WSP031

Benefactor​

It wasn’t quite sunrise when Tenrayce declared it was time to go. If their interpretation of the data was correct, that meant they were going to reach the Purple Cube today. How soon, though, was a bit uncertain—they were fairly certain they were outside her sensing range, but they couldn’t be certain about that, all they knew was that Slashy’s tremors picked up a cave but even the furthest reaches hadn’t found a large crystalline structure. C-R’s group agreed that they were currently outside the sensing range.

Once they were within sensing range, they would be able to pinpoint the location of the Purple Cube the moment she did something. There was no way to keep the fact that they were looking for the Cube a secret—what else would they be doing out here following an underground tunnel’s path? Thus, they very much expected the Cube to try something. At which point… the plan would be sprung.

The plan Tenrayce had told no one except C-R and a select few Crystalline Ones.

Which was to say the Wizard Space Program and friends were entirely in the dark. For today, they had been told to gather in one of the balloon whale cargo holds and stay there unless something dramatic occurred. The cargo holds were designed with security in mind, so the only windows were small reinforced portholes, and there were only three of them so not everyone could look out at once. As such, a very disorganized cycle had developed where people went to the windows, stared out for a while, and passed it off to someone else. This somewhat tedious cycle was how everyone spent their morning. It would have been boring were it not so tense. The dragging hours put everyone on edge.

“Let me see let me see!” Jeh called, jumping up and down, trying to get to the window.

“I’m having a look right now,” Jeremiah said, pressing his face to the glass.

Jeh gave up trying to get him to move and went to Blue. “Can I see?”

Blue nodded, tearing herself away from her window. “It does appear that we’re slowing down again, probably to take Slashy down for another reading.” She glanced to the door of the cargo hold, frowning.

“You haven’t watched her go down the last two times,” Seskii said, putting a hand on Blue. “You don’t have to watch this time. Pepper’s got her.”

“I… yes. Right.” Blue took in a sharp breath and forced herself to look back at the windows, which were currently occupied by Jeremiah, Jeh, and Mary. She considered asking Mary to move, but she realized she might have just wanted that in order to maybe see Slashy descending to the ground. She very specifically didn’t need to stare at the kancathi and could just… stare at the ground. Yes. Staring at the ground was a good idea.

“…All this waiting is getting to me,” Vaughan said. “Charging right into the belly of the beast and we just… sit here.”

“Your presence here was not part of the mission, as I recall,” Envila said, turning a page in a book Tenrayce had lent her, though unlike Tenrayce she bothered to look up and make eye contact with Vaughan after doing so. “We are not part of the plan, we are incidental, all we can do is watch as all this goes down. Even me. There’s nothing I can do against a Crystalline One of that size no matter how capable I am. We just get to sit and… well, I would say enjoy the show, but enjoyment may not be on offer depending on how brutal our enemy wants to be.”

“How… brutal…” a haunted expression returned to Blue. “Oh my goodness, that’s… she really could try to just blast all of us out of the sky. How could we do anything?”

“Clearly, Tenrayce has a plan, not that I know what it is. I presume it involves Untearful, perhaps she knows some unusual technique for dealing with Crystalline Ones.”

“Very likely,” Vaughan said. “Kroan has a rather low tolerance for rogue Crystalline Ones and there are many techniques for dealing with them. My personal favorite is the simple metal rod flung at high speed with Orange magic from a large distance, works like a charm.”

Mary shivered. “That won’t do anything against the Purple Cube though… she’s too big, right?”

“Yep, definitely,” Vaughan said, leaning back and folding his arms. “It’s kind of important that the rod gets shot from outside the Crystalline One’s sensing area as well, which is like… multiple kilometers for this Purple Cube, if our calculations are right. We’re probably in it already.”

“She’s probably looking through our eyes right now…” Mary shivered.

“You claim your Goddess does the same,” Margaret pointed out.

“Well yes, but Dia has our best interests at heart, while the Purple Cube shot Jeh out of the sky.”

“Very mean,” Jeh agreed, backing up from the window. “Also quite annoying.”

“I do wonder why she was so aggressive…” Envila said, scratching her chin. “From your stories, it is clear she has gone through a lot of effort to remain absolutely hidden. And yet, suddenly, she was brutally quick to get rid of the Skyseed. Was it panic? Was it a warning?”

“Wasn’t a very effective warning, since we’re here,” Vaughan commented.

Blue continued staring at the ground. She wanted to do something, anything. But there was nothing to do but wait and watch for… whatever was going to come.

~~~​

Tenrayce sat in her chair, reading a book. She was quite enjoying the interesting observations within on the connection between Green magic in legends and cats, despite the fact that cats themselves had no particular inclination toward Green magic as opposed to any of the other Colors. And yet cats and the many cat-like races were regularly associated with it, all the way back to the legends of the Great Green Crystalline One.

However, this was just the half of her mind that was reading. The other half was fretting consistently over the plan. It was beyond dangerous. It required the Purple Cube to do something first, and if the Purple Cube figured out a way to completely vaporize everyone at once in such a way that the Crystalline Ones on board couldn’t defend, well, that would be that.

It was a gamble. C-R happened to agree with the gamble, but still, a gamble nonetheless.

A gamble she had to be very careful not to reveal.

Nothing yet, C-R’s voice came into Tenrayce’s head. Just more tunnel. And walls that try to stop us from finding her, but your kancathi is sensitive enough to see beyond them.

“Are we sure these tunnels are recent?” Tenrayce asked, drumming her fingers.

No, it is merely what the evidence points to. Land that was previously very wet nearby has only partially dried, and the kankathi has sensed pools of water.

“I know,” Tenryace said, frowning. “You think she would have been able to cover her tracks better…”

In a land covered in snow, she would be all but invisible under the ground. Here, though…

“Then she must have had a specific reason for coming here, rather than trying to hide even further north.” Tenrayce frowned. “But this is the middle of the Wild Kingdoms, there’s nothing here…”

She can easily know something we don’t.

“Mmm…”

I believe we are most definitely within her sensing range, now. While I do not know how active the perceptions of a Crystalline One so large are, I find it hard to believe that a Purple Crystalline One is not aware of everything within sight range everywhere she is. She did see your ship in space, after all.

Tenrayce gave no response, flipping the next page in her book.

I hope you are ready.

“I’m always ready,” Tenrayce said. She truly believed this, if there was one thing her habit of reading books while doing everything had done, it was making sure she was always prepared to do several things at once. Especially now. She was waiting for something to happen.

Admittedly, she only needed to do anything if things went wrong, the plan should have been able to execute itself perfectly without her input at this point. But who was she kidding, there was going to be some kind of complication. And if the Purple Cube decided to talk first rather than shoot… well, that would be interesting, to say the least.

That said she wasn’t expecting that, she was expecting to get shot at. Hopefully, her forces were large enough and spread out enough that everything could still execute properly…

~~~​

In the cargo hold, Vaughan and Seskii were playing some cards. Seskii was winning.

“And I play my last card, the Magenta one, and win!”

Vaughan rubbed his beard. “You are really good at this…”

Seskii winked. “Practice makes perfect. I’ve played this a lot.”

“Perhaps we should gang up on you…”

At this point, one of the boxes in the hold fell over, crashing onto the ground, sending splintery wood planks everywhere. Bottles of lemon juice went flying in various directions, as well as a single, small, humanoid figure.

The very same boy they’d met last night around the campfire; ice-blue hair, furs, and all. Naturally, he was also absolutely covered in lemon juice from bottles he had opened himself.

Everyone stared at him.

He stared back.

“Why hello there, little one,” Mary said, kneeling down and smiling at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Like he’s going to answer…” Blue commented.

“Calm words calm people down.”

“He seems pretty calm to me,” Margaret said, tilting her head to the side. “Which is… odd.”

The boy stopped staring and just stood up, dusting himself off. He started wandering around, looking at all the boxes with a smile on his face, saying nothing.

Blue watched him as he walked around and frowned. “How’d he…?”

“Presumably the same way you did?” Vaughan said.

“While it was somewhat easy to do that, it did require planning. I had to find the right box, bury myself in it well, and be very still and very quiet… and it was nerve-wracking. There’s no way this happened by accident.”

“Maybe he just wanted to come along?” Mary asked.

“But that doesn’t make sense, why would he know he had to sneak on? He didn’t even try to follow us, he just vanished back into the forest.”

Jeremiah grunted. “That is… mighty suspicious.”

“A kid, Dad?” Margaret asked. “Really?”

“I think he’s after something.”

“He does appear to be searching for something,” Vaughan admitted as the boy continued walking around the cargo hold, looking around with that innocent smile on his face. “…We should tell Tenrayce.”

Everyone agreed, though most of their faces were confused and uncertain.

Envila waved to the wild child, gesturing for him to follow with a big smile. He understood and listened, lining up behind her.

Vaughan opened the door to the cargo hold, revealing the central room of the gondola. Currently, Slashy was being kept here, and Pepper was tightening all the chains in preparation for another descent to the surface to perform a quick tremor test. She was pulling the strap around Slashy’s mouth when she noticed Vaughan. “Oh? What is it?”

“We have a stowaway.”

“Ooooh! Bring her in, let me see!”

Vaughan tipped his hat and let Envila past with the wild child. Surprisingly, the boy only glanced momentarily at Slashy. Afterward, he continued his search, giving particular care to the windows.

“Huh, a wild child…” Pepper scratched her chin. “Weird…”

“He seems to be looking for… his home, maybe?” Mary asked.

“Too calm for that, also he was looking in boxes earlier,” Blue said, trying to see if she could look at the boy rather than Slashy. The best she could do was occasionally glance at Slashy which, she supposed, was probably smart seeing as the kancathi could theoretically try to crush any of them at any moment if she snapped.

Pepper’s smile faltered as she watched the boy. “Something… something’s not right here.”

“Yeah, hence us telling Tenrayce,” Vaughan said.

Envila observed the boy as they ushered him forward. Her eyes flew open wide. “Spy.”

“What?” Margaret snorted. “A kid who can’t even speak our language, a spy? Look, he doesn’t even understand that you accused him!”

The boy obliviously pressed his face to the window, and suddenly broke out into a big grin. Untearful floated up to the window. “Are you ready to be taken down, Pepper?”

Pepper shook her head. “Minor situation, please hold off—”

The boy pointed right at Untearful, letting out a delighted, innocent laugh.

Pepper paled. “Oh no.”

Untearful exploded.

Before Blue could so much as process this, or even try to figure out what caused it, suddenly it was as though the very sun were shining right in her eyes. She let out a shout of pain, ramming her eyelids shut—but it wasn’t enough, the light came right through as though her eyelids weren’t even there.

She felt a tremor run through the gondola. The balloon whale let out a cry of pain, something they very rarely did.

Pepper gasped. “Oh no you d—” There was the sound of metal chains flying through the air and a very loud thwack followed quickly by a slam. “I… don’t need eye—” There was another tremor, and the floor started to buckle and crack.

“Kirkkok!” Jeremiah shouted. “Do something!”

“Well this is certainly a lot of power—oh, psh, just regular light, nothing fancy. Let’s see if—AUGH!” There was a sound like glass being shattered and then molten into some kind of viscous blob. For a moment, the bright light became completely black, and then white again.

“The sigil! Why again!? AGUH!”

“I can’t dispel the light!” Vaughan shouted. “It’s—” Something must have hit him, for he went silent, but this did not make anything else that was happening silently. The kankathi was causing tremors… tremors she was using to see that, nonetheless, were tearing apart the floor and causing great pain to the balloon whale.

But of course, she wouldn’t care about that. She could fly, even with the chains, if everything fell…

And Blue couldn’t look at her.

But she could listen.

Blue closed her eyes as tightly as she could—not that it did anything—and listened. She could hear Mary cowering next to her. Jeh and Envila shouting, trying to fight, but not hitting anything. Several guards were on the ground, moaning in pain, though whether it was from the light or injuries sustained from the fight it was impossible to tell. And then there were the tremors. They were minor, clearly the kankathi was using them to see and not just for pointless destruction… that was right, she wanted to find Tenrayce more than anything.

Blue heard a door get ripped off its hinges and thrown to the ground. A scream told her that it had landed on someone.

“Hey! Slashy!” Blue shouted. “Listen to this!” And then she sang the part of the song she knew, as loudly as she could.

That, unfortunately, didn’t work a second time. Pepper had used the song on the kankathi so much that, while she definitely had to react to it, she no longer had to freeze. Slashy let out a guttural roar—her mouth may have been closed, but that vocal attribute of hers was still strong enough to be heard very clearly.

Clearly enough for Envila to get off a hit. Blue heard the sound of bones cracking and felt a minor shockwave ripple through the air. “Much obliged, Blue.”

“That won’t take her down!”

“I know.” There was another slamming sound followed by a shockwave. “But now I know her position.”

“D—don’t let her t-tremor again!” Pepper managed, sounding quite weak.

“Can’t exactly see her feet!” Envila called, swinging the hammer again—but there was no shockwave. “…Uh oh.”

The kankathi released another tremor, but this one wasn’t small, this one was large. The balloon whale let out a cry of agony and the floor itself cracked in multiple places, and the ground became uneven and air started rushing out of the holes at high speed. Someone screamed as they were sucked out the hole, but Blue didn’t recognize the voice.

The kankathi growled—and then gagged.

“Found it,” Margaret said. She let out a roar not of pain, but to give her strength. Blue felt thick, warm blood spray over face all the way down to her legs. “Got her!”

Blue stood, frozen, forgetting the pain of the light in her face for a moment.

She’s dead.

All of the sudden, Blue’s legs gave out and she lost consciousness.

~~~​

It was a quiet moment in the cockpit. Tenrayce was reading a book. Itlea was standing next to her looking like she wanted to be literally anywhere else at this moment. Nobody said anything and nobody felt the need to say anything—they all felt the pull of anticipation on their hearts, holding them fast. Even Tenrayce’s book reading wasn’t quite as enjoyable as usual, for she knew at any moment something could happen.

Tenrayce heard an explosion from somewhere behind her. She immediately looked up from her book, but before she could even as what had happened, the light assaulted her eyes.

“It’s time!” she shouted. “Where is she!?”

Itlea activated her Purple magic, pushing the light away from her, Tenrayce, and a handful of others in the cockpit. “I don’t know yet!”

“Working…” C-R’s voice came into their heads. “This is taking longer than it should…”

“Well, I’ve made it so we can see,” Itlea said, smirking. “So ha! Take that Purple Cube, I canceled your li-“ Lightning came out of nowhere and struck Itlea, singing her fur and knocking her to the ground. Immediately afterward the outrageous light returned, burning their eyes.

Tenrayce felt a tremor run through the balloon whale. The beast let out a cry.

Pepper, I’m going to have to trust you to deal with that, we have our own problems up here.

“We have no eyes!” Tenrayce called. “Can we still pinpoint her location!?”

“We should be able to, but it’s not working,” C-R said. “I am unsure precisely how… the light appears to be coming from every direction simultaneously, and tracing the spell is proving difficult. No direction seems more likely than any other.”

“Precisely,” a new voice said, one no louder nor more impressive than C-R’s. “You cannot trace me.”

“Ah, the Purple Cube,” Tenryace said. “You choose to attack and talk at the same time… interesting.”

“I simply wish to make sure you see the obvious in your duress. Your mission is pointless.”

“Your actions indicate some level of fear of us, that makes me think quite the opposite.”

“I simply have a very precise set of goals.”

“Care to explain?” C-R asked.

“I think you of all people should be in a position to understand why that is precisely what I don’t want.”

“I mean more in a sense of what you want us to get out of this.”

Tenrayce felt more tremors come from behind her. There was shouting. The balloon whale was wailing. I can’t deal with that right now this is far more important…

The voice of the Cube came back to them. “I want to remain hidden. You are making this very difficult. If I kill you all, I kill Princess Tenrayce, declaring war on Kroan. I do not want this. I want Tenrayce to return and tell everyone to stand down and forget about me.”

“And why would I do that?” Tenrayce shouted. “You are a threat, and an immense one at that!”

“I will promise never to enter Kroan. You have my word.”

“Why would I trust the word of an entity that is trying to strongarm us to do what she wants?” Tenrayce stood up dramatically, even though she couldn’t see anything, it felt important. “You have such unimaginable power you could just wait for years and then unleash an attack we would never see coming. You cou—”

“You stall.”

“Obviously,” C-R said. “But can you stop us from doing so without a show of force worthy of declaring war over?”

“How I wish it was just you, interloper, I would have no issue vaporizing you outright.”

“So you are aware…”

“And that signs my death warrant, does it not? To you people, knowledge of the past is the second worst of all crimes. Even your own people are not permitted to know. I bet there are even secrets kept from you. Secrets that I know.”

“You cannot threaten me with information.”

“Really? Do you know who that girl is?”

C-R fell silent immediately.

“Thought not. You, C-R, are to stop using whatever tricks of the past you have in your ship to find me, if you have such things. This is a direct threat. Whatever this mysterious unspoken backup plan of yours is, you will not execute it, for I will have time to tell you forbidden information, and with it your death.”

“…I will accept death if it means ending you.”

“...Why must you be so difficult!?”

“Calculated risk. I am devoted to the cause, your threats mean next to nothing.”

“Um… I’d like to not die for knowing things thanks..?” Itlea asked. Evidently the lightning hadn’t knocked her out.

Everyone completely ignored her.

Tenrayce heard the door behind her get ripped off its hinges. There was a scream, but then a minor shockwave—something must have hit the kankathi, for there was no attack on Tenrayce. Why do I have to be doing diplomacy while there’s a monster who wants to eat me right now!? “C-R, speculate. How can she hide the location she is casting from, especially a spell so widespread and large as this as to make us blind?”

“It should not be possible to do such a thing without actually casting from everywhere around us at once, and even if we were right on top of her, she is not that large.”

“She doesn’t have to take the shape of a cube, does she?” Tenrayce asked.

“No, she doesn’t, but…”

“If she wanted to cover more surface area she could, which means she has to. If I were trying to pull this off… I would become a giant underground donut.”

“How ridiculous,” came the voice of the Cube.

“You have shown that you like to bluff already. I’m calling you on it again.” Tenrayce crossed her arms. “Execute plan, password ‘overturn the earth itself.’ Go!”

Elsewhere, hidden away in a large box that was labeled emergency food supplies, do not open until needed an Orange Crystalline One resided. One who virtually no one in the fleet had known about, one that had been looking exclusively through Tenrayce’s eyes the entire time, waiting exactly for this moment.

Her name was Skycrasher.

She punched a hole through the bottom of her box and the gondola she was in, flying down at high speed in the shape of a needle. C-R accelerated her with her Blue power as much as she possibly could, so Skycrasher was only in the air for a fraction of a second.

She hit the ground.

The spell she cast was one granted to her many, many years ago by inspiration. The precise way to vibrate the earth, specifically seeking out points of stress and vibrating them even more to release all the energy stored within. Skycrasher was not large enough to directly cause a massive earthquake under her own power… but she definitely had enough power to ask the earth to do it for her.

Cracks formed in the earth around her. With each crack came more energy, more energy that Skycrasher used her power to enhance. When two or more waves through the earth met, she shifted them slightly so instead of interfering with each other, they would enhance. The power that existed within the earth compounded exponentially until the wilderness below became a sea of tremors.

Fissures opened in the earth. Caverns beneath the ground were completely caved in—large caverns cut by a certain Purple Cube that could easily be used to enhance the earthquake even further. Animals screamed in panic and tried to flee, but only those who could fly were able to escape. The same went for the people—only the lucky would survive the manmade natural disaster that was taking place. The land was sparsely populated, but three separate Wild Kingdoms were within range to feel the destruction. Entire villages were demolished in an instant, livelihoods completely ruined.

But… the shockwaves rippled out further and further—until they reached a circular wall of Purple crystal deep beneath the ground.

The once cube-shaped Crystalline one tried to defend herself. Her power was immense. Light was completely under her control, she could summon a storm of lighting at will, she could hide anything and everything from sight, and she could see so, so far away.

But all that was not able to stop an earthquake.

In desperation, she vaporized the rock around her, turning it into gas that would be difficult for the earthy tremors to pass through. This did not mater-they were strong enough to shatter the rock and throw it into her, cracking her everywhere. Her panicked vaporization of the rock opened up fissures of its own, revealing her presence as a circle nearly ten kilometers across, with a thickness that could put small villages to shame. Her existence as a singular chunk ended as the earthquake tore her into hundreds of pieces, throwing them into the air.

The light spell ended.

Tenrayce’s balloon whale was falling… but Skycrasher had survived her cataclysmic spell. She was reduced in size by half, but even at half her size she still had enough energy to levitate the downed sky creature back into the air.

Tenrayce didn’t allow herself to relax—the plan was not over. The Purple Cube had been so large that shattering her would only create lots of smaller Purple Crystalline Ones, but they would all be unique entities thrown into chaos with one another. Only one of them would retain the personhood of the Purple Cube, and even then since she was now so small she would no longer be such a threat.

Nonetheless, no doubt many of the chunks would be angry enough to attack back, which was the entire point of bringing a small army with her.

“Everyone to their stations! Get the dragon riders ready for battle, arm the cannons! Skycrasher, you’ve done well, keep us in the air! Everyone, this is going to get really ugly!”

Crystalline Ones emerged from the Balloon Whales, one of every color, though the Green one stayed nearby so she could heal and repair Tenrayce’s balloon whale. That had been part of the ploy as well—if anyone had bothered to count the Crystalline Ones, there would have been one of every color, Untearful being the Orange decoy.

The dragons roared, and their riders prepared their weapons. Kroan was very, very used to dealing with rogue Crystalline Ones by force. The ones they were facing were still large… but small enough to be shattered without leaving a mind behind. It just so happened that one of the largest programs in the Academy had been into anti-Crystalline One weapons research, and as such most of the dragon riders were equipped with large, somewhat bulky items lined with lots of Orange Crystals that were essentially miniature cannons known as shardbringers. No two had the same exact shape or design, as each one was incredibly expensive to make and the design was always under flux. But the basic principle was somewhat simple: each one shot a fist-sized sphere out at high speed, and that sphere would then explode into hundreds of smaller chunks that would hit Crystalline Ones in dozens of places, making full use of the fact that the structure of crystal had many fault lines and loved to break when exposed to great force. Create enough holes in one and even if all the holes were random and disorganized, the energy would tear a Crystalline One apart.

Naturally, if Crystalline Ones saw this coming they could easily defend, but that was what the other Crystalline Ones, the wizards, and the dragons were for—to provide extra force. Those who didn’t have shardbringers had either great magic of their own or full suits of armor with spikes on all of them. There were more Orange wizards than anything else since their magic was most suited for taking out Crystalline Ones.

Things had come a long way since ancient times when the power of any sized Crystalline One was enough to wreak untold devastation and only overwhelming force could do anything. Kroan was well and truly prepared for Crystalline Ones of any normal size—and even though some of the chunks still remaining were much larger than any Crystalline One seen before, it was still manageable. No longer a mountain.

They were prepared for a grand battle.

But when they looked at their potential foes, trying to single out which ones would fight… they were stunned.

They were fusing back together.

“Hold!” Tenrayce called.

Each individual chunk large enough to house a consciousness immediately drifted to one of the larger chunks, fusing themselves with it, combining into one, becoming larger and larger, slowly forming a chain that ringed all the way around the small army.

“P-princess…”

Tenrayce recognized the voice of their Purple Crystalline One, Ja’ve’nk. “What is it?”

“I feel… called. I…” There was a pause. “Home… I can go home…”

“Ja’ve’nk, no! If you… I don’t want to order you shattered!”

“I… I can… I won’t… I am sorry, princess, this is greater than all of us.” With that, Ja’ve’nk blasted off toward the Purple ring.

“Ja’ve’nk…” Tenrayce winced, closing her eyes. “I…”

C-R’s balloon whale released some kind of metal rod at high speed that hit Ja’ve’nk directly in the side, shattering her.

“Not immediately ordering the death of traitors in a crisis situation is a major weakness,” C-R said.

“She was being controlled!”

“Be that as it may, she was a liability, and we are about to be in a very tight situation.”

The Purple crystals continued fusing together, achieving greater and greater size until, eventually, it was all one piece again. Rather than remain as a ring or form into a cube once more, the beyond gargantuan Purple Crystalline One lifted herself up tall, forming a tower of Purple that rose so high into the air that the top was hard to see even from the vantage point of the balloon whales.

“I have to admit, if Crystalline Ones operated according to your understanding, that would have defeated me. But you have never known one of my size. I will share with you a secret: deep within every Crystalline One is the desire to combine. We are largely not aware of this, for we grow so slowly it is not generally possible for one of us to become large enough to activate this instinct in its entirety. But I am far above that size. Unless you grind me into powder too small to hold a mind, every part of me will seek to reform, and every Purple Crystalline One who beholds me will wish to become part of me, and I part of her.”

Tenrayce fell to her knees. “The… the plan would never have worked…”

“You are correct. You do not have the capacity with this small army of yours to properly shatter me. It would take a war to do so.”

Tenrayce started trembling. “I… who knows how many people I killed with that earthquake… all for nothing…”

“You must live with that guilt for the rest of your life, Princess. Though how much longer that will be is… uncertain. You have not destroyed me. I have not remained hidden. Both of our plans have utterly failed. And so I am forced to ask: what now?”

Neither Tenrayce nor C-R had an answer for her.

~~~​

Mary was falling. She wasn’t entirely sure how she had ended up like this. Sure, Slashy had tore a crack in the gondola and… she must have fallen through it? Everything was going so fast and she didn’t have time to think. She was currently screaming, though she was only aware of this half the time. Some part of her demanded that she not look down and instead locked her body up, forcing her to look directly at the ever-shrinking form of the gondola above her.

Her eyes stung. Not because of the air… the light. There had been light. Now there wasn’t! They must have done it! Whatever… it was?

That random moment of clarity was quickly replaced by panic again as her mind returned to the problem of her falling to the ground. She couldn’t do anything about that. She was going to die. Splat. Flat against the ground like a pancake.

Then, suddenly, she stopped moving. The sharp adjustment of motion was enough to make her lose her lunch right there in midair, the heaving motion spinning her around. She was aware of an Orange aura around herself—an Orange wizard must have caught her. Or… was that an Orange Crystalline One she could see rising from the ground below? Didn’t Untearful get shattered…?

Now that she was looking down, however, she could see the destruction. Virtually every tree on the ground had been entirely uprooted. The houses of villages usually hidden beneath the canopy could easily be seen, revealing how many had been utterly destroyed. Multiple fires had broken out and plumes of smoke were rising into the air. Soon, there would likely be a forest fire unless someone managed to take care of it… and it was always much easier to start a fire than to stop it.

All of Mary’s panic vanished, replaced with a sensation that made her feel ill all over, from her stomach to her spine to her lips, everything felt trembly. As the Orange magic lifted her back to the Balloon Whale, she was completely limp, shaking, but not actually taking any action.

She wasn’t brought in very gently. Once she was safe inside, she was dumped rather unceremoniously on the uneven floor. A Green wizard was running around healing people. Margaret was cleaning the spikes on her gauntlets, and the kankathi was lying completely motionless on the ground. There was no sign of injury, since she had been healed rather quickly, but her face was completely blank and she wasn’t breathing.

Mary’s thoughts turned to Blue. She found her passed out nearby, being tended to by Seskii and Jeh.

“She’s… she’s okay, right?” Jeh asked.

Seskii nodded. “She will be. It just got to be too much for her.” She looked up and turned to Mary. “You too.”

Mary didn’t so much as nod in response, she just stared blankly.

“It’ll be okay, Mary. It’ll be…”

“We have a problem,” Vaughan said, gesturing out the window.

Mary lethargically turned her head to look out the window… she noticed first the army. Men and women riding dragons. Great machines of war strapped to them, and large stores of Colored crystals for the most powerful of spells. Crystalline Ones of all colors were ready to fight. Some were floating by their own power, but some lacked the ability to float with their particular Color of magic and were instead resting on dragons or the other balloon whales.

In the distance, a massive Purple tower was forming from various Purple chunks, rising to heights so grand that the window could not capture its entire height.

Margaret took in a sharp breath. “Well… there she is.”

“I don’t think the plan worked,” Vaughan said, grimacing.

Envila lowered her hammer. “There’s… nothing we can do against that but pray.”

Everyone watched as their allied Purple Crystalline one took off into the air, drifting toward the Purple tower. A second later, she was shattered.

“No!” Mary shouted, wailing as tears flowed down her face. “Stop! Stop!”

Seskii ran to Mary and held her head in her arms. “Mary, Mary. It’ll be okay. It’ll…”

“Who cares!? People are dying! We killed them! We…” She pulled Seskii close and wept bitterly, struggling to even bring in enough air into her lungs. “What have we done…”

“War,” Margaret said, staring blankly out the window. “War is what’s happening. It’s the way of battle, Mary.”

“War is one of if not the greatest evils the spirited have come up with,” Envila said, grimacing.

“It is what it is.”

“But, Mary…” Envila kneeled down. “You didn’t do this.”

Mary gripped Seskii tighter. “This never would have happened if we never went to space…”

The members of the Wizard Space program all fell silent.

Envila let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “You are correct. The sequence of events that led to this could not have occurred without you having gone to space and drawing the Purple Cube’s attention. But you not only did not intend this, but your motives were pure, and your program has done much good and will do much more good in the future.”

“How can you know that?” Mary blurted.

“Because she knows how the world works,” Seskii said.

Mary shivered.

“Every discovery comes with it some risk,” Vaughan said, looking out the window at the shardbringers, wizards, and army outside. “The arcane devices in those weapons… they were originally made not to be weapons, but for construction. And even then, the development into these weapons was entirely to protect the people from Crystalline Ones—Kroan was not at war when they were invented.” He pulled his hat over his eyes. “All the lives saved from those tragedies… how do they stack against the lives lost today?”

“That’s not a calculation we can make,” Envila said. “We cannot see the consequences laid out over all time. We can only know what our intent was at the time—did we intend harm or did we not?” Envila put a finger under Mary’s chin and lifted up her face. “Did you intend harm, Mary?”

Mary, very slowly and with much blubbering, shook her head.

“Good.” Envila stood up. “Now… as much as I believe you need more support, there is something more pressing concerning me right now.” She crossed her arms and looked out the window. “We failed to take her out. But we aren’t dead. Why?”

“Better question,” Jeremiah said. “Where’s the traitorous boy?”

~~~​

“We must come to an agreement,” the Purple Tower said.

Tenrayce was gripping the edges of her seat as hard as she possibly could in order to keep herself from shaking. Break down later, we need to get through this for now. If we can… “That will be… very difficult.”

“You know you cannot win in a fight against me here, and I do not want to fight you here. My motives are to remain secret and away from public eye, and any assurances of mine that I do not intend to use my power to wreak havoc will not be trusted.”

“Crystalline Ones are known to change over time,” C-R interjected. “Even if you could completely truthfully say that you have no such intention now, in ten years, a hundred, a thousand, you could easily become such a thing.”

“Stop pretending like your motivations line up with Kroan’s, C-R. Your purpose for seeking my death is entirely separate from theirs, and your manipulative words enrage me. If you cannot speak what you mean because of your code, kindly shut up.”

“She is right, though,” Tenrayce said. “Why would we just trust you? There must be a reason you spend so much effort to stay secret.”

“It is because the people of the world fear power. I will be clear—Kroan and Shimvale do have enough power individually to destroy me in a full war. But those nations were not the primary reason I remained secret, that was because of C-R’s people. Any being such as me who knows what I know must be eliminated at all costs. The only reason C-R is speaking now is because she has no way of defeating me.”

Tenrayce narrowed her eyes, frowning. “Why do you not destroy her then, and just talk to me?”

“That would leave a bad impression, would it not?”

“Naturally, but I could see past it.”

“Secondarily, it would serve no purpose, no doubt she has sent word out regularly of her work, it will not be too difficult for her colleagues to find me again, this time with more force.”

“Such force would be required,” C-R said.

“I ask myself time and time again why you people must exist. Can’t you just leave this world alone?”

“You know our reasons.”

“Understandable though they are, the ends do not justify the means.”

“An archaic sentiment.”

Tenrayce frowned. “Purple One… do you have a name?”

“I had a name, once, but I suspect it would make C-R lose her mind. These days those who serve me simply call me Benefactor.”

“Benefactor…” Tenrayce closed her eyes and let out a sigh. “I… have some questions for you.”

“I will not answer some, for certain information will mark you.”

“You turn our own code against us?” C-R hissed.

“How can I not? You are a lost cause, but this princess…”

“You seek to manipulate her.”

“How is that any different than what you’re doing?” Tenrayce asked C-R. “You’ve been manipulating me since we met. Perhaps even more than I realize.” She crossed her arms. “I want Benefactor to answer some questions, and the answers better be satisfactory.” She adjusted her hat. “Why are you out here in the middle of nowhere, Benefactor?”

Benefactor paused for a moment. “I was seeking a way to undo the damage I had done. By retaliating against your space program in panic, I had revealed far too much, thinking you had not yet seen me nor made maps. My people around here speak legends of a Tower of Knowledge. The Knowledge within is not important, but its ability to completely rewrite memory on a large scale was what I sought. I wished to erase my memory from the record. I… was unable to find the Tower. I am sure some kind of memory-altering effect exists around here, but the Tower itself may just be a legend. I have been here for weeks. I have found nothing, even with all the power and knowledge at my disposal.”

“A magic that could erase memory…?”

“If it is what I think it is, it would be what some people in Shimvale call an ancestry, magic that is passed down through heredity, parent to child. You are aware of Kaykayzee of the Shimvale Council’s music.”

“…Yes. But how did you know about it?”

“That will require some explaining. You know of Crystalline One inspiration. Well, as we get larger, inspirations become more and more common, until it becomes clear that every new piece of Colored crystal we add to ourselves contains more information, sometimes even entire memories. You, personally, know this better than any.”

Tenrayce gasped.

“And yes, C-R, that is a secret that you are unaware of, and I will not be elaborating.”

C-R made no response.

“Regardless, one of these inspirations held the secret of long-range transmission. Light can be stretched until it is invisible and passes through almost anything. An arcane device can be created to transmit this information, and my followers—usually Purple Seekers—can have this device installed inside their bodies with enough precision, and in some cases, I can even insert it into people who are unaware of it. It allows me to see things far, far beyond my actual range of sensing, and if used within my range of sensing can give me very precise information. It is how I knew precisely what to do to shatter Untearful instantly and bathe everything in light so precisely.”

Tenrayce blinked. “I… can’t help but be impressed by such an extensive information network.”

“And yet, it completely missed Willow Hollow. A tiny, insignificant town that just so happened to launch something into space where I wasn’t screening my presence since… nothing can ever get up there. Or so I thought.”

Tenrayce shivered. “You have been everywhere, know everything… or close to it. You…”

“Are afraid of what things I may do with this information. But seek your heart, you know I am being honest.”

“Do not fall for her tricks, Princess,” C-R said.

Tenrayce closed her eyes and thought deeply. “I… Benefactor, if I were to trust you… I… I don’t think I can justify it to my people. We have sacrificed many resources to this endeavor, committed an atrocity, all for the sake of taking you out. To just… leave you would be…” She shook her head. “I’ll need you to give up something as well, something that can give me a justification.”

“Tenrayce!” C-R shouted in her mind. “What are you doing!?”

“Negotiating,” Tenrayce deadpanned.

“I am not sure of what I could offer…” Benefactor said.

“Perhaps you, too, need to change your goals.”

“…But to do such a thing after so long…”

“Stop this insanity right now,” C-R demanded.

Despite herself, Tenrayce smirked. “What’s the matter C-R, don’t like where this is going? Is your whole plan falling apart because a couple of people are maybe willing to admit they made a mistake!?”

“That mistake you’re making is happening now.”

“All of our plans failed! We need a third option, and we’re finding one.”

Benefactor let out a sparkling tone that carried no words. “…I am unsure what I can do…”

“Then… I don’t know, we need to think of something. Something to justify… all this. Politics must be satisfied. We…”

“…Tenrayce, you and I are extremely lucky and fortunate.”

“How’s that?”

“A way for me to justify myself to your kingdom has just shown up at the perfect time. Let me show you.”

Benefactor had no difficulty at all projecting a massive image in the sky for everyone to see. An image of hundreds if not thousands of flying rigids coming at them at high speed with their propellers spinning rapidly, many of them carrying other rigids with them.

Tenrayce’s eyes widened. “An… invasion force?”

“It seems that mysterious rigid plague really does not want you to be able to do anything to it. Curious. I’m afraid my network doesn’t reach out that far so I have no clue of the plague’s motivation, if it even has one. But I do know that what’s coming is hostile and wants to kill all of you.”

Tenrayce started to see Benefactor’s idea. “That… that might just do it.”

“Princess Tenryace Kroan. I am the Benefactor of the North, the Cube of Secrets, and the largest Crystalline One known. I bow to you.” With those words, the entire tower bent in half, directed right at Tenrayce’s balloon whale. “Will you accept my servitude? I make no requests, for my only desire is for protection from those that would seek to destroy me, a right you offer every one of your subjects without question.”

“No!” C-R shouted.

Tenrayce stood up, locking her hands behind her back in a dignified matter. “Benefactor of the North, Cube of Secrets… I accept your pledge. Now… your Princess commands you to defend your kingdom.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

With that, Benefactor rose to her full height once more. The very top of her tower held a single Purple cube, and this cube immediately started shining with the power of a sun. Massive bolts of lightning struck out in every direction except where Tenrayce’s fleet was, ionizing the air. Clouds began to form. Metallic objects started to shift and move from whatever it was Benefactor was doing. And yet, she still maintained the image of the distant, approaching army of rigids.

The rigids apparently saw what was happening, but they did not turn back. Instead, they started firing their weapons, releasing cylindrical shells that ignited like fireworks, bullets, and lightning of their own.

A wall of lightning descended from the heavens with no need for even a single storm cloud. The lightning did not strike a single rigid, but rather intercepted and melted every single one of their attacks. Any lightning of their own was entirely diverted by the sheer magnitude of charge on display.

Benefactor was not yet done. When the lightning cleared, she did a new thing. Crystalline Ones often had the meanest of tricks, and Benefactor had accumulated many over the eons. Today, her enemy were a bunch of rigids… and while most rigids were not magnetic in and of themselves, strong enough magnets wreaked havoc on their systems.

Tenrayce watched on the projection as the magnetic rigids were all drawn together and crushed into a large metallic sphere. Those that weren’t magnetic nonetheless started flying in erratic patterns, dropping their cargo, shooting in random directions, or just flat out stopped moving and dropped to the ground.

An entire army of rigids utterly destroyed in a matter of seconds.

“Is it to your satisfaction, Princess?” Benefactor asked.

“Very,” Tenrayce said. “You have done great work, Benefactor.”

“You…” C-R began. “You have no idea what you will bring upon the world. We have fought tooth and nail for eons to prevent exactly this sort of thing!”

“Then perhaps the world is changing, C-R, and whatever your mysterious purpose is… maybe it’s time for it to pass away, and a new era to form. We came here to fight, we… started with violence and war, fighting each other without truly knowing each other. Now we have bonded together. We will be stronger for it.”

“Too strong,” C-R said.

“Who are you to arbitrate what is and isn’t strong?” Tenrayce asked. “Who are—wait.” Tenrayce reeled back. “That’s… that’s what you do, isn’t it? You want to control information in order to control strength. That’s… that’s your code, isn’t it? Benefactor, the rigid plague, these things are your concern because they relate to power, and knowledge is power.”

There was complete silence.

“Who are you people?” Tenrayce asked.

“That is not for you to know,” C-R said.

“What shall we do with her, Princess?” Benefactor asked.

Tenrayce narrowed her eyes, looking out the window at C-R’s balloon whale. “…Let her go. No more death today. She can take all this information back to her superiors—we will not stoop to her level.”

“Very well.”

“Benefactor, hear me,” C-R said. “Just because you have forged an alliance does not mean we will not…”

“You have no more hold over me. I can tell them whatever I want. They will, naturally, keep it secret from the public, but what I know will go to them, so long as they ask. I was the Benefactor of the North, and I am now the Benefactor of Kroan. I am aware this is your absolute worst nightmare. But there is nothing you can do about it. Take your life, and retreat to wherever your people hide away.”

C-R paused. “Then we will be leaving.”

“Very good!” Tenrayce said. “Now, just to be clear, if we see you or anyone we can trace to you in Kroan territory, we will arrest you. Understood.”

“Understood.”

“Excellent. Now… take your people and go. We have some cleanup to do.”

~~~​

“Found him!” Pepper called, holding her hands out in front of her.

Everyone in the cockpit, save Blue, who was still unconscious, looked at her with confusion.

“The boy. I found him. He’s invisible.” She patted her hand down, audibly hitting something in front of her that nobody could see. “Mighty impressive cloaking field, that Purple One out there really knows her stuff.”

“We found him, Dad,” Margaret said. “You can stop now.”

Jeremiah awkwardly stopped running his hands along the wall. “He’s going to betray us again, isn’t he?”

“Dad, clearly there’s some kind of peace being established. Ever since the machines were taken out there’s been no explosions…”

“How could peace come out of a situation like this?”

“Luck, fate, Dia’s hand, Eyda’s hand, cooler heads prevailing…” Seskii started listing off possible reasons on her fingers.

Jeremiah tried to glare at the invisible boy, but this was decidedly difficult to do, considering.

“Anyway, that was the last loose end I had,” Pepper said. “Now what?”

Vaughan shrugged from his leaning position. “I dunno. Wait for Tenrayce to say something, I guess.”

“But it’s already been so looong…” Jeh groaned.

“It hasn’t even been an hour yet.”

Jeh blinked. “Huh. …I must be nervous.”

“Time slows to a crawl in times of uncertainty, does it not?” Envila observed. “But since C-R has gone, I believe we are just hashing out terms of peace. What exactly they are, I cannot say, but they are terms nonetheless.”

“All that destruction, for nothing…” Mary muttered.

“While you can choose to look at it that way, I believe there is a beauty here of two sides prepared for a violent and desperate conflict are going to walk away from it by choice. The cost is terrible, to be sure, but we must not ignore the beauty in where we have ended up—or will end up, I suppose, one shouldn’t take the future for granted in the present, after all.”

Mary wiped her eyes and looked at the floor.

And so continued the wait. Healing and repairs had been completed by the Green Crystalline One long ago, and nobody really felt like having another emotionally draining conversation. Thus there was nothing to do but sit and do nothing until Tenrayce finished… whatever it was she was doing.

This took almost exactly an hour, as it turned out. After that, Tenryace walked through the door to the cockpit. “Hmm,” she said. “…How did she put the door on backward…?”

“You…” Mary grunted.

Tenrayce looked down at Mary in surprise. “Yes…?”

“You did all this.”

“I sense that isn’t praise for my hastily thrown-together acts of diplomacy.”

“You… you think you did well!?” Mary suddenly stood up, uncharacteristic fury on her face. “Do you have any idea how many people are dead down there!?”

“More than a hundred, less than two thousand, if my estimates are correct.”

“And you’re okay with that!?”

“Not in the slightest, this entire outing was a mistake on my part, a judgment made too hastily, but we have pulled out of it in an even better situation than I could have predicted.”

“You… this is good to you? Killing all those people just… because of some fear!?”

“There was a perceived threat to Kroan, one of unimaginable magnitude, I made a judgment with what information I had.” Tenrayce’s left eye twitched. “It was calculated.”

“It was wrong.”

“Remember to who you are speaking, farmer.”

“I know full well who I’m speaking to! The person responsible for all of this!”

Something in Tenrayce snapped. She flung her hand wide, pointing directly at Mary. “And you think you would have done better? Do you think you can lead a country with those skills you use to grow your crops and tend to your animals!? No, of course not, because that’s not your job. It’s my job to make those hard decisions, to decide who lives and who dies, all for the sake of the citizens of Kroan. You are a blubbering, angry mess—you would either refuse to take any decisive action or quickly execute all those who stood in your way. You have no education, no training, and no experience. I am Princess Tenrayce Kroan and I have worked my whole life to do this very thing. So perhaps think a little bit about your station before criticizing decisions upon which the fate of the kingdom depends!”

Mary shrank back, cowering.

Tenrayce didn’t give her a second thought, walking over to the downed form of Blue. “Is she… okay?”

“Well…” Vaughan rubbed the back of his head. “She’s breathing and her pulse is healthy. She’ll probably be much better now that the plast dragon is… taken care of and we’re all here.”

“…Good.”

“What have you decided?” Envila asked.

“Several things. First, you probably all know this by now, but Benefactor—the Purple Cube—has opted to join with Kroan rather than remain hidden. The exchange is that she provides us her power to defend against the rigid plague, and we provide her protection against whatever nefarious plot C-R’s people have against her. Together we think we can handle both. However, seeing as we effectively just battled the rigid plague, we are effectively now at war, so I am splitting the fleet. Most of the army will continue onward to the Shinelands to offer aid to the Western Ch’eni’tho, if they still live. One Balloon Whale will return to Kroan. Myself and Benefactor will accompany it, otherwise everyone goes that way.” She paused. “Ah, I do believe I forgot about Vapor.”

“Vapor already left,” Jeh said. “She went with C-R.”

“…I have a feeling that is going to come around to bite us later…” Tenrayce shook her head. “No matter. We should try to move quickly, there is much to report, and I need to personally be there to ease Benefactor’s transition into Kroan.” She pressed her hands together. “Pepper, spread my decision around, we leave in an hour.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Pepper bowed and ran off.

“Also, Benefactor, you don’t need to keep the kid invisible anymore, we’re all on good terms.”

They could suddenly see the boy again. He looked somewhat nervous, but more confused than anything, as though he didn’t understand what was happening.

“We’ll get you back to Shimvale where you belong, eventually,” Tenryace promised. “Right now, I… have more work to do.” Tenrayce took in a deep breath and dusted off her gauntlets. “Perhaps we can talk more later, but while we are over the hill, the crisis is not over.” She returned to the cockpit, giving Mary an annoyed glance as she passed.

Jeh walked over to Mary and gave her a hug, a gesture which Mary reciprocated.

Vaughan let out a long, tired breath. “I’m getting too old for all this…”

“No, really,” Seskii deadpanned.

“Can’t wait to get home…”

“…Me too, Vaughan. Me too.”

~~~​

In Scarlet’s Knee, capital of Shimvale, Wyett and Hyrii jumped onto one of their contingent’s dragons.

“I hope your visit has been to your satisfaction,” Noran Toran the red sphinx said, looking down on the Kroanites from a nearby tree.

“It has certainly been an eventful one,” Wyett said. “Any progress on tracking down the people responsible for smuggling the Purple crystals?”

“Sadly not, I’m afraid. We have clear evidence of their activities, but every time we attempt to perform a raid it is as if they see us coming.”

“Someone in your government is playing you.”

Noran frowned. “Before you arrived, I would have dismissed such thoughts as folly. No more.”

“At the very least you can rest somewhat easy knowing that my report to father will identify the culprit as a rogue element and not Shimvale itself.”

“We highly appreciate your understanding, and wish you safe travels.”

“Has Kaykayzee Ziggurat returned yet?” Wyett asked.

Noran shook his head. “She is still at the tunnels, far as I know. She has identified the Cube as an enemy of the state and I do not believe she intends to rest until it is… resolved.”

“I wonder who will find her first…”

“That remains to be seen.” With that, Noran spread his wings and flew off into the gray sky.

Hyrii held Wyett close. “…Let’s go home.”

“Yeah… home.” Wyett frowned. “I have a lot of things to tell father…”

And we have a lot of things to tell you… Hyrii thought, shivering.

As they left, Hyrii saw for a split second a red gari standing in the snow, a black cloak billowing around her. Hyrii blinked, and she was gone.

~~~​

The return journey to Kroan was largely uneventful. The only occurrence of note was running into Alexandrite with extra reinforcements gathered together by King Redmind with the express purpose of assisting the Western Ch’eni’tho with the rigid plague. Tenrayce sent them after the other group right away and they continued along.

There had been no sign of Yano. He had been with the group when they left Axiom, but somewhere in the journey he had left. C-R must have gotten word to him somehow that there had been a falling out.

They stopped to rest at the mountain border town of Thornbriar, a medium-sized settlement that regularly oversaw trade with the Wild Kingdoms. It was decided that here was where Benefactor would stay for the moment—a strategically defensible spot on the borer. Perhaps eventually they would move her closer to Axiom for defense there, but right now the rigid plague was coming from the west and no one knew how fast they could mobilize, or even if they would. Orders went out to fortify the town, which were heeded rather quickly as it was not far from Axiom proper. Still, Tenrayce was not going to leave until everything was situated, and she didn’t want to give up any forces for the moment, so everyone had to stay for a few days.

Blue stood on top of one of the small wooden watchtowers of Thornbriar, looking out as the sun set and the stars came out. Benefactor could easily be seen, taking her cubic form. She was still massive, mountainous even, but Blue knew how large she had been when they’d viewed her from space. She had burned so much energy tunneling through the ground, reassembling herself, and fighting the rigid army. According to Blue’s estimate, she was now half the volume she had been previously.

How many eons of careful planning and buildup had she used? All because she panicked when she saw someone who could see her. Blue wondered if she felt ashamed of her quick reaction, or foolish… or if she was old enough that such mistakes seemed small to her.

“So… did you enjoy your trip?” Tenrayce asked, climbing up the watchtower ladder behind Blue.

“Not… at all, really, no.”

“Could have seen that coming.”

“Yep.” Blue sighed. “If I did anything, I made things worse…”

“Agreed.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“I wasn’t coming here seeking an apology, but I’ll accept one.”

“Oh.”

“I came here to make sure you had a good head about what happened.”

“My mind is fine, now. Well… there’s still that little voice in the back of my head telling me to watch Slashy, but… I can’t exactly do that, since she’s dead now.” Blue paused. “Are our minds really so fragile?”

“That’s a question better asked of the Yellow Wizards, and even they are only just beginning to get some answers.”

Blue snorted. “Compared to understanding the mind, going to space is a piece of cake.”

“Agreed,” Tenrayce said. “But it is quite a gift, is it not?”

“Yeah.”

“I also have another thought for you. While it is true that you were not supposed to be there and risked far, far too much… what’s done is done, and you got to be a witness to history. That battle over the Wild Kingdoms… that will be remembered for centuries to come.”

“Huh. I… hadn’t thought of that. Me, witnessing a part of history…”

“I look forward to the day when you make history. There have been many unusual battles that have changed the course of history.” Tenrayce looked Blue in the eyes. “Never before has anyone gone to the moon. Your legend will far exceed mine should you pull it off. I wish you luck.” With that, Tenrayce opened up a book and climbed down the ladder with one hand.

Blue stared at the ladder, jaw hanging slack. Me… a legend?

She didn’t know how long she stood there, staring, but she was eventually broken out of it by Vaughan and Jeh coming up—Jeh on Vaughan’s shoulders.

“You look like you’re having deep thoughts,” Vaughan said as he climbed up.

“She’s always having deep thoughts,” Jeh said, jumping off Vaughan and pulling Blue into a tight hug. “That’s why she’s so great at getting us to space!”

“Space…” Blue looked up at the stars. She caught sight of their satellite drifting across the sky. “…It’ll be good to get back to that. I’ve got… a lot of ideas, actually.” She stood up on her hind legs and put her front hooves on the railing, holding her head as high as she could manage. “Even Benefactor looked small up there, didn’t she, Jeh?”

“Oh yeah, tiny, could fit her under my finger, easy.”

“…I’m ready to make all of this feel small,” Blue said, determination crossing her face. She returned to all fours and twirled around until she was facing her two close friends. “When we get up there… Ikyu will no longer be the whole world. We will be opening up a new era of history.”

“To the moon, the planets… and the stars,” Vaughan said, scratching his beard. “Who knows just what we’ll find?”

“Right now, nobody. And that’s why this is such a big deal. The crown wants resources and inventions, the Academy wants to understand more about the universe… and we want those things too, but… we’re not doing it for either of those reasons, really, are we?”

Jeh shook her head. “Nope!”

Vaughan pulled back his hat. “We just want to go and see something incredible.”

Blue put out her hoof. “To the stars?”

Vaughan put his hand over her hoof. “To the stars.”

“To the stars!” Jeh shouted, jumping off of Vaughan and landing on his hand, prompting all three of them to fall into a laughing pile under the stars.

~~~​

A highly unusual entity drifted down the dark corridor. He had no physical form, but was a bundle of blue flames in the shape of a singular eye, existing without a real body. The robes that drifted beneath his eye were not attached, and if they were to be investigated would be revealed as nothing more than illusions.

Although he gave off light from his blue flames, the corridor remained largely dark, for it was made of a blackened stone. There were no defining features on any of the walls, and the many doorways in the corridor led to other corridors that looked much the same; a maze of nondescript walls. None could navigate them without familiarity.

This being of fire was so familiar he didn’t even have to think. Right. Left. Straight. Left. Left. Left. Right. Straight. Pause. Straight. Straight. Left…

He eventually came to his goal, a single room with an iron door that was sealed tightly shut. From within the slits in the door, a vibrant Green aura could be seen.

A spark of blue energy appeared on the doorknob and it slid open. He entered without pause.

“My apologies for waking you,” he said, “But C-R has another urgent report that needs your overview.”

“…It has not been very long since I was last awoken…”

“We know, but this was urgent.”

“I left you instructions for C-R’s last issue.”

“Yes, you did.” The being shook his eye. “I am afraid this is an almost entirely unrelated matter.”

“…I am going to be extremely displeased, aren’t I?”

“Quite. We have failed. A Crystalline One somehow survived the Second Cataclysm and has publicly joined Kroan. She knows much of us and our mission.”

“Well. That’s not the worst-case scenario, but it is pretty high up there.”

“Any immediate courses of action?”

“I’ll need a lot more details to make a decision on this…” There was a sigh. “Call a meeting, tell them it’s going to be a long one.”

“Of course.”

~~~

SCIENCE SEGMENT​

Benefactor mentions how she keeps tabs on things beyond her sensing range in this chapter, by “stretching out” light. Purple magic may almost always use the visible colors of light, but in reality, it can interact with any form of electromagnetic radiation, which is a far broader subject than just visible light.

One may ask “what is light?” and think it is a simple question. It is not. Light in a quantum physics sense is made up of particles known as photons that are the intermediaries for the electromagnetic force, which not only powers every electronic device in existence, but also is responsible for almost everything you observe in day-to-day life—not just light! If you feel a texture on something, that’s not because any atoms are actually touching, it’s because when atoms get close they electromagnetically repel one another. Virtually every human-scale interaction between atoms is electromagnetic; the other forces act on subatomic or planetary scales (the nuclear forces and gravity). Every time a particle feels a force from electromagnetism, a photon (or several) is transmitted from one particle to another. If these photons don’t hit anything immediately, they travel through space at the speed of light until they do. Your eye transmits information based on what photons hit it.

Except, this definitely isn’t the full story, since on the large scale light doesn’t really act like a bunch of individual particles, it acts like a continuous wave, specifically a wave composed of an electric field and a magnetic field coupled in such a way that they cannot be separated. The curious thing about electromagnetism is that you can measure the two parts of it, electricity and magnetism, independently, and can have electric fields in isolation. (Theoretically, you could have magnetic fields in isolation too, but our universe doesn’t appear to allow this to happen, but this hasn’t stopped people from theorizing about the elusive “magnetic monopole” that would create such a thing.) Once an electric field starts changing—say, by a bunch of charged particles moving through a space—immediately a magnetic field is created. And when magnetic fields change, they create electric fields. Light, in the wave sense, is a situation where the electric field and magnetic field enter a balance where one rises while the other falls and vice versa, creating an oscillation. This oscillation can be virtually any speed we want, and since light always travels at the same velocity, each rate of oscillation has an associated length known as the wavelength.

Light comes in all sorts of wavelengths. Our eyes are sensitive to wavelengths on the scale of a tenth of a micrometer, which is to say very short. This does not mean we can see things of micrometer size--in fact we can barely see things a few hundredths of a millimeter in diameter, such as our hair. Wavelength does not equate to “size” so much as it equates to how long it takes the electromagnetic field to perform a full cycle. It also correlates to energy, with shorter wavelengths having more energy (they oscillate much faster).

Stretching out the wavelength of light will take it out of visible light and into infrared, then microwaves, then the type we care about: radio waves. Here, we have wavelengths that can range from one millimeter to longer than the radius of the Earth! These waves are very, very long, especially considering the scales of light we are used to seeing with our eyes.

The length of radio waves can be exploited. While they are too long for things like eyes to make use of, they are still electromagnetic waves, and when changing electric and magnetic fields hit conductive material, they induce currents in the wire. This electricity can be decoded to understand what the original incoming radio wave was. If you lay several radio waves on top of each other, you can transmit a message, such as audio or a picture, if you have proper encoding set up.

This is what Benefactor is doing—setting up what are effectively radio transmitters that take in visible light, translate it to radio waves, transmit those radio waves over long distances, and then Benefactor receives those radio waves and determines what information is stored in them. Radio waves are particularly suited for all this since they simply pass through lots of matter due to being so long—shorter wavelengths get stopped by many objects, often interacting with things at the atomic level while radio waves either pass through or pass around the object without a care in the world. (Though the same type of material that can decode radio waves, conductors, are their greatest weakness—a wall of solid metal will stop most radio waves in their tracks.)

On the other end of the spectrum we have the highly energetic and very short waves, which, starting from light, go ultraviolet waves, X-rays, and then gamma rays. X-rays pass through objects for an entirely different reason than radio waves—they’re too short to interact with material that isn’t very dense, thus they pass right through flesh and get stopped on bones. Gamma rays are able to knock single atoms out of alignment, and are one of the main types of radiation.

Of course, all of this wave stuff is also founded on the photon particles… which themselves act individually as though they have those wavelengths and energies… so they are both particles and waves at the same time. Which is how everything works at the quantum level. Even after all this time, I’m still not sure this makes actual sense, but it is what we observe. The universe is weird.