Chapter 18

I stood on a plain of glowing crystal.

At first glance, it had looked level—like a still sea of faceted light—but now I could see it wasn't. Some crystal formations jutted skyward, others dipped low, catching and scattering the radiance like a slow, frozen tide. It shimmered under my bare feet, humming gently, a living thing.

In the distance, the terrain sloped inward toward the center. There, rising from the plain like a crown set on a mirror, stood a massive hexagonal platform—a half-mile wide and twenty feet above the surrounding crystal field.

And in the exact center, my nude form stood.

I was dreaming again.

Just like so many nights before, my mind had brought me here—back to this beautiful prison. This impossible symmetry of form and function, this holy cage made to hold divinity in chains of light.

Above me, suspended in endless sky, floated the Lightspire.

It didn't cast a shadow. It was the light.

The enormous exanite crystal turned slowly, silently, far too massive to be supported by anything real. Directly at its heart, a thin shaft of golden brilliance lanced downward—pure, concentrated power—and struck the platform on which I stood.

But despite the brilliance, I wasn't blinded as I looked up through that narrow shaft to the girl floating so far above.

Equally nude.

Equally vulnerable.

Despite the distance, she was as clear to me as if she stood beside me.

I leapt upwards—spellslinger's instinct, desperate reach—but the space between us didn't close.

The dream didn't obey physics.

It obeyed feeling.

Longing.

Guilt.

The golden beam flared slightly, like it had felt my attention.

Her attention.

Because it wasn't just a dream.

Not this time.

Somewhere inside that glow, I could feel her.

And she was crying.

The sound wasn't audible—no sobs, no broken breath—but it was there all the same. A shimmer in the light. A ripple in the beam. A tremor in the structure of the dream itself.

It reached me not as sound, but as ache. As knowing.

And I whispered, helplessly, "Drusera—"

A flicker in the corner of my vision drew me away. I turned— And saw it.

A blotch. Ugly, purple, oozing. A bruise upon the flawless crystal.

A breach in the light.

The surrounding cliffs of exanite rose like a cathedral of clarity—except there. There, where a tumescent growth pulsed like a wound torn in reality. A twisted arch, slick and glistening, formed a nightmare gateway. Beyond it, the shadows moved.

And I saw them.

Strain.

A flood of them. Clawing, writhing, waiting.

Ready to pour through.

My heart clenched as I turned back—and there she was, floating nearby in her familiar holographic form. Beautiful. Luminous. Worried.

The sad look in her eyes told me all I needed to know.

This was no dream.

This was a warning.

And I was running out of time.

"He knows we're trying to reach her, Arwick," I snapped. "He's making his move first. We don't have a choice—I have to go!"

"You've got zero chance of getting through the Strain blockading the Defile, Valya! I'm not going to authorize your suicide!"

"I don't need to go through them! Drusera can take me straight there!" He turned to her. "Do you have the strength to make a portal that far?"

She nodded, solemn. "I can. But much of my power is being used to keep the Strain from breaching the crystal plain. If they reach my physical body… even I do not know if I can resist them."

Arwick steepled his hands in front of his nose. "I can assemble a company to send in a half hour."

Drusera shook her head. "I will only be able send one."

Arwick closed his eyes, the tension in his jaw tightening as he exhaled slowly through his nose.

"Then it has to be you," he said, finally. He didn't like it, but he accepted it.

Arwick opened his eyes, hard now. Resigned. "Then gear up. I'll have an extraction team waiting on the perimeter—if you make it back out."

I gave him a grim smile. "I always do."

"Just remember," he said, voice low, "this isn't just a mission. It's a goddamn jailbreak."

Drusera's light flared faintly. "Then let us make history."

"And Valya, and you too, Dru. You have to make it back. You're my family. If you don't, I can't give you children."

I knew what he was really saying. I'd scared him far too much.

This was going to be my final mission. One way or another, my spellslinger days were over.

And Arwick knew it.

He'd seen it in my eyes, heard it in my voice. The resolve. The exhaustion. The quiet edge of goodbye.

So, he said the only thing he could: Come back.

But I'd already made peace with it. With the fight. With the cost.

I looked down at my pistols, holstered at my hips, and gave them a soft pat.

"Alright, girls," I murmured. "One last dance."

Drusera stood beside me, her glow solemn, golden threads of energy drifting from her skin like strands of fate unspooling.

She reached for my hand.

"I will not let you face this alone." I squeezed her fingers gently. "I know." The light from the portal flared brighter.

This was it.

My final act.

Not because I wanted to die.

But because I had to live.

For her. For all of us.

Even if I had to burn everything in my way to do it.

I gave Arwick a cocky grin that even he knew was fake.

"You better give me the prettiest daughter on Arboria after this."

He nodded. "Of course I will."

With a jaunty tailwave I vanished through the portal.

The light swallowed me whole.

For one impossible moment, I felt everything—her pain, his fury, the looming war between hope and madness balanced on the knife's edge of a single heartbeat.

And then I was there.

The sky above the Lightspire boiled gold and violet. Thunder without sound. Fire without heat. The air tasted like endings.

The crystal plain spread out below, warped and twisted where the Strain had begun to fester. Like mold on a perfect fruit.

At its center, still untouched, still sacred, the Spire stood.

"The Strain are attempting to create portals to the Genesis Prime. We have to stop them." Drusera stated

"And then I finally get to meet the real you." I said lightly, though I knew how she'd respond.

She was hesitant, but nodded.

I sighed. "Drusera, I've been doing a lot of thinking, and there's something I want to tell you, something I think you really need to understand."

She looked frightened and nervous but nodded again.

"You were born to be obedient, compliant, a slave. It's not surprising that you felt so overwhelmed way back then. Like you couldn't fight back and had no choice but to lock yourself away."

I reached out for her hand. "He's not your superior. He might sound like Nazrek, might possess all the arrogance and hubris of the eldan, but he's nothing but a virus. He's a parasite, Drusera. You don't need him, he needs you. He is so desperate because he knows that. He needs you to submit because he can't take your body unless you do. He only wins if you surrender."

"But he is so strong."

"No, Drusera. If he was as strong as he wants you to believe, he would have escaped ages ago. He only has the strength you give him."

"T- that I give?"

I nodded, firm but gentle. "Yes, sweetheart. That you give. You are the power. You are the light. You always have been."

Her circuits flickered, a soft gold running under the blue. She stared at our joined hands like she was seeing something for the first time.

"He told you that you were a mistake," I said, voice quiet. "He told you that you were broken, that you were never meant to exist."

"I was… I am a fusion," she whispered. "An accident."

"No." I squeezed her hand. "You're a miracle. You weren't born wrong, Dru. You were born right. He's terrified of that. Because everything he wanted to be—you became instead." Her eyes welled with light. Not power. Not data.

Emotion.

Real, raw feeling.

"I don't want to be his prisoner anymore," she said softly.

"Then don't be." I smiled, and maybe this one wasn't fake. "Be mine instead." Her laugh was small and broken—but it was a laugh.

And just like that, I knew she was ready.

"Now, let's go teach some strain that they pissed off the wrong bunny."

Her glow intensified—no longer flickering, but steady and strong. Radiant gold threaded with fire. She smiled, and this time, there was steel behind it.

"Yes," she said. "Let us burn away the infection."

A ripple of force spread outward from her, brightening the ground beneath our feet. The crystal plain shimmered in answer, the Lightspire glowing brighter as if it, too, had heard her resolve.

"The first portal is that way." she pointed.

I drew my pistols and started sprinting.

"Oh, he must really be getting desperate."

We were on the sixth and last portal. He'd tried numbers, he'd tried size, he'd tried corrupted Dominion troops, he'd even tried my clones.

I'd beaten them all. Even if it had been by the skin of my teeth.

And now, he was trying a dragon

The portal surged, pulsing with sickly purple light as the creature began to emerge— chitinous scales like obsidian glass, wings that shimmered with corrupted data, and eyes that burned with twisted sentience.

A Strain dragon.

"Oh good," I muttered, spinning my pistols. "A boss fight."

Drusera hovered at my side, glow steady, focused. "This construct is based on an Eldan prototype. Designed for planetary culling. But it has been... modified."

"Yeah, I can see that," I said, dodging as the thing snapped at the air like it was already tasting victory. "Let me guess—apocalyptic breath weapon, teleport spam, and a deeply punchable face?"

Drusera's circuits pulsed. "And wings capable of destabilizing gravitational harmonics."

"Awesome. Add that to the list."

The dragon roared, and the very crystal plain beneath us fractured slightly.

I drew a slow breath. "Alright, big guy. You're the last thing between me and my girl's freedom."

I stepped forward, defiance crackling in the air around me. "And I've got just enough fight left for one more miracle."

Drusera's voice, soft but sure, echoed beside me. "Together." And then we ran straight into the fire.

Drusera's bubble faded as I emerged on the other side of the dragon's breath, and gated under his body. He lost track of me as I raced under him, and wasted his time searching for me. I used the chance to run up his spine, my pistols charging to their maximum. By the time he realized where I was, it was too late. I put both pistols to the base of his skull and fired.

The blasts slammed home with a thunderous crack, twin spirals of raw energy punching through corrupted flesh and crystalline bone. The dragon convulsed, a shriek ripping from its throat—a sound like metal screaming and stars dying.

For a heartbeat, the world went still.

Then the Strain beast pitched forward, slamming into the crystal plain with seismic force. Shards flew in all directions, carving furrows in the glowing ground as its body spasmed once, twice… and went still.

I slid off its back just ahead of the collapse, landing in a crouch beside Drusera as the dragon's head thudded to the earth, smoking and twitching. Her eyes were wide, awe-struck. "That was… impressive."

I flicked the scorch marks off my coat. "That was personal."

She looked at the shattered corpse. "Do you think it is dead?"

"I shot it in the brain twice and jumped off its spine like a badass. It better be dead." Drusera was still watching me—something soft and proud blooming across her features.

"You are terrifying," she whispered. I grinned. "Yeah. But I'm your terrifying." She twined her fingers with mine.

"Besides. I have a philosophy about fighting things bigger than me,"

"Oh?"

"Yup. Cheat like hell. It's worked so far."

Drusera gave a breathless laugh, the kind she was still getting used to, but that made something in my chest ache in the best way. "A pragmatic creed."

"I prefer effective," I said, swinging our hands lightly as we walked toward the looming glow. "If the universe wants to throw gods and monsters at me, the least I can do is punch above my weight class with style."

She tilted her head, eyes glinting gold. "You do possess a great deal of style. Though I think some of your fashion choices remain… unconventional."

"Unconventional got me a goddess girlfriend," I said. "I'm not changing a thing."

The Lightspire loomed ahead, golden and waiting.

The golden light intensified as we approached, bathing the crystal plain in radiance. The final gate stood ahead—the heart of the prison, the beginning and end of everything.

Drusera's voice was quiet. "He'll be waiting. He knows you're coming."

"I know," I said. "Let him."

I looked up at the Lightspire, feeling the hum of power building in the air, the weight of destiny pressing down like a storm on the edge of breaking.

This was it.

The jailbreak. The reckoning.

And I wasn't going to let her face it alone.

When we reached the column of light, we gently floated up into the depths of the Lightspire.

I could feel Drusera's dread. Her unease.

Was she finally going to admit to the one thing she'd feared to tell me?

My words at the towers base hadn't just been to encourage her. I'd been trying to reassure her that her greatest fear was groundless.

That the truth she'd been hiding wouldn't change how I saw her.

Not her power. Not her past. Not even the part of her she'd locked away, deep inside this floating cathedral of light and sorrow.

The golden radiance wrapped around us like a heartbeat made of starlight, pulsing slower, heavier, the higher we rose. It wasn't warm. It wasn't cold. It was… her. Pure Drusera—raw, unfocused, godlike.

And still… afraid.

She hadn't spoken in a while, not since we had entered the shaft. Her hand trembled in mine, though her form remained flawless, elegant, divine.

I squeezed her fingers gently.

"You don't have to say anything," I whispered. "But if you want to, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Her lips parted, voice barely audible over the thrum of the Spire.

"I- I have one final truth to show you."

"I know."

Her eyes widened in shock.

"I figured it out back in the Terminus complex. The Entity is your other personality."

She flinched like I'd struck her—but didn't pull away.

Her glow dimmed, trembling, uncertain. "How long…?"

"Since he spoke with your cadence," I said gently. "Since I saw your fear wasn't just of him—it was of yourself. Since I realized why you've never wanted to talk about the moment he manifested."

Her hand slipped from mine, and she floated a little apart, wrapping her arms around herself like the Lightspire's warmth had turned cold.

"I didn't choose it," she whispered. "I didn't want him. He was the backlash, the fracture. All their worst thoughts and feelings, all their arrogance and pride and rage—they were supposed to become me. But something broke. And instead, he—I—was split in two."

She looked over her shoulder, eyes wide with guilt. "I thought I could bury him. Imprison him. Keep him from hurting anyone. But the truth is… I made him."

I floated up beside her, slowly, gently, until our fingers brushed again.

"No," I said. "They made him. Nazrek tried to manipulate the process so he could become you. But you survived it. And when you realized what he was, you locked him away and chose to be you instead. Kind. Gentle. Loving. Nazrek took all the negative aspects of your Eldan heritage and created the miracle that is you. Kind, compassionate, curious. You are what the Eldan could have been had their nobility matched their intellect." I cupped her face again, meeting her eyes.

"You're not him, Drusera. He's the cost of your birth, not the measure of your soul."

She shuddered—and a tear of golden light slipped down her cheek.

"I'm scared, Valya. If I fight him… if I truly face him… I don't know what I'll become."

I leaned forward and kissed her forehead softly.

"Then I'll remind you. Every second. Every breath. You are not alone."

And far above, the final chamber opened—gold and violet light spiraling together in a storm of power and memory. The Entity was waiting.

But so were we.

I holstered my pistols. This wasn't going to be a fight I could win with weapons.

If I was being honest, I'd either already won the fight or I hadn't.

Either way, my role was over.

There was only one last thing I could do.

So softly I doubted even Drusera could hear it, I whispered. "Myala, Arwick. I'm sorry." Then we rose into that golden chamber and I could see her for the first time in the flesh.

And below her, still looking like a grotesque insect, He stood.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the putrid slimebag. You finally get enough guts to face me yourself?" I cat called

He turned, that warped mockery of an Eldan frame twisting like it had too many joints—and not one of them human.

"YOU," he sneered. "THE MONGREL. THE GLITCH IN THE PLAN. THE RABBIT WHO THINKS SHE MATTERS."

"Aw," I said, stepping forward, "did the big bad abomination not get enough hugs growing up?"

His eyes flared. "YOU PRESUME TO CHALLENGE ME IN MY DOMAIN?"

"No," I said, placing my hands on my hips. "I presume to mock you in her domain. You don't belong here. I don't know if you're just Nazrek or a mix of all the Eldan's worst traits, but you are just a virus that's about to be cured."

I felt Drusera beside me, not behind. Beside. She was still trembling slightly, but trying so hard to be brave.

The Entity sneered. "SHE WAS MEANT TO BE MY VESSAL."

"She was meant to be free," I snapped. "And guess what, jackass—she is. Whatever that 'trusted ally' of yours promised you. He lied. Just like you. It's amazing how eager you lying bastards are to believe those who promise you your desires."

The Entity's form twitched—an involuntary shudder of rage or fear, it was hard to tell.

Probably both. His voice lost its silky veneer, cracked into something rawer. More real.

"YOU DARE TO LECTURE ME? YOU? A HALF FERAL RABBIT IN HEAT—"

"Oh sweetie," I cut in, tail flicking. "Keep talking like that and I'll start charging for the performance. You're not scary. You're not even original. You're a cliché wrapped in ego and dipped in Strain. And worse? You're predictable."

He roared, the chamber vibrating with his fury—but the golden light from Drusera pulsed in answer, steady and clear. And this time, she didn't flinch.

"I am not your vessel," she said, voice trembling but firm. "I am not your cage. I am not your puppet."

"YOU ARE MINE!" he bellowed.

"I am Drusera!" she shouted, and the light surged, golden lines lancing across the chamber like a sunrise cracking the sky open.

I stepped back slightly, just enough to let her shine. "Told you, asshole. She's free."

Purple fire exploded all around him. "YOU- YOU…"

Whatever he said was undecipherable. I presumed it was Eldan.

"Oh, yeah, well you're the lamest asshole in the galaxy. You got a whole goddamn planet of murder and can't kill one little Bun-neee"

Oh gods, this hurts.

Who knew having a giant insect claw through your chest could hurt this bad?

Everything tilted. My breath hitched, a sharp, wet rasp. My boots left the ground as the Entity's claw lifted me into the air like a rag doll.

"Oh no," Drusera whispered. Not with fear. With grief.

The Entity snarled, his voice fraying at the edges. "YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD STOP ME? THAT MOCKERY IS POWER? THAT THIS—" he twisted the claw, and agony flared like a sunburst through my nerves "—MAKES YOU STRONG?"

I tasted blood. Lots of it. "No," I rasped, smiling anyway. "But it makes you weak. You could've just ignored me. Could've struck Drusera. But you didn't. You needed me to hurt. To feel big again. To feed your ego. Because you're scared. And scared people? They get sloppy."

The claw jerked again—but Drusera's hand caught me before I could fall.

Her light surged. Her eyes blazed. Her whole body shimmered like a star going nova.

"You don't get to touch her."

And then—goddess help me—she let go.

Of the fear. Of the guilt. Of him.

And the chamber turned to fire and gold.

The body floating in the air opened her eyes, then vanished.

With an explosion as loud as thunder, I found myself cradled in her arms.

Her real arms,

"I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!" Drusera screamed with a volume I think all of Nexus probably heard.

The chamber around us shattered, an explosion of crystal shards flying away as a bubble of pure golden fire expanded across the plain. Everywhere it touched the crystal shattered rising into the air in a cyclone of shards.

"YOU DON'T HAVE HER TO SHIELD YOU ANYMORE! YOU CANNOT STAND AGAINST ME!"

"I NEVER BELONGED TO YOU!"

The cloud of shards stopped, and every single one turned like a spear at the Entities heart.

"I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A GOD! YOU CANNOT DENY MY DESTINY."

Time to die asshole. I thought as my vision grew dimmer.

The shards glowed bright as the sun as they crashed in on us.

The storm struck like the wrath of creation itself.

Each shard was a judgment. A memory reclaimed. A truth Drusera had once been too afraid to speak.

Now, they sang through the air like divine wrath given form.

The Entity raised his arms, howling in that alien, glitching cadence that made my skin crawl. His form twisted, flickered—shifting from Nazrek's smug sneer to Joriel's cold disdain, to something far more ancient and broken. The last vestiges of a failed god, unmade by the very soul he'd tried to control.

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MINE!" he shrieked, as the shard after shard struck him through the chest.

"No," Drusera whispered, not with fury now, but clarity. "I was supposed to be me."

The shards converged, a golden singularity of light and judgment—and then there was silence.

Just a slow, rising breeze, and the shimmer of golden dust falling like snow around us.

Where the Entity had stood, there was nothing but light.

Drusera descended to the ground and sank to her knees, trembling, tears streaking down her face—but she was still holding me. Her real arms. Her real body.

"It's over," she said, so softly I barely heard her. "He's gone."

I reached up and touched her cheek, smiling through the pain and the blood and the overwhelming exhaustion.

"Told you," I breathed. "You're free."

She leaned over my broken and bleeding body and kissed me.

A wave of golden fire flowed through me, erasing the pain.

It was like being kissed by the sunrise.

The warmth wasn't just healing—it was restoring. Not just the body, but the soul. Every inch of me that had cracked, every scar, every place I'd worn down over the years just to survive… it all lit up in gold and burned clean. Not erased, but honored. Remembered.

Like she was telling the universe: this one matters.

I gasped as breath flooded back into my lungs. My heart kicked against my ribs, strong and certain. My fingers twitched, then curled around her waist, pulling her closer as the light faded into a soft, pulsing glow between us.

"I thought I lost you," she whispered.

I grinned, voice hoarse but smug. "Please. You really think a glorified malware bug and a chest wound can take me down? I'm Valya the White Rabbit. I'm a statistical improbability." She laughed—truly laughed—for the first time in what felt like centuries.

And in that shattered, sacred space, for just a moment, everything was right.

Then I giggled.

She tilted her head at me. "What?"

"You're bigger than your projection."

She couldn't help it. It started as a chuckle, then a giggle, and finally a full blown laugh.

I felt like a baby in her arms. Her real body was damn near 7 feet tall.

Then she shimmered and my tiny bunny eared goddess stood before me. No longer blue, her pale skin just lightly kissed by the sun. Her circuit traces were barely visible as golden threads just under her skin

Only her eyes still glowed.

Then she floated up to her usual height and her robes formed.

Pure golden robes lined in light. With her crown materializing as well, and made of glowing exanite.

"Is that better?" She asked with a playful swirl of her tail.

I propped myself up on one elbow, still a little breathless, still glowing faintly from the divine CPR. "You look like a holy vision of vengeance and snuggles."

Drusera tilted her head in that familiar, terrifying way. "That is a pleasing combination."

I gave her a lazy grin. "Damn right it is. You should've opened with this outfit. The Entity wouldn't have known whether to worship you or run."

She floated in slow, graceful circles above the crystalline platform, her expression more serene than I'd ever seen it. "He was not the only one afraid of what I truly am."

"And now?" I asked, sitting all the way up, ignoring the crackling sound my bones made from trying to exist too hard five minutes after dying.

She stopped midair, looking down at me with all the calm certainty of someone who had just taken back her fate and incinerated a cosmic parasite with metaphorical glitter. "Now I am me."

I let that sink in. The words. The light. The quiet.

"You're not scared?"

She landed gently, just close enough that I could see the trace of a smile on her lips. "Terrified. But I am also free."

I reached up and took her hand, squeezing it. "That's the right kind of fear. The kind that means you're doing something that matters."

She nodded.

I looked around at the radiant wreckage—the crystalline ruins of a prison, of a godhood no one should've had forced on them, of a war that had been raging inside her for a thousand years.

And then I looked back at her.

"Now let's go home, Goddess of Snuggles."

She smiled.

As we walked slowly towards the portal back home I gave her a sidelong glance.

"So, how'd you feel about becoming the Aurin's goddess?

She blinked, then tilted her head like I'd just asked her whether reality had a flavor. "I… am not certain that is wise."

"Oh, it's absolutely not," I said cheerfully, slipping my arm around her waist. "But you just exploded a nightmare god in a storm of metaphysical glitter, healed the unhealable, and looked really smug doing it. So congratulations, sweetie. You're basically sacred now."

She frowned slightly. "But I do not desire worship."

"Great," I said. "Neither does Myala. Doesn't stop half the Aurin from lowkey praying to her whenever she puts on her war crown and tells off a Dominion ambassador."

Drusera looked genuinely puzzled. "But I… I do not know how to be a goddess."

I gave her a smirk. "Good. That's why you'll be a great one. You're not doing it for power, or glory, or control. You're doing it because you care. That's rare. That's what makes you divine, Dru—not the robes or the lightshow."

She fell silent, her expression thoughtful, eyes glowing soft and warm. Then, after a long pause:

"Do goddesses get snacks?"

"Only the good ones," I said with a wink. "But I know a guy who grills meat on a plasma vent."

She giggled as the portal shimmered in front of us.

"Then I shall try to be a very good goddess indeed."

"Great! Let's go tell Myala the good news."