54. Heroism

I drop Nanaya to the ground as soon as we’re sealed back up in the Dark World, not particularly caring about the pained grunt it elicits. At least it wakes her up. She’ll live, and that’s all I really think I have to care about right now.

“So,” I practically spit. “Don’t plan to underestimate her again, do you?”

“Hhhng,” she groans, blinking into consciousness and looking around. “I take it we failed, then?”

“You failed,” I correct, resummoning the transformation stones I stole and tossing them underhand toward her chest. They hit and bounce off, with her making no moves to catch them. “I’m not quite so incompetent.”

“You were fighting children,” Nanaya gripes, collecting the stones from the ground as she sits up.

“Your specialty,” I fire back. “Didn’t help you this time, though.”

“I suppose not,” she grunts, wincing in pain. Magic gathers in her many palms, and she starts infusing herself with it, damage being healed both to her main body and, I suspect, to her incarnate form within.

“How do you do that, anyway?” I ask. “Aurora can heal, but it’s… different somehow, isn’t it?”

Nanaya gives me an irritated and slightly suspicious glance, but she grunts out an answer.

“It is different,” she confirms. “Most ‘healing magic’ works exclusively on incarnate forms, and is an entirely temporary measure. Incarnate forms are magical constructs, after all, so forcing them back into default configurations for at least the duration of a fight requires nothing but raw power and a bit of finesse. Actual healing is far more complicated.”

“How does it work?” I ask.

Nanaya hesitates, staying quiet for an abnormally long time.

“I’m not… entirely sure,” she admits. “Some of it is anatomical knowledge, but… most of it just came naturally to me. I can’t recall when.”

“I’ve noticed there aren’t usually any spell circles being formed when you cast,” I say. “Unlike with most spells.”

“It… depends,” Nanaya hedges. “But yes. I do not know why I have this power, but it is quite useful. Why are you asking me about this?”

“Like you said, it seems useful,” I say. “And as much as I’d prefer to verbally tear into you, I can’t really feel a lot right now, and joy doesn’t do me much good anyway.”

My batteries need to be charged, after all. I’m back up to 64% after that whole fight. Not bad, except for all the ways that it’s awful. But I don’t have to think too much about it, I just have to use it all as yet more fuel.

“I assure you, if I were capable of teaching the skill, the whole Dark Rebellion would know it,” Nanaya says. “Even Anath, if I could get her to focus.”

“You know, I used to think it was weirdly fitting for you,” I comment. “You’re gruff and grumpy all the time, but more than anyone in the Dark Rebellion, you take care of people. You make sure everyone is fed, you… there’s a goodness in you, Nanaya. Buried under all that hate. I really thought that was the truth, and this was the mask. It hurts being this wrong.”

She purses her lips.

“…I don’t recall asking for your opinion on who you think I am,” she says flatly.

“Yeah, well, you’re not my master, so I don’t have to give a flying fuck what opinions you have and haven’t asked for, you miserable cunt,” I snap back. “Get off your ass. I need to get you back to the castle so I can return to betraying all of my goddamn friends.”

Nanaya actually has the audacity to laugh, though it’s a short, sharp sound. A single thrust of the knife.

“Ha! Rage is ever a reliable substitute for hopelessness, isn’t it? Red is a far more fitting look for you than teal.”

“Fuck you,” I snap. “Just tell me how this portal controller works. I assume we can make the exit appear somewhere other than where we entered?”

“Yes, but we’ll have to physically move through the fragment to do so,” Nanaya says, wobbling to her feet. “And since this is the one I left Melpomene in, we may as well go pick her up on the way.”

“Oh,” I say flatly. “Goodie.”

Inside I’m terrified, of course. Things can always get worse with that woman. Much, much worse. But there’s really only one thing I can do about it, and it’s this:

My power reserves have increased to 65%. All the more to kill my friends with, I suppose.

Nanaya slowly leads me through the Dark World, and though the miasma is thick and visibility is poor, she seems to know exactly where to go. It doesn’t take long for the ground to transition from dirt to rubble, and my crazy reconstruction software can tell that rubble used to be a building of some sort. Or perhaps several. We’re in the war-torn remains of a city. Nothing I see is remotely intact, most of it unrecognizable except in the vaguest of ways. The mists swirl around us, writhing like shadows swimming through the air. I can barely see a thing, but we arrive at our destination nonetheless.

“We found this a few days ago,” Nanaya says. “Or Melpomene did, more accurately.”

It’s an incongruous spot. The rubble here has been cleared away entirely, carved stone pushed aside to reveal thick metal plating underneath. It’s fairly obvious that the rubble has been moved relatively recently, and it would be next to impossible to see anything amiss about the area before that change. So how did Melpomene find it?

I keep my questions to myself, though, watching as Nanaya steps forward and hooks a few fingers underneath a surreptitious latch. She yanks on it, revealing a surreptitious hatch in the floor that leads to a spiral-grooved fireman’s pole… which I have to say, seems like it would defeat the point of a fireman’s pole in the first place while being extremely uncomfortable to use, but I suppose this wasn’t designed for humans, was it? It’s designed for Antipathy.

Nanaya jumps down the hatch, not bothering with the pole at all, so I follow her down, slowing my fall before impact with a jet of teal thrust. Nanaya wrinkles her nose, side-eyeing me until I close my plating again. The bottom of the shaft isn’t particularly exciting to look at. It’s just a short hallway with a door at the end. Before we can approach, though, Melpomene steps through, closing it quietly behind her before looking up at us.

“You’re back,” she says. “How did it go?”

“Mixed,” Nanaya answers. “We got the stones from the youngest ones, but Minerva class changed, and I couldn’t secure hers.”

“I got the stones from the youngest ones,” I correct. “Nanaya got her ass beat, and I had to save her.”

“I see,” Melpomene says, her response unusually subdued. God, this woman is so all over the place. She barely even reacted to that. What’s going on? “Well, progress is progress. This new class change, is it a threat?”

“Yes,” Nanaya says bluntly. “I doubt she’s as strong as you or Castalia, but… she’s certainly a league above everyone else.”

“Unlucky timing,” Melpomene sighs. “We’ll just have to compensate.”

“Indeed,” Nanaya agrees.

God, this is so weird. Their conversation is borderline normal, nothing like the raving insanity of the last time I saw Mel.

“So what’s happening now?” I ask. I’d rather rip the bandage off than live with the stress of not knowing. “Why am I here?”

“To translate, of course,” Melpomene says. “But also… to witness. It disgusts me to consider it, but… you should probably publicize what you find here.”

“It disgusts you, huh?” I say, stepping toward her. “Win-win for you then, isn’t it?”

That finally breaks through her calm facade, a flicker of rage passing over her face for a moment. But then, it’s back.

“…Just be quiet when you record,” she sighs.

I nod, and she opens the door to let us in. There’s a large room on the other side, and it’s relatively untouched given the widespread destruction above. Relatively. Because instead of being mostly rubble, the room is mostly crystal. Crystal, and the mutated forms of the monsters out of which the crystal grows.

None of them try to attack us, of course, but even were they so inclined, they wouldn’t be able to. So much of it has grown out of their bodies that they’re effectively glued to the floor and each other, intertwining veins of purple, red, and teal consuming the inside of the room like a brilliant geode. It’s a disturbing sight just at first glance, but the more I stare, the more horrifying it starts to become.

Firstly: the monsters are all alive. Breaths so shallow they’re nearly impossible to notice pull swirling black air in and out of their chests. But they don’t do anything else. They don’t move. They don’t turn to look our way even in what limited ways they can. Even if their bodies are alive, they’re dead on the inside. It’s like… wait.

“The monster in the castle,” I say softly. “The one we walked past on the day you booted me up. It’s a whole group of them.”

“It’s more than that,” Melpomene says, and she’s right, because once my mind finishes assembling connections between the monsters, it starts to notice oddities about the crystals themselves, or more specifically what they’re growing around. The room, after all, was not empty but for the monsters within. The crystals have grown over not only that, but over intact furniture, technology, and doors to other rooms. This was an entire underground complex, and more than that, it was a living space. This…

“This was an emergency bunker,” I conclude. “To hide from bombs.”

“We think so, too,” Melpomene agrees.

“But… that means these monsters…”

“Weren’t animals,” she finishes for me. “Yes. They were Antipathy. Trapped here during the war and the Great Execration that followed it. The Antipathy’s curse claimed their own and entombed them in crystal.”

“And they’re alive,” I say. “The Dark World kept them all alive. Can we save them somehow?”

“Doubtful,” Nanaya chimes in. “Crystal grows in just as much as it grows out. It has likely penetrated their skulls and dug roots through their brains. They are gone in every way that matters.”

I don’t want to believe it, but the truth is obvious. Two monsters sit on the remains of a couch, a small one on top of a larger one. A family embracing in their final moments? They’re nearly all facing the same way, looking at what I suspect to be some kind of viewscreen. So many of them are huddled together as if afraid. As if they knew this would be the last chance they got.

“These crystals grew fast,” I say. “Way faster than any we’ve ever seen before.”

“The mists we know now are nothing but the lingering remnants of what the Preservers call the Great Execration,” Nanaya says. “It was a curse with such force it sundered an entire universe. I doubt they would have had too long to suffer, if nothing else.”

“God,” I swear, taking it all in.

“No god did this,” Melpomene hisses. “The Preservers did this.”

“Uh, didn’t the Antipathy do this to themselves?” I ask.

“That’s what we assumed because that’s what the Preservers told us,” Melpomene says. “We never should have taken it for granted in the first place. But even if that claim is technically true, the Preservers are responsible either way. The power plants, Luna. What the hell do you think happens if you suck all the positive emotions out of an entire society?”

“Right, yeah,” I concede. I don’t have the energy to argue with her, and for once I’m not sure if I want to. Looking at all this is… harrowing. If we assume the smaller monsters are all kids, then there’s over… two dozen? In this room alone? And this is what happened to the ones that escaped what looks very much like a city being bombed. I know firsthand how destructive magical explosions can be, not to mention how easily magical warriors can unleash them. It would only take a couple squads of decently-experienced Earth Guardians to cause the kind of devastation that leaves only nuclear bunkers intact, and the Preservers may very well have tech even beyond the transformation stone.

I glance over at Melpomene. Was this what tipped her over the edge? Finding this… tomb? She’s just staring at it now, a haunted expression on her face as one finger traces the base of her crystalline horns. I wonder if some part of her knows she’s gone completely mad. We got those stones for her, something she decided was worth uprooting my life and forcing me to potentially kill someone important to me, and now that we have them, she barely even seems to care.

“We have to stop them,” Melpomene says to herself. “We have to make them pay.”

“Those are two different things,” I tell her, and she flinches, turning to look at me rather than the haunting scene in front of us.

“…Why are you just standing around?” she snaps. “Make yourself useful. Can you extract anything from the thing they were watching?”

What, the TV-looking device trapped in crystal? Eh, I can probably get it out relatively intact. I nod and get to work, several spells designed to self-regulate my internals turning out to be quite useful for sanding away overgrown crystal. I make a path to the damn thing’s ports, miraculously uncover some intact cables, hook myself up to the thing and… nope. It’s a dud.

“There’s no memory on this,” I report. “It just receives broadcasts. Given the circumstances, they were probably… well, watching the end of the world live, I guess.”

“I see,” Melpomene sighs. “Well. Get everything you need, and help us uncover as much as you can. People… people need to know about this. We can’t let this be dismissed as a conspiracy anymore. Not after this. Not after all of this.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promise. It’s definitely a scene with impact. “You seem pretty shaken, Mel.”

“Do you expect me to be calm!?” she snaps back.

“Never,” I snip. “I just… this is what we should be fighting, right? This is what we’re for. If this is the consequence of war with the Preservers, we should not be inviting it. We should be more careful. Find a better way forward.”

“Careful?” she sneers. “No. No! I’m done running. I’m done waiting.”

“I didn’t suggest running or waiting,” I fire back. “I’m just suggesting we be smart instead of fucking stupid! I don’t care how strong you think you are, this plan of yours will never work! You’re just ruining everything for no reason, and no one will suffer for it other than me, you, and the rest of humanity.”

For the tiniest moment, Melpomene looks like she’s considering it. Like she’s maybe giving real thought to not taking the most insane way out for once in her life. But then, she laughs. That crazy bitch starts to laugh.

“Luna,” she says, her voice turning deadly serious just as quickly as the mirth had come and gone. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

Something about the way she says that instinctively makes me want to take a step back. The black mists thicken, billowing around her ankles and curling around her tail.

“Humanity will pay the price? Maybe. But I doubt it,” Melpomene says, a smile creeping up her face. “The Preservers don’t want war, they want control. I’m just one woman. They don’t need a war to stop me. Or so they think, because they don’t know what I’m capable of.”

I do actually take that step back. Even as I try to burn it, fear rises in my chest.

“And what, exactly, are you capable of, Melpomene?” I ask.

“The Antipathy understood something,” she says, and I can’t tell if she’s leading into an answer to my question or just continuing her rant. “They knew where it would all end. They knew the significance of what it means to own someone. Not just in body, but in soul. Extinction was the greatest gift they could give their own people. You know that yourself, don’t you? You’d rather be dead. Yet even that right is taken from you.”

The air hums with a zeal like madness, the living dead of the room starting to take their breaths faster, chests pressing against their crystal prisons as they try to gulp down more of the mist.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“That is a power above any other,” Melpomene smiles. “To control someone’s actions, thoughts… even decide what they’re allowed to feel? That’s beyond even the power I have over you, and yet it’s what the Preservers were about to inflict on an entire society. And for what? A power plant!? To turn on the light bulbs in their disgusting little houses!? It’s laughable! Thea was right, the Preservers are stupid! They don’t understand anything! They looked at this, at everything the Antipathy did, and they said to themselves ‘this is madness.’ As if they weren’t the ones that drove the Antipathy to this point in the first place. As if this wasn’t the only logical response. The Preservers stole their joy, and when that wasn’t enough, they tried to steal whatever was left. The anger. The fear. The defiance. The moment they lost the war, they were dead either way. The Great Execration was an act of unparalleled heroism. I understand that now.”

Danger. Danger. Danger. My instincts are screaming at me to disengage, to not press this any further. But what do I care? Situations can always get worse, but everything I feel, everything I fear, is just thrust into the emotional woodchipper anyway. So I speak.

“Great,” I tell her. “Glad you get it. So you’re going to be a hero and free me too, right?”

There are two ways she could interpret that, and I don’t particularly care which one she goes for. But it seems that she doesn’t particularly care either, because her first response is yet another laugh.

“No,” she answers, because of course she does. “There’s no coming back from this, Luna. There’s no turning around. No matter how many times I save the world, I can never be a hero. You wanted to know what I’m capable of, and the answer is very simple: anything. Every sin I could commit, I’ve already surpassed. So why hold back? That’s its own kind of freedom, don’t you think?”

“I guess I wouldn’t know,” I answer, meeting her unhinged gaze.

“Indeed,” she agrees. “And you never will. Finish your task here, Luna. And don’t forget what you have to do by Saturday.”

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I can’t.”

– – –

“Mmn?” Veritas stirs in my arms, blearily blinking awake.

“I’ve got you,” I assure her. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

“Ow,” she groans.

“Are you hurt?” I ask.

I’m gonna fucking scrap that damn thing.

“She’s not injured,” Aurora insists, clinging to my back as I fly back toward Earth. “Er, not her human form, anyway. She didn’t hurt us after taking our stones.”

“Stones…?” Veritas groans, and then suddenly thrashes in my arms, forcing me to clamp down on her so I don’t drop her. “My stone!”

I got her.

A buoying wind from underneath us provides an extra safety net in case Veritas does manage to squirm free. Thanks, Fulgora.

“Why can’t I feel my stone!?” Veritas demands. “Ow, ow, ow, ow…”

“It does seem a little unfair that we can still feel the pain from our incarnate forms but can’t actually use them anymore,” Aurora comments, doing her darndest to keep said pain out of her voice but only mostly succeeding. “I thought that incarnate forms were just a function of the stone?”

“Um… I’m not one hundred percent clear on the details, but I think the stone helps create the incarnate form and helps manifest it, but once it’s there it’s there like… forever,” I tell them. “That’s why, when Uma’tama gets you guys new stones, you’ll still end up in the same incarnate forms as before.”

“Our stones are still attuned to us though, right?” Aurora asks. “I thought other people couldn’t use our stones. So why does the Dark Rebellion want them?”

“I have no idea what they’re thinking,” I tell her honestly. “Normally we’d be able to summon our stones right back to us even if they get separated from us, but I guess that doesn’t work if the stones are in the Dark World? I don’t know. Maybe the Dark Rebellion just wants to smash them because they’re jerks.”

Veritas and Aurora both shudder at that, and I don’t blame them.

“…I can’t believe we lost,” Veritas grumbles. “I thought we would have that stupid robot for sure this time! It didn’t act anything like before, though.”

“Maybe there are two robots?” Aurora posits. “A yellow one and a blue one. Er, wait, wasn’t there also a green one?”

“But I fought the blue one!” Veritas says. “It just did the same thing over and over and over. It’s annoying, but it was nothing like that!”

“Yeah… I guess not,” Aurora agrees. “Do you think maybe she doesn’t want to fight us? Every other time we’ve fought she hasn’t hurt us at all. She just ran away. Or… the yellow one always ran away. The blue one stood and fought. So either there are several of them, or she’s sad when she fights us. Right?”

“Aurora, it’s a robot,” I remind her. “An Antipathy artifact. It doesn’t have feelings.”

“Wh—yeah she does!” Aurora insists. “She’s magic! She has to have feelings! And-and-and—Veritas! When her boosters came out, even you felt that, right?”

“…It was pretty awful,” Veritas confirms. “Blue and green and teal and red and stuff.”

“I’m pretty sure Antipathy technology can suck out other people’s emotions and use them for power,” I inform them both. “An Antipathy artifact running off of fear and anger and hopelessness is not uncommon, and it’s not indicative that the artifact itself is experiencing emotion. It just means it took those emotions from someone who is, which…”

Wait. Hold on.

No fucking way. You think Luna is their power source!?

The last time we saw the robot before this fight, it was yellow. And that’s also before Luna got super turbo depressed! But then Luna is sad, and the next thing we know, the robot is powered by sadness. The timing matches up. And like, she does have a weirdly large soul. Compared to the average person, she’d make for a very good power source!

I hate that this almost makes sense. So based on the timeline and what Bean told us, the Dark Rebellion must have kidnapped her shortly before summer vacation.