Chapter 4: Cui Victi Haerent - "To Whom the Defeated Cling"

A/N: Small note from last chapter. Minoth's folktale is based on a real one by the same name. However, I adapted it for the setting and made other adjustments to make it more relevant to this story.

The approaching armies of Desdia would almost be impressive, maybe even alarming to some. Several groups of Titan ships, armed to the teeth and retrofitted with ether weaponry; Titans tromping over the barren farmland; thousands of soldiers weaving in between them all.

They were here in defiance against Indol. Ironic, considering this was a shadow of what Indol had done to their ancestral homeland of Judicium. War to have the right to call their nation and Titan their own. A people wanting to go their own way, and willing to fight to the death to achieve those ideals.

It was so passionately human that it made Malos want to retch.

Thankfully, Malos was no human.

Standing atop a cliff overlooking it all, Malos brought his sword downward, and at that signal, divine destruction rained from the heavens from Siren, and within less than a minute, nothing of the rebel army of Desdia remained.

He turned back from the scene of destruction he had wrought, and all the while, his Driver, Amalthus, watched. While no longer visibly enraptured at the sight of the destruction, there was still a small upturn at the corner of his mouth.

"An extension of Divine Will," Amalthus had called it.

Of course, Malos had no intention to stay with Amalthus much longer. Not long now, and he felt he would have full control over his power. That wonderful gift from 'Father' up above. And an itch that he couldn't explain. A desire to use it.

So if that 'gift' brought destruction? So be it. That's what he was made for.

Oh, Amalthus would probably get in trouble for him leaving. But even Indol's Praetor, Rhadalis, viewed Malos as an instrument of the Architect's will and would no doubt make up excuses, searching for a reason.

But of course. He wouldn't find any. Malos already felt it deep in the core of his being. His reason for existence: he was the Endbringer. So why not have a little fun with it all?

He turned away from the evidence of Siren's destruction of the army, content for now to go back with Amalthus, when he abruptly stopped.

Something seemed to prick at the center of his being; his core. The dark amethyst cross-shaped core that set him apart as the Master Blade. His brow furrowed, searching for what it could be. Whatever it was had been brief, but…familiar.

Was it possible that…?

"Is something wrong?"

He paid no attention to his Driver's question, and instead focused on Amalthus's office instead. With a little bit of a mental push, he was translocated into the place. Far more opulent than the simple office he'd once had, the white, glossy walls were trimmed with gold and the religious iconography of the World Tree that Indol favored. It screamed ostentatious. And the whole thing was a gift to his Driver for putting down Indol's territory disputes like the one from Desdia he'd just 'settled.'

Pathetic.

There was a gasp, and Malos gave the sideye to an Indoline woman in the middle of cleaning the place. She sputtered, dropping a duster, and bowing profusely as she picked it up, saying something about not seeing him in here.

"Out, I've got business here."

Her eyes widened as she apologized and scrambled to leave.

The door clicked closed behind her, and he turned to the reason he was here. A safe tucked away under the ornate marble desk. He didn't know the combination, but it didn't matter. At his touch, dark element ether enveloped the lock, atomizing it.

The door swung open, and inside, a glowing emerald core in the same shape as his own hovered in the safe's center, suspended on its own in the air.

"Was it you?" he asked the stone.

Naturally, his unawakened counterpart didn't respond, though he imagined it saying: What would I contact you for?

He sent out a data stream to it anyways, and what he got in return, well, while it was similar to what he'd felt, it wasn't the same frequency. Whatever that flare of energy he'd felt hadn't come from here.

"Thanks for nothing."

The glowing emerald core said nothing in response.

So where had it come from?

He left the ruined safe open, and translocated back to the remnants of the battlefield against Desdia's army right in front of Amalthus.

"Ah, you're back," Amalthus noted languidly. "The monks need a report of-"

He cut his Driver off. "You only brought back two core crystals from the World Tree, right?"

Amalthus frowned slightly, but nodded. "Of course. That was all that I found. But you're well aware of this. Why ask?"

"Not important." And he turned and walked away.

Not to you, anyways.

"...Very well," he heard Amalthus say.

His Driver seemed to take it at face value. And why shouldn't he? After all, what were the petty worries of humans to someone like him, born of divinity?

But as Amalthus gave the grim report to the head of the monks, Malos' mind wandered. What did that ether signature mean? Was there someone like him already out there? And why hadn't he felt them before? After all, if they were a Master Blade like him, what reason would they have to hide?

Well, whatever it was had to be more interesting than what was going on around here. Maybe he'd push his plans up some. After all, it wasn't like anyone would stop him.

Minoth had more questions than answers, but with that distant, horrified look in Na'el's eyes, it was clear she wasn't in any state to talk right now.

Whatever she had done to cause that explosion of light – this 'annihilation event' as she called it – it didn't bode well. It hadn't seemed deliberate. But deliberate or not, it had been ridiculously powerful.

He left her for the moment, and went over to the area of the blast. Crouching down, he peered over the edge of the crater. Nothing within the diameter of the sphere of destruction was left, as if the land within the sphere had simply been removed. Carefully running his gloved finger over the side, the earth showed signs of severe scorching, and though it was difficult to tell in the night, the center of the crater seemed glossy like glass. Water from the creek in the basin was already draining into the hole.

No sign of the people that had been caught in the sphere of destruction itself either, not even charred corpses or bones, just nothing.

He knew about some of Alrest's more powerful Blades, but to do something like this?

It'd put even the lost Paragon of Torna to shame.

He started checking the basin for the remainder of the raiders, and found more corpses. Most of the ones Na'el hadn't killed directly had been thrown against the rocky wall of the basin by the blast of her 'annihilation event.' Broken bones, heads, bleeding corpses. The works.

As human traffickers, they might have been some of the lowest of the low, but Minoth never took pride in sowing indiscriminate death like this. Even if they deserved it.

While the reason for each was different, each corpse was just that. Dead and gone. Though finding survivors from something like this kept seeming more and more unlikely, Minoth checked each one to be sure. Wouldn't do for one of them to wake up and try and take revenge while their backs were turned.

It was as he was rolling over one of those bodies that he found it wasn't just a body.

The man coughed blood as he vainly tried to back away from him with a broken leg and arm. "You happy now, you monster?" the man croaked out.

Minoth simply stared down at him in silence, judgement in his gaze.

"You killed us all. The entire operation. Years of work done in by her, in minutes." The man breathed in a few ragged breaths, looking up at him with rage in his eyes. "Oi! At least say something you bastard!"

"I'd apologize, but I don't think I would mean it," Minoth said at last, bitterness leaking into his voice. "You call us monsters, but which is worse? We're not selling others of our own kind."

"At least we're not killing them, eh?" He shook his head. "She killed innocents just to get to us. If that's not monstrous, what is?"

He glanced over to Na'el, but she didn't seem to be listening. She still hadn't moved from where he'd left her. From Her initial reaction it hadn't seemed intentional, but she definitely intended to end the raiders at the very least. But this man didn't know that, and Minoth didn't care to explain it to him.

"Don't try to justify your actions," Minoth shot back coldly. "What you do is vile, not to mention illegal, even in Coeia." At least it was now. "So why risk it, especially only a day from the capital?"

"The hell do you think? Money and power. That's all it was to me."

Minoth's eyes narrowed. That was a lie, but he wasn't sure he cared to explore why. "And who were you going to sell them to?

"You want my miserable backstory too while I rat them out?" The man coughed as he let out a laugh, wet with blood. "I know a fatal wound when I see one. I ain't got much time left, and you don't look like no healing Blade."

Minoth sighed, and drew one of his gunblades, spinning it so the barrel was pointed at the man's head. "I can let you die quickly, or you can lie here bleeding out slowly."

The man went into another wheezing laugh, which turned into another coughing spasm. "A mercy kill in exchange for information." He shook his head. "What a way to go."

Minoth simply stared in silence, finger hovering over the trigger.

"Fine." He breathed out with another wet cough. "What do I care anymore? But at least tell me who sent you first."

A fair exchange, he supposed. "No one. We're just part of a small caravan passing by. You simply got on the wrong end of her ire."

"Just passing by…" He laughed again, a pitiful, loud laugh. "Architect! Not a hit by the Midnight Spire, the Bloody Lobsters, or even a local town. Just damn unlucky. It really doesn't get much more pathetic than that, does it?"

"And your buyers?"

He shook his head. "I never cared to learn their names. Boss knew, but he was killed in your comrade's last attack. I was just hired muscle in the end. Usual contact was someone in Omrantha."

"And who was buying them?

"Some bigwigs off Titan, probably. Go plenty of places. Judicium was always a big customer, but they'd go to places you wouldn't expect, like Torna. Won't call them slaves, just pass 'em off as servants. Funny, isn't it? We sell your Core Crystals and no one bats an eye, but the moment it's humans?"

The man started laughing and coughing up more blood. His eyes were going unfocused.

"A name, any name will do," Minoth pressed.

"Sorry… got…nothing…"

The man's eyes rolled up back into his head, and he passed out. Blood loss, probably. Well, Minoth would fulfill his end of the bargain.

He pulled the trigger, the sound of the shot ringing out through the silent night.

Sighing, Minoth spun the gunblade around his finger before holstering it at his side. He'd file the information away for later, but without any solid information, it would be difficult to track the operation down.

He checked the remainder of the camp, but found none of the other bandit scum alive, either annihilated completely by the blast, or dead by his or Na'el's hand. Unfortunately, he eventually found some sets of footprints leading away from the camp, but now wasn't really the time to give chase.

However, when he made one last sweep around the perimeter of the blast, he found one more body thoroughly tangled inside some brush off to the side. His dark clothing blended in with the night, but by the size, it looked like a kid. Black pants, and red and black coat overtop. It was their blond hair, dirty from earth, that allowed Minoth to pick out the child in the dark night.

He crouched down, extracting the body from the tangle of brush, carefully setting the child on the ground face up. The young face, bruised, scratched and caked in earth, made Minoth close his eyes with a sigh. Kid didn't deserve what happened to him.

Hold on. He felt the kid's chest barely owing up and down. He was still warm too. He set his fingers along the kid's neck.

A pulse, faint, but there.

While it was unclear how or why he had been out of the group of kidnapped villagers, Minoth couldn't leave him there. He picked the kid up, grunting as he slung him gently as he could over his shoulder.

He went back to Na'el, whose eyes looked completely vacant now, not seeing the sight in front of her at all. He snapped his fingers in front of her face, and got no response. Not even a twitch.

"Na'el?"

Still nothing.

He cursed internally, but at least she was still breathing. He still wasn't sure why she'd seemed to stop before. He slung her over his other shoulder without any sound of complaint, and he felt her go slack in his grip.

Poor things, both of them.

He carried them back up to the entrance of Estham where a confused and worried Teemu waited. Minoth gave the Nopon a short version of the events as they made their way away from the ruined village.

Na'el opened her eyes, wind rushing against her face.

Vertigo set in as she realized how close she was to the edge of a metal platform. It overlooked the increasingly familiar view of the cloud sea, but unlike the view from the Coeia Titan, it was far, far below her. Kilometri below her.

Where…?

She blinked, trying to remember how she'd gotten here. She looked around, down at the metal walkway, then turned around, her mouth going agape at the sight of the massive tree behind her. She peered up, but it still felt like it kept going, up and up.

Was that the World Tree?

"How…did I get here?" she murmured.

"It is a projection in your mind, a way to talk without drawing more of their attention."

She gasped at the sound of that familiar voice and whirled to see a man with silver hair gazing out into the sea of clouds, hands set on his hips. He hadn't been there moments before, had he?

"It's you!" She shouted, joy tinging her voice, and she dashed over to the man, she grasped him tightly from behind, and to her delight, she was able to hug him. "You're really here! You're real."

She heard him chuckle, but he didn't return the hug. That was fine by her.

"I am, and I am not," he responded as she slowly let go walked to stand beside him, overlooking the cloud sea. She found the gaze of his silver eyes staring out into the distance, slightly unfocused, as he were seeing something else besides the view before them. "Just as you are in this world, yet are not."

Her brow furrowed. "…What do you mean?"

"We are…a fluctuation, and as such, we exist outside of the margins of fate."

"Huh?" She blinked, trying to parse what he'd just said. "Fluctuation? I-I don't understand."

"There is no need to grasp it just yet," he responded evenly. "Simply remain as you are. That will suffice for now."

"Remain as I am?" She shook her head, taking a step forward, to ask the question that had been burning in her mind ever since she'd gotten here. "This is your new world that you promised, isn't it? You took me and the other citizens out of Aionios to here, right? It wasn't just me, right?"

"Our time grows short."

"Sorry?"

"When the time comes, and our wills are as one once more, you will know."

She stepped in front of him, trying to look into his eyes, but they remained unfocused. "You're not making any sen-"

She cut off as he placed his hands on her shoulders. His eyes finally focused in on hers, and there was an intensity in that gaze that made her shudder under his grip.

"Be careful."

She gasped as he pushed her off the edge of the platform. Time seemed to slow around her as she tried and failed to turn and grab the edge. Yet even as she fell, she heard his voice, clear as though he was still standing next to her.

"They are watching."

Her mouth opened to scream-

Na'el gasped, her heart racing as she sat up so suddenly that It made her dizzy, her head spinning. Her breath came out in little gasps, slowly calming as her body came to the realization that no, it wasn't falling. She was on solid ground.

She breathed in, and out, deliberately.

Sights and sounds around her slowly came into focus. The smell of the night air and wood smoke, the sound of a fire popping near her. An open plain, stars shining above.

The night was chilly, and the weight of a sleeping roll she didn't remember getting into lay over her, and she wrapped it around her, inching a little closer to the fire.

She spotted her jacket laying off to the right, and picked it up, digging through the pocket and bringing out that red crystal and staring into its depths. Her mind ran through what had just happened. Had it been real? A desperate dream or nightmare?

The crystal seemed to pulse at her thought, the glowing pinprick of light in its center shining brighter, if only for a moment.

No, not a dream, but different than what she'd felt before in Aionios when Alpha talked with her. The connection she felt here had felt more real, more…visceral, where before it had been distant, as if she were disconnecting from her own body to talk to him.

"Alpha?" she whispered aloud.

No response came into her mind again.

So he was back to being silent again. She sighed. She didn't really understand what he'd been talking about, but at the very least, she knew he was there.

She didn't move for a long while, simply staring into the distant horizon contained within the depths of the crystal, outlined by the flickering flames of the fire.

What she'd seen was…real. It had to be.

She lowered the crystal, putting it back into the pocket of her jacket as she pulled her jacket on herself. But that also meant that…

Memories slowly trickled in. The burned village of Estham. The chase. The fight. The prisoners. The raiders. The bloody corpses in her wake. The Ouroboros Power. The Annihilation Event.

The black fog.

She slowly lifted her arms. Looking down to her arms, seeing nothing of what had come before, but still able to vividly imagine the image of that black fog seeping back into her skin…

What did it mean?

This wasn't Aionios. Couldn't be. She refused to believe it. And in that dream or whatever it was, Alpha had said "this world" not "Aionios." And nothing here was familiar to her, so it must be new. It had to be.

And yet…her hands were trembling.

"I see you're awake now."

She inhaled sharply and her head jerked over to see Minoth came into focus. He sat down on a log near her and stoked the fire. A kettle she hadn't seen before was sending steam out of its spout.

"Are you all here now?" Minoth asked.

"...huh?" She responded lamely, confused.

He looked over to her, expression cautious and careful, eyes intent. "After your last attack. You were…unresponsive, for a while."

The wave of Ouroboros power, the gathering light, the explosion.

"You mean after the Annihilation Event?"

"Yes." His grey eyes bore deep into her own. "You called it that before. It almost makes it sound like it wasn't your doing. Less personal that way."

Her knees came up to her chest, and she hugged her arms around them. "It wasn't on purpose."

"And you're absolutely sure about that?"

Her first instinct was to protest. After all, no one could just summon up an Annihilation Event. This wasn't Aionios, and besides, even quick Annihilation Events were always proceeded by…black fog…

Na'el's protest died on her lips, and her ears reflexively drooped. Minoth's eyes drilled into her, reminding her of Grandad. She swallowed, painfully at the reminder.

She averted her eyes. "...I don't know."

She felt his gaze linger longer before she heard a sigh. She looked out of the corner of her eye as he grabbed a pair of tongs and used them to grasp the metal ketal placed on a stone near the blaze of the campfire, pouring the steaming water within into two cups. He then reached over to his pack and extracted two tea bags, setting them to steep in the metal mugs.

Minoth didn't say anything else through the process, and Na'el didn't mind it that, if only because she was having a hard time focusing on much of anything right now.

Her hand slipped back into her jacket pocket, hand grasping around Alpha's crystal. Her mind wandered to the glimpses he'd once shown her of the possibility of a new world. The promise of peace, of freedom from war. Freedom from Moebius. The incredible sights of cities without walls stretching far beyond what she'd ever seen before, without walls.

The memory of his calm and kind voice as he described the possibility of escape to a new world like this.

She recognized that it was something she'd have to help build, that it wouldn't happen instantaneously. But…

Her hand squeezed around the crystal in her pocket.

If this was his new world, why did it have monsters like them?

Why didn't you answer me?

But her voiceless plea still went unanswered.

"Here."

"Huh?"

The smell of something floral mixed in with a note of fruity sweetness drifted up her nose as the steam wafted up. She froze at the familiar scent.

"You're free to decline if you'd like," Minoth explained, "but it looks like you could use it. It's supposed to be a calming blend that a Tornan friend of mine gave me. He probably wouldn't care too much if his very expensive Tornan blend of tea went to waste, but I care a little more about that."

"Oh." Na'el shook her head, accepting the mug. "No, it's just…"

She trailed off. Breathing the familiar scent in deeply. She took a careful sip of the brew. Eyes widening at the taste. The natural, floral flavor, the mellow sweetness; the notes of fruit. Her vision blurred.

"I know I'm not the best hand at brewing tea, but is it really that bad?"

She sharply shook her head, and she scrubbed her eyes of the tears. "No, it's…wonderful. It's almost just…just like Grandad's."

It wasn't quite the same. The notes of fruit were different. Whatever fruit was being used was different from the notes of Dance Apple that normally would accompany it. But it was so close that…

She took another sip of the tea to hide her face, and the warmth from the drink seemed to flow through her body as it pooled in her stomach. Muscles that she hadn't realized were tensed seemed to relax, if only slightly.

Her hands, clasped around the warm, insulated mug, weren't shaking anymore.

"I'm sure my friend would be happy to hear that comparison."

She nodded, absently, her racing thoughts from earlier slowing as the herbal blend calmed her mind. "What's he like? Your friend?"

Minoth took his own sip of tea as he seemed to ponder her question. "Addam's a chump, if I'm honest."

"Oh, uh, really?"

"Don't get me wrong. He's got a good head on his shoulders, but if you want me to wax poetical about his good traits, there are plenty of others who would gladly do it for me. Most people love the guy." He sighed, taking another sip of his tea. "He has an adventurous spirit that I'm amazed hasn't gotten him killed yet. Loves his freedom, but he's enough of a sap that he can hardly say no to almost every sob story he comes across."

"Including yours, I guess?"

He gave her a hard look over the rim of his mug. "I'm not that miserable a story," he grumbled out.

"I don't hear you denying it."

"Oh, put a sock in it." He set his mug down and stoked the fire a little more. "Addam's one of the people I reached out to about finding your brother. No doubt he'll be bawling his eyes out once he reads your story."

"You think he has already?"

He shrugged lightly. "Hard to say. The Tornan Titan was at its furthest from Coeia when I asked one of Ivan's men back in Norilsk to get it sent from Port Vera. Even if it's already arrived, there's a good chance he's out on some fool's errand of an adventure, and it won't be seen for weeks." He sighed, and looked over to her. "But don't mistake me. He's well connected, and a man of his word, so we'll get an answer from him about your brother for sure."

"Sounds like an interesting man."

Minoth shook his head, but there was wistful sort of fondness there. "You don't know the half of it."

She smiled, lightly. "Thank you, Minoth."

"Don't thank me yet." He paused, picking his mug back up and taking another sip of the blend. "So…how about your grandad then?"

Her hands gripped around her mug tighter. It was still a little hard to think about him, but…

"Grandad was…something of a hermit," she began. "I didn't know him all that well until after my parents died defending the City in a huge battle against Moebius."

It had felt like such a decisive victory at the time. Even though she'd been young, she could still remember the huge celebration that the leaders of the City had put on. Both the somber ceremony at the Remembrance Stones — with her and Matthew leaving some of her mum and dad's most cherished belongings at its base — and the rowdy celebration that followed after.

"I thought," she continued, "that maybe their sacrifice had meant something. That the fifteen years of peace we had was a sign that maybe we would finally be able to be left alone."

Of course, she'd been horribly wrong.

She grit her teeth, dispelling the thought. After all, she'd made an even bigger sacrifice to get here.

But…it had just been unwanted baggage.

"Lives." Moebius N said coldly "We Moebius, and every last solider on the face of this world."

She breathed in, and out.

"Grandad," she began again, "he was a bit distant at first. And for the first couple days after that celebration when Matthew and I moved in with him, he had a hard time looking at me. Grandad's daughter, my mum, looked a lot like me. It's where I got these from, after all." She flicked her Agnian ears.

Minoth's hand went to his chin in thought, considering them, eyes flicking down to her crystal for a moment. "Really now?"

She nodded. "It went on like that for almost a week until Matthew boiled over and hit him for it. He said, 'Take care of us you useless idiot! Your kids are gone, but we're here right now! If you don't, we'll go somewhere else!'"

"Is that right? Pretty harsh, even for a kid."

She shrugged, smiling despite herself. "But this time, he was right. I didn't really get it until later, but both Matthew and Grandad were still grieving. Matthew lashed out, and Grandad withdrew. But it worked. Grandad seemed to snap out of it, and said 'If you've got that sort of energy, then let's put it to good use.' He started training us after that.

"I was against it, at first. After all, hadn't my parents just died to give us the peace we now found ourselves in? What was the point of training? But Grandad convinced me." She cleared her throat, adapting a deeper, raspier tone. "'The Power of Ouroboros is the power to protect, as much as it is to destroy. It is balance. Mastery of its power would beget balance within your body and spirit, and you would become one with your very selves.'"

"And you mastered this power?"

"Not even close. The way Grandad said it, no one's ever managed it."

"So what is it?"

"This."

Na'el slowly breathed in, and out, and the orange aura of her Ouroboros power surrounded her again. Minoth's eyes widened and he quickly stood up, backing away. She was confused for a moment, but then looked closer.

Weaving in between the familiar glow, were wisps of the black fog.

She breathed in sharply, losing concentration. The orange aura faded, but like before, the wisps of black fog lingered, before slowly seeping back under her skin.

So it hadn't been a fluke. She'd probably been so focused that she hadn't noticed it happening when she used her Ouroboros Power before.

"So…then this Ouroboros Power can create an Annihilation Event?" Minoth asked. "Seems like a dangerous thing to teach kids."

She shook her head. "It…shouldn't. Annihilation Events happened in Aionios, but they'd always be preceded by black fog."

He looked over at her pointedly.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why it's doing this." She glanced away, thinking back to those raiders. "But…I'd do it again, Minoth. If I could, I would have gotten the captured villagers out, but those people, no, those…monsters," she spat out the word. "They deserved it. A thousand times over."

He sighed, slowly sitting back down beside her. "I understand how you feel, Na'el. Just…be careful. I'd rather not lose a friend to a dark path like that."

Na'el looked over to him. "A friend?"

"Don't make me say it again."

She smiled.

He set his empty mug down, and she realized that her own mug was also empty.

"Get some sleep," Minoth said. "We're moving first thing tomorrow. We've got a time limit now."

"How so?"

He gestured with his head over to Teemu, who'd been asleep for the conversation, curled up near Minoth's bed roll, which she had assumed was empty the whole time, but in fact had a small lump in it. Her heart thumped in her chest, and she abruptly stood.

And there, at the head of the sleeping roll, a small head with a shock of blond hair, was a child. She rushed over to them, startling Teemu awake as she crouched down beside them. The child, a boy, she guessed, was pale, and had bandaged all over his head.

"He's alive," she breathed. Relief flooded her chest, which turned to confusion. "But, how did he escape the Annihilation Event?"

Minoth shrugged. "Couldn't say. I found him tangled up in some brush near the edge of the basin. Don't know how exactly he survived when nearly everyone else didn't, but he's not in good condition. Teemu helped me stabilized him, but he'll need better treatment than what we have. Unless you have any healing artes?"

She shook her head. "Just first-aid knowledge."

"Figures. If we rush it, we can get to Omrantha by the end of the day tomorrow. "For now, rest. We set out at first light."

A/N: An injured mini-Mik has entered the fray.