WSP 038

Houston Has a Problem

Just because Jeh and the others were in space didn’t mean the Wizard Space Program stopped operating. There were a few smaller experiments that needed running, and stars astronomers wanted images of. Thus, Margaret was scheduled to fly in the Skyseed IV, to do some routine work.

The majority of the crowd that was here to see the moon mission had remained in town, so she still had a huge gathering of people there to see her off and cheer. There was no speech by Via this time, though, just a short one by Lila mostly addressed at calming the people worrying about everyone in space. They were not late yet.

Yet.

Margaret knew that what the Moonshot was doing was exceedingly dangerous and if something went wrong there was no way for anyone to know. Benefactor had received their last message before they left orbit and couldn’t keep track of them long after that.

Jeh would be “fine” but being trapped in space for an eternity was potentially worse than death. Of course, she was an Aware, right? All of them were… maybe Keller wasn’t. They were sure they’d be taken to her realm and their souls would be protected no matter what. Perhaps that was why they were so reckless.

Eyda promised nothing of the sort. Gonal texts simply said the goddesses each had a duty to the souls of their followers, the specifics of that duty were never elaborated on. Each of the four had her own place set aside for this duty.

Margaret wondered why she had basically no fear of death, then, and actually felt rather drawn to it. Not in the sense of hating life, but more in a sense of finding a strange beauty in finality, a poetry in endings. As she placed a hand on the Skyseed IV she came to a conscious realization that she was highly unusual among spirited, most tried to avoid thinking about it at all, even those who believed in eternity to come, which was most of them.

Her wish was to die in space one day. But why? She did not know.

“Hope you have a good time up there,” Jeremiah said.

Margaret turned around in shock to see her father. “Dad! You… you came!”

“Just seeing my daughter off.” He wasn’t on the launchpad so the hug he gave her was a little awkward, but she didn’t complain at all.

“You okay with all these people…?”

“It’s… fine,” Jeremiah said, adjusting his shirt—he was clearly uncomfortable and not fine, but that only made Margaret all the happier.

“So proud of you for coming out, Dad.” She kneeled down so she could hold his hands in her own. “Things will keep getting better.”

“I know… you’re the best gift a man could ask for. Even more than a big house.”

Margaret smiled. “With the money that’s coming in, I might be able to get you a big house. Just wait a bit, all right?”

“All… right. You be safe up there.”

“I will!” Margaret stood up and started climbing into the Skyseed IV.

“And be sure to take your time! Enjoy the view!”

“Will do!”

Since Blue wasn’t there, one of the Minor Orange Wizards working in the Laboratory levitated the lid onto the Skyseed IV and screwed it shut. With that, there was a countdown. Margaret waved at everyone through the glass, finding Jeremiah, Suro, Lila, Via, Mary, Big G… oh hey, there was Minnie! Maybe she had convinced Jeremiah to come out, Margaret would have to thank her later.

For the first time, Margaret noticed that the Sourdough Twins weren’t there. They were usually very loud and easy to see… come to think of it, when was the last time she’d seen them?

There was no time to dwell on that. It was time to launch! The countdown ended and Margaret lifted the Skyseed IV higher and higher into the sky…

…back on the ground, Minnie put a hand on Jeremiah’s shoulder.

“…It is time,” Jeremiah said.

Minnie nodded in understanding and the two of them dispersed with the crowd.

~~~

Joira was in town with several of her Red Seekers. Ostensibly this was to keep a careful eye on Willow Hollow as at any moment it could erupt in chaos that would affect the Seekers, but in practice it was because Joira knew she couldn’t keep a large chunk of her followers from going into town for the whole Operation Lunacy fiasco, so she might as well make the trip official to keep from having to yell at them all for sneaking away. Though, in the end, she ended up yelling a lot anyway, so the point was moot. But they were already here, might as well stick it out. It also gave Arno an opportunity to reconnect with everyone—though this was a mixed blessing, the kid was still annoying.

Plus, they could stock up on supplies this way. There were a lot of goods in the tent city that were rarely seen in Willow Hollow.

However, there was also something else. The people of Willow Hollow were well aware of the unspoken truce between the Aware and the Red Seekers here, and the efforts that Lila had been going through to continue to smooth relations ever since the incident with Ashen. Several people even waved at Arno with smiles of all things, a sentiment which confused Joira somewhat. Even the locals that disliked the Red Seekers tolerated their presence.

This truce was not held at all by certain individuals from outside town. Namely, there was a noble from Northern Kroan who wasn’t quite far enough North to border Shimvale. He was a human, middle aged, though his white hair and gaunt face made him look much older. He lifted a finger at the Red Seekers. “Remove these heathens from my sight at once!”

“Yes, sir,” a greater unicorn in black armor said. He ran at the Red Seekers without hesitation.

Joira immediately readied herself for a fight, tapping into her Red crystals. The Seekers were far from defenseless, and they trained on this magic…

A root suddenly grew out of the ground and tripped the greater unicorn, ramming his face into the dirt. A tiny dryad girl let out a laugh and pointed at the greater unicorn. “You silly!”

The noble fumed. “How dare you… ugh, a child. Where are your parents?”

“Far, far, far, faaaaaaaar away!” the dryad said, beaming innocently. Then she looked confused. “Don’t know who. Glen not say. Hmmm…” She scratched her chin, shrugged, and returned to smiling innocently.

“This is a grave oversight in the legal code, there needs to be some way to reprimand a child without a guardian…” The noble looked around and appeared to grow increasingly annoyed at the large number of witnesses in the tent city. “No matter. She is just a dryad… you heathens have—”

“Enough fire to cook you like a turkey!” Arno shouted. One of the other Seekers quickly rammed a hand over his mouth.

The noble visibly twitched. “End this.”

“Stop this immediately!” Suro shouted, running between Joira and the noble’s greater unicorn guard. “What do you think you’re doing, attacking innocent people?”

“Innocent?” the noble laughed. “Their souls burn with sin and violence, cat. Who are you to oppose me?”

“The mayor’s husband, and I can tell you right now that these people are with Willow Hollow and have been permitted to live near us by choice. And before you say you have higher authority than my wife—which you do—remember that this is her jurisdiction and you need to justify going over her head, and I doubt Princess Via is going to take your annoyance at seeing the color red as an answer.”

The noble’s amusement was gone in an instant. He opened his mouth and started shouting something, but apparently mid-syllable he stopped himself and started thinking.

“Look, sir, just… turn around and stop looking at them, maybe that’ll help?”

“This place is infested with heresy for allowing such people to exist,” the noble huffed. “The Keepers will hear about this.”

“How do you not know that my wife is also a Keeper?”

“…Heresy. Deepest Heresy.”

“Um… I mean, she’s well-respected among the nearest Sanctuaries and has official recognition from both the Tempest and Kroan…”

The noble looked like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You do realize Red Seekers live in Axiom too, right? As well as all other types of Seekers and Gonal?”

The noble stared at him blankly.

“Have you ever left your hometown before, sir?”

The noble could only stare at Suro with a vacant, haunted expression. Slowly, he turned around and left. His greater unicorn guard scurried after him.

Suro relaxed, but let out a sigh. “Sometimes it surprises me how clueless people can be about the state of the world…” He turned to Joira. “I am deeply sorry, that should not have happened to you.”

“Darn right,” Joira huffed. “But it was not your responsibility to deal with.”

“You couldn’t have talked him down and would have given him a fight and that would have given him ample reason to execute you.”

Joira scowled. “We Seekers do not back down from a fight.”

“I know, I know…” Suro sighed. “Look, we’ll do what we can, but if you end up burning someone out of anger there are a lot of people here who would jump at the opportunity. That idiot’s level of confusion was extreme, but a large number of Kroanites think of you as lesser and a danger. Even more so than the people of Willow Hollow.”

“You think I don’t know this, jeweler? We are well aware of our sect’s position among your kind. We revel in that opposition.”

“Yeah!” Arno shouted. “Come and get us, punks!”

Joira visibly winced. “Please stop talking, Arno.”

“But…”

“Arno.”

Arno grumbled and shuffled his feet but did shut up.

“Wow. People angry,” the dryad said. “Cool!”

Suro gave her an odd look but decided she wasn’t really relevant to what was happening. “Joira, I beg of you, don’t throw away everything just to save face.”

Joira’s expression softened. “…I won’t. Unless I am given no choice. You should know that well enough by now.”

“You didn’t use to be that way.”

“Recognize change, jeweler. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we are shopping.” Joira huffed and turned around, her back to Suro.

“Funny!” the dryad said with a laugh.

“…Are you… okay?”

“I’m Scurfpea!”

“Of… right, I head about you.” Suro sighed, he probably wasn’t going to be able to communicate to her what he wanted to. “Just… keep having fun.”

“Spaaaace… Moooon…”

Her mind was already elsewhere so Suro returned to his walk. He didn’t really have a destination in mind, he’d just had the sense that he should be out and about today. Having diffused the situation with Joira, he believed he had done his duty for the day. Now he was free to relax a—

“Suro,” Seskii said, her voice unusually serious. “I think you should check in on Vaughan’s Cabin.”

“Eh? Why w—”

“In Dia’s name, I think you should check in on Vaughan’s Cabin.”

Suro’s ears perked up immediately. “Of… of course!” Without another word, he bolted off as fast as his four legs could carry him toward Vaughan’s Cabin.

Seskii leaned up against a podium that hadn’t been there a second ago and took out a bottle filled with reddish-pink juice. She downed the entire thing in one gulp and let out a tense breath, shaking slightly. “Please let this work.”

After waiting a second she pulled out another bottle and did the same. “…Don’t worry, it’s not alcoholic, it’s just pure strawberry extract. Concentrated.” With that, she stood up—the podium was gone—and then she stepped behind a tree.

Then she wasn’t there anymore.

~~~

Lila was deep underground with Big G, Princess Via, two of her guards… and the Shimvale spy gagged and glaring at them from behind makeshift bars that Big G’s boys had made specifically for him.

“A singer…” Via said, kneeling down and looking right at him.

There was only hatred in his eyes.

Tears began to form in Via’s own. “How… how horrible to do this to one of your people. Remove their will…”

“He could have done it by choice,” Big G said.

“If he did, there are others who did not. And even so…” Via put her hand on the bars. “He has no way to regret his decision now, or change it, or… it’s just so terrible.” With a sigh, she pulled herself back. “There is nothing to be done for him, and he is a danger to us…” She turned to one of her guards. “We will need to transport him back to Axiom by the time we leave, make sure everything is ready at that time.”

“Yes, your majesty.” He took out a small notepad and made a note to do that later.

“Oh, we need notepads now, do we?” the other guard said, voice echoing from within her armor.

The male guard sighed. “Yes… you don’t want to forget a command from the Princess…”

“Oh, of course not.”

Via gave the female guard an annoyed but playful glare.

Lila was not sure what that was about, but she didn’t pry. “We are most grateful that you are taking him off our hands, Your Majesty.”

“I’ve heard you’ve had other problems,” Via said. “The rigid plague?”

“Seems to be after us as well, for some reason.”

Via shook her head. “I don’t understand it at all… I assume you have the rigid remnants stored somewhere?”

Big G nodded. “Next cavern over.”

“Good. We’ll be taking those back as well.”

“Uh, Your Highness,” the male guard said. “One of the rigids that attacked them was a shardworm. That’s larger than some buildings.”

“Oh.” Via blinked, silent for a moment. “Then, uh, use your best judgment to determine what’s worth us taking back!” She turned to Big G. “Take us to the rigid remnants.”

“Right this way, Your Highness…”

They didn’t make it out of the makeshift jail before Seskii ran into the room, arms full of various juices in bottles. She skidded to a stop and dropped a lot of them comically. A surprising number of them didn’t break, but a few of them did. Lila in particular was showered in orange juice, dying her coat temporarily.

“Seskii!” Lila gawked. “What are you…?”

“Running in here really quickly because I saw some freaky woman in blue robes being sneaky a—”

At that moment, though they were largely unaware of it, all of them were frozen, sparks of Blue wafting over all their forms.

A single figure stepped out from the shadows, a neko woman in blue robes. She frowned. How had the pink gari noticed her? She didn’t even remember seeing her, and she was very observant. She’d been commanded to be. Commanded with such a force that her eyes were bloodshot from the constant strain she put them under.

But no matter. They were all taken care of. All slowed down to a crawl. They would be able to do nothing as she walked among them. Her primary goal here was the release of her colleague in the prison. However…

Princess Via was right here. Guarded, yes, but not well enough. It wasn’t like it had been easy to get here, there had been Agents at the entrance of the mine and spaced at various intervals in between, but she was a master of infiltration.

She noticed that one of the guards was starting to gain blue sparks. So they did have a defense against being slowed by a master of Blue. Such a shame that she also had Magenta. She simply scrambled the spell that was coming off the guard. This forced the Blue scrambling of time around the spell area to stop being warped to her will, but that was just where the spell itself was being cast. The rest of the guard’s body remained all but frozen.

Now, all she had to do was ensure the death of Princess Via and get out of here with her charge. Had she control over her will, she likely would have only gone for the Princess and left. But she did not have a choice in the matter.

She pulled out a knife. It would be simple. Throw it, let it be slowed by the Blue, then release the Blue, skewering the Princess in the head… and a small core of Magenta in the knife would not only prevent Green from working properly, but was also hidden within the metal so nobody would know what was wrong.

After that…

…her mind screamed that there should be no after that, that she should bail and run, replacing the primary objective with a greater objective.

But she had no choice. She had to continue on. Heart pounding and will screaming, she prepared for chaos.

~~~

Kirkkok was the only demon Suro had ever seen.

He knew they existed. It wasn’t public knowledge—the demons mentioned in Dia’s word were beings of pure spirit, not the noxious black entities that claimed to be of Eyda. He learned of them through Vaughan, who had been shown a few by Pepper. Strange beings of magic that, unlike most magical beings, were highly resilient to Magenta tampering and were unlike anything else in the world.

They could not be touched by Yellow. Which either meant they were never actually willing to form a connection… or that they were not spirited, despite their words. Neither possibility was pleasant.

But Suro had seen Kirkkok, and had been convinced that perhaps the stories of the grand monsters had been blown out of proportion. Maybe they were just a type of spirited that were particularly drawn to violence and evil, but were not guaranteed to be. Perhaps they could be reached, questions answered.

What he was looking at now was quickly removing all his hope of this.

He was currently in a tree near Vaughan’s Cabin, doing his absolute best to hide—and as a black cat this was actually quite a good attempt. Below him, there was Jeremiah, the Red Seeker he was pretty sure was Minnie, Kirkkok… and a thing. A thing with four muscular arms, two elegant legs, and six piercing yellow eyes on a flat face devoid of any other features. Spikes ran down the form’s back, spikes that were somehow partially liquid as they could shift past each other, sending ripples through the other spikes. Plants that were near the creature’s feet immediately withered, and then proceeded to turn solid black before disintegrating into actual dust.

Suro’s very soul screamed that this being was the most evil thing he had ever witnessed. And he had seen quite a lot of evil in his time. This… put all of them to shame.

The upright demon was the only one talking.

“…your time has come, Jeremiah. Your lifelong preparation has led to this moment. Ready your soul, be firm in your step. The honor afforded to you is beyond that which you deserve by many orders of magnitude, but Eyda, in Her infinite wisdom, will take what is on offer. You are the unworthy vessel this day, witness to grand power. By you, will Her revenge be complete against this land. By your will the hills burn. And for such a great task, your reward will surpass understanding.”

Then there was silence. No one else said anything, not even Kirkkok—all seemed to be in awe and reverence of the absolute monster.

The monster suddenly stopped moving. Suro’s hairs stood on end. “Hold. I may sense…”

Suddenly, there was an explosion up ahead at the cabin.

“There was no one there, th…” The demon put a hand to his head and nodded. Then, suddenly, six wings erupted from his back. His arms became like rubber and he wrapped two of them around Minnie and Jeremiah before launching into the air.

“Hey!” Kirkkok shouted, flapping to keep up. “I’m not that fast!”

“You are so far below me you do not even deserve to behold me.”

“But we’re still in this together!”

The greater demon didn’t so much as look at Kirkkok after that.

Suro decided to forego stealth and just run after them. Something was already happening at the Cabin. But how could that be? Seskii’s warning was in Dia’s name, the warning of a demon was certainly worthy of that… what else could be going on?

To Suro’s surprise, as he jumped down, he saw the dryad child Scurfpea running along the road as well.

“Go back, it’s dangerous!” Suro called.

“I know!” Scurfpea said with glee.

Suro did not want this child anywhere near this, so he did what he almost never did—stuck up his tail, drew his claws, and hissed at the child in an attempt to scare her off.

“You funny!” She clapped her hands and a flower grew out of the ground and into his face, making him sneeze. By the time he got his senses back he was now behind her. With a yowl, he ran after her—he wasn’t going to catch up before they got to the Cabin. Fortunately, when they arrived, the demon was not in a position to notice or care about them.

For he was fighting a troop of at least ten rigids who were trying to burn the Cabin down.

Suro grabbed Scurfpea by her neck with his mouth and pulled her behind a rock, hissing “SHHHH!” She showed no fear but nodded in understanding. He quickly poked his head over the rock and…

…many of the rigids were already dead. Sawed in half by impossibly dark blades. Crushed between the monster’s hands. Suro watched in horror as a tentacle shot out of the demon’s chest, split into three tentacles in midair, and skewered five rigids straight through.

One of them were left alive, though, whimpering. “Save us from this end us save us…”

“You are irrelevant to me. I wish to know… what controls you.” He held out a hand. Very quickly, he let out a roar of anger that made the ground beneath him crack. “You… where do you hide!?”

“I do not know… it controls us… please, end us… please, end us… please, end us…”

The demon ripped out the part of the rigid that was speaking, but kept the beast alive. Before doing anything else, he turned to the Cabin. Some parts of it had just barely caught on fire, but there was no major damage. With a wave of his hand, black blobs of sludge emerged and splattered over the cabin in the places where the fire was, putting an end to the damage.

What does he need the cabin for…? Suro wondered.

“Now, you think you can hide.” The greater demon growled at the barely-living rigid. “But if you can do that, you should know what I can offer you. What power can be given t—”

The demon was interrupted by a message being written in the air with light.

YOU WILL BURN JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE. YOUR NUMBERS ARE LOW AND YOUR GODDESS INDIFFERENT. YOU ARE OF NO CONCERN TO ME, BUT I AM OF GREAT CONCERN TO YOU. USE EVERYTHING AT YOUR DISPOSAL. FIND ME. COME TO ME. I WELCOME IT.

“You think you can use me?!”

I SAID NO SUCH THING.

With that, the light went out.

What am I witnessing…? Suro thought. He suddenly felt really, really small.

The demon flexed his claws. Two hands of darkness emerged from his wrist and crushed the offending rigid into a pancake. His arm shook in anger, but rather than continuing to lash out, the demon calmed himself. “…What is the rigid plague so afraid of…?”

“Oooooh, having problems?” Kirkkok asked.

The demon backhanded the bird into a nearby tree. “Silence.”

“Ow…”

“Is it of concern to us?” Minnie asked.

“No, our goals should have nothing to do with the rigid plague. It is clearly here for that silly Space Program of yours. Why, I do not know, and the plague is too far away to probe.”

“Surely Eyda—" Jeremiah began.

“Eyda has given me enough,” the demon interrupted. “As She gave you enough in the past.”

Jeremiah frowned but nodded. “You are right, of course, High One.”

The demon chuckled ominously, but said nothing. “Come.” They moved toward the front doors.

“…Do you have a plan?”

That hadn’t been Scurfpea asking. Suro had been so glued to the events that transpired that he hadn’t even noticed Arno show up. Suro stared at him in disbelief, unable to formulate words.

“Joira asked me to ask if there was a plan, since she wants to charge in with fire…”

Suro looked back at the treeline. He could see flashes of red robes here and there. The Seekers must have followed him just like Scurfpea. How could so many people be so du—

Wait.

Wait, yes, he did have a plan.

He ran back to the treeline and skidded to a stop in the middle of… about a dozen Red Seekers.

“Thank Dia that you all showed up, we’re going to need it,” Suro said.

“Oh so you do have a plan!?” Joira asked. “Took you long enough to get back here!”

“Look, this is a bad plan, but it’s all I’ve got. I need two of your physically strongest Seekers to help me move a cart into the forest as fast as possible. The rest of you need to… distract and hold off everything. That demon is unimaginably powerful but Minnie is one of yours and… and I hear you wanted to charge in guns blazing anyway.”

“You don’t think we can take him!?”

“No! The rigid plague had a troop here trying to burn down the cabin and he tore through them like butter!”

“We’ll see about that…” Joira said, taking out a Red crystal. “But… since you say you just need time, we will try to give it. Hugo! Candrista!” A large muscular human man and an extremely tall green gari woman stood to attention. “Do what the cat tells you. Everyone else… let’s assume the cat is right and stall for time. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Yay! Plan!” Scurfpea said.

Joira pointed at her. “What is this girl doing here?”

“Dunno,” Suro said. “Your problem now, I’ve got to run!” He scampered off.

“Everyone, move it!” Joira ran out of the treeline and approached the cabin. “Minnie! Get out here you—”

There was an explosion of pure darkness that tore the front doors off their hinges and threw them at Joira. She created a cone of flame in front of herself that managed to partially deflect the makeshift projectile, but it still cut a gash across her left arm. She did not lose her grip on her crystal.

The rest of the Red Seekers took battle stances behind her. Even Scurfpea did, but she had a huge smile on her face and her “weapon” was a bag of seeds.

Arno was near the front, expression blank.

Minnie was the first one to emerge from the black smoke, gently strumming her lute. She started to sing.

“The great fires of old

set the whole world ablaze

eating all that was and would be

none could be spared ‘till all was flame

that is the world we fight for today.”

“Stop spouting nursery rhyme nonsense!” Joira shouted. “I demand an explanation.”

“That song is your explanation,” Minnie said. “You have rejected the way that I followed. Ashen rejected the way that I followed. So I found a new way.” She held her hands to her side and the great demon appeared behind her, brimming with dark flames that twisted and bent the space around him. “The world will burn, Joira, but it will burn not with Red flames, but black ones.”

The Red Seekers all took a step back… save for Joira, and Scurfpea.

For a moment, the demon reacted, glaring right at Scurfpea with what was clearly fear. But this fear quickly subsided and the demon returned to a menacing position with no hint of faltering.

Joira took a step forward. “You sure you haven’t just been tricked?”

Minnie blinked. “You really have changed from the woman I followed all those years… talking? Talking? Rather than fighting the traitor?”

“It’ll be the last time either of us get to say anything to each other, one way or another.” Joira ground her teeth. “Might as well make the most of it.”

“…Very well.”

~~~

Deep within the caves, the neko spy approached the frozen form of Princess Via. With every step she took, her mind continued to try to justify why she didn’t have to do this right here, right now. There were other spies in town with this exact purpose. Ones more suited to assassination. If she struck and failed, somehow, they would not be able to move as freely.

She started humming the song.

She knew there was no hope.

She took the final step, entering a lunge toward the Princess.

Her foot landed in what had appeared to be spilled fruit juice, but the moment she stepped in it, it adhered her foot to the ground like glue.

What…?

She didn’t panic, she still had control, everyone was all but frozen and she was jamming the spell that was trying to fight back. She removed her foot from her boot and, balancing on one leg, hopped forward.

She landed in something invisible and slippery and slid forward, hitting an unbroken bottle hard enough to shatter the glass. The material inside immediately exploded in a shower of glitter and… strawberry? The force sent her backward until she hit another bottle, which, upon breaking, its contents expanded into a gelatin like substance that encased both of the spy’s legs. As she was pulling her legs out, a chemical reaction occurred between two of the bottles, bursting into purple flame that released a noxious gas. The spy’s eyes started burning and she began coughing uncontrollably.

And she finally lost control of her spells.

Granted, this meant that everyone else got to experience tears and uncontrollable coughing, but now they were aware of the spy. Lila, Via, Big G, and the male guard were in no position or strength to do much of anything, the fumes had gotten to them, but the female guard…

She was coughing and crying just like everyone else but this did not stop her from drawing her weapon—a spear, unusual for a Kroanite Royal Guard—and rushing the spy.

The spy was also highly trained and, even in her debilitated state, was able to jump over the spear. She no longer had the precision or focus required to freeze them again, and it probably would be countered anyway, so she instead accelerated herself. From her perspective, this had the effect of slowing everyone else down—though not stopping them. She rushed the female guard with a knife, aiming for the place the helmet met the shoulder, hoping to ram it through into the neck…

But she’d been read. Before she’d even begun her attack, the guard had started lifting her arm to defend herself, there was no way to get to the neck now, so the spy tried to divert her attack toward the helmet’s faceplate, hoping to get through and spike an eye in there. She drove the knife in and found it stuck. The guard, even slowed, had managed to turn her head just enough that the knife got wedged between the metal slats, unable to pierce further.

The spy let go of the knife, but it was too late, the guard’s foot was already coming for her midsection, and accelerated though she was, she hadn’t seen it coming and was unable to dodge. The point of the metal armored boot pierced her abdomen, making her cry out in pain and lose focus on her spell. Immediately the force of the kick became far more intense and she was thrown into a nearby wall.

The guard was not without injury, however. The knife had not been completely stopped in the helmet, and it had struck with a lot of force—enough to tear the helmet clean off once time begun moving at a normal rate again. A single red line had been cut under the emerald green eyes of a gari woman with wild green hair.

Queen Riikaz.

“You’re a clever one, aint’cha?” Riikaz asked, grinning, seemingly unfazed by the tears and blood running down her face. At this point the gas had either dissipated enough to no longer enforce coughing, or had simply lost some of its potency. Riikaz twirled her spear around in her hand, chuckling. “So, want to try that again, or do you want to run? Please pick one or the other, surrender is so boring.”

The spy knew she was doomed, but she could not flee.

With a pained wail, she charged the Queen.

The spy made an incredible effort. She flew over the spear and tried to hit it in the shaft to disarm Riikaz, but Riikaz allowed her to do this so she could get in a punch to the spy’s face, which gave her enough time to kick the spear back into her hand while the spy reeled. The spy attempted to take advantage of Riikaz’s armored situation—she had to be slow in that—but found that not only were Riikaz’s reflexes too quick, but she was also smart. Virtually everything the spy tried, Riikaz predicted it, sometimes clearly before the spy even decided to do it.

Riikaz cut a gash across the spy’s leg. “You’re clever and quick, I’ll give you that, but you clearly weren’t raised a warrior. I come from a land of battle and hard-fought strength. You come from a land of snow and ice.” She pointed her spear at the spy’s neck. “Yield.”

I cannot. The spy burst into tears, and not because of the gas, but because she knew her life was over and there was nothing she could do about it. She knew there was no victory, but she was forced to try. She lunged forward, allowing the spear to cut her arm so she could just get one shot at wrapping her hands around Riikaz’s neck.

Riikaz was once again too fast. She simply tilted her head to the side and angled her spear, hitting the spy in the rear. The spy flopped to the ground in an undignified position, losing a fair amount of blood.

“You… have no choice…” Riikaz said, the joy of the thrill of battle leaving her face in an instant. “You no longer wish to continue, but you are forced to. What… a terrible song.”

The spy clearly had a broken leg at this point and wailed in agony as she stood to her feet, but stand she did. Every part of her was shaking. But she continued on. She…

…Seskii tripped her from behind and she fell flat on her back onto the sticky glue-like substance on the ground. She would not be moving anytime soon.

“Where did you go?” Riikaz asked.

“Letting you have your time in the spotlight,” Seskii said. “You’re good at healing, right?”

Riikaz nodded. “Not as good as Tenii, but…” She pulled out a Green crystal and aimed it specifically at the spy’s largest wounds—the one in the abdomen and the broken leg, careful not to restore the glue sticking her to the ground. “Green is indispensable for any warrior, for it allows one to fight to the end and live to fight another day.”

Seskii nodded.

“I…” Lila managed, still short on breath. “You two, we… we owe you so much… and… Your Highness, I had…”

“You weren’t supposed to know I was here,” Riikaz said, putting her helmet back on. “Via’s the one here officially.”

“She just tried to kill me…” Via said, staring at the spy stuck on the ground. “I… they’ve never gotten this close before…”

Riikaz put her hand on her daughter. “You have survived your first battle.”

“M-mom, I’m not a warrior!”

“You survived nonetheless.”

“Because of you!”

“Even among my tribe, hiding behind the stronger is no dishonor. They would call you a sissy for not being a warrior at all, but…” Riikaz chuckled. “You don’t need to be one. Still, you’ll draw strength from this.”

“Wh—strength!? I…” Via stopped silent for a moment and then started laughing. “Of course, all hardships bring strength, I…” She took a deep breath. “Okay! Everyone here, pretend as if Mom wasn’t here. Understood?”

“Understood,” Big G and Lila said.

“And also… uh… okay so she was a singer.” Via kneeled down to the bloodied but living form of the spy. She was weeping. “…Thank you, Mom, for not ending her.”

“She’s lucky I wasn’t so angry to take her out right then and there,” Riikaz said. “She was after you and on a different day that would have meant no mercy.”

“Always show mercy, Mom, please.”

“…I can’t promise anything, but your Dad has shown me enough that I try.”

Via chuckled. “Anyway. Ahem. Now we…” She frowned. “There will be others, this can’t be an isolated incident. We… um…”

“We need to redistribute more guards here,” Riikaz said. “Get a tighter security net around you that we already have.” She pointed at the prisoner. “We can’t leave him here to be broken out, we have to take him and the girl with us. Big G, every one of your boys we meet on the way out will become part of our squad as we move back to the Lab, where we’ll hold and consider another course of action.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Big G said.

“Let’s move.”

Lila let out a huge breath. She had barely known it, but everyone’s lives had been in danger there.

It had been a while since she’d been in the thick of it like that… and she hadn’t even done anything this time!

Would she have to do something in the future…? Would she still be able to?

What have we brought to this little town of ours?

~~~

Mary packed up her basket of fruits, vegetables, and plasts. It was a very large basket filled with a tremendous variety with every color of the rainbow—including blue. She had decided that she wanted to bring a gift basket to all the hard workers at the Laboratory today. There wasn’t particularly any reason for it, she just felt like it. It was a thing she did every now and then, so it wasn’t like the feeling was unusual. It was just the way she was.

She hummed to herself as she left her farm, skipping all the way along the trail. Her thoughts turned to Blue and the others up in space. She hoped they were okay and that everything was going smoothly for them, and that soon they would be able to tell stories about all the wild things they found on the Moon and the adventures they had…

It was amazing that she expected them to be back soon. People who went on journeys to distant lands took years to make their way there and back, if they ever came back. But to the Moon? The trip was expected to take just days. It was incredible. To think, once they perfected how to do this, travel to anywhere on Ikyu would be exactly the same… it took Jeh one day to go around the world, and the satellite much much less.

Mary could go to… to the Tempest, if she wanted, and be home in time for dinner once this all got sorted out. As much as she loved her down-to-earth lifestyle, being able to see far-off places for a day or two and then come back sounded simply wonderful.

She crested a hill and opened her eyes.

Her happy humming stopped instantly and she froze in place.

The field between her and the Laboratory was on fire. It wasn’t a big fire, and the smell of smoke was barely detectable from her current position, but it was a fire nonetheless, all that corn was going to go to waste if someone didn’t do something. But this was not what made her stop—fires were not unheard of and she would have just gotten word to everyone to deal with it under normal circumstances, and since Alexandrite was around she would have just found him to deal with it.

It was the cause of the fire that made her stop.

There was a battle underway.

On one side were a half-dozen or so rigids, most of them Ch’eni’tho, but a few of them looked like human skulls with legs and one of them was a big snake. One would expect the wizards of the Laboratory to be fighting them, but no, those wizards were all standing out in front of the Laboratory watching the fight just as Mary was.

The other side of the fight were a bunch of people Mary didn’t recognize. They looked like any ordinary citizens of Kroan, and seemed entirely unrelated to each other. Mostly gari, a few humans, a purple slime… the only way she could tell they were related was because they were coordinating their attacks on the rigids.

What is going on…?

She stood, rooted to the spot, as her mind tried to make sense of what was going on. The rigid plague was obvious, but who were they fighting? Those weren’t royal guards… they were ordinary-looking people…

Ordinary-looking.

They were trying to be stealthy. Clearly that had failed. That meant… Shimvale.

Mary couldn’t help but laugh, though it was a bitter laugh. Both the rigid plague and the Shimmers had been going after the Laboratory, and they’d run into each other!

But now they were fighting and killing each other in the middle of Willow Hollow…

Mary spotted Alexandrite flying overhead, heading for the Laboratory. Suddenly she felt the urge to run after him. It didn’t even occur to her that it would be easier to run without the giant basket and she carried it with her the whole way.

As she ran, she approached closer and closer to the battle. Rigids and Shimmers went at each other left and right. Once she got close enough she realized there were some tactics at play—the rigids were trying to be purely destructive and charge the Laboratory with reckless abandon, while the Shimmers were specifically not doing that. The plague wanted the place destroyed, while the Shimmers likely wanted to use whatever was within it themselves.

Shortly after this realization she was able to make out the bodies on the ground. Corpses of twisted, mangled rigids that dripped dark fluids. Massacred pancakes of people and red smears along the ground, some of which were burning, sending a sickly smell into the air. Burned rigid oils and flesh mixed to make a truly nauseating aroma, but Mary held it in.

She’d been in the midst of a battle before. This was just a little closer to the casualties.

Too close.

Have mercy on us.

The miniature war paid her no mind as she passed by with her basket. She was literally nothing to them, no concern, not even worthy of attention. The victims of the rigid plague cried out, for they were the whim of some higher power. The Shimmers cried as well, sometimes… how many of them were Singers? How many of them also had no choice?

The true horror of the battle finally occurred to Mary.

This was not a battle between people. This was a battle between puppets.

Death was being thrown around by distant puppet masters who didn’t care what they had to do to accomplish their goals.

Tears in her eyes, she finally arrived at the Laboratory from the side, where Alexandrite was. Alexandrite was talking to Krays.

“Should we do something?”

Krays shook her head. “Let them sort themselves out first, we’ll figure it out from there. If anything comes flying our way, stop it.” A piece of shrapnel flew through the air and would have hit the Laboratory were it not for a Minor Orange Wizard deflecting it. “Like that.” She snorted. “Idiots. If they stopped fighting and worked together they might have a chance.”

“I believe their goals do not align…”

“Well, they’re doomed now,” Krayz said, crossing her arms. “Even when one of them emerges victorious in a few minutes, we have enough firepower here to take whatever remains.” She gestured at the wizards and a few faces Mary didn’t recognize that were probably Agents of the Crown. “We’re very lucky they showed up at the same time.”

“Has anyone checked inside the Lab?” Mary asked. “For infiltrators?”

Krays grinned. “Oh, absolutely. Some of the Shimmers were already in. They’re locked away in storage right now. Special storage.”

“I… I don’t want to know.”

“You’re right, you don’t. But I’ll tell you anyway, see, we have some poisons available and I’ve placed them on the door. Or, well, that’s what I told them. In reality it’s not poison, it’s just a really good lock and a booby trap that’ll probably give them a concussion if they try to get out.”

Mary was stunned into silence.

“Anyway, looks like the battle’s wrapping up… good show, really.”

“How can you call this a show!?”

Krays frowned. “Well the other option is be absolutely horrified. How’s that going for you?”

“I… wh… I…”

One of the Ch’eni’tho skewered the last Shimmer in the chest, throwing the body down in triumph. The rigid wasted no time at all in charging right toward the Laboratory… alone. The Ch’eni’tho was the last survivor of the battle.

“This’ll be pathetic…” Krays said. “Ready, everyone!”

The wizards and agents were already ready, Krays didn’t even need to say anything. They were all just waiting for the Ch’eni’tho to get close enough.

The rigid never did.

From the sky came an object surrounded in Orange sparks moving at extreme speeds. It came in at a shallow angle, striking the Ch’eni’tho directly in the center, sending pieces flying, but the object itself never touched the ground. It flew back up into the sky and slowed itself down, allowing everyone to get a good look at it.

It was Margaret in the Skyseed IV.

“That. Was. Awesome!” Krays shouted, throwing her fists into the air. “Poor guy didn’t even have a chance to see that coming!”

“I noticed the Orange sparks,” Alexandrite said.

“In that case he’s an absolute moron and we should laugh at him even more.”

“He was just a puppet, Krays…” Mary said, shaking her head. “Don’t laugh at him.”

Krays looked like she wanted to say something but for once in her life chose to remain silent. Margaret set the Skyseed IV down on the grass outside the Laboratory, where an Orange Wizard pried the lid off for her. She jumped out, breathing heavily. “What was all that!?”

“Political intrigue folding in on itself like a house of cards in the best way for us,” Krays offered. “What I want to know is what you’re doing back, you should be in space!”

“I was taking it leisurely. Looked down, saw smoke, decided to come back.” Margaret looked at the various wizards and agents and Alexandrite. “Looks like I probably didn’t need to…”

“Perhaps not,” Alexandrite said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a fire to put out.” He flew into the air where he started using his water attribute on the field. It would take a bit, but the fire would get under control.

“Still, we’re glad you returned,” Mary said. “But you probably shouldn’t go ramming the Skyseed into things, it’s fragile…”

Margaret looked back at the Skyseed IV. It did, in fact, have a large crack along its side now. The crack was large enough to make it clear that only luck had kept the ship from shattering completely on impact, which would have been disastrous for Margaret. Actually, come to think of it…

“Did you hurt yourself when you hit…?” Mary asked.

Margaret nodded. “Nasty bump on my head. Used my Green on that rather than the ship.” She sighed. “Krays, can you fix that crack?”

Krays tapped her foot. “…Yes, but it won’t be an easy job. And I’m not sure the fix will withstand the conditions in space. Unless you want to hatch and hope you have your flying wings up there.”

“Well, I…”

Mary gasped. “There’s another fire.” She pointed at a smaller trail of smoke rising from somewhere over the treeline. “That’s… that’s where Vaughan’s Cabin is.”

Margaret wasted no time. She jumped back into the Skyseed IV. “I’m going! Don’t bother with the lid!”

“Wait!” Krays shouted. “I’ve got something you need!”

“What?”

Krays chuckled ominously. “Oh, it’s so simple it’ll make you feel stupid for not thinking of it yourself…”

~~~

“I like to think I speak for a lot of us who once served you,” Minnie said, strumming her lute absent-mindedly as she started pacing in a wide circle around Joira, Scurfpea, Arno, and the rest of the Red Seekers. “We came to you seeking the Red, Joira. The fire. The passion. The burning of all colors opposed to us. We did not join the other Red Sects for a reason, Joira.” She suddenly stopped strumming. “We were to bring our Color into the world and then burn everything. All would be fire.”

“Then our Color awoke and showed us that was not the way,” Joira said. “I was wrong about the Red.”

Minnie glared at her. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you actually admit that.”

Joira scowled. “Forgive me if I’m under a bit of duress that’s making me say things I’d rather not say!”

“You should have remained stronger.” Minnie shook her head. “But, ultimately, you were right. The Red was not what we thought it was. And that makes it not worthy of worship.”

Joira and the rest of the Red Seekers gasped. “The Red is—”

“I served the Red because of its fire!” Minnie shouted back. “In my old sect I grew up on these songs, these songs of fire, these songs of power, these songs of desolation. Blanketing the world in fire is beautiful, Joira, and you used to see that! I thought the fire was the Red, but no, the fire is a goal in and of itself! If the Red will not give us what we have asked it for, then I will not give it reverence. I know I am not alone, Joira. I know there are those with you who feel the fire within themselves as I do.” She turned her gaze to Arno. “I have made sure of it in every way I know how.”

Arno was crying.

“I wish it did not have to be this way, Arno. I tried my best to protect you from the changes happening around you. But they sent you off to those wizards, and I couldn’t say anything or else Joira would be rid of me. All I could do was give you the songs. I hope they are enough for you as they were for me.”

“I don’t wanna burn Joira!”

“Arno… everything must burn. Even us, in the end. That is what I taught you.”

Arno stared at her in shock, but he could not deny it.

“Come Arno… and the rest of you, the rest of you who feel the fire, come to me. The Red has betrayed us… but I have found a new fire.” The demon behind her allowed black flames to come off his back, rising into the air. “The world will go dark.”

Joira scowled. “Eyda, should she even exist, does not hold herself to any one creed. She will not burn the entire world, just as much as she is willing to let you.”

“Eyda empowers me,” Minnie said, glaring. “She could care less what I do so long as I give Her reverence. I could lay waste to all of Ikyu and She wouldn’t bat an eye. And the same goes to all of you.”

“Then why hasn’t anyone laid waste to Ikyu yet?” Joira asked. “Think Minnie, you can’t be the only one, if Eyda was willing to just give this, wouldn’t someone have done it already?”

“The answer to that is simple, Minnie,” the greater demon spoke. “You are simply the first to ask.”

Joira glared at the demon. “You really are a silver-tongued lout, aren’t you? What of all of Eyda’s other followers, the ones who don’t want to be burned to a crisp?”

“You assume it is beyond Eyda’s power to grant paradoxes. It is not.” Turning to Minnie, he continued. “Eyda grants fire to you, to do as you wish. Eyda grants power to others to do as they wish. The strongest wish must win out in the end.”

“You just contradicted what you said previously!” Joira blurted. “If one wish wins a paradox is not granted!”

“Your pathetic mortal mind is not able to see the full nature of things. And allow me to be frank, even if your accusations are true, and that Minnie’s wish is not to be granted absolutely… tell me, Minnie, what if you could just burn this country? This town? Is that still not progress toward your delight?”

Minnie paused for a moment. “Yes. Even a small land that burns is better than none.”

Joira, in that moment, felt a stone drop in her chest, and she understood. Understood what she had done to these people for all those years. Understood what she had been leading them to, what damage she had done to their souls.

And for what reason?

Her parents had told her what the Red stood for and she believed it wholeheartedly until Ashen came.

That was it. That was her entire motivation, her entire purpose for being. It was simply the legacy of past generations.

And it had created the monster standing before her. She had created the monster standing before her.

“So, will you come?” Minnie asked the Red Seekers. “Will you stand with me and lay waste to all around, light the land with black fire, and turn the land upside down? Shall we start with these devious Aware in this town who look down on us with their arrogant noses and dare think they’re better than us just because they tolerate!? Tolerance is a weakness, they should have killed us all in cold blood long ago if they had any amount of sense to them. But they did not, and we shall show them their folly.” She extended a hand. “Come. Let us end this.”

None of the Red Seekers said anything. Arno was bawling his eyes out.

Doubt crossed Minnie’s features. “…Arno?”

“I… I don’t want Jeh and the others to burn… I want them to go to space…”

A shadow crossed Minnie’s eyes. “I was too late.” She glared at Joira. “You ruined him.”

“I think I fixed him,” Joira growled back.

“The others are too afraid of you or have too much respect to defy you.” Minnie frowned. “I was hoping I could keep you around and slowly bring you to my side. But no, you are an insurmountable obstacle.” She turned to the demon. “Archinae, kill her.”

“With pleasure.”

Joira did not waste any time. She tapped into her years of experience with Red magic and unleashed white hot flame upon Archinae, focusing it to create a powerful wall that would singe and deflect at the same time. Several of her Red Seekers moved with her, supporting the fire with their own, lesser magic. This was enough to push the demon’s claw back.

But there was another.

Kirkkok flew in from above. “Nighty-night!”

Suddenly Joira’s mind felt like it was being struck by lightning. She couldn’t see anything but bright flashes of light. But she was a stubborn woman, one who had dealt with much pain in her life. She maintained her will, even if she couldn’t see and had no idea what was going on.

This was not sufficient. The demon was able to move behind her and stab her through the back.

The sparks in her mind vanished. She keeled over backward, all sensation of feeling entirely gone. There was nothing at all…

…and then she was coughing up blood and sitting up, surrounded by verdant leaves, vines, and Green sparks.

“Try harder,” Scurfpea said with a smile, waving Green crystals over her.

“How annoying…” the Archinae said. He quickly grabbed the young dryad in one of his hands. “To think, if you were connected to the rest of the Glens, you would be an actual problem.”

“Eh?” Scurfpea tilted her head to the side, clearly confused. Not afraid in the slightest, though.

“I will get much pleasure out of breaking a soul such as yours.” He created spikes of darkness out of the air and rammed them through Scurfpea’s leaves, violently sticking her hands and feet together. This got Scurfpea to scream, and for a second the pressurized fluids within her sprayed out all over the demon’s face, but he didn’t flinch, he simply had his spikes of darkness seal over the wounds to prevent any leakage. Then he tossed her to the ground; a crying, sniveling girl literally pinned to herself so she could barely move. “That is just a taste of what is to come.” The demon rose into the air, spreading his four arms wide. “All of you will understand the power which you defy, in time, and you will turn around to us—far faster than you could ever imagine. You wi—”

Joira decided she’d had enough of the demon’s talking and ignited the air around him in white flame. Half of the other Red Seekers joined her in this endeavor, while the other half ran to Scurfpea.

Archinae somehow grabbed the white flame in his hands and compressed it like a ball. “I fought a much grander master of the Red than you to get here, this is nothing! Return to me when you have blue fire!” He rose higher into the air and lifted the white fire above his head. His darkness moved into the fire, mixing its pure light with unnatural flames of shadow, swirling in a pattern not unlike ripples on a pond. “Let’s see… this should just burn you to the skin level. It’ll grow back. Eventually. If I let it.”

Just as the fireball reached its apex, Archinae paused, sensing something.

Then the Skyseed IV slammed into him.

The effects were extreme.

The Skyseed IV itself disintegrated on impact, shattering into thousands of glassy pieces sent flying every which way. The momentum transferred almost entirely into Archinae, throwing him sideways toward the forest at high speed.

Then the sound hit. It was so loud that everyone fell over. Joira felt as though a spike had been rammed in one ear and out the other, and had she maintained much awareness as she was thrown to the ground, she would have noticed blood shooting out her ears.

Every single window in Vaughan’s cabin shattered.

Then the demon actually hit the ground. The impact was strong enough to light the nearby grasses on fire and to uproot the tree he hit. A crater formed in the damp ground. An instant afterward, the fire he had accumulated in his hands went off, engulfing him in his white-black rippling power, shredding the bark off nearby trees.

The black spikes in Scurfpea’s hands dissipated, causing her to spray all over. Instinctually, she grew plants around her wounds like bandages, tying them tight. She was still small and had lost a lot of fluid, so when she stood she was very shaky, but she could stand. Immediately she started treating everyone with her Green, doing what she could for their ears.

Kirkkok had to attend to Jeremiah and Minnie, and he continually glanced nervously at the cratered hole Archinae had been thrown into.

At this point, Margaret drifted down. She had bailed out of the Skyseed quite a while before it had actually hit the demon. This was enabled by Krays’ gift—the brass, mushroom-shaped levitator that they kept in the Laboratory display to remind them where the whole Wizard Space Program had gotten started. It was literally strapped to her wrist, which was fortunate, since she had blacked out for a momenta after bailing.

Her intuition about air resistance and trajectory had been spot on—she’d hit exactly where she’d intended to and in the direction she’d intended to.

She landed in the middle of the area, clearly confused. She tossed the levitator to the ground, looking at Jeremiah. “Dad? What’s… going on?”

“Why… why would you do that?” Jeremiah asked. “We… we were going to…”

Margaret paled. “The… that was… with you? You were okay with… tormenting a dryad child?”

“It was Eyda’s will.”

“Eyda’s will is whatever we will!” Margaret spat back.

“Eyda has use of me, Margaret…” Jeremiah said. “And I wish to serve in the glory of Her darkness.”

“You… no, you can’t.” Margaret shook her head. “Dad, this isn’t you! You care about people! You want them to have the best! You…” She gestured back at Scurfpea, who’s plant bandages and pain were evident. “You can’t just…”

“Yes he can,” Minnie said. “He has seen the darkness, and revels in it. You are the one who doesn’t truly understand Eyda.”

“Eyda serves those who serve themselves,” Margaret growled. “And I know what my Dad wants. This isn’t it.”

“People change.”

“Yes. They do.” Margaret turned to her father. “But there’s one thing that will never change. Dad, I, me, your daughter, beg. Don’t become this.” Tears started streaking down her face. “I thought you were finally getting better… I… please, Dad. Please. I can’t, I…” Her legs gave out as the emotions finally overran her adrenaline and she became a bawling mess that couldn’t make sense of what was happening.

Jeremiah immediately winced, a tear rolling down his cheek. He took a step forward.

Kirkkok squawked in surprise. “Wh—what?”

Jeremiah ran to his daughter and pulled her into a hug. “I could never… abandon you… for anything.”

“Wait, no, Jeremiah!”

“Shut up, bird,” Joira spat, standing up. “Your power is nothing over this.”

“This… this can’t be! That’s not how…”

Minnie growled. “Jeremiah, remember who you are pledged to…”

“I am pledged to my daughter,” Jeremiah said. “And if she is on her hands and knees… how can I not go to her?”

“Dad…” Margaret said, beaming. “I… I don’t even have the words.”

“I do. I love you, little Margaret, since the day I first found you. And nothing can change that fact.”

“Human sentiments are so foolish and pathetic…”

Everyone slowly turned to look in fear at the crater. Slowly, but surely, the four-armed form of Archinae emerged from it. Clearly heavily injured and shaky, but his form was complete and he most certainly wasn’t dead.

“I’m beginning to understand the power you’ve unlocked in your forays to the stars…” Archinae snorted.

“Stay back,” Jeremiah said, putting himself between the demon and Margaret.

“You old fool.”

“I know I can’t stop you.”

“That’s not why you’re the fool.” Archinae suddenly rammed his finger through Jeremiah’s skull, but somehow didn’t break anything. “You think I can’t reach in here and remove your disgusting love for your daughter? You have already given yourself to us, your will is forfeit.”

Jeremiah’s expression went blank.

“Dad!” Margaret called out.

“Kick your ‘daughter’ down.” Archinae ordered.

Jeremiah, face suddenly overcome with anger, whirled around and kicked Margaret in the stomach, throwing her to the ground. There was no sign of remorse or sorrow in his features.

“Hey!” Kirkkok shouted. “We’re supposed to be subtle!”

“We have no need for subtlety anymore,” Archinae said. “For soon, everyone here will bow before us.”

“…I will never bow before you,” Margaret said, grinding her teeth. “You just took my Dad away.” She flew at him in a blind rage. She had no weapons, as she’d just been piloting the Skyseed IV, so the entire attack was utterly pointless. But how could she do anything else?

The demon backhanded her to the ground.

Minnie took a step back.

“Oh, you finally have true doubts do you?” Archinae said. “What does it matter to you if I violate the deepest part of a man’s soul? You wished to see it all burn anyway.”

“…If you’ve done it to him, you could do it to me.”

“Quite. And I will.” Archinae chuckled. “I have grown tired of all this… show. It has taken too long, and your mortal attempts at piercing the heavens have caused me no small amount of pain… this show ends here.” He extended his hand like a noodle and thrust it into the Cabin. After rummaging around for a few seconds and smashing through a few doors, he grabbed hold of what they were here for.

He pulled out the black cube and set it down in front of everyone.

Joira had never seen such a thing of pure blackness before. And yet, the edges were pure white. Every now and then, it appeared like light glinted off of it in a shimmer, but this occurred reliably every second or so without any regard for the actual lighting conditions. Its appearance was drilled into her mind.

Scurfpea’s eyes widened.

“Ah, so you’ve seen one of these,” Archinae said, turning to Scurfpea. “I wonder, was your Glen hiding it? Protecting it? Was it an object of reverence or fear?”

Scurfpea clearly didn’t understand all the words the demon was saying.

“In truth, it does not matter, for this cube is the one we care about.” He ran his hand across it. “These cubes are utterly useless to divine creatures such as myself, or Crystalline Ones… they are for the physical, the mortal. And all one has to do… is touch it.” Archinae held out a hand. “Jeremiah, your time has come!”

Minnie decided she had to do something. She took out a Red crystal and tried to burn Jeremiah to a crisp. She knew she didn’t have time—Kirkkok knocked the crystal out of her hand before she could even light him on fire.

“Only she knows what is contained in this cube. Strange how she can go from thinking it the best tool for her goals… to a horror beyond comprehension.”

There was nothing anyone could do as Jeremiah laid his hand upon the cube.

For a second, the black cube with white edges became a white cube with black edges.

Then it returned to normal like nothing had happened.

“…What?” Joira asked.

“Jeremiah, if you please, look everyone in the eyes.”

Jeremiah stood tall and, with a nasty smile slowly crawling up his face, turned to gaze into everyone’s eyes. His own eyes had changed, had begun to… glow. All those who looked at him didn’t feel anything change immediately, for they could not, as that was part of it. But they felt more at ease. They were calmed. There was no more sense of a life-or-death situation hanging around them.

Minnie tried to close her eyes, to not look at him. But Kirkkok forced them open with some shadowy tendrils.

“Jeremiah, if you would, tell everyone to bow to me, and to trust me as they trust you.”

“All right everyone!” Jeremiah said, clapping his hands. “I’ve got something I want you to do. Do you see Archinae over there? I want you to bow to him, right now, and trust him as you trust me. It’ll be for the best.”

Everyone obeyed. Joira. Minnie. Scurfpea. Margaret. No one even cried out in pain. Smiles were starting to crawl up their faces.

“What a perfectly amazing power contained in this cube,” Archinae said with a laugh. “Of all the so-called ‘ancestries,’ this one is particularly devious. Whoever has it will be trusted. Even knowing how it works and that you’re all being forced to this, you cannot help but trust Jeremiah with your whole hearts. Margaret, what do you think?”

Margaret suddenly stood up. On her face was a calm, serene smile. She opened her mouth. “I think… I think… I think… I think…”

“Oh, how annoying, she appears to be stuck. Seems there is a limit after all.” Archinae waved a dismissive hand. “No matter, I’ll just have him tell you to do things and you’ll do them.” He drummed his fingers on the cube. “You know, your late Mayor had this power. He tried to limit it by wearing a mask so no one would ever see his true eyes. But the subtler effects still transpired despite his efforts. To think, he rejected the power such a gift could give him… wanted it destroyed. Thrown into the Sun! That wouldn’t destroy it but we certainly wouldn’t be able to get to it!”

Archinae held his hands wide. “Ah, this is so freeing. No more secrets, no more shadows, I can reveal all and there’s nothing any of you can do about it.” He ran to Jeremiah, lifting up his chin with one of his claws. “You are completely in my thrall. Nothing can be done anymore, and all the witnesses are useless. Do you know that Eyda doesn’t care about this backwater world in the slightest? Too limiting, too miniscule. Too pathetic. She doesn’t even know you exist. She barely even knows I exist and I have not heard from Her in millenia, not since the Leviathan Curse. You have never touched Her, you have never impressed Her, you have never served Her; you serve us, and now me. Oh how we have laid traps upon traps upon traps for all of you…” He laughed, and laughed, and laughed, throwing his head back and holding his arms wide.

“You all may wonder, what exactly do I want? It isn’t destruction, that really is reductive and boring. Nothing means there’s no fun, no enjoyment to be had out of making everyone squirm, of absolutely dominating their wills. I don’t want a kingdom either, like those idiots on the other side of the world. No, I simply want absolute, complete, and utter freedom. No matter where I go, no matter what there is, I intend to act as if there are no consequences. I will become the wanderer of this world, greater than all. I wish to slay and build up and then use what I’ve build up to crush other things I’ve built up! I will turn this world into my playground… and it is all thanks to all of you and this town. It brought everything together just perfectly.” He paused. “Almost too perfectly…” He spread his senses out once again.

Then he sensed her.

Ashen.

“You have heard too much, Crystalline One.”

Ashen, despite being too far away for anyone present to see with their eyes, responded nonetheless into all their minds.

“And you have overextended yourself, demon.”

“You think you can challenge me?”

“How can I not?” At this point people started to notice that, from somewhere within the forest, a tree was moving. “I was begged by one of those closest in desperation. You threaten this town and those I care about.”

“How about… a deal?”

“Your deals are filled with lies and rot. I have heard too much, you need me dead.”

“You…”

“You are the one who is trapped.”

Archinae clenched his claws together. “…You are but a small, inexperienced Crystalline One. I am a greater shadow of Eyda.”

“If you thought you could end me in an instant, you would, and would not be talking.”

The demon let out a roar of rage. “In that case…” He placed a hand around Margaret’s neck. “Stand down or I break this girl’s neck.”

At this point, Ashen finally emerged from the forest. She had taken a form with five Red legs somewhere between the shape of a crab and a hand, each leg moving not with joints and sockets, but with facets sliding past facets that sent out brilliant Red sparks. Her center was dominated by her crystal weaving in and out of a living tree, and the roots twisted around her crystal into pockets that were caked in dirt.

Minnie found this image offensive enough to cry out in rage. “You… you…”

“Minnie, quiet.” Minnie’s expression went completely blank but she shut up.

“You are a monster beyond my wildest dreams,” Ashen said.

“What a compliment.”

“This only solidifies my opinion that you need to die.”

“How strange, I feel the same way. I am curious though… how did Suro get you here?” He held out two hands to Ashen. “I see you in memories, you were not this large, nor this mobile.”

“Ah, so you cannot probe my mind. Good.” Ashen’s facets flickered. “While you were busy with the Red Seekers, Suro and the others went to the back and grabbed all the Red they could and ran it to me. I have increased in mass significantly, and in power. For the record, Suro and the others are now running to town. Information about what you’ve done will be spread no matter what happens here.”

“There is no way they stayed long enough to hear everything…”

“How far do my senses reach now, do you think? How much information could I have given them? Face it, Archinae, your desire to finally let loose and gloat has let a dark secret out, one that cannot be put back in. The Kingdom of Kroan will know more about you demons from today than ever before. If your goddess cared, I bet she would be unimaginably livid.”

The demon opened and closed his claws several times, thinking.

“There is no way out for you.”

“There is always a way out.”

“How about I offer you a deal? I don’t kill you, I just trap you.”

“I AM NOT GOING BACK!” Archniae’s scream was so intense that the ground beneath him cracked, the air sparked with electricity, and branches were torn out of nearby trees. “I AM ARCHINAE, HIGHER SHADOW! I WILL NOT BE SUBJUGATED, YOU WILL BE SUBJUGATED TO ME!” With that, all reason and control in Archinae’s system left him. The control he exercised to talk, to negotiate, was spent. However, he still had tactics. Rather than kill Margaret outright, as that would do nothing to ensure his further survival, he threw her at Ashen, a projectile to confound and protect. “EVERYONE, KILL HER!”

“You heard the man!” Jeremiah said. Despite being old and creaking in his bones, he charged, Kirkkok on his arm, squawking angrily. The Red Seekers pulled out their crystals—knowing fire would be useless, they moved forward, prepared to use them like daggers. Scurfpea started growing sharp plant spikes out of the ground.

Margaret found herself caught in a chair-shaped section of Ashen that had just been formed.

A message was sent to her, and her alone.

“I am so sorry, it has to be done. I hope you can forgive me one day.”

In that instant, Jeremiah went up in a blaze of blue fire.

“NO!” Archinae shouted, surrounding the flaming Jeremiah in a dark shell. Space literally warped around the shell, forcing any magic around and away from him. “I AM BEY—”

Ashen built up a single point of heat outside the bubble of darkness, building it up so much that it destabilized and exploded. The warping of the darkness could not overcome the directed power of the blast.

The weak, biological frame inside was disintegrated in an instant. Kirkkok vanished as the sigil was destroyed.

There weren’t even bones left.

Margaret cried out in agony, gripping the arms of the chair she sat in hard enough to fracture the crystal, embedding it in her plast gauntlets.

Everyone else… was free.

And immediately turned on Archinae.

Archinae knew that was it. He was done for. He had no more cards to play. His energy had been spent. He had no followers he could give the power of the cube. His dreams of a worldwide playground where he was king were dashed.

He couldn’t even run. Ashen was powerful enough to hunt him down.

With no more chance of survival, his anger and vengeance were all that remained.

Kill as many of them as possible.

He raged. He rushed forward, aiming for a random Red Seeker… but a literal branch appeared between him and his target. Extending his senses, he saw Scurfpea, now standing on top of Ashen’s tree… growing the tree with her attribute. Limbs of wood and leaves emerged, protecting all those who needed it.

“Dryads… even separate from their gift…”

Ashen triggered a focused explosion at Archinae’s feet. Then another one above him. Then to the left, then the right, eventually forming a full box of explosions that compressed him into a much, much smaller form. Blue fire raged all over him and his dark body started to disintegrate bit by bit.

And then, just as he was about to be reduced to nothing, it stopped. He was the size of a small cat now, and was little more than a torso and head with shadowy flames spurting out of where his limbs should have been.

“I… will not… go back…”

“I am not taking you in. I am giving you over to someone who is far more deserving of this act.”

Margaret stepped down from Ashen’s chair. In her hands was a blade made out of a mixture of living wood and Red crystal. She stood before the form of Archinae, blade pointed right at him.

“You defy me, you defy your Goddess.”

“You took my Dad from me,” Margaret said, voice cracking. “You took him from me and I didn’t even realize it.”

Archinae laughed a long, bitter laugh. “Oh you foolish little girl… it was not I who did those things, I was merely the last step. We are shadows. We are everywhere. End me, but it will not end that which has tormented you. We persist and infect.” He stretched out his head with the last of his power, getting closer and closer to her. “You are not meant to know, but since you do, understand the full scale of what we do. We give power, and everyone thinks it is for their ‘self,’ their ‘dream,’ but that is never true. Every last Eyda Gonal everywhere in existence is under our thumb. There are innumerable multitudes like Jeremiah, led down a path of ‘self-service’ that is really service to us.”

Margaret stared right into his eyes. His horrible, piercing yellow eyes. “Then I live to tell people the truth.”

“Good luck convincing them! Would you have believed any of this if you hadn’t seen it with your own eyes!?”

Margaret thrust the blade down into his form, severing it in two. Flames burst out of the blade as it moved through the air. She pushed it too hard—it impacted the ground and the blade shattered—but the blade was never intended to be used for more than this anyway.

Archinae disappeared into flecks of black dust.

It was over.

~~~

Lila and Suro sat together on top of the laboratory, looking down at the commotion below them. Via and the guard-that-totally-wasn’t-Queen-Riikaz-in-disguise were rounding up all the surviving enemies. There were three—all of them Shimmers, none of the rigid plague’s invaders had let themselves be captured. Minnie had vanished.

Many graves were also being dug near the burnt field.

“We have been blessed this day,” Lila said, suddenly.

“Really?” Suro asked.

“Only one of those graves is for one of ours,” Lila said.

“…Jeremiah.”

“He was one of ours, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, as much as the darkness consumed him.” She paused, looking down at Margaret helping dig the graves… with Ashen. Ashen was making no attempt to hide herself as she moved through the crowds, helping in every way she could to scoop up the dirt for the bodies. Scurfpea had not left her and was continuing to use her attribute on Ashen’s tree to move it as well. This arrangement was getting quite a few uncertain glances, and people were rather nervous… but considering the literal battle so many had just witnessed, the presence of a friendly Crystalline One was actually welcome. A protector.

“There is so much I want to say to them,” Lila said. “I want to hold them close, I want to tell them it’s all okay, that the horrid things they experienced won’t be the end.”

“I think Margaret knows that,” Suro said. “She’s… she’s working with Ashen, in tandem. Just… even I would have a hard time doing that if… if…”

“If I am taken in by the darkness and my will removed, I want you to forgive the one who has to end me,” Lila said. “I want you to be like her.”

Suro swallowed hard. “I… I know, I’d want the same. But…”

“But I also want you to know if you cannot… that I would forgive you.”

“Lila…”

The two of them wrapped their tails around each other.

“…I wonder, sometimes, if we’ve done wrong,” Lila said, lowering her head. “That by pursuing the wonders of space, we have brought only darkness and suffering to our people.”

“It’s… I don’t think so,” Suro said. “We’ve been given everything for a reason. Jeh was provided to us. We have many close calls and tense moments that nonetheless end up panning out. And… even here, in all this destruction, we only lost one. All the other threats fought each other. Everything’s fallen into place just as it needs to.”

Lila nodded slowly. “You… are right. Shame on me, the Keeper, having less faith than my husband.” She chuckled. “We really are meant to do this, it seems. I do wonder… what greater purpose could it serve? What grand goal lies at the end of all this?”

“I don’t know.”

Lila nodded. “We just have to trust… and press on.” She looked down at her claws. “And prepare… for a life that is not so quiet, anymore.”

“I thought we already prepared.”

“I have not trained my claws in years. I should start again.”

“Lila…”

“it has been long enough. My past sins are no longer so… painful. I… I should at least try once again.”

Suro put a leg around his wife’s shoulder. “I’ll be there with you the entire way, and so will the kids.”

“None of you can fight,” Lila said with a snort.

“We can learn?”

“…Worth a shot, I suppose. Worth a shot…” Suddenly, she felt compelled to look up. There, in the sky, was the moon. “They might be there right now, Suro.”

“I hope they stay a while. It’ll give us time to fix Vaughan’s cabin up before he gets back.”

“There is no way we can fix a hole that big in time.”

“We can try though!”

Lila chuckled—an honest, legitimate, but tired chuckle. “We can… and…” She looked down at the commotion below once more. Agents were working with wizards were working with random visitors from out of town were working with farmers, all to undo the damage that had been done. “We can do it together.” Once again, she turned her head to the moon. “And together, we will reach the heavens.”

~~~

“Egh…” Blue said, rubbing her head with her hoof.

“Still got that headache?” Vaughan asked, taking his clearly sunburned face away from the Moonshot’s window. He just couldn’t keep the curtains drawn for very long.

“Yes…” Blue stopped levitating the papers and star charts in front of her, immediately relieving about half of her pain. “Levitation is getting harder.”

“Pushing yourself too much?”

“Maybe… I’ve never had difficulty levitating before, but it could be the stress of the situation…” She grunted. “We can rest once we arrive at the moon, right now we’re getting close, and I have work to do.”

“Close!” One of the twins said, followed closely by her sister’s echo. “Close!”

Jeh twirled around in the pilot’s seat. “Close!”

“Close,” Keller added, a short, smile-less chuckle escaping from his mouth. He was currently trying to figure out how to flip a coin in weightlessness. It wasn’t going so well for him.

“Weirdos,” Blue muttered, forcing herself to light her horn again. The headache returned, but she got back to work. “All right Jeh, another measurement…”

Ikyu, at this point, was a blue ball in space, looking not unlike the moon itself normally did, currently in a crescent phase. Blue, green, and white specks were all that Blue could make out—she wasn’t even entirely sure what continent she was looking it, it could have been Kroan’s, or the other side of the planet for all she knew. She recorded the size… and then they flipped to look at the moon.

It absolutely dominated the view with its various shades of gray that were, nonetheless, beautiful and inspiring. They could still see the moon’s curvature, but only barely at this point. Blue frowned. I thought we hadn’t waited this long…? Her question was pushed away, though, once again because the features on the moon were just so amazing. From here she could make out hills, mountains, and so many of the circular arrangements of craters. What mysterious things they were, they were all over the moon—she really did wonder what caused them, but they hadn’t come up with anything yet.

She could even see shadows being cast by the mountains due to the sun. It was all so amazing. Currently, she thought of the moon as above them, so this mountainous cratered rock—it was pretty clearly rock of some kind at this point—was her ceiling right now.

“Uh… Blue?” Jeh asked.

“Right, right,” Blue tore herself away from the window and closed the curtains, returning to her station. She plotted their trajectory again, finding, once again, that they were off course. This wasn’t really a problem as they were now at the moon and nothing was going to cause a problem at this point, but still. This bugged her. Perhaps the attraction of Ikyu wasn’t a simple inverse square law? That would be annoying to figure out if it wasn’t… making constant adjustments like this was quite annoying.

The closer they got to the moon the worse it got, too. She made a quick check of all the discrepancies and found that, sure enough, they were increasing markedly the closer they got…

…wait a second. The moon orbited Ikyu in a circle, which meant even if the attraction of Ikyu was weirdly variable, it was still constant on circular paths, so it was a spherically symmetric force. If that was the case, the rate of variability would likely change with distance from Ikyu, and yet… looking at the graph she’d just made, it was changing not with distance from Ikyu, but distance from the moon.

She stared at this blankly for a while, unsure what to make of it.

“Um… Blue?” Jeh asked. “Do I need to make any adjustments, or…?”

“Oh no,” Blue said.

“Oh no what?”

“I really don’t like the sound of that ‘oh no…’ “ Vaughan said.

“The moon is pulling us in!” Blue shouted. “Jeh, push away from the moon! It’s… oh no our inertia is too large it might be too late uh…”

Jeh decided not to wait for a specific heading and just rotated her chair around, pushed the drive into full gear, and pushed. Everyone was violently thrown to the side of the Moonshot closest to the moon.

The Moonshot, however, was extremely heavy, and even at full blast the drive was not able to change its heading particularly quickly, especially considering how fast it was going—faster even than Blue had thought it was. Not to mention the fact that, yes, the moon really was pulling on the Moonshot and they were now close enough that this force was significant and had built up quite a lot of speed.

Blue crawled over to the window that was now their “floor” due to the acceleration and looked down through it. The moon was now down. And the mountains and ridges were moving up to them alarmingly quickly. “Jeh…”

“I can’t push this thing any harder!” Jeh called.

“This is it. The moon is going to flatten us like a pancake,” Blue said. “Friggin… why didn’t we think about this!? Oh, Ikyu is down, we said, so the moon is just a floating rock, we said, everything’s attached to Ikyu. Obviously. No! Not obviously! What about those things around Qi, huh? Oh, it’s sooo obvious, for those things, Qi was down. I bet they’re going in niiiice little circles around it, yeeeep, oh wow that’s so obvious and we’re going to die because we didn’t see it.” Blue put her hooves over her eyes. “Stupid, stupid, stupid…”

“…Have a little faith,” Vaughan said. “I do not believe we were brought this far only to fail unceremoniously.”

“Oh, really!? Maybe we need to explode so people learn the dangers of not flying into space with a hunk of metal, huh!? Ever think about that!?”

“Anger and panic will not help us here,” Keller said.

“What will?” Blue asked.

Keller flipped a coin into the air, and it managed to actually land due to their current acceleration. “Luck.”

“Oh whoop-de-do, luck, sure, that’ll fix everything…”

“We’re coming up on a mountain!” one of the twins called.

“I can’t see it!” Jeh said. “Where?”

“Um… not enough time.”

“What do you mean not enough ti—”

The Moonshot was no longer moving straight down, but was coming in at a very shallow angle. One of its exterior knobs hit something hard, sending the entire craft into a wild, nearly uncontrolled spin. Everyone inside was thrown around like a bunch of ragdolls as in the chaos no one had thought to, maybe, strap themselves in, and now it was far too late for that.

Jeh, however, was in the pilot’s seat, and this was somewhat rotationally free from the rest of the ship, though not entirely. In the midst of all the grunts and cries of pain, she kept her head. She used her personal Orange stash to grab hold of the exterior handholds—discovering that one was definitely missing, but the other seven were still there. Picking four that lay in the same plane, she grabbed them and forced them to still.

It really was easy to control the spin of a sphere, at least relative to a freefalling human body. It also helped that there was no air in the way to make tumbling an issue.

However, they were still moving, and she knew it, she just didn’t know which direction anymore. Knowing she couldn’t rely on the others that had just been thrown around like bean bags, she opened a curtain in front of her manually, finding the ground of the moon right there.

There was no time for her to do anything as the Moonshot crashed, sending up clouds of moon dust and cutting a streak along the regolith and sending sparks of every Color into the air as they did before finally coming to a lopsided rest.

They had arrived.

~~~

SCIENCE SEGMENT

They’ve done it! They’ve made it to the moon! In… well not in one piece, at least two, but they made it! And they made perhaps the most important discovery of all: that things other than Ikyu have gravity! In fact, everything has gravity, even you and me.

See, we here on Earth made this discovery through observation rather than literally going up there and seeing what happened. One of the biggest hints we had is Jupiter’s moons which—as Blue rants about when she thinks she’s about to die—is a clue they had as well, the planet Qi also has moons that they could see, it’s just that nobody had drawn the connection yet. Fortunately, we had a lot longer between observations of space and attempts to actually go there that allowed us to think about the observations. The dangers of fast-tracking space travel like this are on full display.

As for the actual science, every body exerts gravity the same way on every other one: GMm/r^2. When there are only two bodies involved, or one body dominates over all others, the behavior is relatively predictable for millions of years. Now, to actually plot any proper orbit trajectories, you do need to actually account for all major bodies in the system. Trying to fly to the moon without calculating the moon’s gravity is a ridiculous notion! It’s a miracle they got there at all.

A particle flying between the Earth and the Moon will feel the pull of both. At any given place, though, one of them dominates. Orbiting the Earth, it’s Earth, orbiting the moon, it’s the moon. The domain over which a body is considered to gravitationally “dominate” is called the Hill Sphere, and every major body has one. The Moon, as it is orbiting the Earth, rests inside Earth’s Hill Sphere, but it has a Hill Sphere of its own where its gravity dominates over that of the Earth. The Earth (and all the planets) reside inside the Sun’s truly massive Hill Sphere. The size of the Hill Sphere is a bit hard to pin down, but for well-behaved circular orbits the radius can be represented as the semi-major axis times the cube root of m/3M, where m is the mass of the smaller body and M is the mass of the larger body. The Earth’s Hill Sphere is about 1.5 million kilometers, well beyond the orbit of the moon at around 400 thousand kilometers.

Now, as for the moon… well, we should see what their moon is actually like before comparing it to ours, shouldn’t we?