to the skies, and the earth one tore up the ground around her every time she came into view. For the moment, she was trapped. But she wasn't about to let two upstarts like them get the best of her.

After shaking the earth Blade, she shot off toward where she knew the lightning man had positioned himself, but before she could close the distance, the earth woman found her again, collapsing the wall next to her into a series of spikes. With a spin, she struck the oncoming spikes with one of her books, buying herself another second or two of movement. But in front of her, two more buildings were already busy tearing themselves apart and hurling toward her. Silently, she found herself cursing Saihate's stone architecture as she shot up, keeping the stone swarm between herself and the sniper. As she weaved through the onslaught of rocks, she created an ether cannon, trying to look for a clean shot at the man.

Before she could find one, he struck her in the shoulder from behind, throwing her toward that roof of a nearby building that had already begun forming into more spikes. He'd moved when she hadn't been paying attention, but at least it had thrown off his aim, and he'd given away his position again. Immediately, she swung her feet underneath her and blasted out a wave of wind, propelling herself in an arc toward the sniper. She twisted around at the break between her torso and her legs, aiming at him despite the impossibility of the angle, and fired off a blast that tore through several buildings. Just as she reached the end of her arc, she used a blast of wind to throw herself to the side, and a moment later, a bolt of lightning struck where she'd been.

Immediately, she righted her legs and fired in his direction again, turning up her laser's output as high as it would go. The resulting blast consumed two stories of the house she'd seen the lighting come from, but only lasted a moment. With any luck, it had had some sort of effect. But before she could confirm, a spike of stone tore up from beneath her, spearing through her legs and out her shoulder. She barely managed to suppress a scream. Before she could begin unfolding her body from the spike, however, the woman with the glaive appeared beside her.

Adenine wrenched herself around, aiming her cannon at the woman's core in the same moment she felt the glaive press against her chest, and the two of them stopped, weapons poised at each other's cores. The woman's cheeks were still wet with tears, and her chin was smeared with blood. Purple speckles coated her core.

"You ate her?" Adenine asked. The woman didn't reply. The fury in her eyes told enough of the story, though. With her Driver dying, the Blade must have been terrified. Enough to risk eating her Driver, apparently. But the Praetorium had spent centuries convincing the world that making a Flesh Eater was nigh impossible. It wasn't a solution that would spring to mind for just any Blade. This was something they must have talked about before.

"You didn't leave us a choice," the lightning man said, dropping down into the alley beside his sister. He'd cleaned himself up some, but he had a tainted core as well. "One last act of defiance against Indol…" The man placed his scythe against Adenine's neck.

"She didn't want this," the woman muttered.

"Neither did I. But I don't want to die, either."

"Blades can't die," Adenine said.

"Shut up," the woman growled. Adenine felt a spike of stone press into her core from behind.

"Whatever would be awoken in my place wouldn't be me," the man said. "That's death, as far as I'm concerned."

"Eating their flesh forfeits your immortality," Adenine pointed out. "You'll die like a human does. Nothing will come back. Do you think that's what your Drivers wanted?"

"Shut up!" the woman shouted. She raised her glaive to strike Adenine's core, but her emotions had gotten the better of her. She'd all but forgotten about Adenine's cannon, and before she could remember, Adenine unleashed a blast at full force, sending the woman flying through the wall behind her. The shot didn't strike her core, but it put her out of mind for long enough to deal with the other one, at least.

Before she could, the spike at her back tried to run her through, and she had to wrench herself around to avoid having it tear through her core. It distracted her for a moment, and in that moment, the man swung his scythe down, decapitating her. Her body began to unravel, ether reaching out to reattach her head, and the man planted a foot on her core.

Just as he raised his scythe, however, ether began to coil around him. His weapon dissolved, and he stumbled forward. Adenine could barely make out the top of Fan la Norne's staff at the far end of the alley. The woman lurched to her feet, and together the pair ran as fast as they could away from the approaching Goddess. Adenine began stitching herself together, papers readjusting to fix the holes in her torso.

"Thanks," she grunted, leaning up from where she lay. Fan extended a hand, and Adenine took it, pulling herself to her feet.

"You were gone for quite a while," Fan said. "I got worried. Were those two Cannibals?"

"Yeah," Adenine sighed. "You could tell?"

"My restriction doesn't work so well on Cannibals," Fan said, frowning. "This is most unfortunate. The Urayans didn't seem willing to give up the doctor, either. The Praetor won't be pleased."

"You found the doctor?"

"Yes," Fan nodded. "The Urayans got ahold of him just as he reached the docks. When I left, they were negotiating with the Ardainian Colonel and a third group, trying to reach a compromise. I made the Praetorium's intentions clear, but none of them seemed open to—"

An explosion sounded in the distance, from the direction of the docks.

"Shit," Adenine muttered. She wrapped a hand around Fan's waist and took to the skies.

"The Cannibals!" Fan protested. "Shouldn't we—"

"The doctor takes priority," Adenine said. She blasted forward, carrying Fan toward the docks.

Fan emitted a wave of ether from her staff, and Adenine's jets faltered under her influence. Frantically, she dropped Fan on a nearby roof and slammed into the building next to it. She tried to take off again, but Fan didn't let her.

"It is our duty to purge heresy, Legatus," Fan said, standing on the ledge above Adenine. "We cannot allow these cannibals to pervert the natural order."

"Our duty is to the Praetor," Adenine spat back. "As his Blades, we should concern ourselves with his will and his will alone. He has tasked us, personally, with retrieving the doctor. And yet you would disobey?"

"The Praetor is but the mouthpiece of the Architect. The Architect teaches us to hunt Cannibals. I will not abandon the Praetorium's teachings for the whims of one man."

"You would dare!?" Adenine roared. She tried to blast herself up to where Fan stood, but the ether still restricted her jets. She settled for insults instead. "The Architect's will is absolute! The Praetor's will is absolute! If you would dare to question it, you cannot call yourself a member of the Praetorium! If our conviction is not unwavering, then we are unfit to serve him!"

"The Praetor is not perfect," Fan said. Adenine could barely hear her, now. She'd drawn into herself.

"And you think you know better?" Adenine asked. Fan didn't reply.

Her ether uncoiled from Adenine, however, and she wasted no time in taking to the air again, flying to the courtyard by the docks. At least she still had enough sense to see the importance of their mission, even if her personal feelings were clouding her judgement.

The situation had devolved considerably, if Fan was to be believed. Whatever negotiations had been underway when she'd left had ended in failure, and Adenine identified the Urayan mercenaries attempting to flee with the water Blade she'd wounded earlier. Their progress was stalled, however, as they appeared to be fighting amongst themselves. They did have the doctor at least, so that was progress of a kind.

As she approached, however, a wall of wind crashed into the Urayans, thrown out by an avian Blade Adenine hadn't seen before. It forced them back, and their leader crashed into the central fountain. The new Blade, his Driver, and another mercenary rushed to strike a killing blow, and the doctor picked that moment to break from the Urayans. Heading for the Spessians gathering at the other end of the courtyard. Before he could reach them, she threw down a wall of wind to block his path. She wasn't letting him escape again.

As she floated down, however, she noticed the weapons the other mercenary was wielding. Daggers wreathed in dark ether and speckled with blood, with cannon barrels that jutted out from the handles and split the blades into two jagged prongs. She'd only known one Blade to ever use such unconventional weapons.

Minoth.

She didn't dare voice the thought aloud. He was supposed to be dead. Slain during the battle of Torna at the hands of Malos. That he was alive meant the Praetor had lied to her. As she floated there, trying to convince herself that wasn't the case, something crashed into her. She hit the ground and lost the grip on her ether.

"I am a Legatus of the Praetor!" she protested, struggling against the claws that held her. The avian Blade's, most likely. "Under the articles of the Concords of Negaris, I demand you release me!"

"And let you get to the doctor?" the Blade asked. "Can't let that happen. You know as well as I do what will happen if that power finds its way into Praetorium hands."

"We are not blinded by the promise of power as the other nations are. What need would we have of a weapon like his, when we already control mankind's means of waging war?"

"Can't take the risk," the Blade said, shrugging. "Sorry. I hope you understand, we…" He trailed off, looking up at something in the courtyard. After a moment, he let Adenine up. She almost blasted herself toward the doctor that instant, but she stopped to look at what had caught the Blade's attention first.

An Urayan boy stood with the barrel of a gun pressed to the doctor's head. He was arguing with two of the Urayan mercenaries, the ones that had been fighting each other earlier. Adenine didn't know the story here, but she didn't want to provoke the fighting again. Instead she glanced over her shoulder to see the Spessians were still moving, frantically, probably trying to get a clear shot at the boy.

The shot rang out, and the Spessians stopped, but they hadn't been the ones to fire it. Adenine glanced back to see the Urayan with the axe strike the boy to the ground, but the other mercenary and Minoth pushed him back before he could finish the job, leaving the doctor's body exposed.

Dr. Jenal was dead. Slain by the boy, most likely. Which meant the bulk of the job was done. All they had to do now was destroy any prototypes or notes he left behind, to ensure his ideas stayed buried. If she wanted to, she could take a moment to pursue Minoth. Ask him some questions about where he'd been and why the Praetor had lied to her. But… She had to be sure, first. She had to confirm the doctor's death with her own two hands. Everything else could come later.

As she shot forward to grab the body, however, a hand of stone erupted from the ground around it. Then, before she could reach it, the hand hurled the doctor's body back toward the Spessian forces. Immediately, she changed course to follow, hefting her cannon to take aim at the body, but before she could line up a shot, more spikes of stone erupted around her. She maneuvered around them, looking for where the Cannibals might be hiding, and pressed herself against a nearby building to prevent the lightning boy from firing at her. No further shots came, however.

After a moment, she risked a lean around the corner. The Spessian forces were retreating, following a new Blade. He was tall, nearly twice Adenine's height, and covered in plate armor. The armor looked like Titan hide, rough and stone-like scales that overlapped with one another to produce a nearly impenetrable defense. The core on his chest was speckled black, like a Flesh Eater without flesh. And he held the doctor's limp body in his hand.

Adenine shot forward, a cannon in one hand and a spear in the other. She couldn't let them leave with that body. At least not until she confirmed his death with her own two hands. But the Spessian forces moved to intercept her. They were almost like a wave, flooding around the titanic Blade and crashing into her. She shot up and over, and they struck her with a hail of bullets. She twisted in midair to avoid the dim possibility that one might strike her core, and a spear tip grazed her back. That interrupted the flow of her ether for a moment, and she crashed headlong into the crowd.

Immediately, they all descended on her, and she swung her weapons violently, forcing wind ether along her spear to blast away any oncoming attackers. Their armor was too thick to fight each of them one-on-one, so instead, she stuck to unleashing raw power. Knocking soldiers through walls and against the ground with enough force to shatter bone and rend flesh. She spun in all directions, throwing out enough ether to tear up the ground into a maelstrom of debris.

Still, the Spessians charged headlong into the vortex forming around her, trying desperately to keep her at bay. But through the wall of wind and bodies, she could see the Blade retreating, the body still in one hand. And the moment their forces thinned, she shot forward, cannon sweeping out a shot behind her to clear away her attackers. Then she drove the spear up, slipping it between two of the Blade's oversized fingers before he could react. It split open the doctor's stomach and tore through his spine, and the rush of wind that followed it pulled most of his insides out.

One of the Spessians struck her from behind, and she fell to her knees, but it didn't matter. The job was done. The Blade wrenched at his prize, and the body came free of the spear, nearly separating in two, but the outcome was clear. She glared up at the man, and he looked down at her. She sneered, though the feeling settling in her stomach was vile. She'd won, even if it hadn't been clean.

The Blade made a grunting sound and continued walking, taking the remains of the body with him. Good riddance. She didn't bother to attack any further. She was tired, and she'd done what she came to do. After a few seconds, the Spessians followed him out.

She waited for Fan to find her again, watching the Ardainians slowly collect their dead. It took the Goddess much longer than she'd expected. For a moment, she hoped Fan had managed to subdue the Cannibals, but the look on her face said otherwise.

"Well…" Fan sighed. "At least one of us accomplished our goal."

"I suppose," Adenine said, gesturing vaguely toward the lower half of the doctor's body. "I hadn't wanted to resort to such ugly measures, though."

"No matter. The Praetor will know what to do about the Cannibals."

"Right," Adenine said, suppressing a laugh. What did the Praetor know about dealing with Cannibals? He couldn't even keep his own in check.

"Shall we?" Fan asked, turning back toward the docks.

"Yeah. Let's go."

As the two returned to the boat, Adenine kept thinking about Minoth. The Praetor had lied about him. What else had he lied to her about? She was supposed to be his confidant. His partner. They were supposed to change the world together. She wondered, now, if he'd lied about that too.

---

"Impressive!" Rex said, grinning from ear to ear as he looked over Adenine's workshop. It was a dump, by her standards. The quarters were cramped, the equipment was shoddy at best, and she had people constantly bothering her at all hours of the day. Like these two were doing now. But… If she was going to stick it out here, then she needed to recalibrate her expectations going forward.

"I'm hoping to replace most of it by the year's end," she said, floating over to where Rex was studying a set of welding equipment. Nia's eyes tracked her from the door, her hand hovering just above her sword's handle, apparently not entirely trusting just yet. And after all the graciousness Adenine had extended her, too. Flesh Eaters were so difficult to work with, but… Well, she was one now, so she couldn't exactly complain anymore. Another thing she'd have to get used to.

"Well, it's all loads better than the junk I've got," Rex continued. "If you do get rid of any of it, mind tossing it my way?"

"I'll keep that in mind." Adenine smiled and stretched out her hand. "I'm Adenine, by the way. Blade to P—" She stopped herself. "Former Blade to Praetor Amalthus."

"Amalthus?" Rex asked, sizing her up. He stared at her outstretched hand as if she held a weapon in it.

"She's playing nice," Nia said. "She'll behave if we do. The Cataclysm's giving a lot of people a new lease on life."

"Right…" Rex nodded. After a second, he shook her hand. "I'm guessing the legs are my fault?"

"I lived," Adenine said, shrugging. "If you hadn't killed him, I probably would've died with everyone else. I try not to think about it too much."

"Fair enough." Rex turned back toward the gear. "You know, Tora would have a field day out here. Have you met Tora?"

"I've met his Blade. Fine craftsmanship. Amalthus and I tossed around the idea of Artificial Blades after the Aegis War but decided not to pursue it. He's done better than we ever could."

"Nia tells me you're an expert on Blades?"

"As much as anyone can be. I studied quite a few when Amalthus and I created the Blade Eaters."

"You bring him up a lot," Rex noted.

"Touchy subject? He was my Driver, but—"

"No. It's good someone remembers him. We can't have people repeating his mistakes."

"Right…" Adenine looked between Rex and Nia. "Was there something you wanted to ask me? I don't mean to be rude, but I've got a mountain of research in front of me."

"I was hoping you could look at this." He fished his necklace out from underneath his shirt and held it out toward her. Nia's eyes went wide seeing him offer her the Aegis Core, but she stayed her hand. Adenine wasn't sure what to make of it herself.

"Is that…?" She trailed off. The look in his eyes told her it was real.

"So long as their Driver's alive, Blades are supposed to come back, right? Well I'm still alive. Where is she?"

"This is the Aegis we're talking about. She didn't play by the same rules as the rest of us."

"Rex…" Nia stepped into the room and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't do this to yourself."

"I need to know," he said. "Can you bring her back?"

"I…" Adenine sighed. She took the necklace from his hand. "I'll see what I can do."

She floated over to her resonance analyzer and picked up the probe, though she hadn't been expecting a response. The core was dead, after all. But when she ran the probe over it, the display lit up across the board. It was faint, but the core was resonating.

"What's that mean?" Rex asked. Adenine couldn't muster a response. This shouldn't be possible. A core, entirely isolated from its Blade but still in resonance with the Driver? The Aegis's body was supposed to be destroyed. What was going on?

"Adenine?" Nia asked. Hearing the Head Caretaker's voice grounded her enough to formulate a response.

"It's resonating," she said.

"She's alive?" Rex asked. The hope in his voice was painful. Adenine didn't want to let him down, but…

"No," she shook her head. She couldn't bring herself to turn around and face him. "The Aegis is the center of the network. The Master Blade. Malos's core is gone, but hers isn't. It's still processing information from all the Blade and Titan cores out there."

"Blade resonance is two-way, though," Rex said. "You said her core's resonating. That wouldn't be just a one-way flow, she's got to be responding somehow. What's she responding to?"

"You," Adenine said, turning around and placing the probe against Rex's chest. Sure enough, there was a response.

"Your heart…" Nia muttered. "Pyra gave you half her life force to bring you back after Jin stabbed you. And then she gave you the rest, right before…"

"Right…" Rex said, staring at the display. Adenine could see the emotions play out across his face. She expected him to break down crying or something, but he handled it well. Which made sense, she supposed. This wasn't the first time he'd been through this.

"The body it's generating is your heart," Adenine continued. "I'm sorry, but as long as you're alive, I don't think she's coming back."

"There's nothing you can do…" he muttered. It was a statement, not a question. Trying to convince himself it was true?

"Rex…" Nia drew him into a hug. She muttered something to him, and he nodded. Adenine could have listened in, but she floated away, giving them space. After the hug broke, she picked up the core and held it out toward him.

"Do something for me first," he said, wiping a tear from his eye. "Nia told me you recovered Amalthus's suit. Maybe some of the data in there can help you fix the Blades trapped inside."

"It'll take some time to copy it all down," Adenine replied. "I wouldn't want to hold you up."

"Take however much time you need," Rex said. The smile had returned to his face. "It's what she would want."

"Thank you," Adenine mumbled, already starting the process of hooking the core up to her machines. It'd take a mountain of storage, but she'd sort that issue out later. This was all the data from every Blade. Even the damaged or destroyed ones. She'd inflicted a lot of pain on others helping Amalthus perfect his research. Maybe, with this, she could begin to make amends.

---

"Akhos," Nia said, stepping into Adenine's workshop. "Patroka. Give us some privacy, would you?"

"Kinda hard, when we're networked into every room in the complex," Patroka replied.

"Just… Do it. Please?"

"You keeping secrets, Nia? We promised we wouldn't do that to each other anymore."

"I'll tell you all later. Just please…"

"Yeah," Akhos said, cutting Patroka off. "No looking, no listening. We promise."

"Alright," Patroka grumbled. "But you'd better share later, you hear me?"

"I hear you," Nia said, closing the door behind her. As soon as it was shut, she turned to glare at Adenine, who began fumbling for an explanation.

"First, let me say that—" Nia slammed her fist on the door, and Adenine shut up.

"I told you this wasn't up for discussion," she growled. She always retreated into more stereotypically Gormotti behavior when she got emotional.

"That was before war with Spessia was a possibility."

"And that matters how?"

"The Blades here don't want to fight. They came here to avoid fighting. We shouldn't ask them to put their lives on the line to fight an enemy they have no cause to."

"I know," Nia said, sighing. "But we wouldn't force them to. We're strong enough to hold our own regardless, and the Coalition will support us."

"I don't think that'll matter, Nia. They have something. They wouldn't be starting a fight like this unless they also have a way to end it."

"You can't be any more specific?"

"It's just a feeling. But I've fought Spessia before, and I know they've got tricks up their sleeves we haven't seen yet. We need a way to stop them before they start."

"And you think Haze can stop them?" Nia asked.

"I think it can't hurt to cover our bases."

"I can't resurrect the dead, Adenine, and you can't either."

"You brought Dromarch back."

"Let me rephrase, then. I won't. Not again. It took too much of me the first time, and there's no guarantee it'll work."

"We wouldn't be working from scratch this time," Adenine protested. "We've got the Aegis's data. I'm certain there's more than enough in there to reconstruct the missing half of Haze's core. I probably wouldn't even need you to assist with the operation. I just need permission."

She picked up the lower half of the core from the table. She'd cut it out after the funeral, to keep it out of the Praetor's hands. As much as he was her Driver, she couldn't stand the thought of that bastard defiling her even further.

"I know you want to make up for your past, Adenine, but this isn't the way to go about it."

"Isn't it?" Adenine asked. "I did this to her. I have an obligation to undo it."

"You'd risk ruining her memory forever? Ruining yourself forever? Whatever you bring back, it won't be Haze. I learned that the hard way."

"I know…" Adenine sighed. "I can't bring her back. I can't make her whole again. But… Amalthus and I did a lot of awful things. We knew what we were doing was wrong, and we did it anyway just because we could. If I'm going to make up for that, I need to start by doing some good, and Haze was the best person I've ever met. If she knew what we were doing here, I think she'd be happy. And I think she'd want to help."

"It's a nice sentiment." Nia crossed her arms. "But I can't risk myself to assuage your guilty conscience."

"I'm not asking you to. I just need permission. Because the reality is, we need Haze. The Gardens need Haze."

"To stop this 'something' the Spessians have up their sleeve. What makes you think we need Haze to deal with it?"

"The weapon Patroka mentioned during the meeting," Adenine said. "It's Titan-based. Like that weapon Mor Ardain tried to harness in Temperantia, except detonated on purpose. Designed to be detonated, and to vaporize a city in the process. Haze and I tried our damnedest to bury the idea in Osiria. The doctor who invented it died, but… I let the Spessians leave with the body. And now, with Indol and the other nations out of the way, they're collecting Titans. I can't shake the feeling they got something after all. Some of his notes, or… Or something. I'm wondering if maybe they're not just making more armor."

"You think they're making these weapons?" Nia asked.

"I don't know. I hope not. But if they are… We can't let them detonate one. It'd be the Cataclysm all over again. Everything we've built here would be destroyed in the blink of an eye."

"If they're making these weapons," Nia said. She went quiet, thinking for a long time. Adenine stared at her, and she stared at Haze's core.

"Bringing Haze back will help with more than just these weapons," Adenine insisted. "She could fix Dromarch's core a lot easier than you can. She could probably fix Mikhail too. I just need permission. You wouldn't need to be involved. I just didn't want to do something this drastic without your input."

"You don't know any of that," Nia said. "You're just saying whatever you think you need to say. But you're not really pushing for this because of the tactical advantage she can give us. Or for whatever other assistance she might be able to offer. You're pushing for this because your friend is dead and you want to bring her back."

"Yeah, and so what if I am?" Adenine asked. "She deserves to be here a lot more than me. Why do I get to live when she didn't? It's not fair."

"It's never fair," Nia said. "But trust me, Adenine, when I say that I've been down this road before, and it does not end well."

"You got to have Dromarch back!" Adenine spat. "I know he's not the same, but it's damn well close enough! Why can't I have Haze back, too!?"

"She's dead," Nia said, putting a hand on Adenine's shoulder. "Nothing comes back from that. There was still enough of Dromarch clinging to life that I was able to save something of him, but this?" She shook her head. "You can't recreate a Blade core just based on pure data. You need the physical substance. The crystal. And even I can't replicate that."

"I can figure it out!" Adenine insisted. "I can do this!"

"No, Adenine, you can't. And I'm not going to let you destroy yourself trying. I agree that Haze's abilities might be useful, but we'll survive without them. If you go down this path, you're never coming back. It'll consume you. And there's a lot of Blades back here, out in the real world as opposed to whatever fantasy you'd prefer to live in, who can't afford for you to lose yourself like that."

"I can do it," Adenine insisted.

"This is not up for discussion. If you keep pushing this further, then I'm going to take that away from you." Nia pointed at the remains of Haze's core. "For your own safety. Please. I need you to let this go. You've got too much important work to do to lose sight of it chasing a fantasy."

Adenine wanted to shout at her. This wasn't just about Haze, or about the Spessians, or about her need for redemption. The ether was fading. The Titans were dying off. Sooner or later, whether it was a year from now or a century, they were going to run out of options. And Haze was the only person she could think of who could buy them time against that encroaching darkness.

But Nia had made up her mind. She wasn't going to see reason on this. Likely, her trauma around Dromarch's death was keeping her from seeing clearly. So Adenine would have to do this quietly. Figure out a way to heal Dromarch, show Nia that this was possible to do, and work out a proper procedure for getting it done. When there was a viable plan, then Nia would come around. Adenine was sure of it.

"Fine," she muttered, shaking her head. "I don't agree, but fine. I've got other projects I can occupy myself with."

"Good," Nia said. "I really don't want to have this conversation again, Adenine."

"Sure." Adenine shrugged. "Won't happen again. Sorry I brought it up in the first place."

That was a lie. They would be having this conversation again. But it wouldn't be much of a conversation. Once Adenine figured out how to make it work, then she wouldn't need Nia's permission. She'd just be able to do it. Everyone would thank her later.

This problem was too important for her to just ignore. The death of the Titans was something she'd set into motion at Amalthus's behest. She wasn't about to let him win now, not after everything they'd done. She wasn't going to let the world end on her account. No matter what she had to do to make it happen.