With his last sane command before falling into the coma, Arkhan had ordered the ones who had ‘taken his life’ to merely be captured and imprisoned, rather than executed. This was small comfort to those who now were on the cusp of losing everything, but it is better to live than it is to die pointlessly without the opportunity to change things. As the Creator had ordered their incarceration and was the highest power in the world at the current moment, only He would be able to judge those who tried to kill Him. At least, this would have been the case if he had woken up.

However, Arkhan had yet to wake from his coma, and Asharia was not permitting anyone to attempt to resuscitate him. There were beginning to be stirrings among The Created and the Faithful that the current state of their God was due to the actions of his treacherous wife. Murmurs and rumors about the ‘greedy dragon seeking to horde the world to herself’ started to circulate. As ire against the ‘usurper queen’ spread, even the Five-God Dragon herself realized that if she did not come out with the truth soon then she would not be able to resist the storm that was brewing.

And so, much to her quiet dissatisfaction and fear of the repercussions, Asharia made a public broadcast from within the VIP hospital room in which her husband lay.

…

The was a bar in the floating city of Arkhansburg where numerous people had gathered to drink and attempt to make merry. Several televisions played a mix of different sports, from Football (both the American and International versions of it) to Baseball, Golf, Tennis and more. One TV was absolutely massive and made up nearly an entire wall of the tavern and played several news channels at once. You would expect the mood in the bar to be cheery, but this was not the case.

There was a gloom that hung over the entire city and much of the world. Arkhan Aesir Arcadia, their beloved God-King, was still deep in a vegetative state from which there seemed to be no return. As those in the bar tried and failed to drown their troubles by drinking alcohol specifically designed to taste like real booze but have no alcohol content, all of the TVs suddenly shifted to a single program.

“We now bring you live to an address by the Queen of Arcadia, Asharia Ophedein Draconis, from the bedside of the King of the Arcadian Commonwealth, Arkhan Aesir Arcadia.”

The screen shifted again to reveal Asharia dressed in all black. This was not, however, a sign that their God had died, instead it was a decision made by the Dragon Queen herself to try and show the seriousness of the situation.

“Greetings, loyal subject and great allies of my beloved husband. As you may or may not know, I am Asharia Ophedein Draconis, the Dragon Queen of the Arcadian Commonwealth. I come to you today to reveal the cause of and true nature of my husband’s ailment, and to tell you a story that is as old as life in this galaxy.”

One of the customers in the bar scoffed and yelled at one of the numerous television sets.

“Bitch! This is all your fault! We all know you are responsible for this, you fucking lizard-whore!”

Asharia continued after a short pause as she had gathered the courage to speak the truth.

“As you all know, I am very, very old. But in truth I am far older than even the current eldest races in this galaxy. I have been around since the first civilizations rose to dominate the galaxy, and thus I have been around to witness their fall, and the rise of those that would replace them. This cycle has repeated for over twenty million years without pause or cessation, and the repetition of the Great Cycle hinges on one key moment. We now are in that moment, and what will happen to my husband next will determine the course of the galaxy for ages to come.”

The man who yelled before called bullshit.

“Fuck you! You lie like a snake!”

He was jostled a bit by one of the other customers.

“Hey man, let’s just listen for a bit. Maybe there is and excuse. I mean, look at her. She wouldn’t have come on live like this just to spout empty bullshit, right? Besides, weirder things have happened. I mean, we were just invaded by aliens that looked like angels, so maybe she isn’t full of it?”

Meanwhile, Asharia continued her speech.

“Arkhan is just one of many who came before him who has experienced this comatose state. He is not the first being to be summoned to your world, and he is not the first being to be summoned with an army at his command. He and you are following the same pattern that has been followed for untold ages; one of a rise to power, an ascendance to divinity and then a final death. He is currently in a state from which he may never come back, unless everyone changes their manner of being.

He will recover if left unbothered and undamaged, but with every one of his Creations that falls to the same weapons used for ages by empires that have risen to prominence over the bones and ashes of those against them he suffers a near irreversible blow to his mind and soul. He is lucky to have so many serving him, and it was only their numbers which prevented him from falling much, much sooner.”

People were now getting into this.

“The nation that has attacked us is just the most recent of nations to rise to galactic power due to a being like Arkhan. They were created from power, just like the Mobile Suit Golems, and they worship their now-dead creator as a god. They were once in a similar position to the current world we live in, forced to fight off an invader who was just an earlier incarnation of themselves. Those invaders were not the first either, but merely the second most recent nation to be founded by a ‘god’.

This is what the Great Cycle is; the rise of a Summoned Person with the power to make a race of beings that worship them, the eventual death of that being and the rise of a galactic nation dedicated to the divinity of that summoned being. Worse still, the cycle starts anew when the Created give the knowledge of Summoning to another race, either out of malice or sheer stupidity.”

Now rapt, the viewers waited for the Queen to finish.

“I do not know how to end the cycle. For ages I tried and failed to affect change, but to no avail. This is the only other solution I can imagine, but even I do not know if it will work. If we wish to prevent the cycle from repeating, we must prevent Arkhan from dying and prevent more damage coming to his mind and soul. To do this, I propose that the forces of Gaia change their military strategy completely. Up until now, mass assaults have been used due to current policy, but this must change. Every Creation that is destroyed with be a crack in Arkhan’s foundations that will take time to repair, and we cannot let his existence shatter into nothingness.”

Asharia paused for a bit to let the information sink in.

“If my theory is correct, then as long as losses are kept to an absolute minimum against any who wield the weapons used by the Angelus Holy Union, the invaders who seek our destruction, Arkhan should recover and regain his full faculties. I am not sure that he will emerge from this as he once was, but he will return if my theory is correct. Until then, I will rule in his stead, not as an absolute monarch, but as one who rules with the power, aid and support of the people.

Until Arkhan recovers, I will put my own life on the line every time the AHU appears. I thank you all for supporting our nation in these trying times, and I thank all of you who have sent your well wishes. I pray my hypothesis is correct and we can break the ever-turning wheel that binds the galaxy in a perpetual state of suffering and destruction. Until we meet again, I bid thee farewell.”

…

As the games started up on the screens again, the bar was in a state of shock. As silence reigned, the man who had been so derisive of Asharia spoke up again.

“Fucking hell. I don’t know about you lot, but if what that woman says is true then we have to step it up.”

He slammed down his beer and paid his bill before walking over to the door.

“I’m gonna go sign up for the military, and if I ain’t cut out for that I’m gonna go try and get a job in the shipyards. Anyone else want to help our ruler heal up faster?”

People exchanged glances before knocking back their drinks and quickly finishing their food. On this day alone, more people enlisted in the military and sought jobs in the War Industry than had ever done so in any month prior. The faithful would be damned if they let their God follow the same path that so many others had followed before him. Come Hell or High Water, they would be the ones to break the chains of fate that bound their great and beloved God-King.

The Galactic Wheel of Fate had picked a fight, and the vast majority of Gaia’s people began to work their asses off to make sure they weren’t run over like the others had been.