“Pereyra,” said Kreutz. The celestial glass basilisk rotated like planets, black as the void between, rotating, having the still image of Kreutz, reflected upon the watching vista. Someplace unknown, knowledge unshared for his servants. So in the darkspace he stood. Protected.

“Pereyra,” said Ikeya, from the right. She too stood in the observing basilisk, standing underground somewhere in this horrid city of technological oblivion, a place Pereyra was personally disgusted of and would love to see the seawall collapse, but that too was guarded heavily by weaponry—again, technological oblivion.

“Pereyra,” said Wonder, left, wondering from the clouds as he preferred. He housed himself somewhere high in Windvent, perhaps a skyscraper that invoked such awe imagery. There, standing as the master of urbanity, he could witness the concrete spires fall.

“Pereyra,” finally Tewfik, behind. In tandem alongside the march of monsters, it seemed he was in the middle of an operation stirring chaos. A explosion rang and a building blistered apart, and Pereyra knew nothing more needed to be said about the setting.

“Yes,” Pereyra affirmed, clutching his broken staff. “It is I, Pereyra. A great regret I must inform, to you and to each, of the ends of Team Luster goes unaccomplished, halted by the sudden Archknell and shattered my splitter. For you, Ikeya, modest maker of things, your crafts were smote by that parasite, the Unnatural.”

Ikeya huffed. “How daft you must be, Pereyra, to allow such a value be struck by the Unnatural. The implications prove worrisome, indeed they do. Your ability to otherworldly transfer goes compromised, your supply of fiends go unsecure. For your diminished strength so shall your defenses. Foolish star.”

“I sought to quell the resistance before the act began, to acquire agency as I desired, to do all but guarantee the will of our Sirius Aethfell, the Lord of Many. Perhaps a fool’s my name, yet Dawns shall fall to dusk in due time, I suspect. I am merely a watcher most of all, not a forger as yourself, not one who brings gifts, as Wonder, nor the cutter that is Tewfik. Or the one tuned with the Space Beyond, as with our Great Kreutz.”

“Yet recklessness was your lot, impulsivity, the great folly you inherit, Pereyra,” Wonder proclaimed, haughtily as he always did. “Dwell upon your profligacy further and find yourself first waning, good sir. Yes, if I may add an aside, contribute further to your descent and tears shall shed. By the Great Space! Indeed, I sorrow, seeing an ally so weakened, a quaint meteorite.”

“Silence, you insufferable fiend, worse than the ones we summon, who shall be revolted by your words more than the excrements of the dead and the entrails in which they feast upon.” Pereyra slammed the butt of his broken splitter on the ground. “Called! I called you and you each to the knowledge I have experienced. Quick are these hands and quicker is my humility, seeing as we were willed the destruction of this particular earth and that Kosmos—slayer of our Lord of Many. Once Ordo falls so he too, crumpled onto his knees.”

“Precisely so our deaths add a contribution of stardust,” Tewfik commented. “Remind yourself of that, one who emits stardust. Do not take the light you shed as accolades, for it shall fall you all the same, as quaint meteorites. Do not be easily strung, friend. Strung as Wonder weave, strung as that Archknell. Ask you may, for my sword shall cleave one into two, feast for fiends.”

“Politely I say, I respect you for your efforts, friend of mine, and accept, for you must bring down that cursed pillar and so will I. A scheme for us, together, after the pandemonium you havoc, alone, tomorrow and force tears from the human children. For every destruction our forces grow eager.”

“Who,” began Kreutz, annoyed somewhat, silencing the rest of the comets, “who is closest to their objective. Excluding the servant here, Tewfik. Speak now, of the truth and nary falsehood, and reveal.”

Wonder bowed. “I greet you, Great Kreutz, for it is I closest to the truth, falsehood begone. Defenders of Windvent comprise scattered, unfocused, tickles a thought in this vast consciousness of mind as one stretch to another: ‘These are the Unnaturals as the Feller blessed?’ He, murderous, gave birth to less so. Traits diluted in blood perhaps, so shall lay them, diluted in blood as well.”

“Definitives,” elaborated Kreutz. “Objective fact, so I implore. Not your thoughts but the treefruit of thoughts, ones in which hands craft like clay. Speak again, Wonder.”

“Very well. I speak of time. Of time, then we have as many seconds as beaches have sand and every molecule possess atoms and every atoms lie quarks and beyond there to the infinitesimal. Pity we to humans, of celestial quantity deems their little sense uncountable but to us as simple as elementary numbers such as two or three like a human child lifting fingers in wonders of what they suppose.

“If speak of time, none! Great Kreutz, I earn no remorse for my schemes in which we suffer them. Come rats, skuttering, come mud-water, sloshing, haste is thoughts and nothing more. Let them struggle. For our Sirius Aethfell, the Lord of Many, the currency of seconds grows so he, growing the currency of the heart.”

“Kosmos,” stated Ikeya. “Kosmos, the one felling our Sirius Aethfell previously wakes still, destined to conquer the scourge above alongside the other Plaguebearers. Estimation of a few days perhaps, at our misery, estimation of seven, perhaps twicemore, at our glee. Hold ourselves, a foolish thought from foolish beginnings.”

“You—!”

“Silence,” Kreutz ended the argument from continuing further. “Speak truth if you will, Wonder, then I expect exactly such in the coming days, second to be after Tewfik of course. You then, Pereyra, tell of your first failures, hindered in fiend-comes, faced with empowered foes, then hide yourself in the lowers, dwell such as the Earthwill and await your comrades, absent of danger. Otherwise, as the hourglass wrought, the absence of thought will leave your life absent. Pillar be vanquished, or you.”

Pereyra nodded, bowing in respect to the Great Kreutz, leader of their comets, obeying the will of Sirius Aethfell. “Yes, Great Kreutz. Perhaps I ask you to remain longer, accompanied by these walls who remain speechless?”

“Hmph,” Wonder huffed. “Farewell then. Gratitude to Kreutz.” Wonder left.

“So return to solitude, I take it. I will be available later, Pereyra, for the next journeys.” Tewfik turned around. “Gratitude to Kreutz.” Tewfik left.

“A splitter shall meet your hands in due time, Pereyra.” Ikeya left.

“What is it, then?” asked Kreutz. “Relevance to Archknell, I assume? Correct are my presumptions, then you merely—”

“His existence is confirmed in this earth, Great Kreutz.” Pereyra bowed fully, folded half over in respect, perhaps sorrow as well. “In Dawns.”

“As you say.” Kreutz seemingly frowned. “Trouble?”

“Perhaps. That man’s embodiment concurs troubles for I, Pereyra, the other fools here, and you, Great Kreutz. At worst, for our Sirius Aethfell, once more.”

“Then an inconsequential life must be taken like the others have we claimed,” Kreutz ordered, simple as that; however, was it? Was it as simple as that, killing a man hardly be referred to as such? “Do you fear, Pereyra?”

“Fear?” questioned Pereyra, to himself. “Fear lies within this shell of mine? A possibility among possibilities. An earth amongst earths. I fear, therefore I am no superior to the creations we slaughter. Of he so small, of I small, paling. O’ Great Kreutz, refer to me the advice of the mighty, for which Kosmos was the threat to know, for which Kosmos was yet a grain of sand of threats amongst dunes.”

“Weak, he is, always shall be. Weak, yet monstrous in circumstances grim. Fear haunts, fear lowers. Fear not then, Pereyra, my servant, my friend. Speak vindictively and speak boldly, for he is, as you declare, a grain of sand so easily stepped upon.”

“Yes.” Pereyra went to his knees. “Yes, I listen to the Great Kreutz. Disturbance then no longer, come now, come and go to beckons bearing importance greater than I. So I plead, Great Kreutz, go now and engage in combat for the Lord of Many.”

“I listen to the Servant Pereyra, a good friend of I, Kreutz. To our Lord of Many, Sirius Aethfell, we who spite the Natural Order, so the Welkin we rest, and to the graves rest our foes. I come now to things impressing, so farewell, Pereyra. Gratitude to servants.”

“Gratitude to the Great Kreutz.”

Kreutz left to matters elsewhere.

“Yes,” said Pereyra to himself. “Destruction. Ruin. Concepts whose introductions make craters for you, o’ feared one. I, Pereyra, servant to Kreutz, servant to Sirius Aethfell, we spiteful few against the Natural Order, will seek your destined death and have you cease upon the many streams. If not I, then Tewfik after he conquers, o’ Cutter of He. If not us, then the Great Kreutz; if not he, then the Lord of Many.

“A promise, then.”