Lukas Aguilar was no stranger to fear. He had faced it in all its flavors and textures. He was most used to the slow, mounting variety, the one that piled up in his belly as he watched situations go from normal to batshit crazy within seconds. It was when he had stared at the inky blackness of the caverns, hearing the strange spitting sounds as the ghol twisted and churned into a massive khorkhoi. He had felt it again, when facing the bylestyr for the first time, feeling the might of something so far beyond his pay grade that it wasn’t even funny.

There was also the sharp, silvery fear that was reserved for entities that he couldn’t fit into perspective. Inanna— back when she had been the strange voice in his head, and then again, when she had shattered his worldview, revealing herself as a goddess. It was the same when the King had awakened. That kind of fear didn’t freeze him, instead it galvanized him into action, power and motion.

And finally there was that coppery, gut-wrenching kind, drawn tight as the strings of a violin, quavering on that one single note that couldn’t possibly be sustained for another second longer, but it kept going on and on, the tension reaching newer and newer crescendos. It was the sort of fear that made him want to throw up, the kind that would not go away no matter how tightly he closed his eyes and tried to ignore it. It was the kind that he had felt while watching Inanna talk about how she had failed, as the realization of what she had done sunk in.

That was the kind of fear Lukas felt now. It was horrible, the clutching tension and the coppery feel of blood in his mouth. Fear of what had just transpired. His deal with Solana, his promise not to interfere had led to this. He had been so focused on getting answers that he had missed the big picture, oblivious of what it was he was agreeing to. Tanya had transformed before his very eyes into the Frost avatar that he had faced and nearly died, if not for Inanna’s intervention.

A transformation that he had helped unleash, just because he had been stupid enough to believe Solana.

It was moments like these that taught one that the real demon wasn’t an evil goddess that slaughtered or domineered over the masses, or an Ifrit King that turned a borderland into a living inferno just by existing within it. No, real fiends did not force you. They twisted you until the most heinous, the most despicable act of depravity appeared to be the just and proper thing to do, and you dutifully followed suit, proud even, of your act of service. The true demon did not throw you into the abyss. No, it gave you a ladder, took you by hand, and smilingly showed you the way, one step at a time.

He knew Solana was a liar from the very moment he had met her. Maude had even told him that there was nothing so sacred that Solana would not violate if it meant furthering her goals. She had manipulated him into thinking that this was about revealing Tanya about her heritage, when it was actually getting her to consent coming to this room.

And she had. For he had asked her to. And in doing so, damned her.

So no, he wasn’t just angry at Solana. He was angry at himself.

Lukas watched the dry amusement settle on Tanya’s features as she sat upon the throne, as if born to be there, her hair and pupils morphing to reflect the creature within.

The worst part of it all, was that part of him actually wanted to know the truth. The truth of Tanya’s existence. Her heritage. He was still on the fence with Solana’s explanation about the Oni explanation, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence. From the fog decreasing her inhibitions, to her complete indifference to Eternal Light or lack thereof, and most importantly, her access to a power that, in Inanna’s words, was as ancient and dangerous as her own. Another fact was that Tanya had never known exactly how her frost powers came to be, except that she had activated them under extreme desperation.

Lukas was no stranger to the idea of people performing abnormal acts under pressure. There was this famous case of this woman being able to raise a car to save her child stuck beneath it. It was the nature of the human mind to set limitations, keep the person from applying his or her total strength, because doing so could severely damage the bones and musculature. In a world with lifeforce and mana, it was not a big jump to consider that the brain would enact limitations over their use, given the negative effects that lifeforce and mana tended to have.

But to gain access to a power beyond comprehension? No. Chances were that if Tanya had this power, she had gotten it from her heritage. That was evident given how her grandfather had called her a beast. The question was, was she born like that? Or was she turned into an Oni as a child?

Then a worse thought rose in his mind.

Did her grandfather intentionally turn her into that?

A coldness gripped him. That theory was not without its merits. From Tanya’s own words, Mujin Shimizu was not surprised by her powers, merely at her manifesting them. Could it be…

Could it be that he was the one that turned the little child into an Oni? With a yokai that was capable of using Everfrost? Another yuki-onna?

Was that why she had been kidnapped, why the desert-dwellers, which could only be yokai, wanted to capture her? Because they knew what she had become and wanted their oni back?

“I have done what you asked, Skinwalker,” said Tanya. “Now tell me the truth. Tell me everything there is to know about Everfrost.”

“Of course,” said Solana. The bitch was enjoying her victory too much. “But you already know everything, don’t you, Tsurara?”

Lukas narrowed his eyes ever so slightly. Tsurara? Was that the yuki-onna that Mujin Shimizu had fused with Tanya? Solana had described Tanya as the last descendant of this Empress Meynte figure, so logically, Tsurara was the one before her.

Or. They are one and the same, with Tsurara existing within her like a dual personality.

“Tsurara?” asked Tanya, confusion evident on her face. “What are you talking about?”

A strange intensity came across Solana’s features. “Tsurara, the last descendant of our Empress. I know you are in there. I saw the memories. I recognize you. Stop pretending otherwise.”

The confusion on Tanya’s face doubled. Lukas could almost see the cogs in her head turning and turning. It wasn’t that Tanya wasn’t capable of lying, but she was not a natural liar. The frustration and confusion in her eyes were too genuine to be faked.

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “And I’m not pretending.”

“She’s not lying,” said Maude, who was standing next to Solana, staring at Tanya’s face with the same air of a birdwatcher observing a new specimen. “I’ve seen her back then. This isn't… her. It’s still Tanya.”

Solana whipped her neck towards Maude so fast that Lukas feared she had snapped it. “Do not attempt to teach me, oni. I recognize her. I’ve stood on Tsurara’s side for centuries. That transformation, it is her.”

“I…” Maude’s voice hitched. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, Leader. All I’m saying is that this isn’t the one I faced. They look the same, but that’s where the similarity ends. This. Is. Not. Her.”

For a second, a look of terrible, frightening rage passed over Solana’s face, but then it faded, and she was as affable as ever.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she whispered. Standing up, she came over to Tanya. Lukas prepared himself for the possibility of combat. If nothing else, she was vulnerable to Blob. That alone would serve as a distraction long enough to get Tanya out of there. But if Tanya herself attacked him…

He really wasn’t looking forward to that.

“Perhaps you speak truly,” said the skinwalker. “Perhaps you truly do not know who Tsurara is. Perhaps it is I that is wrong.”

Her lips twisted upwards. “But it doesn’t matter. Trust me.”

Solana cupped Tanya’s chin. Despite the softness, there was a sternness to her posture. The yosuzume looked at Tanya’s eyes, her black orbs staring intensely at her glacial white pupils.

Then she murmured.

“Oumagatoki is upon us, Glacier Queen. It is time to wake up.”

And Tanya screamed, throwing her head back like her mind was being ripped apart. The reaction galvanized Lukas, but before he could take even a single step forward, he was entombed into the ground, with nothing except his face above the floor. He tried to push himself up, but it was like pushing against a mountain. An indescribable force of gravity pulled him downward, while the floor around him turned as hard as diamond, utterly resistant to whatever force he might throw at it.

“It hurts!” He heard Tanya whimper.

“I know, I know,” Solana said with false sympathy. “I had a child once. I know how painful birth can be. I can only imagine that rebirth is so much worse.”

“STOP!” Lukas yelled, throwing every bit of lifeforce he could muster against Solana’s power. A man might as well try to push a truck back.

“I will not have you interrupt me, Outsider!” Solana snarled.

There was a frightening intensity in her face and her voice. The power exuding out of her felt like a rushing tide. It wasn’t comparable to Inanna, or the Ifrit King, but whatever it was, it was all-encompassing, and here inside this subterranean domain, her control was all but absolute.

But Lukas hadn’t gotten where he had in life by following orders.

Territory Creation Activated

Set boundary. Neutered Earth. Two meters. Expansion.

Extending parameters

A wave of anomalous energy erupted out of his body. Unlike lifeforce, anomalous energy did not exert any pressure or generate any energy. It was flexible to the point where it could be altered into nearly almost everything, which made it into the perfect tool for creation.

Or. The most versatile swiss-army knife.

The ‘neutered earth’ parameter applied the ‘condition’ that Earth was as he knew it. No lifeforce, no mana, just a dying planet limited and ruled by the existing laws of physics. With a second, the diamond-hard floor turned to dry, porous earth, the anomalous energy neutering every bit of terramancy used in its fortification.

Solana’s power could not hold him.

With a grunt, Lukas terraported himself out of the ground, and sent Blob at her. There was a time and place for controlling the flow of information, but things had devolved too far. The objective was to get to Tanya, who was thrashing wildly on the throne.

“STOP!” Solana bellowed, deflecting Blob with pure force. “DO! NOT! INTERRUPT! She has to become complete!”

“I. Don’t. Care!” said Lukas. He dashed towards her, only to run into an invisible wall, and then a second one smashed into his back, sandwiching him. Then a third on his right, his left, upwards, downwards— Solana was pressing him down in a cube of her own creation. The skinwalker’s lips twisted in abyssal fury as she thrust her hand downward, pushing him down to the ground, and deeper and deeper, burying him alive. Lukas threw in more anomalous energy to expand his territory but whatever it was, it wasn’t terramancy. Or at least, wasn’t the kind of terramancy Territory Creation could instantly dispel.

It made him afraid. And angry. Very angry.

Lukas believed himself to be quite rational, preferring to settle things via discussion rather than combat. Until the point where he wasn’t.

Solana was about to experience that side of him first-hand.

Anger was his hiding place from fear, his shield and his sword against it. Tanya’s screams only added to his resolve, and steeled his spine. Without a second thought, he allowed his unstable kinetomancy to run amok.

His vision altered, replaced by countless curves traversing as far as the eye could see. Every curve represented a potential motion trajectory associated with the barriers around him. Lukas grabbed them all and yanked them down—

And space itself distorted with its passing.

The entire room was drowned by the sound of a howling wind as the very air rippled, sending shock waves of invisible force hurling in every direction. The barriers around him shattered like glass, as the invisible waves leapt through the space between him and the chamber’s periphery in a split second.

The stone plated floor met with distorted space.

Terramancy-hardened stone that had survived for who-knew-how-many-centuries fought against the might of distorted space and —

Stone gave away.

Like coffins, they erupted out of the floor, shattering every single piece of architecture in the room. The pedestal housing the throne bent and strained and fractured, fissures traveling like a spider’s web until it represented an urban city road map. Crevices and chasms opened all across the floor, and spread all the way to the walls, as if the entire place was going to shatter.

His hands clutching his head, Lukas terraported his way out of the ground, trying and failing to ignore the tide of agony threatening to smash his skull apart. His eyes were already bleeding, as was his nose; Neural Suppression had given up a long time ago. He fell down to one knee, his face twisted in unspeakable pain.

“Let. Her. Go!” He gnashed his teeth. “You’re killing her!”

“I’ve waited for a long time for this, Aguilar!’ Solana thundered, an unspeakable ferocity in her voice. “Do not get in the way!”

It was a far cry from the rational yokai-leader he had interacted with. This was a creature that had seen him perform something truly dangerous. No doubt he had stopped being the annoying Outsider to a true threat.

Meanwhile, Tanya screamed, her body jerking upwards over and over, like she was suffocating. Her eyes had already rolled upwards, and Lukas got the weird feeling that something, or someone else was trying to erupt out of her. Someone that wanted to take her memories of her entire life, and discard them. Someone who had slumbered for a long time, but who was now awake and ravenous.

Her scream set him on fire.

Fire in his thoughts. Fire in his heart. Fire in his eyes. He burned, burned down deep in his gut, in places he hadn’t known he could hurt. He didn’t remember actively choosing to perform the skill. He didn’t know if he shifted consciousness to a muspel, or even better, a bylestyr. All he knew was thrusting his hands towards Solana and the throne and scream—

“BURN!”

He reached for fire. And fire answered him.

The room exploded into blazes of crimson, the pedestal, the chamber, everything. Maude had already found an opening and escaped, knowing a lost fight when she saw one. Fire leapt into the air, fire seeped into the shattered terrain, engulfing and incinerating every single thing that came in its path with extreme prejudice.

Except the throne.

Every single tendril of flame that came close to it was extinguished by its frost.

“Give up, Aguilar!” Solana screamed. “You cannot change destiny. The Queen of the End will rise again! Your friend will become what is destined to be.”

“Let. Her. Go!” He growled. “I promised that I’ll save her!”

Solana laughed. Fury and defiance in one. “You think your promise has value? You think you know commitment? Boy! Your goal is a child’s dream compared to mine!”

The absolute certainty in her voice, the pride in her bearing, and the clarity in her tone almost made him stagger.

What happened next showed him exactly what kind of monster Solana was.

The skinwalker raised both hands, and a strange coldness condensed into the chamber, trapping the fire and pushing it back. Before Lukas knew it, a force several magnitudes greater than her previous attack condensed on him from all directions.

The fury within him grew. It swelled and burned and he reached out to the fire again. He couldn’t think of anything else. His mind was already in pain and several of his blood vessels had already popped in. If Prophylaxis was working, he couldn’t sense it. Trying to use kinetomancy again would probably kill him right away.

So he reached out for fire again. The mana danced in his eyes, his head, his chest, flying wild and out of control. He couldn’t follow everything that happened. Solana’s barriers were pushing in, so more waves of crimson rushed outward, resisting the power of the impossible juggernaut that was Solana. Everything exploded into motion, shadows flashing through the brightness, seeking escape, screaming.

And then Tanya gave out one final bellow of agony, rage and despair. It was the final desperate scream of someone who knew she was dying and utterly powerless to prevent it, and who didn’t even know why.

Lukas did not think.

He just acted.

Solana’s defenses strained, bent and twisted in myriad shapes, the untold fury of his flames merging with them. Lukas pushed them together, creating a distortion so intense that it’d have made Ezzeron green with envy, and hurled it towards her. He could see her dark eyes widen in sudden dismay and understanding of what happened, before it crashed against her, flinging her against the wall and then—

What happened wasn’t an explosion. It wasn’t an implosion either. It was just… chaos. All he knew was that the wall had kind of… crumbled into itself, and then disintegrated.

And then she was gone.

Lukas bent in half and coughed out a wad of blood, forcing his lungs to breathe. His stomach was a pool of magma. His limbs were lead. Blood was trickling out of his eyes and nose and mouth. All his heart did was pump agony into his system. It hurt to keep his eyes open. It hurt to stand. Hell, it hurt to think.

So he just focussed on one thought.

Save. Tanya.

One step.

Save. Tanya.

Another.

Save—

His knees buckled, and he fell—

Or not?

Something was holding him. Something thick. Cold. Liquid but not so. That something crawled over him. The weight should’ve pushed it down. Instead, it held him up like a crutch.

Save—

Another step again.

—Tanya.

The throne. What throne? It was there. What was he doing again? He grabbed it—

Save—

Sensations flooded within him, sensations heartless and cold, uncaring of his horror, revulsion and despair. Sensations that did not care that he was about to die.

A world of white engulfed him.

Then came pain.

Then nothing.