There is no moment more filled with tension than when the music stops. A silence that hangs in the still air desperate to be filled, a silence more visceral than the most disturbed of screams.

My life has yet again fallen into that indefinable space where an unsettling quiet hangs over every moment no matter how I try to ignore it. I wait for the next villain to come, the next tragedy to tear down my door, the next monsters ready to consume all that I hold dear and convert all I know into mana, raw power to be used for their next conquest. I will not be so weak as to be the prey, and so I must be the hunter.

Every time my mind strays to the weight of the silence I turn my focus again to my training, reinforcing myself for the fights to come. The few moments where I can let my guard fade entirely, I spend with my lovers, but even then it tickles the back of my neck like a suffocating whisper reminding me of what I might lose.

Yet, for all that this is the silence that preludes the violence to come, it isn’t entirely quiet.

At any one point in time, I can count thousands of ongoing conflicts, a shouting match in a bar, an accident in the streets, a war in a far off world, a case of domestic violence between parents as their children cower in their rooms. My own home isn’t free from these violent aspects of nature, but at least there is no killing, no violence that can’t be healed.

The same cannot be said of the republic where violence rules over the streets and the weak starve, taking from those even weaker to get by. It is an endless battle, and the rules only apply to those strong, and those influential enough to matter within society. Society, for them, is an endless struggle to rise to the top, and those who succeed are met with only more challenges from others that would seek their destruction. Still, for all of that, there is a chance for even the orphans living on the streets to rise to riches and power.

The monarchy is comparably free from most violence, and while that comes with sacrifices of its own, the communities there are not without culture and a certain homeliness of their own. The peasant class that I spy upon, rarely seem unsatisfied with their lot, and they never toil for so long that they do not find time to share with family and friends. They sing, dance, drink, and play games in their town halls before the night takes them away before rising again for the morning labours. Conflicts there are ended quickly and violence is rare.

Gale’s cavern, applying rules not unlike what we live in up here in the upper layers of the world, is largely without violence, but also without culture. The beasts, most of lesser intelligence, move as marionettes to work towards the ‘common good’. They’re building a small city by stacking stones and mimicking the actions that Gale tries to force upon them, or that is the plan. Some are more successful than others.

“You’re just stacking rocks!” Gale shouts, staring at the pile of stones that his puppets have stacked. “I said, build houses and walls! What is this?!”

He walks up to the nearest creature, a lizard that lazily blinks up at him in clear confusion. His fingers wrap around the lizard’s neck, strangling it as he lifts it to see the pile of rocks from up high.

“Does this look like a house to you?!” He shouts, kicking at the stack of stones that topple in on themselves. Something squawks from inside the invisible cavity, but Gale doesn’t care, stomping on the stones again. “Do it again, right this time!”

His tirade ends short only as he rushes back up to the surface, away from the mess that he’s making of his own small home. The creatures living there continue to move as if on strings, they walk on bleeding feet, work their tools through blisters and shed scales, some weaker creatures fall and die from the effort, the only escape they can hope for.

Gale is going to kill them all, not through intentional cruelty, but through the madness of good intentions. How the man has managed to break through the limits on his collar, I don’t yet know, but it’s clear that he’s just as broken as Sedena, if not more so.

“Can anyone explain to me the shape of the space near a black hole, and how that would influence space magic used in its vicinity?” Our impatient teacher asks, pulling me back to class. The teacher watches his pupils hesitantly as an olive-skinned young minotaur stands eagerly and offers an answer that sounds like it’s correct.

There’s still a measure of disconnect between the knowledge I’ve gained from my Skills and what I’ve learned for myself, and while I can be sure that everything the young man is saying is correct, it still all feels like gibberish to my fleshy human mind.

The class moves on with the teacher growing more and more frustrated the longer it goes on, quickly discovering that most of his class can answer any question he asks. He grows increasingly irate until finally sitting on the ground at the front of the class and looking through us suspiciously as if we’re all imposters that have come to class wearing the skins of his much stupider students.

“It’s a prank, it has to be a prank.” The elvish boy, who was once top of the class, shouts as he stares between us all. “What is this? Are you all in on this together? Did you rehearse these questions and answers? What’s happening?”

The boy’s eyes are wide and his face unhealthily pale, undeniably falling into a state of shock as he leans down over his scattered notes. He glares down at the table breathing heavy as tears drip down from his eyes.

Some sick joke…?

His thoughts are a mess of disbelief and confusion, all blended into a deep and unsettling terror that crawls up through his entire body. He’s broadcasting his emotions so wide and clear that I don’t need any special ability to read him

He smashes his fist into the table quieting the room.

“I studied hard.” He shouts. “I’m working harder than anyone else here, so why?! I… I’m not a farmer! My talent is wrong! So why?!”

Vii and I are alone in our neutral expressions facing the boy and his emotional outburst. The teacher is clearly shocked and frightened, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was already calling for help with his brain chip as he backs away to the door.

“It was you two!” The elf boy says, facing us with a vicious sneer, showing off his canines in an expression not unlike the rest of the ape family. Elves, humans, gorillas, and chimps, we’re all rather closely related if my other class is to be believed.

“What was us?” I ask him calmly as he gets closer, my attention still split with a few other perspectives here and there.

“This, you cheated somehow.” He says, leaning in close, “How?”

“If you want help studying, you just had to ask,” I say, leaning back and considering him. I’m not sure how much greater the risk gets by involving him in all of this, and while his attitude is far from exemplary, he has got talent. More importantly than that, I think he’s due for a collar and it would be good to have it removed and have him join our side.

He isn’t my responsibility, but I might just make him so.

I consider how best to smuggle him down to the dungeon and how we can humble him from there, or at least… that’s what I was thinking of until Gale appears again in the range of what senses I can focus on. He’s moving with a decidedly giddy step towards us, his expression that of a delirious man who’s convinced that the real world has become a nightmare.

“Oh, that’s not great…” I say, backing away from the elf. I wave towards the door. “Ah, there’s someone here for you.”

“Vii, stealth,” I warn her quickly.

Vii doesn’t question me, activating her stealth Skills and backing away from the door as the dangerous welfare officer marches in.

There’s no fight, no questions.

In one second, he’s through the door, and a collar has been planted on the upset elf. After that, there’s no chance of a struggle.

My tracking ability remains stuck in the arrogant little student as he’s marched out of the classroom, much to the satisfaction of the rest of our class. Part of it is clearly coming from their dislike for their fellow student but there’s more to it than that, they were genuinely concerned about his mildly violent outbreak.

Scared enough that they don’t see anything wrong with having him arrested by a welfare officer and marched off for ‘treatment’. They don’t know exactly what that treatment really is, but I’m almost certain that they would justify it if I told them the truth. That their classmate could be at their dinner table in a week’s time.

There’s a horrible pragmatic efficiency to it all.

“Ah, Kyra?” Vii asks, not sure what to do. The teacher is still broken down and muttering to himself and the class talking busily to themselves in excitement. It all feels so alien all of a sudden, and my nerves burn as I try to take it all in.

“I think we’re done for today,” I say, watching the collared boy closely as Gale marches him through the streets, away from any facility that I’m aware of. Something feels off about all of this.

It’s only as I’m walking down into the dungeons with Vii that I notice where Gale is leading our errant student.

“Ah, of course,” I grumble, sending a message to everyone important. “We have a problem. Gale has taken one of our classmates.”

“What does it matter?” Eshya asks, her soothing calm not enough to take away the panic that’s settling into my bones.

“Gale can’t have him. He’s going to bring the kid down into the caverns and we can’t let that happen.” I reply racing down the familiar tunnels, made largely secure after months of work on the locks along the path. The darkness around us still seems to be hiding ghosts and ghouls ready to strike us down the moment we let them see our unguarded backs.

“I still can’t see how that’s our problem,” Eshya replies.

“Gale is a welfare officer, and unreasonably dangerous because of the attention they can bring down on us,” Nel says. “Anything he could be doing is dangerous to us, but I don’t know what we should be doing about it. Stealing the student from him seems unnecessarily dangerous.”

“I don’t know if we should do anything, but something about this worries me,” I reply hesitantly, repressing the panic working its way up my gut. A few deep breaths help me to settle down.

This isn’t any of our business. It shouldn’t be at least.

But Gale worries me, and I know that something is coming for us and this situation just feels like it might be the start of something.

“Kyra,” Vii whispers, hanging close to my side. “Are you okay? Maybe we should slow down a little and breathe a little, you seem out of sorts today. Did you eat something bad? Is something wrong that you haven’t told us?”

“I…” I pause, collecting myself. “I’m probably overreacting.”

My trembling hands form fists, and it takes a little effort to loosen them.

“This is more than just my twisted conscience telling me to save that boy from his fate. This feels like something bigger than it is, like a small rock tumbling down a mountainside, doomed to set off a terrible avalanche. Something about this isn’t right, but I can’t see what it is yet.

“I… it could just be a panic attack. I could be overreacting.” I admit biting my lip.

“It could be, but we should figure out if there’s something we should be worried about then,” Vii says, nodding quickly to herself, completely confident in me. “If this is bothering you then we need to find out what’s happening and what we are going to do about it. What if the idea of confronting Gale is the thing that you’re worried about and we’re going to make it happen by rushing ahead?”

“I… I guess.” It’s difficult to keep myself from moving. I’ve been fighting every problem head-on far too much since I gained my magical powers. One moment then the next, I just keep on moving and fighting, it’s how I survive, but is it driving me towards destruction?

I’m not simply another damaged person fighting for survival anymore. I’m a leader, an Empress, and I need to deal with this problem with dignity that suits the role. I need to be capable of saving my people from their problems, and that means taking the time to understand my enemies before leaping headfirst into trouble.

Vii keeps my thoughts busy as we rush down towards our home, a world filled with desperate people who would suffer under the rules imposed by Gale and his kin. They are my responsibility, and I will protect them from our enemies.

Regaining my calm, I march home intercepted by Nel who is waiting for us, a little more worried than I’d like to see from her.

“Where’s Eshya?” I ask, seeing Adler waiting nervously by the teleporter. Through my extended senses, I seek out our errant elf and pause, my heart freezing into a desperate quiet.

“She walked out, saying she’d deal with this for you,” Nel says, shaking a little as she stares at the teleporter. “She seemed frustrated about something.”

Eshya, intruding in Gales cavern, stands before the welfare officer and his new pet, resting a hand on her sword as she glares at the pair.

“I accept your challenge,” Gale replies to Eshya, smiling wide as Arduelle flashes into existence by their side, carrying them off towards the arena set up for our fights.

“I’m going to kill her,” I whisper, glaring at her through a world’s worth of stone.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 39,023 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 19,399 / 30,271 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (40,000 mana shards)

-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)

-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)

-Repulsive Skin (80,000 mana shards)

-Prehensile hair (10,000 mana shards)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)